Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's the alternative?
A recent study showed handing a Pepsi to the invading army would avert war
That study has not been replicated.
Fake town built exclusively for filming TV and movies
131–140 of 146 posts
Re: Fake town built exclusively for filming TV and movies
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would imagine those do exist in China
I'd imagine America would be the last place China would invade, so I would be surprised if they'd bother. The closest (western) scenario I could see them training for is Australia.
Reason: even in 2023, the logistics of invading a very large country of 350ish million across the Pacific are daunting, to put it mildly. “Impossible” is barely an overstatement.
I would also be surprised if they bother to train for an invasion of North America.
Re: Fake town built exclusively for filming TV and movies
#133The US military builds dummy towns for training purposes. This is called "MOUT" training, for Military Operations in Urban Terrain. The current ones look like towns in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, etc. The National Training Center at Fort Irwin, CA has the biggest one.[1] (There's a very good reason for that sort of thing. Most infantry casualties are among soldiers new to combat. Very realistic training means that most…
Getting Americas Army tingles reading about MOUNT training. Used to play it heavily back in the days
Re: Fake town built exclusively for filming TV and movies
#134I mean, it's always been this way. Eaves Ranch and Old Tucson are popular for westerns, and go back decades.
When I was in Japan recently, we went to the Toei Studios theme park, the center of which is an Edo-era village with half a bridge, and the set of a zillion samurai flicks.
Re: Fake town built exclusively for filming TV and movies
#135I understand the need but it bother me so much to recognise a studio when watching a tv show (or cheap movie). It's like the Wilhelm scream, it immediately reminds me I'm watching a something. Especially the paramount studio https://www.paramountstudios.com/new-york-backlot.html
I live in LA and usually don't watch video content but when I do it's a fun game. Movie geography is wacky; you'll have the actors on a street in say, Long Beach and then they turn a corner and it's in Glendale, then enter a building and they're in Santa Monica and look out a window to see New York.
I really love seeing the details on the larger sets. At one of them they had these vintage cars on sunset blvd that would roll by as background for a period piece. Everything down to the wardrobe of the actors driving the car, the license plate tags, even the book the actor had on their dashboard was from the 1970s. None of this would show up on screen - there's not enough pixels to capture it. The effort they go through is really quite something.
They had traffic cops hold back the regular cars and then you'd hear "action" and see the 1970s cars start driving by in the background as the actor came out of the cafe or whatever they were doing ... it was a huge ceremony behind a fairly irrelevant scene.
Also action scenes in car chases are crazy to watch. They have these skilled stunt drivers that just do the choreographed crazy fishtail and skidding maneuvers over and over again. They're really good.
Re: Fake town built exclusively for filming TV and movies
#136Cinecittà, anyone?
Re: Fake town built exclusively for filming TV and movies
#137Reaction: But building anything resembling a real town, where real people could actually live, is still de facto illegal in Canada.
Building a new town is ridiculously simple. You can buy vast tracts land for pennies and do it today if you want – most of North America is open and available. Canada in fact is one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world. You don't need permits, heck you don't need any permission at all. In fact there are entire such towns available for purchase . But that's not what you really want, is it? You want a…
> You can buy vast tracts land for pennies and...
That sounds remarkably like the just-revealed "Flannery Associates plan" - https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/25/business/land-purchases-s... .
And still, even with ~50,000 acres and a bunch of billionaires behind them, the media coverage seems to agree that they'll be fighting against regulations and red tape and NIMBYs for years, to actually build anything useful. With success far from assured.
Re: Fake town built exclusively for filming TV and movies
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would imagine those do exist in China
I'd imagine America would be the last place China would invade, so I would be surprised if they'd bother. The closest (western) scenario I could see them training for is Australia.
I thought Australia would surely be in NATO and that would deter China from doing that but after looking it up, it looks like NATO and Australia merely have "deepened relationships" (according to an article from last year), whatever that means. Today I learned!
Re: Fake town built exclusively for filming TV and movies
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you go hiking about four miles into the santa monica mountains, you can visit the M*A*S*H set and see some of the left over trucks and some historical markers.
Yep, that's Paramount Ranch for those interested. There's not much left of it after the last fire that went through there though (Woolsey fire I think it was).
Paramount ranch is different, you can drive there. The mash site you park in the malibu creek recreation area and hike into it. I don’t think it was hit but even if it was the metal trucks would be fine in a grassland fire.
Re: Fake town built exclusively for filming TV and movies
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'll be honest, 120db was an exaggeration because it was VERY loud, I would not have had a way to measure it in combat gear. Additionally, earplugs are part of a military uniform at a lot of bases so you are required to carry them and the onus would be on you. At that point in time, I was not required to have hearing protection however. You're not a civilian while enlisted, suing for any reason is not an option in mo…
Hearing damage should be on the easier to show side; I'm sure they screened your hearing during enlistment, so if your hearing tests as damaged when you're discharged, there you go. Confirming a connection to service if you don't test near discharge might be harder.
You might be surprised... a friend of mine spent 18 months in a tank with a cannon next to his head and has almost total loss in one ear and much lower function in the other... he's had trouble getting VA to pay for hearing aids.