Bugatti vs. plane episode - TopGear cheated?

Z

ZH-PRAETORIAN

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Hi all
I've just gone through my archives and watched thr Bugatti vs. plane episode. Jeremy in a Bugatti Veyron and James and Richard in a Cessna 182. Now, am I stupid or....are they taking off the SAME runway in Italy then they later touch down allegedly in Lille? I've watched the take-off and landing scene again and again. The trees, the hangars, the control tower....LOOK EXACTLY THE SAME.

I've registered here to find out. Would some1 please either confirm or object?

Much appreciated
M.
 
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Simple answer, repeated every time someone asks something like this: most of the stuff that's filmed for these races isn't filmed during the race, it's a technical impossibility. For this particular race, there was a quote from the production team (can't find it now) that the whole thing needed a month of filming after the race took place.

So the races take place, the results are real, but the shots are cinematography. So nitpicking is useless.
 
vikiradTG2007 said:
Simple answer, repeated every time someone asks something like this: most of the stuff that's filmed for these races isn't filmed during the race, it's a technical impossibility. For this particular race, there was a quote from the production team (can't find it now) that the whole thing needed a month of filming after the race took place.

So the races take place, the results are real, but the shots are cinematography. So nitpicking is useless.
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Hi vikirad and thanks for the prompt reply. Got it about production requirements, makes sense. Although I think they could have changed camera location, just so that n00bs like me don't stumble across so easily ;-)

Cheers
M.
 
With all the other bits of nonsense that took place during that race, you focused on that one?
 
The Spie said:
With all the other bits of nonsense that took place during that race, you focused on that one?
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Yeah, I was focused on the dog.

There's no way a dog would find a truffle which had fallen into some tree roots. It's preposterous.

Everybody knows that you find truffles at some markets... so why they had to invent this thing about dogs. Top gear must have rigged the dogs.
 
Well, hardy har har. There really are serious problems with that race, most of which seemed designed to make James look like a complete moron and Richard look like a provincial thicko. It only takes a little bit of Google-fu to find the chinks in the armor. I have no idea why they decided on this approach, but it's insulting.
 
The Spie said:
Well, hardy har har. There really are serious problems with that race, most of which seemed designed to make James look like a complete moron and Richard look like a provincial thicko. It only takes a little bit of Google-fu to find the chinks in the armor. I have no idea why they decided on this approach, but it's insulting.
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That's just how the team dynamic operated back then. Mind you, if I'd been James, I'd have pushed Hammond out somewhere over the Med - all that peevish whining. It's not a challenge I re-watch very often, due to my overwhelming desire to punch his lights out.
 
I'm the same way about re-watching this challenge, but for me, the problem is the way they made James look with all of the "surprises". The problem is that they gave the game away immediately: when they took off from Cuneo, James specifically tells air traffic control that his destination is St. Etienne, which made the whole "we used too much fuel and we have to stop" routine fall apart. Once that broke down, the rest of the routine went with it. They've done a lot of nasty things to James over the years, but this went to excess.
 
To be honest, I guessed all of that from the off. You can't just wander all over the skies in a light aircraft without filing a flight plan, so the refuelling stop was known about, as was the detour round the coast and the stop at Lille, but I agree they went too far in making James look a pillock, which is why I don't often revisit it.
 
Although to be fair, in planning the race, James would have told them he needed an intermediate stop in case his fuel was low or it had gotten too late for him to finish the flight across. So the harm was done in the edit and not in the planning stage. Then it was up to James to complain if he was made to look like a pillock, and I think the shark has been jumped in that regard.
 
The harm was done in the scripting. Someone had the bright idea to add "tension" to the race through scripted moments. Whenever they do that, it comes out ham-fisted, like the Japan race with Jeremy "accidentally" turning off Ami the Satnav to compensate for the unexpected lack of traffic in Tokyo. Why James and Richard went along with the script, I have no idea. Both of them would have come across a lot better if the plane's route had been laid out from the start.
 
Oh for FSM's sake, not again!

If you want actual, factual racing tune in to any one of the myriad of motorsports out there.

Top Gear is a car-based entertainment programme. Certain things happen in the name of entertainment. If you're going to bitch about such shit start with George Lucas and point out that X-Wings and Tie Fighters don't need sound effects because sound doesn't travel in a vacuum.

:p

Oh and :nazilock:
 
MWF said:
Oh for FSM's sake
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FSM is new to me... What is it? ^^

Oh and your post kind'a resets the tone after mine, only with a bit more credibility and effect ^^ ...
 
I don't worship God. I am a Pastafarian and have been touched by the Flying Spaghetti Monster's noodly appendage!
 
When will people finaly realised that everything on TopGear is fake? The whole thing is filmed before a bluescreen in the BBC's basement and the cars sliding around the track are CGI, infact, that track was turned into a shoppingmall years ago.
Hell Clarkson doesn't even have a driving licence, Richard isen't legally allowed to leave the UK and James May has actualy been dead for 5 years, all the shots of him are stock footage or a puppet.

God...how friggin hard can it be.
 
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Must spread some more painful truth before ruining Cowboy's childhood again.........
 
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