Vasquez Rocks: LA’s most famous rock formation
The most famous rock in the greater Los Angeles area is undoubtedly Dwayne Johnson after the former professional wrestler became one of the biggest and highest-paid stars in Hollywood, but if there was ever a debate over what gets to be number two, then Vasquez Rocks has got it locked down.
Rugged terrains have been the staple of sci-fi and fantasy since the advent of the moving image, while plenty of arid sun-baked dramas have needed the vast nothingness of the driest land imaginable to add an extra sense of plight to their already put-upon protagonists. Whenever that situation arises in a screenplay and then a shooting schedule, Vasquez Rocks is never too far behind.
Admittedly, it took a while for the geographic mainstays to gain mainstream stardom, with 25 million years or so elapsing from their first appearance on the planet to a first tilt at cinematic success. From there, though, pretty much anyone to have watched a movie or TV show will have spied Vasquez Rocks at least a handful of times, whether they even realise it or not.
Located in the Sierra Pelona mountain range in Los Angeles County, the isolation has also played a key part in ensuring a never-ending stream of camera crews descend upon the area to capture footage. Thanks to its close proximity to both Hollywood and its boundary within the 30-mile ‘studio zone’ radius that surrounds Hollywood and makes it eligible to provide employee benefits for work performed in and around the area, too, productions haven’t been able to stay away from Vasquez Rocks since the 1930s.
What do Star Trek: The Original Series, Kiefer Sutherland’s 24, and Lou Ferrigno’s The Incredible Hulk have in common? Not a damn thing, other than the fact each of them shot at Vasquez. In fact, the most famous rock formation hasn’t only been dubbed ‘Kirk’s Rock’ in homage to William Shatner, but it was also seen again in The Next Generation, Voyager, Enterprise, and Picard to make it something of a pilgrimage site for fans of the franchise.
Tod Browning’s seminal Dracula with Bela Lugosi, Mike Myers’ Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, Tim Burton’s ill-fated Planet of the Apes remake, Tom Ford’s romantic drama A Single Man, Charlton Heston’s The Ten Commandments, and the single biggest box office bomb in the history of cinema have all pitched up at Vasquez Rocks to shoot at least a scene or two, underlining the breadth in terms of both tenure and variety to which the region has been contributing to cinema.
Even Galaxy Quest – once voted one of the best Star Trek movies ever made by fans of Star Trek – boldly went where several of the spacefaring saga’s movies and TV shows had gone before by using Vasquez Rocks as a location, making it one of Hollywood’s hottest hotspots both figuratively and literally.