I feel like for a certain segment of the population, which may include myself, the announcement of a new Wes Anderson movie is a little stab of pastel-colored, symmetrical delight that rends a little tear in the gray tarpaulin of reality that can blanket daily life. It’s fun and visually engaging, and while I know the filmmaker and his films certainly have their critics, that’s fine and all of you in that camp should feel free to hang out in the back of the bus and say hard things and smoke clove cigarettes or whatever. I don’t care. What I do care about are the cars shown in the trailer for his latest movie, Asteroid City, because the whole thing seems to be a reason to construct environments around early ’50s American station wagons. And I’m all for that. Let’s dig in.
Here, you can watch the trailer, which is both in color and a talkie:
Lots of Cold War Southwest happening in there, though it seems a bit more fun than the Cold War 1950s that we were served here in the actual universe, because in this one it appears that death rays and jetpacks actually, you know, work:
Seems pretty fun to me, even in the likely shadow of nuclear annihilation. What a way to go, though, right? Let’s take a look at these cars, starting with what seems to be the hero car:
This lovely wagon looks to be a Mercury Monterey woody wagon, a 1953 or 1954, I think, and while it seems to be having some pretty significant issues to, I suspect, set the plot in motion, it still looks charming and handsome, even on that lift. I especially like that strange \-shaped strake of light wood Mercury’s carpenters decided to put in to help define some character on those wood sides.
You can see it there on the bottom left of the Mercury brochure above.
Since I’m sure you absolutely need to see the chassis, powertrain, and drivetrain of the Mercury Monterey featured in this Wes Anderson movie, I’ve provided it above.
Over there on the far left of the scene above we see the tail end of a Chrysler Town and Country Station Wagon, though this could also be one of that car’s Mopar-family siblings, like a DeSoto or Dodge.
But I think it’s a Chrysler, based on some of the chrome trim placement. It’s got very prominent hinges on that fold-down tailgate there, some small, understated, hyphen-shaped taillamps, and I think is overall a very tidy-looking wagon. I think this one is a ’53.
This one is especially interesting, I think. See that TV station van on the right there? That seems to be a Studebaker R10 Panel Van, from about 1950 or so. I tend to remember Studebakers like the Avanti or the Bob Burke/Raymond Loewy Starliners and Hawks, and tend to forget the fact that Studebaker made utility vehicles like panel vans and pickup trucks with the longest name on the tailgate ever (well, tied with Volkswagen, I suppose, oh, and as commenters have pointed out, International). These R10s seemed roomy, with high roofs and I think feel like a good choice to haul around a lot of ’50s television broadcasting equipment.
That panel van there isn’t an exact match for the type being shown, but it’s close. The one being sold here looks to match completely, though.
I’ve identified most of the cars in this shot, but I’m not totally sure on the orange one in the middle there. Also, I think the woody behind the ’49 Ford may be in the Mopar family, but I’m not certain. I bet you kooks can figure it out, though!
The car in the lower left in the picture above brings me to my one main complaint about the car casting I’ve seen so far, and it can be seen more clearly here:
So, the junked car there looks to be a 1955 Ford Ranch Wagon. Sure, it’s a car that fits the time and place, but not in the condition or context that it is shown, which is a rusted-out junker. That’s a new car in the timeline of the movie! Newer than even the hero cars! Why would it be all rusted out and abandoned? Maybe if it was, say, severely burned or something, but this just looks like the ravages of time and nature.
The other cars seen in junked contexts of the movie seem too new as well. These should be cars from the 1920s to 1940s or so, not mid-’50s cars. I get that the lifespans of cars weren’t as long as they are in modernity, but, again, that Ford there would be effectively a new car in this movie, unless we’re dealing with some kind of time-portal shit or something. I mean, it looks like there’s UFOs in here and at least one strange meteorite:
…but unless the hypothetical planet Magnavox-27 has time-warping properties, this feels like an unusual oversight for as careful a scene-crafter as Wes Anderson tends to be. Maybe he was just picking the cars to fit his visual aesthetic as opposed to what may make the most sense; if so, I guess I can’t be too surprised by that.
This temporally-confusing issue aside, the movie looks crammed full of fantastic old cars, and I’m sure they’ll all be placed in carefully-crafted scenes with incredible attention to detail, and I’m all for sitting and watching that.
I’m a stagehand, I have heard Wes will select every item to be used on screen himself, he probably picked out every vehicle.
I’ll be there. But if anyone climbs into a refrigerator to escape a nuclear blast I’m heaving my Milk Duds at the screen.
If you’ve got a better option when the blast hits sure, take it. If you don’t that fridge is going to look pretty good. Better make up your mind real quick though.
Oh crap. Forget it. It makes no difference what you do. That was a neutron bomb.
This is Rambler erasure, and I won’t have it.
That whole place looks like a Calico-style theme parkified town. The anachronism is probably intentional, like the town is the one from Running Out Of Time (1996)
Good catch! Maybe it’s in that condition because it was zapped by an alien spaceship………..
Because no one else has pointed it out yet, the tow truck in the top pic is also a Studebaker, not a Ford.
Crap. Fixed!
I hope Wes Anderson is made aware of this critique, and feels a sense of shame and disconsolate loss of perfection about his creation. And then smiles, because it is the flaw that provides the form for the rest.
Well, it is a Wes Anderson movie. Of course it’s weird and doesn’t make sense. Don’t even try to use any logic on it.
This is the obvious answer, yet i feel reluctant to allow it.
Something inside me wants movies -however fictional the main plot is- to make sense on other levels.And judging by comments from others over the years it seems i’m not alone.
Maybe it’s a way we help justify that one central fiction in our minds- by making everything else as real as possible?
We’re on the case – http://www.imcdb.org/movie_14230388-Asteroid-City.html
The Edward Hopper landscapes look of the photography is certainly eye arresting.
I speculate (especially since I think I heard the speaker at the commemoration ceremony mention the date 3007) that this whole world is a giant alien Potemkin village, or worse, a museum exhibit, meant to capture a civilization lost to its own self initiated annihilation and recreated by examining a few surviving artifacts, notably some 1950s era film reels found in a long abandoned town with dated buildings and auto carcasses strewn in the desert. Hence the anachronisms. I could be wrong.
3007 B.C.
Says 16 comments, shows one.
I’m pretty sure that Wes Anderson is unaware of time as most people think of it. Which is totally fine I think.
Whew, that trailer was really amped up to show “this is a Wes Anderson movie.” Having watched a lot of old movies from that time set in the then-present era, or even the westerns of the time that were set in the southwest, it looks a little cartoony. Manufactured for more twee. Like a Wes Anderson movie, or anything a present-era Marfa hotelier touches.
The rocky, sandy bits sticking up in the background look like they were chosen and placed for Wes Anderson-style long-shots and don’t look natural—like, Radiator Springs in Cars felt like a more realistic desert scene somehow. (If this was shot in a real place with that kind of topography, though, let me know—it’s definitely surreal and I kinda wanna visit now.) Hopefully the full-length version does a better job of immersing me in that world.
That is all to say, as an insufferable, decrepit millennial, I’ll probably enjoy it.
Is it bad that I’m even more excited about the ’50s-era interiors? I see they’re sticking closer to more traditional-style architecture for the motor court, and ooh man. Is that colored tile with flecks (like the kind all over your high school as a kid that almost certainly had a crapload of asbestos in it) in that glimpse into the room, or a wild linoleum? This is my favorite era of houses and I am going to be a total nerd over the most mundane parts of the sets. YES.
I think its a nod and wink situaiton to all of the classic Westerns shot in Arizona and Monument Valley. It’s clearly trying to invoke the latter, and Saguro cactus only exist in Arizona (ok there are like 40 in SoCal, right at the border with AZ), hence the topographical dissonance that existed in ye olden days, pilgrim.
See – Ain’t No Saguro in Texas by The Reverend Horton Heat
OMG, I’m all a-twitter. Wes Anderson and the Cohen Brothers are GODS when it comes to making interesting and quirky films. I can’t wait to see this one.
It seems entirely probable to me that the rusted-out hulks were merely abandoned for many years, while the ones in use were well cared for and maintained. Or maybe there’s meteorite magick at work that curses cars newer than 1955 to instantaneous rot. You never can tell with Wes Anderson films…
in a comment a few months ago, i mentioned i was bothered by the very worn upholstery on interior shots of the Grantham’s car in what was supposed to be 1912 (Downton Abbey, seas. 1, eps. 1-, 2). Just now went to look for the make/model to repeat myself with a little more fistshaking: i found the car was period correct at least, a 1911 Renault Laundette; the other motorized road conveyance in the first episode however, was a 1922 Ford TT (truck). Wes Anderson needs a better brand of time portal.
Good point, JT!
I thought I was taking some time off from Wes Anderson after that French newspaper something movie was just SO boring. But now I’m probably going to watch this one also 😎
I absolutely adore Wes Anderson’s movies. … Except for the French Dispatch. I couldn’t even finish that one and was very disappointed. I’m apprehensive, but I hope this one is a return to form.
Life Aquatic and Darjeeling are my favorites.
This
Oh man, Life Aquatic is the one I can’t make it through.
Same energy: https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/status/1641057834119905283
The one labeled ‘1954 Chevy?’ looks like a 1955 mercury wagon: https://www.virtualparking.net/imgdir/10098-1200.jpg
The one behind the ’49/50 Ford looks like a 1946-48 (or possibly a much more rare 41/42) wagon: https://cdn.dealeraccelerate.com/motorcar/1/1015/23313/1920×1440/1948-ford-super-deluxe-station-wagon
I have an explanation on the rusted out ’55 Ford.
You see production of the 1955 MY began in 1954 and this car was one of the early production models. It was bought by the US Army to test the results of radiation exposure on steel in a salt water environment. So on February 28th, 1955 this wagon was loaded onto a barge and towed out near Bikini Atoll. After the detonation of Castle Bravo and the measurements were taken, the Army decided to take the 55 wagon back to America and dumped it in the desert.
“with the longest name on the tailgate ever (well, tied with Volkswagen, I suppose)”
What about International Harvester’s trucks?
https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/CC-49-007-800.jpg?resize=560%2C407
“…tend to forget the fact that Studebaker made utility vehicles like panel vans and pickup trucks with the longest name on the tailgate ever (well, tied with Volkswagen, I suppose).”
International would like to have a word with you.
https://forums.ihpartsamerica.com/threads/1973-international-1210-crewcab.535/#lg=post-1890&slide=3
“Studebaker made utility vehicles like panel vans and pickup trucks with the longest name on the tailgate ever (well, tied with Volkswagen, I suppose).”
Huh. Let me consult this blurry Polaroid of Alan Galbraith backing into the tailgate of my INTERNATIONAL and get back to you on that one:
https://live.staticflickr.com/4200/34467754084_540c59ac57_o.jpg
That’s a lot of rust… for a desert.
In Windy Point outside Palm Springs the blowing sand will strip the paint off of your car if you leave it outside long enough. That’s where all the windmills are for some reason.
Maybe he Couldn’t find the cars you are lookin for
Could be an alternate reality or something where they are actually in modern-day, but they’ve kept making things in exactly the same styles.
Would be interesting to see them set up a far future that has 1950s car designs, so they run into ancient malaise-era cars while driving cars that have an older aesthetic.
“Hello Tomorrow” was something like that…lots of strange looking future cars that looked vaguely familiar (there’s what looks like an Isetta 300, but has no wheels and hovers). Not a great show, but all the gadgets had a great “look” to it.
On a side note, when I saw the title “Asteroid City”, for second I thought it was a Wes Anderson movie based on Kurt Busiek’s “Astro City”
This could be it, they might never explicitly state the current date in the movie and just be an anachronistic mess of cars, fashions, and technology, chosen for aesthetic reasons
This was my thought as well. It’s like they haven’t heard that Pluto isn’t a planet anymore and that’s going to be a topic of quirky conversation at some point.
In episode 2F09 when Itchy plays Scratchy’s skeleton like a xylophone, he strikes the same rib twice in succession, yet he produces two clearly different tones. I mean, what are we to believe, that this is some sort of a magic xylophone or something? Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder.