Hollywood, of course, is not merely a geographical location; it’s also a style, an attitude and an industry. But although the name Hollywood is synonymous with movie-making, it’s never had a monopoly. Even in its early days, a great many “Hollywood movies” were made in other parts of LA, and today the term seems to refer to a certain set of values and means of production, regardless of where in the world the movie is actually made.
And so, even if you’re walking through, say, Utah, you may still get the feeling that you’re in a Hollywood movie. A great many have been partly shot in and around the Moab area, the Arches, the Canyonlands: movies such as The Lone Ranger, Transformers: Age of Extinction, Nurse Betty, Rio Grande, Thelma and Louise, 127 Hours and a whole bunch of others. To be fair, not all these movies have (so to speak) foregrounded walking, but the landscape is always a major player. The viewer (or at least this viewer) often thinks, hey, that looks like a cool place to walk.
But if you're looking for a more singular place to go walking, why not head along the road a hundred or so miles from Moab, and go for a walk in the Goblin Valley State Park, like I did.
Yep, the rocks looks like goblin hats or mushrooms (and let’s face it, occasionally penises) as well as skulls, robot heads, ancient cities and whatnot. You will also be walking in one of the locations for Galaxy Quest, a movie that I absolutely love, though again, not for the walking per se.
You won’t be walking completely and utterly on your own in the Golblin Valley, though the “crowds” are pretty much non-existant once you get a couple of hundred yards away from the picnic area, but you will, in some sense or other, be walking in the footsteps of Sigourney Weaver.
There are worse footsteps to walk in, for sure.
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