Fictional Movie Cities

13 October 2008

Rate this article

Over the years cities like London, New York, LA and Paris have all proved to be perfect settings for movies grounding them very much in reality.

Despite this it�s the cities of fiction that have the ability to transport the audience to a different place, that in some cases we could never imagine, and cinema has taken us to some of the most incredible settings.

And this week, with the release of The City of Ember, the audience are transported once again as another city of fiction is brought to the big screen. Based on the novel by Jeanne Duprau The City of Ember is a self-contained, self-maintained city underground.

To celebrate the release of the film FemaleFirst searched movie archives to find some of the best fictional movie cities.

Gotham City

Gotham City is the home of Batman and the caped crusader aims to watch over it�s inhabitants and keep the streets free from crime and violence.

And over the years the appearance has changed dramatically it came to the big screen in 1989 and Tim Burton�s vision was of a run down, neglected city that is riddled with crime. The design of the city was an attempt to imagine what might have happened to New York City had there been no planning commission and had it been run by pure extortion.

That changed when director Joel Schumacher took over the franchise in 1995 when Gotham became an outlandish example of modern expressionism filled with futuristic conceptions. But more recently the image of Gotham is grounded more in reality full of subterranean streets , sky scrapers and elevated train tracks.

Minas Tirith

Gondor is the fictional kingdom created by writer J.R.R Tolkien in his epic novel The Lord of the Rings and Minas Tirith is the jewel of that kingdom, described as the greatest realm of Men in the west of Middle-Earth by the end of the Third Age.

But by the time readers or the film audiences are introduced to the city and it�s characters the city has slipped into decline.

At the loss of childless E�rnur, the rule of Gondor was left to the Stewards. The former glory of the city can only be restored when the Dark Lord Sauron is defeated and Aragon is crowned king.

The city was one of the great images of Peter Jackson�s highly successful movies that dominated the cinema for three years and the director mixed various techniques to bring the city to life.

Jackson used highly detailed miniatures, and a three dimensional digital model as well as building some sections of the city to scale for the actors to work in.

Metropolis

While Gotham may be the dark city of the DC Comic world Metropolis is it�s complete opposite and is usually portrayed as a major city in the Midwest or on the East Coast.

In Christopher Reeve�s Superman movies on the seventies and eighties Metropolis is depicted as being the replacement of New York and did include images such as Statue of Liberty and the World Trade Centre.

However in Bryan Singer�s more recent picture Superman Returns metropolis was all changed as he showed it ass a cross between 1930s and current New York with some of it�s landmarks including Battery Park and the Brooklyn Bridge.

The Emerald City

The Emerald City is the centre piece to the family favourite movie The Wizard of Oz and where Dorothy needs to go to be able to go home to Kansas.

Located in the centre of the Land of Oz, the Emerald City is the end of the famous yellow brick road, which starts in Munchkin Land.

Over the years the image of the city has changed in the book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz the walls are green, but the city itself is not. However, when they enter, everyone in the Emerald City is made to wear green-tinted eyeglasses; this is explained as an effort to protect their eyes from the "brightness and glory" of the city but this made everything appear green.

But in the film The Emerald City was only green from the inside and Dorothy, The Lion, Scarecrow and the Tin Man are met with kindness and song.