The movie.....A Walk In The Woods

[colorado_rob]

Saw it last night with a bunch of hiking/climbing pals... Delightful movie, everyone in our group liked it. Yep, lots of flaws; Redford's acting was kinda poor, but made up by Nolte's acting/character. The bear scene was ridiculous. Their hiking itinerary was silly (compared to book), but all together it worked very well. Yep, the hiking poles strapped to their packs even crossing the stream???? But who cares, fantastic little flick.

Lots of folks (on here) keep saying it deviates form the book so much, but the little comedy bits are all verbatim. I just finished re-reading AWITW yesterday before going to see the movie, so it was all very fresh.

All of our pals with us have now expressed interest in hiking the AT, whereas before they had only barely even known what it was (we are all westerners). so yeah, this has to have an impact on near-term trail use. I made the point of how excellent an idea it is to do some variation of a flip/flop to avoid crowds, folks all liked that idea.

[ekeverette]

it was so poor, I fell asleep.

[rafe]

it was so poor, I fell asleep.

Yeah, it needed more explosions and helicopters and high-speed chase scenes.

[BirdBrain]

I loved it. My wife loved it. Unlike others, I will not be buying the DVD. I will get it on Blu-ray.

[Deacon]

Not sure if anyone mentioned this in this thread yet, but did you notice that they came to Mcafee Knob AFTER going through the Shennendoah NP, when in reality it is south of the Shennies.

[Panzer1]

I saw it last night and enjoyed it very much. I thought it was so funny. I only wish it was longer.
May be they will make It into HBO mini series.

[Heliotrope]

I saw it last night and enjoyed it very much. I thought it was so funny. I only wish it was longer.
May be they will make It into HBO mini series.

I like the mini series idea. Maybe throw in some zombies in the Georgia section!


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[Sly]

Final note of interest: at the Regal theater here in NJ, there are NO posters, displays, or other advertising. TV advertising seems light. This is suggests the money behind the film doesn't expect to see a profit.

From what I can tell, the budget was $8 million and it's brought in 8.3

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Walk...e_Woods_(film)

Filming locations:

North Carolina, USA
Buford, Georgia, USA
Fredericksburg, Pennsylvania, USA
Fontana Dam, North Carolina, USA
Georgia, USA
Sharon, Connecticut, USA

[Red Cinema]

In Filmspeak, that's "barely scraping by."

From what I can tell, the budget was $8 million and it's brought in 8.3

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Walk...e_Woods_(film)

Filming locations:

North Carolina, USA
Buford, Georgia, USA
Fredericksburg, Pennsylvania, USA
Fontana Dam, North Carolina, USA
Georgia, USA
Sharon, Connecticut, USA

[2NewKnees]

Saw it today. I thought it was good. The movie was a good representation of what it was supposed to be about according to the book. Meaning it is not a documentary of a thru hike. More about a man trying to find adventure in his life at a later age after the loss of a friend and him reconnecting with a friend from the past. Thought it was good. Not going to produce a bunch of new hikers though I hope!

[Another Kevin]

Not sure if anyone mentioned this in this thread yet, but did you notice that they came to Mcafee Knob AFTER going through the Shennendoah NP, when in reality it is south of the Shennies.

Yup. And they put Neels Gap on the Approach Trail - they came to Mountain Crossings before they came to the plaque on Springer.

[Feral Bill]

I got a fair number of laughs from the movie tonight. Yes, they took a lot of liberties with the book and with geography. More impressionist than representational, if it were a painting. My wife noted them carrying, and never using trekking poles.

[shrapnel]

I went in expecting to see a basic, somewhat cheesy recreation of hiking and I wasn't disappointed. Hikers look as if they had stepped straight out of an rei dressing room (at least you could not smell them). If anything, Nolte looked more like a hiker than anyone ( the man looks and sounds awful). His character provides much needed relief from the stone faced Redford. Bottom line: Its a movie about hiking - so I was not expecting much. Hiking is something that needs to be experienced and not watched.

[dukakis]

31 here. I thought it was a good film. I wouldn't get all hung up on the details, 99% of the viewers could care less where McAfee's Knob or Mountain Crossings are on the trail. The theater was packed on Saturday. Fort Myers, FL. Mostly 55+ crowd. Could it have been better? Sure. Is it good enough? Yes.

[Tuckahoe]

Hikers look as if they had stepped straight out of an rei dressing room...

Probably one of the most accurate details of the film.

[SWODaddy]

I saw the movie last night. I don't think enthusiasts have anything to worry about with respect to increased traffic on the AT.

As previous posters have said, the audience was mostly aging boomers who are more likely to be Robert Redford fans than hiking fans.

Honestly, it really wasn't very good.

[Colter]

It's purely subjective, but I didn't care for "A Walk in the Woods."

I couldn't relate to tackling something like a thru-hike with someone I didn't like. I couldn't relate to almost no positive interaction with fellow hikers. I couldn't relate to the unnecessary fakeness of grizzlies in their camp, being stranded on a cliff a few feet from a busy trail, or to focusing on discomfort rather than all the good experiences of hiking.

To me the movie, like Bryson's thru-hike attempt, struck me as lazy.

For anyone who liked the film, fair enough. If it was entertaining it succeeded!

I enjoyed "Wild" on the other hand, and I think it was primarily because she respected the trail, the experiences and at least some of the people she met along the way.

To me there is no doubt this new film will boost the numbers of hikers. This movie will dissuade almost no one that has already decided on a thru-hike. And there are many thousands of people who will see this film that are unfamiliar with the idea of thru-hiking the A.T. Even if one of out ten thousand are inspired to give it a go the number of AT hikers will rise significantly.

[tiptoe]

I saw the movie last night and thought it was pretty bad, both as a movie and as a rendering of the book, which I read two-thirds of years ago. I found the book hilarious for a while, but it lost its focus when the hike lost its focus. The movie was little more than a poorly rendered buddy movie with tedious adolescent humor that probably wouldn't even amuse most adolescents, a vehicle for star turns and cameos. In the book, from what I recall, they skipped ahead to Shenandoah ("the good parts") and then returned to central VA, hence the out-of-order sequences. The scenery was a saving grace.

Bryson should have hiked alone and TALKED TO OTHER HIKERS. With his inquiring mind, he would have gotten a lot more out of the experience. Katz, oddly, is the one who seemed to evolve, at least a little.

If I knew nothing about the AT and saw this movie, I'd be very unlikely to start hiking it. I doubt this movie will swell the numbers next spring.

A question: can anybody tell me the location on the AT of the scene where they fell off the trail onto a ledge? I've hiked the trail from northern NH to Amicalola, and can't place it.

[tiptoe]

And just for the record, I'm what is euphemistically called an "older" hiker. The movie "Wild" had its flaws, but plot and dialogue were not among them. I liked it a lot better.

[Another Kevin]

A question: can anybody tell me the location on the AT of the scene where they fell off the trail onto a ledge? I've hiked the trail from northern NH to Amicalola, and can't place it.

The location was a soundstage. The place doesn't exist.

The bear scene. Yeah, ridiculous. But, as well as I could see in the poor light (I couldn't really see whether the hump was there or not) the bears were not grizzlies. They were big black bears that the characters THOUGHT were grizzlies. That said, their behaviour was not bear behaviour. Bears don't growl like that. And black bears don't threaten humans like that - even the ones with predatory behaviour. A bear's bluff charge doesn't look like that, either.

The scene on the ledge was even less credible. (And a bit too obviously a soundstage.)

The humor was puerile, but I was willing to suspend maturity long enough to get a few chuckles.

My wife really, really identified with the character of Catherine Bryson. She thinks my habit of hiking is utterly mad.

And my demographic? Aging Boomer with considerable interest in hiking and near-zero interest in Redford. Most of the folks at the theatre were aging Boomers. I didn't interview any of them about whether they had any interest in hiking. With some it was obvious that getting up the escalator and into the theatre was difficult enough!