Independance Day and... urban sprawl?

After staring at a computer screen for about 6 hours yesterday, I came home and mindlessly flipped through channels- and stopped for a bit on Independence Day, the horrible Will Smith flick dating back from 1996.

First a small rant.... so Will Smith sees large city-sized UFOs floating over Los Angeles, and being the ready Marine that he is, he gets dressed into dress uniform before heading down to the base, where he quickly enters the locker room to change into approximately what he had on at home. I just hate movies that try to be realistic, but are not.

Ok, so for the real observation here.... Will Smith's charachter is stationed out of El Toro Marine base, located in Tustin, Ca (so I'm not sure why he had a beautiful house that appeared to be in Malibu, but I'll drop that). There is a scene where a large group of alien ships come by and blow the shit out of the base... but what really caught my eye was the scenery surrounding the base, assuming the filming was actually done AT El Toro (stretch maybe?). But there was NOTHING. I mean.... nothing. It looked like it was in the middle of a desert. I ride through this base every Tuesday and Thursday morning.... it is completly and utterly surrounded by housing and the sprawl of shopping malls and shit now. The movie was only 12 years ago. A quick consult with google maps satellite shows that whenever they took those photos, only about half the sprawl was there (the other half is clearly already under construction- all the ground is leveled off and roads are there).

On the upside, though, the base has been decomissioned, and is on its way to being the largest urban park in the country.... though comparing it to Central Park is just... wrong... because they are very different- Central Park is surrounded by... buildings and ... culture, not just Starbucks and Target superstores.