Monorails on Film and TV
by Kim Pedersen

page nine of nine


Inspector America in Seattle
 Inspector America, 2011 (TV)
History Channel's 'Inspector America' is Timothy Galarnyk. He is an infrastructure safety inspector, tapped by TV to travel the country inspecting infrastructure. In the Seattle episode, he looks at the city's crumbling seawall, earthquake-damaged viaduct and the Mercer Mess, a traffic nightmare near Seattle Center. After inspecting the work being done to improve the Mercer Mess, Galarnyk says, "This city could have solved their problems years ago." Then comes the only glowing report in the hour, and it's for the Alweg-built Seattle Center Monorail. He gets a tour under the train and then takes a ride. At the end of the ride he expresses frustration over the one-mile length. "Seattle really missed the boat when they didn't expand the monorail system, and now they're faced with a traffic nightmare." Indeed.

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Not bad for 1943
 Captain America: The First Avenger, 2011 (Movie, DVD)
Sickly Steve Rogers is transformed into super soldier Captain America in Marvel Comics' fifth superhero film. The story takes place in World War II, but is rich with science fiction gizmos including flying wings, super tanks, blaster ray-guns and yes, a fast monorail. Experience it in 3D Blu-Ray and you have yourself two hours of eye candy adventure.


Newspaper ad for fair fades to...

opening shot of Captain America's World's Fair sequence

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ReelSteelposter

Real Steel, 2011 (Movie, DVD)
In this film's version of the future, human boxers have been replaced by robots. Numerous scenes were filmed in Detroit, and in one quick pan-down shot a monorail was superimposed on the Detroit PeopleMover track. If you want to see the film just because there's a monorail in it, it's probably not worth it. Hugh Jackman stars as the former boxer, turned robot boxer controller Charlie Kenton.

ReelSteelMono
furthering the confusion over Detroit's Peoplemover, yet monorail on film
   

Did I miss anything? Of course I did, and that’s where you come in. If you’d like to share a TV episode, movie or DVD that has monorail that you think we missed, send an e-mail to monorailsociety@gmail.com. Keep in mind that we are picky though. For instance, the elevated trains of Metropolis and tube trains of Logan’s Run are not monorails (see our “What is a Monorail?” page). However, if it really is a monorail, we’ll certainly consider adding it to the list!

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