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dc - Can we deduce the location of Metropolis by where the World Engine landed in the Indian Ocean?


In Man of Steel, (spoilers)



Zod unleashes the World Engine and sends it to the opposite side of the planet from Metropolis.



Can we deduce the real-world location of Metropolis based upon where the other piece was? Is the location on the shore of the Indian Ocean distinctive enough that we could discover where the opposite point on the Earth is? Maybe a specific place where that particular type of fishing is most common.


Anyway, it would be interesting if we could discover the location of The Big Apricot this way.



Answer



Using this map tool, I ran along the entire shoreline of the Indian Ocean. If you went straight through the earth, most of the time you would end up in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The only place I found that actually has land on the other side is on the Western shore of Indonesia, which puts you in Venezuela or Colombia if you went straight through the earth.



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Metropolis does not appear to be located in South America, given the U.S. Military presence there, and the apparently short time for Colonel Hardy to fly from Kansas to the other end of the Kryptonian's ship, so this is likely an creative license. In fact, due to the size of the Pacific Ocean, there are not many places on Earth where there is land on precisely the opposite sides of the globe.


You could try to explain this using the equatorial bulge (which makes the point farthest from the Earth's center Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador, not far from the proposed "other side of Venezuala/Colombia), but this would not shift Metropolis all the way into the United States. Suffice to say, this is an error in plot, though one that most people probably won't think about.


(there is an Island that is at the extreme south of the Indian Ocean that is directly "under" the Montana, U.S. - Canada border, but it has no permanent or indigenous inhabitants - only researchers and military personnel, making it unlikely they would be fishing like the movie portrays)


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