6 Places You'll Recognize from the Background of Every Movie

If this particular formation of rocks looks familiar to you, congratulations on being a nerd. These are the Vasquez Rocks located in Agua Dulce, California, and they are most famous for being used as the backdrop of several Star Trek scenes, from the famous showdown between Captain Kirk and the Gorn in the original series ...

... to the scenes set on planet Vulcan in Star Trek IV and in the 2009 J.J. Abrams reboot:

That's right -- like many actors in the Star Trek universe, these rocks have played multiple parts. They even showed up in animated form in the Star Trek-themed episode of Futurama:

But unlike most actors involved with Star Trek, the rocks went on to have a long and varied career. Besides appearing in shows like Bones, The New Girl, and Friends ...

... the Vasquez Rocks have also appeared in over 40 films. Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles, for example, was filmed almost entirely at Agua Dulce, which is appropriate because the rocks are actually named after a real bandit from the Old West, Tiburcio Vasquez.

For more-recent stuff, the rocks also show up in 127 Hours, Little Miss Sunshine, and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. And speaking of films starring duos of immature slackers, the rocks actually play a double role in Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey. Bill and Ted first see them while watching an episode of Star Trek, and then they get killed by their robot doubles at those very same rocks:

Hatfield House in England was built in 1611 and has a long and proud association with the country's royal family. But fuck that: The only reason we're talking about it here is that it's also Batman's house. And Tarzan's. And Lara Croft's. Basically, any action hero whose superpowers include "having insanely rich parents" lives there.

That's Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft crossing the house's famous Long Hall in the first Tomb Raider movie -- the scene lasts like 10 seconds, but it serves to establish that she could buy half of South America if she wanted to. Meanwhile, in Robert Downey Jr.'s Sherlock Holmes, the legendary detective has a meeting with a very rich person in that same hallway:

And of course, one of the house's most memorable roles was doubling for Wayne Manor in Tim Burton's Batman movies. Here's the Long Hallway acting as a game room for the likes of Bruce Wayne, Commissioner Gordon, and Harvey Dent, back when he had a full face and was black (note the ceiling and the chimney on the right):

Besides the two Burton movies, the grounds outside Hatfield House were also used for some exterior shots in Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins -- that's right, this place has been in more Batman movies than Michael Keaton.

Another favorite spot for Hollywood films is the house's library: It's been used in Batman ...

... Tomb Raider ...

... and the film Orlando with Tilda Swinton, who is the only one who actually knows how to read.

Then there's the room known as Marble Hall, which is easily recognizable due to its checkered floor. It acted as Tarzan's family castle in Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, starring Christopher Lambert from Highlander:

And it's also the room where Bruce Wayne meets Vicki Vale for the first time in Batman:

These are just some of the 30 different credits to the house's name, which include V for Vendetta, Shakespeare in Love, and Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Tim Burton actually returned here for a scene in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory -- knowing him, he'd probably shoot every movie there if he could afford it.

But Ridley Scott wasn't the first director to shoot in this place, or even the first to shoot a tense chase sequence where a non-human killer fights a man who doesn't know that he's a robot. Twenty years earlier, the same thing happened in the Outer Limits episode "Demon With a Glass Hand" (the same one that "inspired" Terminator). Here's a comparison.

The building also has an episode of Star Trek and a bunch of classic sci-fi movies on its resume. More recently, however, it has branched out into other genres. Remember at the end of (500) Days of Summer when Joseph Gordon-Levitt has a job interview on the top floor of a building and meets a girl conveniently named Autumn? It's the same place:

Last year, the building was also used in the Academy Award-winning silent film The Artist as the place where the male and female protagonists meet by accident and don't talk:

Before that, it showed up briefly in movies like Lethal Weapon 4, Pay It Forward, and Chinatown. It had a more sizable role in the 1994 Jack Nicholson movie Wolf, playing the building where Nicholson's werewolf character worked as a publishing editor:

OK, we have to admit that working in this place would be pretty neat (in fact, Marvel Comics has an office there). But what if you don't like taking the stairs? Don't worry, the Bradbury Building also has a famous elevator, as seen, once again, in Blade Runner ...

... plus episodes of shows like Quantum Leap ...

... and CSI: NY, which is apparently shot anywhere but in New York.

Greystone Mansion is a property in Beverly Hills that has been featured in over 100 movies and episodes of TV shows. We're guessing that the main reason for this is that it's like a 15-minute drive between Hollywood and Beverly Hills, but it probably doesn't hurt that this place is also classy as shit. So, as a result of this rampant reuse of the same location, it turns out that the older Lebowski's mansion in The Big Lebowski ...

... was also Daniel Plainview's (Daniel Day-Lewis') estate in There Will Be Blood ...

... and Kermit the Frog's fancy home in the heart-wrenching "Pictures in My Head" song from The Muppets:

Kermit's song isn't the only musical sequence shot in this place. There's also the video for Meatloaf's classic "I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)" ...

... and Elton John's "I Want Love," starring a younger, emo-er Robert Downey Jr.

And just to show you that plans of a cohesive Marvel Comics movie universe go back further than anyone thought, the same video takes the future Iron Man to a room with a white fireplace ...

... which is also used as the family mansion for at least two generations of Osborns (Willem Dafoe and James Franco) in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man movies:

The same property also portrayed the exterior garden in X-Men (where it was the garden of Professor Xavier's school) and Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin, in possibly the first Marvel/DC cinematic crossover. But that's just the tip of the iceberg: Greystone Mansion has been used in movies as diverse as The Social Network, The Bodyguard, Eraserhead, The Dirty Dozen, National Treasure, and The Prestige ... basically anything with a non-British rich character.

For instance, here are the Ghostbusters coming into the mansion to meet the mayor of New York City in Ghostbusters II ...

... and here's Bill Murray coming out in the also-Ivan-Reitman-directed Stripes:

Chevy Chase winds up in Monument Valley by accident when the Griswold family crashes the station wagon in the desert in National Lampoon's Vacation, leading to a touching father/son moment:

Astronaut Dave Bowman also ends up in Monument Valley at the end of the stargate scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey, although Stanley Kubrick flipped the colors to make the place look like an alien planet here:

Monument Valley has another cameo in Forrest Gump, which we should note was filmed pretty much everywhere. This is a key scene for the movie, though, because it's the area where Forrest suddenly decides to finish his cross-country run.

And, of course, the anus-clenching opening scene of Mission: Impossible II was shot entirely on top of one of those huge rocks, because getting insanely high is the only way Tom Cruise can experience what we humans call "pleasure."

The film's accompanying music video by Metallica is also set in Monument Valley, as is the sequence set to the Band's "The Weight" at the beginning of Easy Rider. Another low-budget art-house classic, Wild Wild West, also had some scenes there, including the one in which Will Smith is chased by a giant robot spider or some bullshit:

And finally, the upcoming Lone Ranger movie starring Johnny Depp was filmed predominantly in the valley, bringing it back to Westerns. In fact, this spot in the following promotional still from the movie is now called "John Ford's Point":

Erik Germ does all sorts of things over at Hugefrigginarms.com and thinks it would be awesome if you followed him on Twitter.

For more things with more impressive resumes than your acting buddy, check out 5 Things Hollywood Reuses More Than Plots. Or learn about The 6 Most Depressing IMDb Pages.

If you're pressed for time and just looking for a quick fix, then check out The North Korean Video Game for People Who Hate Fun.

And stop by LinkSTORM to see the headshots that belong to the tree down the street.

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