Saw this over the weekend,
Yeah its a fun movie but sure had some very confusing geography in it, I never knew Monument Valley AND the Rocky Mountains were both in TEXAS! (He is a Texas Ranger after all) I have to agree with one critic who complained that Disney spent mega-$$$ to build miles of real track, two locomotives and a bunch of cars, then used so much CGI for any action effects with them as to wonder why the heck they bothered with the real trains in the first place???(Spoiler Alert) OK if you saw the movie you know what I'm about to talk about. Who knew BACHMANN was making detailed HO model trains all way back in the 1870's???? and that all those modern model train layouts buy all those famous guys like Westcott and Allen were actually just copying what was already done back in the 1870's!!!!! (tongue firmly in cheek )Sorry I know this is supposed to be a fanasty western but Jezzzusss Christmascookies THAT was a MAJOR laughable Gaffaw to me. Seriously...its an almost unmodified BACHMANN HO MODEL LOCOMOTIVE!!! you can virtually read the Made in China label on the bottom, running on HO track, something that wasn't even invented until the 1930's! STUPID Stupid production mistake, for all the $$ they spent they could have EASILY found a 19th or early 20th century era Marklin tinplate train and used it for a FAR more believable scene (for model railroaders).
(end spoiler alert)
Have fun with your trains
You just made he monumental mistake of actually taking anything in this movie seriously. It wasn't intended to be anything more than a live action cartoon. Would you like a list of things to get upset about? In no particular order:
1. The use of turnouts with points. Stub switches were used in 1869. When the Virginia and Truckee was finally abandoned in 1950, the railroad was still using stub switches.
2. The transcontinental railroad going through Texas.
3. The playing of the "Star Spangled Banner" which didn't become the US national anthem until it was made the national anthem in 1931 by act of Congress.
4. The playing of John Philip Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever". Sousa was 15 in 1869 and didn't write the tune until 1896, over a quarter of a century after the events portrayed in the film were purported to happen.
5. The use of what appear to be knuckle couplers instead of link and pin. In fact, shots from the top reveal some strange "coupler- like" product that's the railroad equivalent of Cheez-Whiz.
6. A switch stand that can only be operated by someone on the train hitting it with a shovel or other object. It had no other purpose than as a movie prop.
7. A horse and two riders jumping off the roof of a burning barn and dropping about 30 feet without injury to the horse or riders (we'll ignore how the horse got up there in the first place).
8. A boxcar traveling at a 90 degree angle to the track without appearing to be in distress.
9. Two parallel tracks, in the mountains, separated at by at least 100 feet horizontally and more, that have no apparent use other than to make some of the scenes in the movie possible. They certainly didn't make sense from a transportation perspective.
10. Tonto and Reid surviving the first train wreck, a wreck that would have killed anybody on board, let alone two people chained to each other on top of the car.
11. The cavalry captain firing what appears to have been something on the order of about 200 rounds out of a pair of revolvers that are only capable of firing a maximum of 6 rounds each without reloading. I'm pretty sure they did that deliberately for those of us who, as kids, watched "B" Westerns" and counted shots, so maybe I shouldn't include that in the "outrageous" flubs department, although the rounds seem to be doing about the same damage 20mm cannon rounds would make.
This was an entirely tongue-in-cheek production. It was "Pirates Of The Caribbean" transplanted to the Old West. It was a live action Road Runner cartoon with better production values. It was never meant to be taken seriously. Fer cryin; out loud, when the Lone Ranger cried "Hiiyo, Silver, Away!!!", Tonto told him "Never Do That Again".
Andre
Wow! I even enjoyed, Unstoppable. Could care less about reality.
Just like the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Non, or just some reality, but just exciting fun.
I get more upset about movies that have all kinds of gun fire and explosions, which the authorities never seem to hear. Even, when it is in the center of a large city.
Ken G Price My N-Scale Layout
Digitrax Super Empire Builder Radio System. South Valley Texas Railroad. SVTRR
N-Scale out west. 1996-1998 or so! UP, SP, Missouri Pacific, C&NW.
And it was best time I have spent in a movie theater in quite a while.
Sheldon
Ummmm, I thought the Great State of Texas did buy Monument Valley and the Rockies during the last oil crunch and brought them down here to Texas.
ENJOY !
Mobilman44
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
mobilman44 Ummmm, I thought the Great State of Texas did buy Monument Valley and the Rockies during the last oil crunch and brought them down here to Texas.
Yes they did.Or not, as the case may be.
Yeah I know guys, but when 'Cowboys and Aliens' depicts a more realistic looking American West you know something is really screwy in Mouseland
Don't even get me started on those whaddahellarethose couplers, the last time I saw couplers like was on some off the wall made in china kids toy trainset, I'm surprised they didn't just upscale the magnetic couplers from a Brio set.
I think this movie will go down in history as one of those with the largest doses of pure apochrophia as to make "Unstoppable" look like a History Channel documentary.
Andre your right, all that was missing to make it a perfect fantasy was a Road Runner being chased by an Acme rocket riding Coyote.
Well, at least Johnny Depp didn't channel Keith Richards for his role as Tonto.
BTW, did anybody catch the double meaning of Helena Bonham Carter's character Red Harrington?
And no, it's not off-color.
Clayton Moore and Jay SiIverheels are probably turning over in their graves.
Did you all expect Hollywood to get it right??
Another late movie screw up, the opening scenes from "Dark Shadows". The train has 4, then 5, then 4 cars, is set in 1972, but had a Genesis unit on each end, And they swap ends as the scene plays out evidenced by the 2 different paint schemes Not to mention the interior shots were done in a slab sided coach with a 2 piece window, but the exterior shots were not!
Of course, I've been noticing this stuff since I was little, watching "White Christmas" The Santa Fe nor the SP ever had service between NYC and Pine Tree Vermont!
And I haven't begun to pick apart Unbelieveable Unstoppable!!
Hollywood, what a waste of good celluloid!
Karl
NCE über alles!
Pick a movie.
Something in that movie that is crucial to the story isn't right, because 90% if things went the way they were supposed to, the whole movie wouldn't work in the first place. That's what suspension of disbelief is for.
Jurassic Park didn't clone dinosaurs. They retroengineered organisms that resembled early 90s understanding of what a dinosaur looked like. We can't do that now, let alone 20 years ago.
The overwhelming majority of movies that have things going on in space pretend time dilation isn't a thing.
Batman can't do anything Batman does.
And so on and so on and so on.
Did you expect any movie based on totally fictional characters to be accurate from a historical or engineering perspective as well as adhering to the known laws of physics?
It was a live action cartoon, Karl. There was nothing to get right as it wasn't intended to be an accurate representation of anything. The only thing missing was a close up shot of a locomotive smokebox with a builder's plate reading "ACME Locomotive Works".
It's nothing new. Movies are primarily entertainment. All you need to do is watch a couple of old movies featuring the Keystone Kops.
Or a few clips from "The Great Race" like this one that at least contains railroad tracks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86ZnWc1B7W4
Ever see one of these in real life? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U104DXEYHbA
I, too, watched The Tales of Captain Tonto Sparrow. That's two full ticket prices and two hours of my life I'll never get back. I'm all for checking reality at the door when we go to movies. However, I cannot at the same time check the laws of physics. The myriad railroad incongruities of that flick have been documented already. But the things those characters were regularly shown doing would have killed a human being twenty times over in horribly grisly ways. It's one thing for Iron Man or Incredible Hulk to walk away from such landings. They ARE superheroes, after all. It's another thing entirely for some dweeb in a mask to do the same.
And yes, I squirmed uncomfortably in my seat at the sight of the Bachmann train almost as much as at the embarrassingly cheesy music at the end.
And let's not compare this movie to The Great Race. That was one of the great films ever, and nobody had their skulls crushed by heavy timber beams, as I recall.
"I am lapidary but not eristic when I use big words." - William F. Buckley
I haven't been sleeping. I'm afraid I'll dream I'm in a coma and then wake up unconscious. -Stephen Wright
I had Lone Ranger& Tonto& Horses figurines when I was a little fella. I'm usually the first to see historical inaccuracies in movies, but with this 1 I'll let a corny Train slide. 1 day I hope to model the Wild West as well as 1990s-now Trains U.S.
I haven't seen the movie yet, but ....
When I first heard that Johnny Depp was playing Tonto, I knew this movie would have no reality nor any resemblance to prior Lone Ranger movies or TV shows.
But from what I've read here, it sounds like a real fun film. I look forward to seeing it.
Spotting railroad goofs in movies is a hobby all by itself. One of my favorites is the V&T train in Gods and Generals.
Enjoy
Paul
mononguy63But the things those characters were regularly shown doing would have killed a human being twenty times over in horribly grisly ways.
Sounds just like an Indiana Jones Movie in the old West! But wait Indy movies are totally believable.
My kid loves those. I think we'll go see it.
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
Well.... I've seen a lot, lot worse. I thought it was pretty entertaining. Tonto had a hard time turning that wus into a rootin' tootin' straight shootin' son of a gun, but it finally worked out.
It's a MOVIE! I didn't think it was going to be a hard core Saving Private Ryan. Disney made it plain in their ads that it was Pirates of the Carribean-styled.. Ghost walking on the bottom of the ocean. Krackens!
Now whether it will make enough money to launch a series is another matter... :)
It looks interesting to me based on what I see in the TV adds. But then again, I don't go to the movies anymore. Yep...I am one of those people who is content to wait until it comes to video or to cables "On Demand". Even then I generally never end up watching movies. I'll take baseball, auto racing, hockey or the fishing and hunting shows over Hollywood for my TV time .
Happy modeling!
Don.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I have some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that both engines have failed, and we will be stuck here for some time. The good news is that you decided to take the train and not fly."
Wasn't doing a comparison. In any case, as I recall, no one in The Lone Ranger made a 50 foot swan dive into a wooden boat, which would have had the same effect.
And it seems to me, the Professor Fate rocket sled incident (with or without pig sty) would have been pretty fatal for Max and the Professor (we'll ignore the airplane stunt). Of course, the collapse of the Eiffel Tower would have killed hundreds since everybody gathered there for the end of the race.
Did I mention that the sound seeking torpedo would have shredded Max and the Professor when the warhead detonated?
Not defending The Lone Ranger, just pointing out that The Great Race had its share of laws of physics defying humor. I just wonder what Blake Edwards would have done if he'd had CGI capability almost half a century ago.
Well, at least the kid got scolded for running the train too fast so that it flew off the layout. PS I enjoyed the prominence of trains in the movie, if the Mrs had known she probably wouldn't have dragged me to go see it!
Mine doesn't move.......it's at the station!!!
I can't wait for the "Walking Dead" new season to start... so I can see some semblance of reality.
Marlon
See pictures of the Clinton-Golden Valley RR
I'm still trying to figure how Wallace and Davis (Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye) managed to take the Super Chief from Florida to Vermont!
Publicity tour by the Santa Fe?
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
I don't understand everyone's consternation over what was obviously intended to be a tongue 'n cheek movie, made, quite honestly, just for the fun of it (albeit, some very expensive fun).
Ray
Now if John Wayne played the LR that would have made it believable, it's a movie folks.
cedarwoodronThat's the other problem with this "interpretation" of the Lone Ranger story. In the TV series, there was a ethos and moral system in place in each episode, as well as a weekly demonstration of how two very different individuals from different cultures were able to work together. Here, the movie distorts everything into a joke or a horrific tragedy at every turn, notwithstanding the abuse of railroad history. Clayton Moore represented the character in public appearances in the same light as the TV show was written. This guy- not so much! Cedarwoodron
And there is the difference, this was not a moral lesson for a 12 year old, it was an adult aimed, slighly dark, slighly off color action/comedy. Last I checked I'm an adult, not sure the grandchildren need to see this movied just yet.
cedarwoodronPerhaps the greatest sin of all is that, by seeing this movie, some kids will actually believe that the transcontinental railroad WAS built through Texas! Also, exactly what "electric power" was available for that model train, seeing as Edison did not invent the electric motor until the 1880s(?) and it was not miniaturized in any way. Weren't passenger and executive cars gas-lit in 1869? I saw it, willingly suspended my disbelief, but would gladly trade the experience for seeing Rio Bravo or How the West Was Won on the same large screen again! Cedarwoodron
You're giving audiences, especially young audiences, entirely too much credit regarding their comprehension, understanding, recall, and attention span.
tatans Now if John Wayne played the LR that would have made it believable, it's a movie folks.
That would be like Gretsky curling.
Don't think so.
"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination."-Albert Einstein
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