If an unrealistic quarry bothers you that badly, you may want to take a step back.
What was happening in the Laurentian System?
- Thread starter Praetorian
- Start date
If an unrealistic quarry bothers you that badly, you may want to take a step back.
If an unrealistic quarry bothers you that badly, you may want to take a step back.
It doesn't bother me that badly at all. I mentioned a quote from Harve Bennett and some folks have just run with it, and want to argue out this one point. The Quarry incidentally is not unrealistic. The hole is from a real Quarry in Vermont. The end result of adding it to California to look like Iowa doesn't work, but the hole at least is a real one.
Haha. Well, Id have to watch it again, but I don't think there is any Quarry in that scene from the movie. Just a hole from one in Vermont plunked down into California. Aside from the hole, there didn't appear to be a Quarry located there. Just a hole in the ground near Bakersfield. But does it matter? They had a car chase and a cliff. It's win-win for JJ and what they wanted from the scene.
For what it's worth, the link below shows the quarry in VT. After all the CGI, it doesn't look that way at all in the movie.
The article below also mentions the quarry was used in "Batman and Robin" as the lair of Mr. Freeze.
http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20090505/NEWS04/905050350/0/NEWS04
Edited to add: It honestly was really a fine match, Nerys Myk, except the non-paved rural roads in Iowa (like what Kirk turns off on to go to the quarry) would be gray-white gravel. The gravel coming from Iowa's quarries, of course.
The article below also mentions the quarry was used in "Batman and Robin" as the lair of Mr. Freeze.
http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20090505/NEWS04/905050350/0/NEWS04
Edited to add: It honestly was really a fine match, Nerys Myk, except the non-paved rural roads in Iowa (like what Kirk turns off on to go to the quarry) would be gray-white gravel. The gravel coming from Iowa's quarries, of course.
Indeed. They did probably have to match it with the Bakersfield filmed car chase and the surrounding rural area outside of Bakersfield. So it looks nothing like the Quarry in VT or Iowa. The whole quarry is gone it would seem. Just the hole is there.
Here is one from Iowa:
Neither of them looks like what we see in the film. In part due to there not being a Quarry there. The surrounding buildings, structures and the rest of the Quarry area seem to have been removed, although he seems to drive through something that looks like an entrance. And no, I don't see much resemblance between them. If we could find a deep hole Granite Quarry in Iowa that would help. So far, no luck.
Last edited:
Hmmm, I cant say I see a 600 ft Granite quarry in the Iowa pic NerysMyk! I hope we are not limited to Riverside, Iowa. That rules it out completely. I am still trying to find these roads there:
In addition to becoming noticeably more desert like, Riverside Iowa also discovers Granite! Awesome!
I'm certain that a lot places in the US today would be completely unrecognizable to people who lived in them two or three hundred years ago.
They were trying to capture how green Iowa is. It doesn't appear that they were trying to make Iowa look like a California desert, which is the climate of the area. In the above pics, they should have digitally added a lot more greenery. I believe there is a deleted scene where they digitally added Iowa crops to the drier, desert locale to look like an Iowa farm. The goal being to make it look like Iowa, not try to say that global climate change has made Riverside IA look like Kern County CA. You can forget the quarry, nothing remotely like it in Riverside.
Yeah, I'd just repeat what I said about the passage of time.
Good luck with that. Perfectly reasonable explanations for why a place looks considerably different centuries apart from the present (while using basic, routine filmmaking decisions like borrowing from other locales to do so), accompanied by statements from people who've actually lived there and say there's nothing untoward about how it all came out carry no weight compared to the "certainty" that "they got it all wrong" because--well, just because.
Depth of a Quarry or whether a road is paved in the right material do not bother me- this is a part of Earth several hundred years in the future, after a Nuclear War. There are areas where I live that have no resemblance to how they appeared when I move here in 1970.
It actually helps give the film a feeling that we are not just showing things as they are now with some funny buildings added in the distance.
Funny thing is what bothers me the most about the whole rebel car chase thing is a running Classic Corvette- considering how old it is in the film. I hate seeing a magnificent vehicle being destroyed, even as a SFX
It actually helps give the film a feeling that we are not just showing things as they are now with some funny buildings added in the distance.
Funny thing is what bothers me the most about the whole rebel car chase thing is a running Classic Corvette- considering how old it is in the film. I hate seeing a magnificent vehicle being destroyed, even as a SFX
There are no reasonable explanations for why Iowa becomes like the Sierra Nevada. If you look at those pics, and didn't know anything else about it, youd say that was a desert. Anyone would. The reason being is that that's what it is.
I would like someone who lived there to show me how Riverside IA looks like a desert. The pictures plainly show that that is wrong. And there is no basis for thinking that Iowa will shift to the same climate as a California desert in the 23rd Century.
The quarry is a complete washout. Nothing remotely similar to it in the Riverside area. No one ever said anything against using other locales. We all agree. But this, even with some digital greenery thrown in, is not a good stand in.
I would like someone who lived there to show me how Riverside IA looks like a desert. The pictures plainly show that that is wrong. And there is no basis for thinking that Iowa will shift to the same climate as a California desert in the 23rd Century.
The quarry is a complete washout. Nothing remotely similar to it in the Riverside area. No one ever said anything against using other locales. We all agree. But this, even with some digital greenery thrown in, is not a good stand in.
Is this what it's come to? Arguing over a fucking HOLE in the ground? 
As for the Laurentian system: Maybe it was a real bitchin' barbecue.
As for the Laurentian system: Maybe it was a real bitchin' barbecue.
What's funny is that if you show what a crappy choice for stand in it is, you will just say "Well its hundreds of years from now" or "maybe a nuke got dropped on Riverside", etc. In other words, yeah you're right that it's a bad stand-in but it's not when you consider how similar Riverside will be to Bakersfield in 250 years! 
Alrighty then!
Alrighty then!
This implies anyone else actually cares.
If the caption had read "CALIFORNIA", everyone would be bitching about how dumb or lazy the writers were because everyone knows Kirk is from Iowa.
They likely made the decision they made due to behind-the-scenes realities of making a movie. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Is this what it's come to? Arguing over a fucking HOLE in the ground?
As for the Laurentian system: Maybe it was a real bitchin' barbecue.
S'okay, I am done with the "fucking HOLE in the ground". A nuke was dropped, made into a desert, while also depositing vast quantities of granite there. Then the hole was dug. Sounds good!
i'm surprised no one has excused the deep cliffs and "desert" as a remnant from the Xindi weapon attack. (Yes, I know they attacked Florida...but hey -- why not stretch things out?)
And regarding the Narada -- I don't have a problem with Nero being captured and imprisoned -- it's the ship I have a problem with. Because there ain't no way the ship wouldn't be taken over by Klingons. I like to think they were just biding their time, and slowly making repairs (and trading for materials) until they rescued Nero. (The 47 ships being a response to the invasion that they were unprepared for). And THAt tome, could help me understand why so many ships were at Laurentia.
Being a mining ship, is it probable it had capability of embedding itself into an asteroid?
And the crew might have had some surviving scientist & military...but not enough to have a planned method of attack... they had enough knowledge to create a time warp...but not enough for the details.
Also, the decision must've been very spontaneous...like Spock arriving on the scene just after the disaster, and the Narada taking chase
And regarding the Narada -- I don't have a problem with Nero being captured and imprisoned -- it's the ship I have a problem with. Because there ain't no way the ship wouldn't be taken over by Klingons. I like to think they were just biding their time, and slowly making repairs (and trading for materials) until they rescued Nero. (The 47 ships being a response to the invasion that they were unprepared for). And THAt tome, could help me understand why so many ships were at Laurentia.
Being a mining ship, is it probable it had capability of embedding itself into an asteroid?
And the crew might have had some surviving scientist & military...but not enough to have a planned method of attack... they had enough knowledge to create a time warp...but not enough for the details.
Also, the decision must've been very spontaneous...like Spock arriving on the scene just after the disaster, and the Narada taking chase
Similar threads
