I'm glad it was a vague setting. Too many movies have New York City as the center of the universe.

I dunno man. Look at it the other way - take any movie that has a clear specific actual location, say, Chinatown's LA (or really any movie's real city). Now take away that specific location and turn it into something nondescript but keep everything else, and the movie will always suffer for it. So it stands to reason that if a movie that took place in a fake city was instead made real, it'd be the better for it.

I'm not saying that you're wrong but I'm having trouble understanding what you mean by its a lazy cheat. I feel its the opposite of a lazy cheat in storytelling. Without giving up the name of the city, they had to create their own universe. Wouldn't that be considered better writing and not cheating?

Examples?

I can't think of any movie that suffers if not given a real location. Fight Club didn't give away its location and it didn't suffer from it. I don't think Training Day did either. Maybe you disagree on that assesment but both those movies were generally liked and IMO if Fight Club had given a location the movie would have suffered from that.

Some movies would suffer without a real location. The previously mentioned Chinatown. Or Manhattan. Etc. But others work fine in "Any City, USA". Seven is one of those films.

LA do get lot of raining during the Winter.

Good point, but i thought the move has a New York feel in it.

I'm pretty sure, LA, more than any other city, is the inspiration for the movie since that's where the writer lived, and worked at the Tower Records on Sunset for the three years he took writing the movie.

French Lick, Indiana

Brilliant.

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They never mentioned what city The Matrix took place in. Though you could tell it was filmed in Chicago.

i really thought it resembled Seattle.

I thought Training Day specifically said it took place in LA. I know that the project in the "king Kong" scene is actually in LA, just not sure if it is named the same in the film.

They shot it all in Australia, but they used Chicago street names.

When Mills and Somerset meet the FBI guy in the dinner clearly in the background you can see New York Pizza.

New York City is the center of the universe.

There is no "New York Pizza" in New York. Only outside of New York is "New York Pizza" a selling point or brand name.

Chicago style pizza is better.

Slop thought it was lazy writing when Brazil, Dark City, and City of Lost Children never specified their location.

I've got three of those within five minutes of my office.

So it's settled, guys; "Se7en" takes place in Charlotte, NC. Mods can probably lock up the thread now.

In David Fincher and Andrew Walker's imagination. The level of Gothic decay looks more like something out of Blade Runner than anything else.

No.

Brazil - being in the future is all the context that one needs.

Dark City - spoilers, the whole point of the movie is that it's a fake city.

CoLC - always thought that was Paris, or around there.

And yes, (good) Chicago pizza trumps all pizza.

I always felt Seven had a 'New York' feel to it. John Doe's apartment building, the police station, even the diner. But when the train went by the couples' apartment, I thought of Chicago.

The last scene was jarring because it looks so much like the desert outside of L.A. I remember wondering if they had land like that out east. But it was just a passing thought as I got back into the movie.

Oh and Chicgo-style pizza should be named Italian meat pie.

The only cities in America that fit the bill are Springfield and Shelbyville, and it's clearly not Springfield since we never see the monorail.

http://www.erasingclouds.com/1029seven.html

In an interview with Cinefantastique magazine, Walker stated that the primary influence for the film's screenplay came from his time spent in New York City while trying to make it as a screenwriter.
"I didn't like my time in New York, but it's true that if I hadn't lived there I probably wouldn't have written Seven."