This episode, Wesley Hyde and Harrison Neville discuss the iconic film “Big Fish” which was largely filmed in Alabama. The conversation largely centers around their visit to Jackson Island, which is where the abandoned movie set for Spectre, a key location in the film, can still be visited.
Their conversation touches on storytelling, family and the power of a legacy on the lives of those around us.
Transcript
Alabama Spotlight episodes are produced to be heard. The way we speak and the way we write are often very different, so this transcript has been edited for clarity. There may be slight differences between it and the audio version. If you notice any misspellings or errors with names, people or places, please shoot us an email at [email protected].
Harrison Neville
Hey everyone, this is Alabama spotlight casting a light on your next obsession. I’m Harrison Neville.
Wesley Hyde
I’m Wesley Hyde. Today, we are talking about Jackson Lake island in Millbrook, which is the home to a abandoned movie set for a town called Spectre which is from the movie Big Fish, which was filmed in 2003 here in Alabama. So before we start talking about the island and some of those details, let’s start with talking about the movie itself. Big Fish, so filmed in 2003 almost entirely in Alabama. I think they filmed for like a week over in France, but I think that’s the only part. It’s directed by Tim Burton. The leading man is obviously Iwan McGregor, so Obi-Wan is there for a little bit. So the main story, like going on here, is a man goes to see his ill father in his, I’d say probably last couple of days.
Harrison Neville
Yeah, it’s like it’s taking place maybe over a few days a week at most.
Wesley Hyde
And he’s trying to learn more about his father, who througout his upbringing, his father was a big storyteller, so he can’t really tell what parts of his stories are true and which ones aren’t, and that’s the main crux of the whole thing.
Harrison Neville
Yeah, it’s really about a young man in turmoil as he seeks to understand his aging father as he passes into the next life, the end of his life, and he’s trying to figure out who was this man who helped raise me but wasn’t really around that much and told these outlandish stories. Did you like the pizzazz I threw in? Just a little?
Wesley Hyde
No, Harrison is not an Edward Bloom. I will give him that.
Harrison Neville
Edward Bloom is the name of the father he’s it’s kind of weird because in some ways he’s the main character.
Wesley Hyde
He is, he is like he’s primarily the main character.
Harrison Neville
Yeah, but he’s the, story. We start with his son’s perspective, and his son is trying to learn the story of his father.
Wesley Hyde
Yeah, most of the movie is made up of, like flashbacks to, well, the stories themselves and his encounters with interesting characters and weird events, most of which are obviously a little overblown or definitely fictitious.
Harrison Neville
Right, yeah. It’s very clear that he took some creative liberties in his storytelling, and that’s kind of a point of contention between him and his son, yeah. And I just want to say I know where our main goal is to talk about specter and like the actual, you know what we saw, in addition to the movie, but I have to say I really liked this movie.
Wesley Hyde
It’s a fun movie.
Harrison Neville
Yeah, I didn’t think I was gonna like it this much like so we visited the town before we actually, you’d watch the movie before.
Wesley Hyde
I’ve seen it before.
Harrison Neville
You’d watched it before. But for me, I visited the town first, and then I watched the movie. So I was like, this town’s cool, but you know, I don’t know if I’m gonna like this movie. I’ll watch it because we need to for the podcast, but I don’t know if I like it.
Wesley Hyde
Yeah.
Harrison Neville
And then I watched it, and I really, really liked it.
Wesley Hyde
It’s definitely a lot more touching than I remembered it being, I guess, you know?
Harrison Neville
Yeah, yeah, it really, it hit me in some moments, it like, I got a little, I teared up, a little. I’m not ashamed to admit, I teared up. It was, there’s some really emotional, really sweet moments in that film.
Wesley Hyde
Yeah.
Harrison Neville
You know, it kind of reminded me; just gonna say this, because I find it interesting. If you’ve ever read The Princess Bride, have you read The Princess Bride?
Wesley Hyde
No.
Harrison Neville
Okay, you should read The Princess Bride, because it’s an amazing book. But if you’ve ever read The Princess Bride, it kind of reminds me of that, because you’ve got this odd mixture of, like, you have one story going on here, right where you’re, um, you’ve got the son visiting his father, and then you have this far more fantastical story that’s going on around it. Kind of like in The Princess Bride, you have, you have the char-
Harrison Neville
The Princess Bride is supposed to be an anthology, or not anthology. A, um, wow, the word is slipping out of my mind, but it’s an abridged, it’s supposed to be an abridged tale. That’s what the story if you read The Princess Bride book, it’s the author is pretending that he’s actually writing an abridged version of the actual Princess Bride story. And so throughout it, he’s, like, inserting bits about his time, trying to, like, research the history and cut out parts that were too flowery or long or just didn’t make sense to him. And like, meeting all these regal historians of this fictional place, and it’s this really fun, weird story, and you spend the whole time going, how much of this is because you’re like, is this real? Is the author messing with me? It’s fun, but that’s kind of what Big Fish reminded me of. I just had to make that connection. Also, if you haven’t read The Princess Bride, like Wes. So you should go read The Princess Bride. Like, it’s an amazing movie, and the book is fantastic. You should read it anyways, onto Big Fish.
Wesley Hyde
So, well, I mean, there’s not really much else to say. I mean, it’s definitely an enjoyable movie, mostly filmed here in Alabama. I don’t, I’m not really sure what scene was not filmed in-
Harrison Neville
besides Paris,
Wesley Hyde
yeah, yeah, I guess so. I don’t remember,
Harrison Neville
Yeah, what, well, before we talk about town, we should say, what was your favorite part of the movie?
Wesley Hyde
My favorite part of the movie?
Harrison Neville
Yeah, if you had to pick a moment.
Wesley Hyde
So earlier, it’s established that. Steve Buscemi. I don’t remember his actual name in the movie. Steve Buscemi is there. Edward Bloom, Ewan McGregor, same person who cares. They met earlier in the movie in the town of Specter, where both of them were kind of Edward wanted to leave. Steve Buscemi’s character did not want to leave, right? But eventually they both move on. So they meet up again outside in the rest of the world, in a bank. And while they’re kind of catching up, Steve Buscemi and his character is just telling him about how he’s been doing his travels and Edward is like, so what are you doing now? And he’s like, “Well, I’m robbing this place.” And then they, they robbed the bank, which has, like, maybe $400 at most in it.
Harrison Neville
Right?
Wesley Hyde
But, yeah, that’s, that’s a fun part.
Harrison Neville
That was a really funny part. I really enjoyed that moment.
Wesley Hyde
And the most impactful part, like emotionally, is the ending.
Harrison Neville
Agreed.
Wesley Hyde
Yeah.
Harrison Neville
Agreed, yeah. Yeah. I agree, yeah. The ending was, I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet, but the ending, is really powerful. I think we should, since we’re gonna be talking about, we should explain what the town of Spectre was in the movie. In the movie, the town of Spectre is this place that Edward Bloom, kind of just he stumbles upon when he leaves his hometown of Ashton, which is not real town. It’s Wetumpka. It’s filmed, all the Ashton scenes, pretty much are filmed in Wetumpka, Alabama. But he’s leaving his hometown, and he, along the, when he takes this pathway and it leads him into Spectre and it’s this town where everyone’s running around barefoot because no one ever wants to leave. You take your shoes and you throw them over the…
Wesley Hyde
it’s like a clothesline or something.
Harrison Neville
It’s like, a tall, like, it’s a tall line right in the front of town, and everyone has shoes hanging on it. A little girl actually throws his shoes over it and then, which makes his trip out of the town very painful.
Wesley Hyde
Yeah.
Harrison Neville
But everyone throws their shoes over because the town is so perfect that no one ever wants to leave. That’s the whole thing. Everyone is shocked when he’s like, I have to leave. I’ve got stuff to do, y’all, but this was really nice. Had fun. Pie was great.
Wesley Hyde
I’ll be back.
Harrison Neville
Yeah, he said I’ll be back. And he does come back. Um, should we mention, I guess, should we mention the whole coming back bit, or leave that for people to find out?
Wesley Hyde
I mean, its pretty important, but still, I think that’s something you should experience for yourself.
Harrison Neville
Okay.
Wesley Hyde
There is like one detail we’ll probably break up when we’re describing the town that is from later on in the movie. But it’s not, I mean, it is kind of like a big story, so expect like one spoiler, yeah, but, you know.
Harrison Neville
We’re trying to keep it spoiler light here.
Wesley Hyde
Yeah. So?
Harrison Neville
Okay, so that’s the town Specter.
Wesley Hyde
Yeah.
Harrison Neville
So our trip there,
Wesley Hyde
yeah, it’s a little north of Montgomery. It’s not, it’s a little out of the way in some spots.
Harrison Neville
Right.
Wesley Hyde
You definitely have to know where you’re going to find it. It’s not going to be like advertised or anything like that on like a road sign.
Harrison Neville
Yeah, the fee was, what was it? Was it five or 10 per person?
Wesley Hyde
Five bucks,
Harrison Neville
Five bucks per person?
Wesley Hyde
Mhmm
Harrison Neville
Okay, so five bucks per person fee. You did have to, and they have a little gate that you have to go through. You can pay online, or you can just put cash in the box. It’s a bit of an honor system. You should if you’re going, check the weather before you go, because it’s on an island, and the little road out there, if there’s a lot of rain, it can get completely flooded and make it impossible to actually get to the island. So make sure you actually check that. And they usually, they have a Facebook page, and they generally post if they’re gonna be closed because of the the road being closed off. But just make sure you keep that in mind if you’re trying to visit.
Wesley Hyde
I guess the best way to like describe the island itself is it’s just an island in the middle of the lake, really. That’s all it is. I think it’s, it’s like a campground. And you can take out your kayak if you want. There wasn’t anyone out there when we were doing it. I know when I went in the past, there have been people out on their kayaks, maybe fishing. But other than that, it’s just kind of like a, it’s just like a campground. That’s kind of all it is right now.
Harrison Neville
Right.
Wesley Hyde
So, but the big attraction, of course, is the abandon movie set. So they used the island for two places in the movie. So, the first place that shows up in the movie, like in order, is the haunted woods. The haunted woods is all gone now. It is torn down, except for two trees. So the thing that is left, except for those two trees, is the town itself of Spectre. It’s very interesting walking through it, because obviously, they’re not fully constructed buildings. They’re all basically empty. If you go around to the back of each building, you’ll notice that as soon as it’s like a part of the building that a camera would not see, they don’t do anything to it. They’re like, all the backs of the houses are just
Harrison Neville
plywood or boards just really bare,
Wesley Hyde
Just plain. It’s very interesting.
Harrison Neville
Yeah.
Wesley Hyde
It’s fun. All of the like, minor details on the house, like the bricks are just little, like, glued on.
Harrison Neville
Right, yeah, the bricks are actually, the bricks are, are peeling off because,
Wesley Hyde
yeah,
Harrison Neville
it’s like a, it’s like a wallpaper almost and there are places where you can see it peeling away from the houses.
Wesley Hyde
I mean, obviously they’re designed to just be, like, quick throw up things, but there is a lot of detail put into the spots that would be seen on camera. And there are, like, a good few of them are constructed with interesting like, the roofs are pretty, like, intricate and, the porches and the fronts are all pretty well built. And then there’s the big church, like set piece at the end of the like row of houses. And of course, the line that the shoes get thrown over is still there, and it has
Harrison Neville
so many shoes.
Wesley Hyde
Too many.
Harrison Neville
Yeah.
Wesley Hyde
That line will eventually break. I feel. There are probably hundreds of shoes thrown across that. It’s sagging. It’s sagging pretty good.
Harrison Neville
Yeah, there are considerably more shoes than were in the movie. They have people have been throwing shoes up there for years now. It’s clear. I will add just about the two trees that are left from the haunted, was it the haunted forest is that was called?
Wesley Hyde
The haunted forest. Yeah. I don’t think it really had a name. It was just like those woods over there are haunted
Harrison Neville
Yeah, yeah. Well, they, they look really cool. Like, that was one of my favorite things, was just looking at those trees, because from a distance, they just look like the rest of the trees in the area. They look like trees from a distance. Once you get close, it’s very obvious.
Wesley Hyde
Yeah, they stand out a lot.
Harrison Neville
Yeah.
Wesley Hyde
They’ve got like a concrete slab in the middle of them.
Harrison Neville
Right, and they’re falling apart. But, like, just initial impressions from afar, you wouldn’t realize they were fake, and they’re really well constructed. Like, I was like, wow, this is cool. And they’ve also considering how long they’ve been there, it’s been like, what, 20 years now they’ve they’re holding up pretty well.
Wesley Hyde
There is one thing you’ll notice when you’re walking through though all of the houses across the doors and underneath have wiring across, and that’s because the island has just become entirely inhabited by goats.
Harrison Neville
Right.
Wesley Hyde
When I went previously, there were a lot more. There were fewer this time than I remember. But there are a lot of goats. There were there are a lot of them, and they’re all they’ll just walk up to you to check out what you got no food on us. So they didn’t really care that much.
Harrison Neville
Well, I had a little food on me, but they didn’t care that they they did, um,
Wesley Hyde
I don’t think they can smell like crackers through the packaging.
Harrison Neville
Yeah, one of them did end up eating an orange peel that I had. I was holding an orange peel after I had a clementine for a snack. I ate it, and then I was still holding the peel and a goat ate it. But I’m pretty sure there’s nutrition, nutritional value, or something in that. Fair warning, the town does smell like a barn.
Wesley Hyde
It does. That is where they live. They have probably found their way into each and every one of those, like fake little houses. I think they mostly live in the old like, fake church,
Harrison Neville
yeah, because it smells strongest, right there.
Wesley Hyde
Yeah, you can.
Harrison Neville
It is very strong,
Wesley Hyde
Yeah. So if you do plan to make a trip, just be ready for that.
Harrison Neville
But the goats are really fun.
Wesley Hyde
Yeah, they’re fun.
Harrison Neville
Like, we had fun just sitting there
Wesley Hyde
They’re goats, yeah.
Harrison Neville
I mean, if you don’t, who doesn’t like goats, it’s fun. You sit there. You. Pet goats. And they, you know, they let you, they, um, they really like being petted.
Wesley Hyde
They didn’t show any aggression,
Harrison Neville
No, none whatsoever. They’re very friendly and very much, like, honestly, they seem to mostly just want head pets,
Wesley Hyde
Yeah.
Harrison Neville
Like, they’re kind of just, like, weird looking dogs. You know?
Wesley Hyde
You could say that.
Harrison Neville
I would say that, I just did.
Wesley Hyde
I was gonna say I was wrong, because there is a third place in the movie that is on the island, but also it is part of the town.
Harrison Neville
Oh, yeah, that’s true.
Wesley Hyde
So, besides the main stretch of Spectre and the entrance to the forbidden forest, or whatever its name is. Who cares? There’s a character that is established when he first visits, Jenny, and when he comes back, he revisits her at her house, where that has become a little disrepaired.
Harrison Neville
Yeah.
Wesley Hyde
So they had actually built this house on like, the edge of the lake, but if you go to visit it now, you will not see a house. You will see the stilts The house was built on, but you will not see the house. And if you look over to your little wherever you’re standing, maybe you’re right, maybe you’re left, there’s a sign. It’ll describe, oh, this is what. This was a storm blew it over. It’s gone. It’s a little ironic, due to some of the details in the movie that you’d have to watch to see but, yeah,
Harrison Neville
Yeah, looking back having, like, actually, now watched the movie because, like I said, I visited first, then watch the movie. Looking back it, it makes me laugh a little bit. There’s a lot of irony in Jenny’s house being blown away in a storm.
Wesley Hyde
Yeah, a little bit.
Harrison Neville
In general, just talking about the island in general, it’s, it was a fun place to walk around. We we did a circuit around it. There’s some nice there’s a nice little walking path that just takes you along. There’s some really unique tables made out of like, concrete.
Wesley Hyde
There are there were also just these long, just like, they looked like beams, like you’d have for construction, but they were entirely made of concrete, and they were, like, 10s of multiple, 10s of feet long. I don’t even know what they’d be used for, because they’re just sitting out there in the middle of the island.
Harrison Neville
It was really random. We both were like, that’s strange.
Wesley Hyde
Yeah, there’s, like, some in the middle. There was some on like the edges, like on the part of the island we didn’t really walk to because there wasn’t anything really over there.
Harrison Neville
Yeah.
Wesley Hyde
It was weird.
Harrison Neville
It was very strange, yeah. Um, there also is a nice little pavilion they have over there. Um, there’s a traffic what else they have, a little like, play around kind of area.
Wesley Hyde
Yeah,
Harrison Neville
there was this cool looking tree house thing, but the ladder to it was rotted away, so
Wesley Hyde
it’s probably not the safest thing to get on.
Harrison Neville
Yeah, yeah. Little disappointed by that, because it looked fun, but, yeah, that’s, that’s really it like, it’s got some benches you can sit on, and it’s just pretty, like,
Wesley Hyde
it’s a nice little spot. It’s definitely a little more relaxed. It’s not like a state park where they have, like, a bunch of stuff you could probably go do, right?
Harrison Neville
But if you just want to go kayak, you know, hang out with friends, go a nice little camping trip and get to hang out with goats, I’d say it’s worth it, you know, and at the very least, it’s worth swinging by, because it was cool to get to see an old movie set like that, so preserved. And even more so, I imagine, if you’ve watched big fish like I I’m really happy that I went and saw the set now having seen the movie, because, like I said, I really enjoyed the movie, and it’s kind of cool to have that connection and to be like, Yeah, here it is. Here’s the town of Specter. I visited that place, you know? Yeah, yeah.
Wesley Hyde
Were there any other things that you noticed in the movie? Like, I know you brought up the town, like, the courthouse.
Harrison Neville
Yeah, another really cool thing about Spectre, or not Spectre, but Big Fish, is that so the town of Ashton is fictional, but they filmed most of the Ashton scenes. All that I could tell they filmed those in Wetumpka, Alabama. For those of you who read some of our other work, you might remember that Wetumpka was a stop for two of the Alabama Rambles done by Wesley Miller. So I went with Wesley for those, and it was pretty neat. So I’ve seen the big fish, the famous big fish house, which is in the movie that’s just the home of Edward Bloom. It’s the house where his son comes and visits him and is talking to him about, you know, all this, and you’re having all these flashbacks. So I’ve seen that house. You can’t go inside. It’s a private residence now, but I met the owner. She’s really cool, really nice lady. They also, a lot of the scenes are filmed in front of, like, the courthouse. House, the Elmore County Courthouse is, you know, they have this big scene where the mayor gives Edward bloom the key to the city before he leaves Ashton. And that’s filmed right there the bridge. There’s several scenes featuring a bridge in the movie, and that’s all the Bibb Graves Bridge, which is in Wetumpka, connects the two sides the town.
Wesley Hyde
They didn’t use the meteor site.
Harrison Neville
They didn’t use the meteor site. That’s a little disappointing. They didn’t find a way to use the meteor site. But yeah, Wetumpka is the site of a meteor hitting Alabama 85 million years ago, I think. But no, that wasn’t in Big Fish. They left that out. But yeah, no it was, that was really cool. I just it’s fun to be able to go, Yeah, this movie, I can, like, point to these sites, and it felt a little more grounded than other places, because Alabama is a common place to film movies. A lot of our, apparently, a lot of our, like, tax
Wesley Hyde
There are cuts,
Harrison Neville
yeah,
Wesley Hyde
they make cuts for filming.
Harrison Neville
Yeah. So it’s really friendly to
Wesley Hyde
and if you hire local, like people to help film, they do that.
Harrison Neville
Okay, so there you go. It’s like a really good place for movie filming, but it’s not oftentimes it’s like filmed in Alabama, but it’s not about Alabama, like it’s a movie about somewhere else, or it’s not really clear where it is, but it’s not specifically centric to Alabama. This movie was about Alabama. Like Edward Bloom’s story is, he’s an Alabama person, traveling around the state and other places. He does go. He does go other places, but he’s traveling around mostly Alabama. They visit Auburn as well at one point. Yeah, I think that was actually, was I actually filmed at Auburn?
Wesley Hyde
I’m not sure,
Harrison Neville
Yeah, we should have looked that up, but I imagine
Wesley Hyde
it might have been that is, yeah.
Harrison Neville
So yeah, it’s, it’s just fun to have a movie so intrinsically tied to Alabama and also filmed here.
Wesley Hyde
Spectre is a place to check out. I That’s 100% what I’d say. How about you?
Harrison Neville
I would 100%, percent agree. Spectre’s worth checking out. Watch Big Fish. Visit Spectre. I mean, if you want to make a whole trip of it, visit Spectre, visit Wetumpka, you can, you know, kind of make we should have a little someone should put together a little map of Alabama, like, here you go. Here’s the Big Fish sites. Go visit Spectre. Wetumpka and Auburn. You’ll have seen most of Big Fish.
Wesley Hyde
You know, you don’t even have to watch movie at that point.
Harrison Neville
Yeah, you just learn everything about and skip watching it. No, no, you should definitely watch it. It was fun. Oh, Wes You never asked me what my favorite part of the movie was.
Wesley Hyde
I thought I did.
Harrison Neville
No, did you?
Wesley Hyde
Well, I thought I did. But go ahead and say.
Harrison Neville
I think my favorite part was the very beginning where he starts talking about the Big Fish that Edward bloom talks a lot about, this fish he was trying to catch. I really like that. And I like his son talking also the beginning about how he’s trying to tell the story of his dad’s life. And he said, I’m he’s going to tell it the way it was told to him. And he can’t really separate truth from fiction here, because you could never separate that with his dad. And I just really like the opening there, where it’s just like, up from the beginning, it’s like, yeah, good luck figuring out what’s true and what’s not here in this movie. Have fun. It’s, it’s, I don’t know, it’s interesting, and it’s just this really interesting reflection on, I guess, older people, parents in your life, trying to figure out who people actually were. You know?
Wesley Hyde
Storytelling and legacy.
Harrison Neville
Storytelling and legacy, yeah, I guess that’s ultimately what it really is about. Its storytelling and legacy. Yeah, because at the end, it talks about him kind of becoming his own mythos within his family, yeah, but yeah, that’s everything about Spectre, Big Fish, and a little mention to a little shout out to the town of Wetumpka.
Wesley Hyde
Yeah.
Harrison Neville
We hope you enjoyed listening.
Wesley Hyde
All right. Well, thank you.
Harrison Neville
All right, till next time everyone.
Harrison Neville
This has been Alabama spotlight. Alabama spotlight is a production of the sunrise news. This episode was hosted by Wesley Hyde and Harrison Neville. The episode was produced and edited by Wesley Hyde. The sunrise news is an Alabama nonpartisan news source dedicated to delivering news to Alabamians and celebrating the best parts of Alabama. You can learn more about the sunrise news on our website and subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date with news across the state. Follow us on Spotify, stay up to date with our podcasts, and make sure to check out our social media. We hope you enjoyed this episode, and thank you for listening. We’ll see you again soon.
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