culture
Where Falling Skies was filmed in Toronto
It's the closest Steven Spielberg has got to shooting a movie in our city.
Toronto’s extensive work on the silver screen reveals that, while we have the chameleonic ability to look like anywhere from New York City to Moscow, the disguise doesn’t always hold up to scrutiny. Reel Toronto revels in digging up and displaying the films that attempt to mask, hide, or—in rare cases—proudly display our city.
We don’t take it personally, but Steven Spielberg has never shot a movie in our fair burg. However, that isn’t to say he’s never left his cinematic mark. It was about five years ago he executive produced Falling Skies, which was several years ahead of The Strain in turning our region into a post-apocalyptic war zone between human beings and icky invaders. In subsequent seasons, the series went west to Vancouver (like the short-lived Minority Report, another Spielberg descendant that briefly visited Toronto) but the first season is all ours.
When the aliens invade, the damage they do is region-wide. In the first episode, for example…
…we find ourselves here, outside this bandshell…
…in Oshawa’s Memorial Park.
Then we’re way at the other end of the GTA…
…outside Hamilton’s Liuna Station, with erstwhile ER doctor Noah Wyle.
Also in Hamilton is this street scene, on Barton Street, near Sherman.
Finally in town, we think this orderly evacuation was shot in Swansea…
…while this field hospital was shot out behind Cinespace’s Kipling Avenue facility.
A key location seen throughout the season…
…is this school…
…the since-demolished Alderwood Collegiate, in Etobicoke.
This auditorium was there as well.
Back out in the suburbs, this camp was out in Vaughan, off Rutherford Road.
And this cul-de-sac base is also in that cookie-cutter haven.
This “armoury” may be familiar to Junction residents as the hydro substation, on Ruskin Avenue.
Episode three features an extended action sequence on and below this rooftop…
…which the buildings in the distance allowed us to triangulated as this storage facility…
…also in the Junction, on Alpine Avenue.
We’re not sure precisely where but this abandoned cycle dealership…
…is out in Scarborough, looking like it backs onto a hydro corridor, maybe.
This bridge, beneath which aliens lurk, looks like it’s out in the country somewhere, but it’s actually right near Casa Loma, in Winston Churchill Park.
And as fast as that, we’re back out in the burbs. This ranch is (or at least was) somewhere out in Brampton, on Creditview.
While yet another in a series of abandoned culs-de-sac appears, this one in Etobicoke.
Hey, it’s some solid Cancon, in the form of Henry Czerny!
And, hey, Bruce Gray!
Anyway, yeah, that suburban location pops up again a couple of episodes later, where we can just make out the street signs are Valermo Drive, right near Alderwood C.I.
More spooky suburbs, this time we’re patrolling out in the wilds of Mississauga, on Parker Drive.
If aliens hiding under a bridge didn’t float your boat, maybe you’ll dig aliens right out in the open…
…on the Queen Street bridge.
And also back in town, it’s our old friend, the Hearn Generating Station!
And still in the 6ix, albeit a more remote part…
…this highway outside “Boston” is really Meadowvale Road. That bridge takes you into the parking lot at the zoo and the barn is even still there.
Alas, Falling Skies sputtered out of existence a couple of years ago. In the interim, of course, we had Guillermo del Toro bring his even more substantial invasion story to town, so fair trade.
