Am I ruining it for myself?


Susanna Girl

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Lately I've been utilizing the great resources we have here, showing all the shooting locations and it thrills me to see exactly where things were filmed.  Just yesterday I found the exact spot where Crockett asks Tubbs if they are being watched in 'Out There Where the Buses Don't Run'.  It's a kick in the pants to see the actual spot with google maps and think...wow, that's where they really were!  But last night I was thinking about it and now I'm wondering if I'm ruining things for myself by seeing it in "real life".  I'm sorta feeling like....this show has always been a mysterious, beautiful experience for me and not knowing exactly where things were done and being ignorant of, if it was real or staged, kept it as a fantasy land for me.  

 

I doubt I can stop myself now, but I'm really not sure if I'm doing the right thing.  Has anyone else struggled with this after you learn everything there is to learn about the show?

Edited by Susanna Girl
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Lately I've been utilizing the great resources we have here, showing all the shooting locations and it thrills me to see exactly where things were filmed.  Just yesterday I found the exact spot where Crockett asks Tubbs if they are being watched in 'Out There Where the Buses Don't Run'.  It's a kick in the pants to see the actual spot with google maps and think...wow, that's where they really were!  But last night I was thinking about it and now I'm wondering if I'm ruining things for myself by seeing it in "real life".  I'm sorta feeling like....this show has always been a mysterious, beautiful experience for me and not knowing exactly where things were done and being ignorant of, if it was real or staged, kept it as a fantasy land for me.  

 

I doubt I can stop myself now, but I'm really not sure if I'm doing the right thing.  Has anyone else struggled with this after you learn everything there is to learn about the show?

 

I don't think knowing or visiting where things were filmed should ruin your "Miami Vice Experience", if anything, it should enhance it.  I remember the first time I drove by the Fontainebleau Hotel and past the infamous wall where Crockett's testarossa drove, it was a big time "wow" factor for me...  

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^ I hope you're right mvnyc...and anyway, I can't stop myself now...... :) 

 

Im in the Miami / Bahamas area for a month and I say embrace these locations there are not many left  :D  :fireworks: 

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for me the answer is definitly no cause i 've been to Miami and i love that city a lot . so all these locations are potential places i could travel to Miami for :p

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  • 1 year later...

That's an interesting thought.  Personally, my MV revival started about 15 years ago when TNN started airing the show.  After a few years of that I was pretty burned out on watching and discussing the show on the old MV email list, but as luck would have it right at that time some people started discussing locations.  Initially I knew nothing about Miami, not even that Miami Beach was a separate piece of land.  Studying locations became my way of keeping my MV fandom going, kind of the opposite of what you are suggesting.  I remember figuring out a potential spot where the Pink House might be and peering at grainy Terra Server satellite pics trying to decide if I was right.  

 

This was all on the MV email list, before .org came into existence.   After a few years, all of a sudden we had a confluence of events:  Google Maps was created with vastly improved satellite pics,  .org started, RB created his website, and DanJ & CGlide appeared.  That's when location hunting became an obsession!

 

Anyway ... to summarize:  for me it is actually enhancing my fan experience.  However, I know what you mean.   I do like to get lost in the fantasy world of any kind of fiction I am reading or watching and maybe the location stuff takes some of that away.

 

One thing I can say for sure:  the amazing Google Street View technology has blunted my excitement when I visit locations in person.  I enjoyed in-person visits a lot more back when I couldn't see the locations very well on satellite

Edited by airtommy
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Michael Mann once said, "The Miami you see in MIAMI VICE ....doesn't exist". Meaning, they created the look of the interiors, all the people wearing the flashy clothes, all the furniture, and where and how they film the places.

 

To me, it would be like being on a treasure hunt to find all these wonderful place. Like Michael Mann said, it doesn't actually exist the way it was shown, so therefore, it's kind of a fantasy show, loosely based on reality.

 

Go ahead, have fun! :thumbsup: 

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At least you are able to enjoy the sites and the sounds.  Enjoy the experience and share it.  Doubt I will be able to be there, so we can live through what you see!!

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If anything, it's more of a commendable testament to Mann's vision of Miami of how he saw how Miami could be.  In how he was able to take the ordinary and broken down, into the glamorous and extraordinary.  If you see the YouTube video of the Miami Herald conference about the Vice effect, particularly starting at 24:10, you'll see how radical Mann's vision was for the city when its own citizens didn't grasp the vision, yet the rest of the world did.

 

For me, it would be more interesting to see the pictures and sights of how Miami was back then (during the early to mid 80s, before the gentrification effect Miami Vice had on the city), to see how dramatically Mann was able to transform the scenery.

Edited by Vice Immersion
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The South Beach Art Deco buildings and hotels are now all restored, and look like they do now, all thanks....to MIAMI VICE!  

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Well, to me, Miami Vice is a state of mind.  I can find Miami Vice is so many things and so many locations.  Living in Southern California, I put up my car windows and have flashbacks when driving around to my life in the '80s and realize that the intersection of Miami Vice with my own life is impossible to segregate.  

 

If you use a little of your imagination, Miami Vice will find you. I have glimpses of the show throughout each day.  Hell, I probably quoted five times today alone. Visually, I see Vice in the glass, '80s office buildings around my commute.  Or in the characters I see down at the beach.  Or the dude cruising around with his top down, blasting tunes (always makes me think of John Kapelos' character in Milk Run.  What was his name?  Sloan?).

 

In a more literal sense, I recently visited Miami and although much has changed, I see it as the progression which Miami Vice insisted on.  If Miami Vice were on the air now as a currently produced show, it would be all about those big, shiny towers in Brickell or the Russian billionaires hitting the clubs with their, ahem, girlfriends (fewer of those Russians around these days).

 

Recently, there was that pic of those two rappers/singers (Kanye West and Chris Brown?).  I forget who it was.  They were posing Vice style.  This is how it should be.  Miami will always be Miami.  And there will always be the tone set by Miami Vice.  Embrace.

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