BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 » It isn't Christmas at all?

Rache · April 29, 2016 5:30 pm

Hey, there is this thing in my head for months now and I'd like to have your opinion on it.

Maybe it's just some small detail and not of relevance but you never know...
It is so straight in your face that I wonder why noone seemed to have noticed it. At least I didn't read about it anywhere. So when they all are at Sherlock's parents' house for Christmas and especially when Sherlock and John are heading for Appledore with the helicopter you can see that the vegetation is all green, like it is not winter season at all. I really mean at all. It isn't December, more like, I don't know, August?

If this is due to filming reasons and mentioned in an interview or behind the scenes I haven't said a word and you can forget it. :D
It's just I don't like to think the producers could be so careless. I mean, they even managed a snowy Baker Street in A Scandal in Belgravia for example. This also means they are, generally spoken, aware of the time of the year. At least when mentioned directly, which is the case here.

The scenes in front of the Holme's house I'm not certain. It COULD be possible these plants around are some evergreens. But it can't be when they fly off to Appledore. The surrounding fields look as though the crop is ready, all trees are green and you can even see an oak tree as a close up fully covered in green leaves.

This image I could find online: (How can I include an image directly from my PC here??? I could show you the oak then...)

Is it just a movie mistake? As I said, I can't believe they could be this careless. AND in the shots where you can see best that it is more summer than winter there is no Martin or Ben on screen. So no problem to do some helicopter shots a few months earlier or later without them.

The question remaining is: why?
1. It could still be due to some filming reasons.
2. Or: There is something more going on. Like Sherlock being in his mind palace for whatever reason? In TAB Mycroft mentions this thing (don't know how it is called in english :D), you know what I mean: that the axis of the earth is tilted... And we all know this is resulting in the four seasons. So could this have anything to do with each other? Sherlock not realising that it isn't Christmas? Remember that he also didn't know the earth is going round the sun...
It could all be nonsense and I can't see where this could be leading but what do you think?

SusiGo · April 29, 2016 10:06 pm

Oh, this is intriguing. You are absolutely right, even in a comparably mild English climate December should not really be that green. Anyone English around here to help us out? I know that a German December usually does not look like that. Sure, they filmed the episode in August but there would have been various possibilities to make it look more Christmassy. I once wrote a meta about parts of HLV being mind palace and this might be an indication.

So, dear natives, does England look like that in December?

Whisky · April 30, 2016 7:22 am

Wow, that's interesting. Never saw it!

Maybe they counted on nobody realising. The scene is so dramatic, everyones attention is elsewhere.

I did notice it at Sherlock's parents house. But I thought it was an english thing. In my mind, England is always green .

But I know from first hand experience that yes, even english trees eventually loose their leaves in december

The mind palace, I'm not sure. Then Sherlock could also imagine the proper season. Or do you mean like it's just a hint to the viewers? I'm not so sure more mind palace makes sense, actually. The story since TAB is complex enough as it is, imo :-)

besleybean · April 30, 2016 7:58 am

The team talk about it extensively on the DVD commentary.
The landscape shouldn't be green at all.
But despite my considering the Sherlock team to be living gods...even they cannot control the climate.
They filmed in Spring and Summer and not a lot they could do about that.
They took as many measures as the budget would allow.
Having a helicopter flight unfortunately highlighted the unseasonal landscape!

Liberty · April 30, 2016 8:10 am

Well spotted! I'm a native ... I'd expect deciduous trees to have shed their leaves in December.

I remember talking ages ago on here about it being slightly odd that Sherlock would spend so long in hospital even after such a serious injury (no complications were mentioned), assuming he was shot shortly after a May wedding (if it really was May!) and taking Mrs Holmes' comment to mean that he's only just been discharged in late December. It would make more sense if he was discharged earlier, before winter.

But that leaves either everybody pretending it's Christmas, or the whole thing being mind palace ... or possibly everything has been a dream after Sherlock got shot. I hope not! I suspect it's maybe just to do with the timing of filming - that they did all the filiming at once and they didn't think it necessary to CGI it, or film the scene in winter. I think it's possible, because there have been other things which look a little "careless", to be honest (even in excellent TV/film).

While I don't want it to be mind palace (anything can happen in dreams or mind palace, and I prefer it to be based around something more concrete), it would mean that Magnussen could come back, which I would love!

tonnaree · April 30, 2016 1:10 pm

I admit that never even occurred to me. As mentioned above, I was so wrapped up in the drama at that point the grass could've been blue and I wouldn't have noticed!

besleybean · April 30, 2016 2:51 pm

(Still suffering internet issues).
I was going to make a similar comment: the beautiful reconciliation scene, followed by the family drugging...who noticed the environment?!

SolarSystem · April 30, 2016 3:17 pm

We had a similar 'problem' in ASIB, when John leaves 221B on New Year's Eve and you can see green trees in the background. It's pretty blurry, but it's definitely green. And considering the fact that we just had a white Christmas a few scenes earlier, this almost looks like spring.

SusiGo · April 30, 2016 3:17 pm

I admit I was always too shocked by the reconciliation scene which I do not find beautiful at all to pay attention to the vegetation. But once seen I cannot unsee it anymore.

besleybean · April 30, 2016 3:18 pm

Yeah I noticed it once the team pointed it out, but it bothers me not.

mrshouse · April 30, 2016 5:04 pm

SusiGo wrote:
I admit I was always too shocked by the reconciliation scene which I do not find beautiful at all to pay attention to the vegetation. But once seen I cannot unsee it anymore.

Same here.

Harriet · April 30, 2016 5:14 pm

I was too distracted by the reconciliation scene which I found pretty weird and which made me wtf a long time

However, I tend to believe it was rather due to filming schedule, given how busy the actors were in those days.

besleybean · April 30, 2016 5:16 pm

I'm sure it was because of lack of funds, that they could not CGI the whole of winter away.

kgreen20 · April 30, 2016 8:30 pm

SolarSystem wrote:
We had a similar 'problem' in ASIB, when John leaves 221B on New Year's Eve and you can see green trees in the background. It's pretty blurry, but it's definitely green. And considering the fact that we just had a white Christmas a few scenes earlier, this almost looks like spring.

They also had the same problem when they filmed ASIP. It was supposed to be near the end of January when John first met Sherlock, yet in the park, the grass was green and there were leaves on the bushes when John and Mike met first.

nakahara · April 30, 2016 8:32 pm

It´s Christmas after an extreme climate change, of course!
In Sherlock´s world it´s only a bit more advanced that in our real world - but even here, winters get warmer and warmer...

nakahara · April 30, 2016 8:35 pm

kgreen20 wrote:
SolarSystem wrote:
We had a similar 'problem' in ASIB, when John leaves 221B on New Year's Eve and you can see green trees in the background. It's pretty blurry, but it's definitely green. And considering the fact that we just had a white Christmas a few scenes earlier, this almost looks like spring.
They also had the same problem when they filmed ASIP. It was supposed to be near the end of January when John first met Sherlock, yet in the park, the grass was green and there were leaves on the bushes when John and Mike met first.

In TRF, Sherlock´s suicide is supposed to take place in the summer (children have summer holyday when Bruhl´s kids get kidnapped), yet Sherlock wears heavy winter cloak and people are dressed quite warmly in the streets too... and it generally looks more like November than June...

besleybean · April 30, 2016 9:08 pm

And that's nothing compared to some supposed London streets suddenly being relocated to Wales!

Mattlocked · April 30, 2016 10:02 pm

Oh, I didn't really read nor comment on this post (sorry, Rache) because I thought we had already discussed it thoroughly.
Hm.... now it seems I only heared about it in the comments.

Last edited by Mattlocked (April 30, 2016 10:03 pm)

Rache · April 30, 2016 10:52 pm

nakahara wrote:
kgreen20 wrote:
SolarSystem wrote:
We had a similar 'problem' in ASIB, when John leaves 221B on New Year's Eve and you can see green trees in the background. It's pretty blurry, but it's definitely green. And considering the fact that we just had a white Christmas a few scenes earlier, this almost looks like spring.
They also had the same problem when they filmed ASIP. It was supposed to be near the end of January when John first met Sherlock, yet in the park, the grass was green and there were leaves on the bushes when John and Mike met first.
In TRF, Sherlock´s suicide is supposed to take place in the summer (children have summer holyday when Bruhl´s kids get kidnapped), yet Sherlock wears heavy winter cloak and people are dressed quite warmly in the streets too... and it generally looks more like November than June...

True... there have been some other occasions where the timeline doesn't fit. This one was the most noticable to me because John says 'but it's Christmas' and then, BAM, ten seconds later they fly over green fields and trees.

AND I don't like the idea of it being mind palace/dream either. I am imagining that it could be possible but I think this would do no good to the show if suddenly everything could be mind palace without giving the viewer the chance to be aware of it. ;)

besleybean · May 1, 2016 7:23 am

No, I think this is meant to be real.
Though possibly some viewers wish the whole scene was a dream.