Val Verde is a fictional country or city used by Hollywood filmmakers (mostly 20th Century Fox) when they require a South/Central American locale without getting into legal or diplomatic disputes. The name translates as "Green Valley", as "Val" is an apocope of "valle", the Spanish word for "valley".[1]
Appearances
It has appeared in a number of films and television programs:
- Commando (1985), Arius (Dan Hedaya) is the former ruler of Val Verde and sends John Matrix (Arnold Schwarzenegger) to kill the current president but he escapes en route.[2] In the movie, the country is 11 hours flight from Los Angeles International Airport, which places it approximately 5500 miles from California and is likely to be near Chile, Paraguay or Brazil.
- According to the novelization of the 1987 film Predator, Alan "Dutch" Schaeffer's (Arnold Schwarzenegger) rescue team is sent to Val Verde ostensibly to rescue an American politician. However, in Predators (2010), Isabelle (Alice Braga) states that the events of the original film took place in Guatemala.
- Supercarrier (1988) the USS Georgetown commanded by Capt. Henry K. 'Hank' Madigan (Dale Dye) docks in Val Verde just as civil war breaks out.
- Die Hard 2 (1990), General Ramon Esperanza (Franco Nero) is from Val Verde.
- Adventure Inc. (2003), Episode 10 of Season 1 was titled "Plague Ship of Val Verde".[3]
- Jurassic Attack (2013)
Shared personnel link all appearances. Commando, Die Hard 2 and Adventure Inc. were written by Steven E. de Souza, Commando and Predator both star Schwarzenegger, and both films, along with Die Hard 2, were produced by Joel Silver; de Souza produced the ABC TV series Supercarrier.
Steven de Souza has also set the Devil's Due comic book Sheena in Val Verde and described his reason for using it:[4]
It's something like Guyana, a country which encompasses lush Caribbean resorts popular with tourists, an unexplored mysterious rainforest, and a mix of Anglo, Spanish, African, Creole and indigenous cultures. This is a country of the imagination I've used in several films and TV programs, which I thought was my little inside baseball joke, but Eric Lichtenfield, the author of 'Actions Speak Louder,' recently sent me a Wikipedia page on it! Seriously, my Dad's family is from that part of the world and it's something I can write about with some familiarity.
Portrayal
Val Verde has principally been used as a plot device or location in place of real Latin American countries in action and adventure movies, as a particular result of the United States' rocky relations with many nations in the region during the 1980s.
When glimpsed in Commando, it appears to be a poor nation, where subsistence agriculture (i.e. livestock) is side-by-side with military propaganda and constant military presence. Inhabitants appear poor but happy, and there is evidence of a trade embargo reminiscent of that placed on Cuba in the presence of battered but functional vintage 1950s cars.
While the meaning, if any, of the name of the fictional Val Verde is not definitively established, many real-life places named Val Verde derive their names from the Spanish for "green valley".
Politics
In Commando, Val Verde is presided over by President Velázquez, an apparent puppet leader installed by an American-backed revolution assisted by Colonel John Matrix (Schwarzenegger) and Captain Bennett (Vernon Wells), during which the nefarious General Arius was deposed. Bennett later aligns himself with Arius when Matrix discharges him for disregard for order, and they force Matrix to help him reinstate Arius' dictatorship, but are thwarted when Matrix fights back and kills them all.
In Predator, the country is described as being invaded by communist inspired revolutionaries. The rebel camp attacked by the team has at least one "Russian Advisor".
In Die Hard 2, General Ramon Esperanza (Franco Nero) is a General in exile, awaiting trial in the United States. He is aided by former special forces members to escape from his prison plane (prior to landing, Esperanza himself strangles his prison guard and steals his handcuff key and gun, then shoots both of the pilots and takes the controls). Esperanza is wanted by the U.S. government for drug trafficking, but the leader of the rogue special forces unit, Colonel Stuart (William Sadler), wishes to free Esperanza because he "stands up to communist aggression", and takes over Washington Dulles International Airport's air traffic control systems to rescue Esperanza.
In Supercarrier a US Navy carrier is present in Val Verde when civil war breaks out and is forced to step in; this violation of Pentagon protocol, though entirely fictional, precipitated the withdrawal of Navy participation from the series.
Locations
As well as studio shots, other locations have been used to portray Val Verde on film:
- The entrance to Long Beach Airport's passenger terminal was used for Val Verde's main airport in Commando.
- San Pedro, California was used for the port of Val Verde on Supercarrier, while Valencia, California stood in for the countryside.
- Puerto Vallarta had previous appeared in The Night of the Iguana and was used as the principal filming location for Predator, despite the objections of John McTiernan and Donald McAlpine. The early beach shots were taken at Puerto Vallarta and jungle scenes were shot slightly further inland. When more money was released by Fox, McTiernan was able to shoot in his preferred location around Palenque (including the Misol-Ha waterfall) and about half of the final film came from this round of shooting.[5]
Legacy
The comedy group Elephant Larry made a series of comedy sketches about the country of Val Verde. The sketches take place between the scenes and off-camera during the film Predator.
The Predatoroonops genus of spiders, named after the spiders' similarity to the Predator himself, has a species named Predatoroonops valverde.[6]
Comedian Steve Hofstetter referenced Val Verde in one of his Edward Snowden parody videos, having Snowden say "I was just kind of hoping you guys were a real country."[7]
See also
Notes
- ^ "Diccionario de la lengua española" (in Spanish). Real Academia Española. Retrieved 12 October 2012.
- ^ "Commando". fast-rewind.com. 1985-10-04. Retrieved 2011-07-20.
- ^ "Plague Ship of Val Verde" at IMDb
- ^ Return of the Queen: de Souza Talks "Sheena", Comic Book Resources, January 7, 2008
- ^ Beautiful Monsters: The Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to the Alien and Predator Films (footnote 34, page 148, by David A. McIntee, Telos, 272 pages, 2005, ISBN 1-903889-94-4)
- ^ Brescovit, Bonaldo, Santos, Ott & Rheims, 2012 : The Brazilian goblin spiders of the new genus Predatoroonops (Araneae, Oonopidae). Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, n. 370, pp. 29-31. Page accessed on January 12, 2013
- ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WXGbJVbOFY