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Film Backdating Abombinations
http://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=29597
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Author:  boilerwash [ Wed Jun 16, 2010 12:29 pm ]
Post subject:  Film Backdating Abombinations

I realize one of the fun things about watching old western films and tv series is getting to see messed up "backdating" attempts made by the producers. However, there are times when you look at something and think what the heck where they smoking?

Example being SP 745 in the new Jonah Hex film:
http://www.imdb.com/media/rm1025212928/tt1075747

I don't think you'd get a good draft with a ten foot tall smokestack.

Author:  Chris Salmonson [ Wed Jun 16, 2010 12:48 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Film Backdating Abombinations

Taller stacks provide better draft. Warner Brothers should put one of those Santa Fe stack extenders on and make it twenty feet tall!

Author:  Howard P. [ Wed Jun 16, 2010 12:54 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Film Backdating Abombinations

It's the movies. Simply smile sweetly, be nice and keep all comments to one's self, no matter how tempted, and collect a very large fee. Then wave good-bye and smile some more among your colleagues at dinner.

It's a business. They really don't care what we think/what it looks like/what it was supposed to be. Give 'em what they want, as long as no damage is done, and "get the money", as a veteran of the rail-movie biz once forefully stated. Honest Nick was right!!

There are occasional and rare, very rare exceptions to this: we were most fortunate to participate in one, three years ago.

Howard P.
B-Roll, CT

Author:  joneau261 [ Wed Jun 16, 2010 1:11 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Film Backdating Abombinations

I can see what they were going for. Had it not been mentioned that it's SP 745 in the shot, I would have thought it was a really large, computer modified 4-4-0 or something of the sort. After all, the movie's premise is pretty big and out there. No sense to complain about an unrealistic steam engine when it's a Sci-Fi Western Comic Book adaptation :-)

Author:  Howard P. [ Wed Jun 16, 2010 1:13 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Film Backdating Abombinations

Steam Punk on drugs???

Author:  Bobharbison [ Wed Jun 16, 2010 1:48 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Film Backdating Abombinations

What Howard said... It's the movies, and they don't claim it's a documentary.

I do notice that the modifications are so "over the top" it would appear they're going for an effect here more than anything. Is this a steampunk/alternate reality type of film?

There's other stuff in those stills that looks odd too. I'm no weapons expert, but this one looks fishy to me:
http://www.imdb.com/media/rm1493208320/tt1075747

Author:  060 Hogger [ Wed Jun 16, 2010 2:22 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Film Backdating Abombinations

Why, that's the combination 30-30 carbine and flame thrower. It's from the alternate parallel universe that was discovered on Star Trek and revisited ad nauseum on Stargate.

Author:  Gary Gray [ Wed Jun 16, 2010 2:35 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Film Backdating Abombinations

I also liked that Gatling gun mount on the horse................

I'll probably see this movie. For some reason I really like steampunk westerns. I loved the short-lived "Briscoe County" TV series in the late 90's.

Author:  Bob Davis [ Wed Jun 16, 2010 3:08 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Film Backdating Abombinations

Going the other way, I remember a Star Trek episode where the "bad guy" tries to clobber Capt. Kirk with what appears to be an adjustable end wrench (commonly called a Crescent wrench). Of course, there are some classic designs that are hard to improve on. For the juice fans, how about an episode of The Untouchables, supposedly filmed in pre-1933 Chicago. The sharp-eyed traction fan will notice A) there are three rails in the streetcar tracks, and B) there's a PCC car in the background, typical of Los Angeles in 1960. In the PBS series on "The Blues", there was one scene showing a raggedy street musician playing a battered guitar on a railroad station platform, supposedly in the 1930's. There's a freight train going by, but you don't see the head end, because it probably has SD-70's or some other modern units on the point, and that would be a dead giveaway. What they did show were modern "frameless" tank cars, much larger than anything on the rails of 75 years ago. Oh well, I enjoyed the music.

Author:  Gary Gray [ Wed Jun 16, 2010 3:36 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Film Backdating Abombinations

Some crappy make-up jobs on Jack Showalter's engines

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=86294

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=47294

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=47295

The Hallmark movie was a real stinker..............

Author:  nathansixchime [ Wed Jun 16, 2010 4:32 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Film Backdating Abombinations

Bob Davis wrote:
Going the other way, I remember a Star Trek episode where the "bad guy" tries to clobber Capt. Kirk with what appears to be an adjustable end wrench (commonly called a Crescent wrench). Of course, there are some classic designs that are hard to improve on. For the juice fans, how about an episode of The Untouchables, supposedly filmed in pre-1933 Chicago.


My favorite gaffe was the SP Cab Forward representing a freight train in Chicago in what I believe was a Season 3 episode.

Or a Season 4 episode where the boxcar build dates are "1957" for a 1933 era show.

Or the passenger car with commuter seats used to represent a cross country prison train in the 2-parter "Big Train."

Of course, these are more gaffes than abominations. As long as Ness got his man...

KL

Author:  ctjacks [ Wed Jun 16, 2010 4:39 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Film Backdating Abombinations

I give them credit for at least trying. Note that at the beginning of the recent Ray Charles film, in a scene set in the 1950s, they drive under a double-stack train on a bridge.

A recent example of very good backdating is in the HBO miniseries The Pacific, where at the end they ride on an L&N train. Only someone like us that can recognize the sharpest details can tell that these scenes probably weren't even filmed in the U.S.

Chris.

Author:  Dougvv [ Wed Jun 16, 2010 5:12 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Film Backdating Abombinations

I recall the episode on the McMillan and Wife that was something about a murder on a train going from San Francisco to LA.

The first train scene was on the Sierra RR with a switcher (if I recall correctly). Then the first movement of the train was an Amtrak Train. Along the way, a view of a Santa Fe E or F unit combo pulling a passenger train (early 1950's) coming out of a tunnel.

The story was pretty good but the continuity of the train was an abomination (this was in the middle 1970's).

Another one that was a little loose on train continuity was one of the "Support you local ..." with Jim Garner. The title scene was of the D&RGW narrow gauge train and the train arriving in the depot was a SG one (maybe a back-lot train or Old Tuscon).

Why let details (even if they are bug details) get in the way of a good story?

Doug vV

Author:  dinwitty [ Wed Jun 16, 2010 8:48 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Film Backdating Abombinations

its not reality, its fiction, the engine probably made looking similar to the storyline version.

Maybe better to borrow the Leviathon, but anyways...

Author:  p51 [ Wed Jun 16, 2010 10:04 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Film Backdating Abombinations

MAN, that’s a face only a mother could love! Can you imagine what the crew must have said when they saw what was done to the locomotive? I can hear it now, “Tell me again how much money we’ll get for future operations out of this?”
The simple sad reality is that there are VERY few examples of pre-1900 operating locomotives out there for film companies to use (assuming they’d want to help with the film in the first place). I would think that the operators of Leviathan at some point will see dollar signs and will be renting out their new engine to these productions. I understand that the 2007 Brad Pitt Jesse James movie used a digital 4-4-0.
We’ve all seen diesels in movies where they weren’t built yet and USRA designs where the film takes place decades before. Superpower stands in for older USRA equipment. If anyone is familiar with the never made 1991 railroad epic, “Night Ride Down” about the Pullman strike, which took place in the 1890s, but the film was going to use post-WW2 locomotives (I recall reading a reading T-1 and 765 among others would take part) in the Northeast and Midwest.
Most filming is centered around a specific area, so if the train you really want isn’t in that area, you go with what you can get. The only exceptions for these things is for items you can throw in a truck. I’m sure ship fans cringe when watching modern vessels show up to portray much earlier designs. You often see architecture that isn’t in line with the timeframe of the movie as well, but moving buildings can get pretty costly. You go with what you have, and dress up what you can if you have the money.

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