S01E11 — The Polar Express
SPOILER ALERT: This episode and transcript below contains major spoilers for The Polar Express.
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Featuring hosts Timothy Haynes, Donna Haynes, Rebekah Edwards, T. Josiah Haynes, and guest Christian Edwards.
Watching The Polar Express on Christmas Eve is one of the Edwards family traditions since our sweet guest host, Rebekah’s son, Christian, joined the crew. The only problem is… most of us think it’s kind of creepy. 😅
(Christian also joined us for our episode on Percy Jackson & the Lightning Thief — highly recommend!!)
Final Verdicts
If you haven’t listened to the episode yet, we recommend waiting to read our verdicts. (But you’re probably grown, so do what you want!)
Christian was the only one of us who truly loves to watch this movie. But we love him, so we watch it anyway.
Tim: The book was better
Donna: The book was better
Rebekah: The book was better
Josiah: The book was better
Christian: The film was better
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Full Episode Transcript
Prefer reading? Check out the full episode transcript below. It’s AI-generated from our audio, and if we’re being honest… no one sat to read the entire thing for accuracy. (After all, we were there the whole time.) 😉 We’re sorry in advance for any typos or transcription errors.
[00:00:00] Rebekah: Welcome to the Book is Better podcast. This is a clean podcast where a family of For reviews, book to film adaptations today, we are going to be talking about the polar express. This is going to contain major spoilers for the polar express. So if you haven’t read the book or you haven’t watched the movie, please feel free to pause what you’re doing now and do that before you listen.
This may not be the right episode to listen to with your young children. If your family is still following. Some Christmas practices, which we’ll mention in a little bit once you’ve had the opportunity to pause this. Um, so we’re going to begin, we like to introduce ourselves and give a fun fact and I’ll first introduce myself and then I’ll tell you something about me and then I’ll tell you something really fun about this episode.
My name is Rebekah. I am the daughter slash sister of the family. And today’s fun fact that we’re going to talk about is, what is your favorite family Christmas tradition? So we have several in our family, uh, that we kind of grew up with, but there’s actually one in my own personal family that I’ve really loved developing.
And we don’t do it every year necessarily, but a few years ago, we started going out to get a real Christmas trees. So we get to go and chop them down, pick the one you want out, you know, whatever. Bring it home. And the house smells like pine tree really strongly for a few days, which is really fun. And look, there are like drawbacks to real Christmas trees.
I get that, but it’s been a really cool tradition, not least of which, because I’ve been able to grow our family in pictures with that tradition every year. And so in 2019, that I think was the first year that my husband and I got a real tree. In 2020, our first son joined us, so he was in the picture. 2021, he was there, and then in 2022, we were a family of four.
So I was actually going to announce a fun little thing about this particular episode that my first son, Christian, is actually on the episode with us. Hello, Christian! Hello!
[00:02:05] Tim: Hello!
[00:02:06] Rebekah: It’s so wonderful to have you. Actually, we picked the Polar Express because it is Christian’s most nostalgic Christmas movie.
I don’t even know technically if it’s your favorite, but we watch it every year. Um, just because it was something that was really meaningful to you. And so we’ve kind of, you know, started doing that, but yeah,
[00:02:24] Christian: my name is Christian. Uh, my role in this family is to be a son slash nephew slash grandson. And my favorite Christmas tradition that I do every year since I’ve been pretty young, actually, is to watch this movie and.
make hot chocolate while watching it, particularly peppermint hot cocoa.
[00:02:46] Rebekah: I will give him a little nod that he’s actually really good at making hot chocolate, like makes it on the stovetop, has multiple recipes sometimes that he uses. Lots of different methods, and so it’s been a lot of fun to benefit from that.
[00:03:01] Tim: Nice.
[00:03:02] Josiah: I’m Josiah. I am the son slash uncle slash brother of the family group gathered here today. And my favorite family tradition at Christmas might be shared amongst multiples of us, but I will just say that our gift tags are very creative, often humorous. We will not say to Rebekah from Josiah, we will say something that usually has to do with the gift in a very vague way that You don’t necessarily guess what the gift is, but once you open it, it makes sense.
But it’s also funny at the same time. You might say, To my favorite llama mama, from your warm hearted son. And it ends up being a sherpa with a llama. Printed on it to my mom. And so it’s just fun stuff like that that really adds to the humor of the holidays That’s very particular to our family. I it’s very valuable.
I wish that everyone did it It’s so easy and it’s so fun.
[00:04:08] Rebekah: I will say one of my favorite One of those tags things that has a lot of legs is that for some reason every year there are multiple tags that say something about to my smelly something or other. And let me tell you, smelly is not specific. Like you would think like, Oh, it’s cologne or perfume.
It’s like, no, no, no, no. That can apply to so many different kinds of presents somehow. I know socks, like Harry Potter mythic things. Like it’s, it’s really funny. I like that that particular thing has a lot of legs.
[00:04:37] Josiah: Handles, shampoos, shower washes, something flower related.
[00:04:43] Donna: Hi, my name is Donna. I’m the wife, mom, and moomaw of our family.
A couple of things did come to mind, and I would have to say one of my favorites is wrapping gifts in non traditional boxes. I don’t like to wrap gifts in the box they came in. Now, if the box is central to the gift, if it’s a something that you might want to keep the box or preserve the box, I’m going to leave the gift in there and I’ll wrap it.
But, um, I love to use random boxes, Amazon boxes, uh, we reuse boxes and bags. And when I wrap gifts, I like to put a lot of tape on them. I tape every side. Yes, you do. I wrap gift boxes that are decorated already. I still want to wrap them. And I love to use tape. And so I like, those are my, my high hitters.
[00:05:48] Tim: My name is Tim. I am the husband. Dad and putter of the family, which is grandpa, my favorite family tradition. Um, I like being with family. Uh, that’s, that’s my, actually my very favorite tradition is being with family and decorating the Christmas tree and. those kinds of things. I am the kind of person that probably over decorates.
I really enjoy it, but it’s tough to decorate if nobody’s going to see it. I don’t enjoy decorating just so I can look at it. I want others to look at it. So that’s one of my favorite things.
[00:06:33] Josiah: Well, now that we’re through with our introductions and our fun facts, maybe it’s just a clarification for the disclaimer at the beginning.
We are going to be talking about Santa, and we are going to be talking about the adult knowledge of Santa as a myth.
[00:06:53] Rebekah: As a representation of the spirit of Christmas. Although not someone who brings you presents in the middle of the night every Christmas morning. So before we get into the differences between the Polar Express book and its inspired movie, Christian, would you like to give us a summary of the plot and what happens during this story?
[00:07:15] Christian: Yes, so our, our story begins on Christmas Eve when a young boy embarks on a magical adventure to the North Pole on the Polar Express. While learning about friendship, bravery, and the spirit of Christmas, he meets Santa, who gives him the first gift of Christmas, a bell, only heard by those who believe.
[00:07:36] Donna: Great job.
[00:07:38] Tim 2: And now it’s only a little bit shorter than the book.
[00:07:42] Rebekah: Yes. So we chose not to buy the audio book for this particular book. There’s a free downloadable one for the physical copy that I bought. But the book is so short that I actually sat and read it to everyone yesterday. And I honestly was shocked at how short it was.
And the fact that the book itself really inspired a movie, but is not. Other than some very, very major plot points is not like a, you know, map for the movie that they ended up creating. So let’s talk about some of the most, uh, significant differences.
[00:08:16] Tim 2: Well, we got the primary themes of, of the book and the movie, um, belief in the spirit of Christmas as we grow older, uh, living into our gifts and talents.
Uh, helping others and enjoying the frivolity of childhood. Uh, those are all themes in the book and the movie. They’re expanded in the movie.
[00:08:36] Josiah: As we move forward, I, I’d love to take those four themes and talk about how the movie additions and changes add or subtract from those themes. I think that that’s, A good structure for today for the short, much shorter book.
I mean, Rebekah, it took you 12 minutes to read us the entire Polar Express book.
[00:08:59] Rebekah: It’s slightly shorter than Oppenheimer by just a small, you know,
[00:09:03] Tim 2: margin by 26 hours. Yeah, 26 and a half hours.
[00:09:07] Donna: TJ and I actually did listen to the downloaded downloadable version with Liam Neeson reading. One thing we discovered was, especially now that we’ve heard Rebekah read it, it was 16 minutes long with Liam Neeson reading it.
Of course, they added some music and had a, had kind of a
[00:09:27] Josiah: sound effect,
[00:09:28] Donna: some sound effects, music at the beginning, intro and outro. And we thought it was, we thought the, it was a little too obvious. that they were trying to drag out this reading. Now, Liam Neeson has, he read in kind of his normal, uh, his normal speed of voice, and he, he’s not a fast talker.
But we thought it was kind of funny because after a little bit, you thought, wow, they’re really trying to get as much time out of this as they can. Um, so it was, it was interesting to hear it with the extra pieces in the back.
[00:10:04] Tim 2: To justify an hour and a half movie, is that about right?
[00:10:08] Donna: Something like that, yeah.
About a
[00:10:08] Tim 2: 90 minute movie? It might be a hundred minute movie. Wow. I think it was an
[00:10:13] Donna: hour and 37 something. I think that’s right. From a
[00:10:15] Tim 2: 12 to 16 minute book. This is one of those cases where it’s the opposite of what we normally talk about. How they have to condense everything in a book. into a two hour ish movie.
This is the opposite. Expanding it into more than just a 30 minute children’s show.
[00:10:35] Josiah: That’s a great way to look at it. I love the idea of taking this simple, condensed package and then expanding it. And I’m interested to hear what everyone says, if we agree or disagree about what different editions Added to the original story if they fit the spirit or if they might be distractions.
[00:10:58] Rebekah: Dad, do you wanna get us started with some of the, the most major things,
[00:11:00] Tim 2: uh, will, uh, well the, most of the characters don’t have names. Uh, and so the hero boy is actually the primary or, uh, first character. Uh, the boy is trying to decide if Santa is real or not to himself. Um, he’s collecting news clippings in the movie at the beginning and his own.
It seems like his only source of doubt in the book comes from the fact they said a friend of his told him that Santa doesn’t exist. Uh, they can’t, they expand on that in the movie. And uh, I think it, I think it adds to it because quite frankly, uh, listening to the, to Rebekah, read the book. Um, I knew what that was about, but I didn’t I didn’t think about that particular theme.
When you watch the movie, it expands it enough that you know this is his crucial year, whether he’s going to stop believing in the spirit of Christmas or it’s going to matter for the rest of his life. I think that’s a good thing.
[00:12:10] Rebekah: And like you said, there are no specific names given to any of the characters in the movie.
Uh, the titles they have are Hero Boy, these are like the main characters, Hero Boy, Hero Girl, Know It All, and Boy on Train. And then you have like the Conductor, you have Um, the guy that they meet here, you have the guy that he meets on top of the train. You have Santa Claus and different things like that.
But you don’t have like named characters. And I will say, interestingly, I don’t know why they did this. And I do think it’s odd. But in the book, they do name the main character’s sister. Her name is Sarah. So she actually gets a name in the original book, but you don’t know the main character’s name.
[00:12:50] Tim 2: I thought that it was to make it more universal is why they’re not named.
[00:12:55] Donna: That’s exactly right. It’s a part of the trivia. I found research I found, um, they wanted to make it very universal, be a very universal feel that they didn’t assign names that would be, Oh, that’s an American name or that’s a German name or that’s whatever. Okay. All right. And so they chose to give them descriptions.
[00:13:16] Christian: Um, I will point out the boy on the train later on when he finds his present. You do discover that his name is Billy.
[00:13:22] Rebekah: Oh, it’s printed on the present. Yeah, it
[00:13:24] Christian: is. It’s on the tag.
[00:13:26] Tim 2: You’re
[00:13:26] Christian: right. I remember saying that’s the only
[00:13:27] Tim 2: character.
[00:13:28] Josiah: Did you say he was the boy on train? I think that the IMDb and Wikipedia lists him as the lonely boy.
[00:13:36] Rebekah: Because the Billy’s the name on the yeah, on the lonely boys present, I thought hero boys, the main character, did they list his name?
[00:13:44] Tim 2: No, I don’t think we see his name. So
[00:13:46] Rebekah: we named Billy, but not the other one. The the way that they’re breaking these up, if you’ve seen the movie, it’s pretty obvious, but the hero girl is Um, the, the one who’s loses her ticket, she’s constantly trying to make sure everybody else has what they need.
And like, she’s very helpful and like supportive. And then, um, the know it all is the boy who wanted all the presents. The one with the really measly voice. Uh, so that’s, that’s how they broke down the other characters.
[00:14:11] Tim 2: The hero boy initially, uh, declines getting on the polar express in the movie. Whereas in the book, he simply helped aboard by the conductor.
So I think that difference, um, also kind of enhances the fact that he’s questioning, uh, whether to, whether to believe or not.
[00:14:30] Josiah: Yeah, they definitely lean into that theme in the movie. Whereas in the book, when I was reading some research for this episode, I heard, I was reading some blog articles suggesting that the boy didn’t necessarily His own doubts as much as he has heard other people have doubts.
[00:14:52] Rebekah: Is that the same thing?
[00:14:54] Tim 2: The movie makes it seem like they’re his doubts. They expand that thing. There’s a
[00:15:00] Rebekah: friend in the movie that tells him.
[00:15:02] Tim 2: Yeah, in the
[00:15:02] Josiah: movie, he forms doubts. And in the book, I’ve heard some people interpret it as other people around him have formed their doubts. And so he is. Doubt questioning.
I guess he’s it’s not as clear cut
[00:15:19] Christian: as in the movie with the doubts there is a part in the movie in the very beginning where he opens up a newspaper and there is a picture of Initially, it’s like a parent that was discovered as Santa Claus, which is interesting
[00:15:40] Rebekah: So they expand on that more. Instead of it being a friend, that’s interesting, they use the news story to kind of communicate why he would be trying to figure out, either figure out what he thinks, or trying to prove someone else’s doubts wrong, or something like that.
[00:15:52] Josiah: Well, who are the other new characters?
[00:15:56] Donna: So there are some other non child characters in the movie. You have a ghostly hobo played by Tom Hanks. He he appears when the hero boy is has lost a ticket. I think it’s a hero girl
[00:16:13] Rebekah: who loses a ticket. He was trying to, he was trying to help her. So he found it and was trying to find them.
Sounded like she was going to get kicked off the train or something.
[00:16:21] Donna: Yes. The conductor threatened to kick anyone off the train who didn’t have a ticket. And as he goes and searches for it and he opens the door from train, one train car to another train car, there’s open space there. And, and so there’s the outside and the snow and all those things, the snow that he is just, uh, kind of a blizzard coming down.
So he climbs on top of the train, and I hope we get a chance to talk about some of these. Action scenes. He climbs on top of the car and he’s running down the top of the train car like Tom Cruise in a Mission Impossible movie. And he encounters this guy sitting on top of the train. With a little, doesn’t he have a little fire built there?
a fire and sticks that are
[00:17:14] Tim 2: holding a pot of, a pot of something over the fire. Yeah, he’s
[00:17:18] Donna: like, he’s cooking food and this dude is like a little hobo and he appears out of nowhere and there is a point to the, to the guy.
[00:17:26] Christian: So the, the point to the guy is actually in the, in the making of the movie, there is deleted scenes where they go into his backstory.
Yeah. His name is, he’s supposedly the ghost of King, which the King is the name of a boy who was killed by flat top tunnel. And now he resides on top of the train, which I thought was very interesting.
[00:17:50] Tim 2: That’s probably very complicated for a children’s movie. Yeah.
[00:17:54] Josiah: You’ve got some, I did not find that in our research.
Thank you for like, no one. Yes.
[00:18:01] Christian: And that may or may not be true, but that is what, um, I did some research and that is what I found. And it sounds interesting, so I’m just going to go with that.
[00:18:10] Josiah: Urban, urban legends from a true fan.
[00:18:13] Christian: Yeah, I found two articles so far that support the theory of like this man, like having more of a backstory.
So there’s a DVD version somewhere out there. It’s like, um, they initially tell the kids about Hobo and that he was sitting on top of the train for free because he said that he rides for free in the movie. Yeah. And he didn’t realize that the train was heading for flat top and he was decapitated.
[00:18:37] Rebekah: Oh, gosh.
[00:18:39] Tim 2: So his spirit resides there because
[00:18:42] Donna: that’s the last
[00:18:43] Tim 2: place he was. Yes. He’s a ghost.
[00:18:45] Donna: Oh,
[00:18:46] Tim 2: that that the ghost part seems to be obvious in the movie. But as
[00:18:51] Josiah: we finished talking about the hobo, I wanted to mention that hobo is a little. I don’t I don’t know if hobo was as harsh on modern sensibilities. As it is nowadays back in 2004, I wouldn’t call a real person a hobo, I don’t think it’s a very nice word to go, but it is his name in the movie, but I wanted to read you some foreign language names of the hobo character.
In Finnish, he is the hobo, not the hobo, but hobo. Um, but in several languages, they translate it to vagabond. So there’s des vagabondes.
[00:19:33] Tim 2: Somehow for me, vagabond sounds worse than hobo.
[00:19:37] Josiah: Les vagabonds. In French, you got, in German, Landstreicher. Landstreicher. Oh. Which I assume means person who stretches across the land, but I’m not 100 I’m not 100 percent certain.
Portuguese vagabundo. And then here’s the most interesting one, because it supports Christian’s urban legend theory in Spanish. The character’s name was El Rey del Polo Norte, which I am fairly certain means the king of the North Pole.
[00:20:13] Donna: Oh, my. That’s wow. A couple of other non child characters You had Smokey and Steamer, who were the, who are the twin engineer and fireman.
Um, they were voiced by Michael Jeter and, uh, they were comic reliefs in, in the movie for sure. And I enjoyed them. I thought they were fun and they were goofy and I thought they, I thought they were handled well, um,
[00:20:43] Tim 2: though they come out of left field, they just drop in there. It’s like, Oh, whoa, wait, where did they come from?
[00:20:51] Josiah: They do come out of left field. For sure. I was when we were watching it the other day, I was like, Oh, we haven’t seen them before. Right.
[00:20:58] Donna: Well, I would say the only reason that we can really, I think the only reason they could really get away with it is because they were on a train and you would expect the train to have.
An engineer and a fireman on it, but, but you’re right, they just kind of bring them out and
[00:21:14] Tim 2: looking at it when, when the conductor is getting the boy on the train, if one of them would have kind of poked their head out, as you could see to the engine of the train, if one of them poke their head out, you’d realize, oh, there’s another person who’s completely different.
And we’re expecting to see them at some point. It just, there was no foreshadowing of them coming out.
[00:21:37] Donna: And then you had, uh, the, the last one that they listed in the research I did actually isn’t the last one, but, um, the elf lieutenant who was also the elf singer of the little concert they had. After, after some of their party at the North Pole was played by Steven Tyler, who’s the lead singer of Aerosmith.
[00:22:05] Rebekah: Oh yeah, I noticed that Steven Tyler Elf, because I, you would, I think somebody had just mentioned while we were watching it that Steven Tyler was one of the side characters. And then I looked up and the elf has a Steven Tyler face like it’s very clearly even Tyler. It’s not just one of the elves
[00:22:22] Tim 2: from from the movie.
There are a few extra stops along the way. One of the extra stops that’s added in the movie is another boy wants to get on, but he’s being left behind because when the conductor. Invites him onto the train. He backs up, uh, and he doesn’t decide to jump on the train until afterwards, which requires, uh, the hero boy to hit the emergency brake.
Uh, so he can get on and he sits in the very back car, uh, for a while. I think that that first
[00:22:54] Josiah: time the train stops is meant to give the hero boy a heroic thing to do. I guess we save the cap and I think that that works for the theme. Uh, you know, there, there are some things that I don’t think the movie adds that are necessary.
But this one, I think, you know, is nice. It not only shows that the hero boy is not selfish, he cares about other kids, but it also directly has to do with another kid that’s also going on this same journey. And I think it contributes to the mystical magic of what is the Polar
[00:23:34] Tim 2: Express? I was surprised by some of the additions.
in, in the movies, the, some of the, not necessarily stops, but some of the different things that happened on the way, uh, their trip across the frozen, the frozen lake. That was, that was quite, uh, exciting.
[00:23:55] Rebekah: So I think this is where So there, we’ll talk a little bit about like criticisms of the movie probably, but I think this is one of the points at which it kind of lost me a little because in the movie there’s this scene where the train is going too fast.
And actually in the book it is mentioned that the train goes like a roller coaster. It’s going, you know, through the, Through the hills so fast that it’s going like a roller coaster, and then the train, like, basically, I think the, what are the, the names of them again? The, the, not the conductor. Smokey
[00:24:24] Tim 2: and Steamer.
[00:24:25] Rebekah: Smokey and Steamer.
[00:24:27] Tim 2: The Engineer and Farmer.
[00:24:29] Rebekah: Yeah, they lose a pin that’s supposed to go into something to allow them to brake.
[00:24:33] Tim 2: It’s a cotter pin that holds things together.
[00:24:36] Rebekah: So they lose the cotter pin, and the train starts going uncontrollably fast, and they get to this point where they’re supposed to stop, and I think it’s before they get to the ice, is it before they get to the ice where they’re, yeah, yeah, yeah, it is, it’s before they get to the ice that the train goes so fast, and they’re going to go down a steep hill that says 179 degree grade, and the conductor, played by Tom Hanks, mentions that it’s like the steepest grade of any train track in the world or something like that.
Anyway, it’s terrifying. And then they get through that steep grade, this like roller coaster like train, and then they get to a point that one of the characters says that they’re about to hit a patch of track that’s been caught under ice.
[00:25:18] Christian: Glacier Lake. Glacier
[00:25:20] Rebekah: Lake. Does that sound right?
[00:25:21] Christian: I think that does sound correct.
[00:25:24] Tim 2: And so they Glacier Pass, maybe. Yeah. I think it’s Glacier Pass, and it turns out to be the lake has frozen over the tracks.
[00:25:31] Rebekah: It might
[00:25:32] Tim 2: be.
[00:25:33] Rebekah: And so they get to this frozen lake, and the train crashes, essentially. I mean, they manage not to hit anything major. It comes off
[00:25:41] Tim 2: of the track. It comes
[00:25:41] Rebekah: off of the tracks.
It’s going uncontrollably, like the back of the train twists around the front. And, you know, you don’t know what’s going to happen.
[00:25:49] Christian: Glacier Gulch. Glacier Gulch.
[00:25:52] Rebekah: Yeah. So they get to Glacier Gulch and all of this, it’s like really scary. And at the end of that sequence, when they’re able to actually get the train started and they’re going to start, you know, trying to get it around the tracks and they have to turn the train around and all this stuff, the ice starts to crack.
And you’re like, are these children going to fall into a lake of ice? and die because they wanted to go see Santa. I mean, I am an adult and I think every time I’ve seen this movie, that in particular, that whole sequence ended up being terrifying, like scary to me. And I can’t imagine a little kid watching it and not being a little freaked out.
[00:26:30] Josiah: I think it’s okay for kids to be a little scared sometimes. It’s fun. I do think that that’s sequence, in my opinion, is the most jumping the shark moment of the movie. But I am interested in, Christian, what do you think of that scene, it careening out of control,
[00:26:48] Christian: and the glacier gulch? I think that it definitely adds a bit of spice to the Adventure to the North Pole.
I think that it was a fine addition. Um, I think when I was a kid, I definitely didn’t really pay attention to the dangerous part of it. Cause it just, it looked cool to me. It was
[00:27:08] Tim 2: just
[00:27:08] Christian: there and fun. It, yeah. It added like, you know, some heart pounding action on like, what if they can’t get across the lake?
[00:27:16] Tim 2: I think as we were watching it last night, it just, um, it was very clear to me At least in the back of his mind, the director thought if this movie is successful, there’s a theme park ride or a whole section because, because there is, I mean, there’s, there’s enough for water park ride. There’s enough for rollercoaster log flume.
There’s all sorts of things. That could have been done like Harry Potter world, you know, at Universal and some of the other kinds of big theme park themed rides. There could be a Polar Express section that included that. And I think that the movie itself almost looks like here’s an advertisement for what it could be if somebody would just pick it up, but I’m not sure it was successful enough at the theater initially.
To really cause, cause a company to say, Hey, that’s what we need to do.
[00:28:17] Rebekah: Okay. So I am a theme park nerd. Mm-Hmm. . I mean, I’m a nerd about a lot of things, but I watch a lot of videos about theme parks. And what movie, what year did this movie get released? Oh four. Oh four. So, um, in 2004. They actually did not have like Harry Potter world or any of that kind of thing where it was IPs where they’d created fully immersive.
Like there were definitely themed areas in Universal and at Disney and things like that. But Harry Potter world is the first one that was. We are going to create this entire world so that once Harry Potter world happened. Ever since then, you’ve seen things pop up like, Um, the Frozen world, I think if that’s in progress, there’s a Super Mario world at Universal, there’s an Avatar world, a Cars one, where it’s like everything about it makes you feel like you’re there.
But that was not a thing in 2004 and 2000, you know, in the early 2000s leading up to that. It
[00:29:16] Tim 2: was a, it was a different kind of thing. True. There, I remember at Carowinds, there was the children’s section. Yeah. Yeah. Had a theme, but it was, um, I think it was Hanna Barbera. And so it was Barbera cartoons and things.
And the whole area was themed that way. But it was, it was different than an immersive kind of theming. So I think they changed it to Nickelodeon when I
[00:29:40] Josiah: was a preteen.
[00:29:41] Tim 2: Okay.
[00:29:42] Josiah: Polar Express was the most expensive animated movie up to that point. Wow. Had a budget of around 170 million. And it made, it made back its budget, but I guess it’s so silly that we have box office budgets, but then there’s this.
secret that usually a production company needs to make double its budget to actually make money because of all the marketing. And for some reason often box office budgets don’t include the marketing costs, which I think is so silly. I think it’s kind of inconsistent too, but I made 286 on a one 70 million budgets.
I think that it made back its money, but it wasn’t a hit. I don’t think it really made the production company. Any money, if you know, so I think it was moderately successful, but they wanted it to be a lot more successful.
[00:30:35] Rebekah: Going back to what Christian even said, you know, as a kid, I didn’t really think about it.
It was action packed, a little heart pounding, to be fair, as a parent and just an adult in general, but as a parent in particular, a lot of the things that happened where, you know, Hero Boy ran onto the top of the train and the train’s going on the ice and it’s going too fast. In my head, I’m thinking of the implications of all those things.
Whereas I feel like as a kid, I guess you wouldn’t really know the implications. Like it doesn’t occur to you that the train going super fast is going to lead to like blood and gore. Well, you know, like it’s just like exciting.
[00:31:10] Tim 2: In my childhood, that was Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner. That continual Absolutely in harm’s way, but it was, it was just fun cause you knew that, you know, it wasn’t real and it was just, it was just exciting.
Those kinds of things. So
[00:31:30] Christian: an interesting thought that I would like to add is, so it is put that the train is magical. And I had this thought that. You know, all of the kids wake up, but I bet you none of the parents go outside. So I don’t think that the parents would wake up. I think it’s
[00:31:47] Tim 2: interesting that you say that because hero boy, when he leaves his house, he walks out of the front door and closes the front door.
When he comes home, he simply opens the front door and walks back in the house. Nobody ever knew that he was gone or any of that stuff. So the parents don’t wake up. It’s not. Yeah. Yeah. I agree.
[00:32:06] Rebekah: So going into the next part of the film, the children arrive in the North Pole. Now I looked at it in the book.
It’s actually less than halfway through where the North Pole is mentioned and where they get to, um, to be there. But, but I think it’s about an hour or a little more than an hour into the movie that the children actually arrive at the North Pole. And so. Because of the way that this is structured, they add on all of this character development, all of these different things, you know, with the ghost hobo guy and, um.
[00:32:38] Tim 2: The hot chocolate
[00:32:39] Josiah: musical. The various
[00:32:40] Rebekah: children. Yes, the hot chocolate musical.
[00:32:42] Josiah: I think you would say that the second act of the movie is entirely based on a few, on maybe one or two sentences from the book that they expounded, that it had a three act structure, the trip to the North Pole. Dad, can you read the passage from the book that describes The trip to
[00:33:02] Tim 2: the North Pole.
The train was filled with other children, all in their pajamas and nightgowns. We sang Christmas carols and ate candies with nougat centers as white as snow. We drank hot chocolate, hot cocoa as thick and rich as melted chocolate bars. Outside, the lights of towns and villages flickered in the distance as the Polar Express raced northward.
Soon, there were no more lights to be seen. We traveled through cold, dark forests, where lean wolves roamed in white tailed rabbits hid from our train as it thundered through the quiet wilderness. We climbed mountains so high it seemed as if we would scrape the moon, but the Polar Express never slowed down.
Faster and faster we ran along, rolling over peaks and through valleys like a car on a rollercoaster. The mountains turned into hills, the hills to snow covered plains. We crossed a barren desert of ice, the great polar ice cap. Lights appeared in the distance. They looked like the lights of a strange ocean liner sailing on a frozen sea.
There, said the conductor, is the North Pole. And in those few sentences, You have all of act two. So that
[00:34:19] Josiah: was longer than what I was expecting. But still, that was three pages of a children’s book that took. What was that? 60 seconds to read that they expanded into a 45 minute meet of the movie. And I heard a couple of things that were included in the movie, but there were things that weren’t really touched on.
There was there was hot cocoa and there’s a whole musical number about that. And then I do like the ref. I assume this is a ref. The following is a reference. I like, I like that the mountain they go up in the movie, and then at the top of the mountain, it just goes straight onto a bridge. I feel like that’s kind of a reference to We Scraped the Moon from the book.
I like that.
[00:35:05] Christian: I think there are definitely a lot of details that are very different from, like, the movie as, or in the book. Um, one of them that I’ve also thought about just now is that, On the book, the train that is pictured there doesn’t actually have a front rail, whereas in the movie, there is a front rail that they hold on to on their way down the, down the steep hill without falling.
I love, do you know
[00:35:34] Rebekah: that whole sequence? I forgot about that sequence. Do you know what
[00:35:36] Tim 2: the pointed part is? Cause you talk about the rail, you know what that pointed part is? It was the cow catcher. And it was added to trains because animals would get on the tracks when trains were popular and you know, going everywhere.
So it didn’t gore them? No, it didn’t gore them. It was designed like the reflector. The humanely gore them. It was designed like the things on highways that are supposed to, those little barriers on the side, the reason they have the slants that they have is so it pushes a car back onto the road. But if you hit it.
It’s supposed to push you back onto the road. This was designed to push the cows out of the way, not to hurt them because they were a very valuable asset and you didn’t want to destroy it. So around that point, the
[00:36:24] Josiah: rail would have been very gently pushed.
[00:36:28] Tim 2: Children don’t seem to have the difficulty with the suspension of disbelief.
It’s like I’m looking at it. It’s real. It’s good for me. I’m good. I’m completely in it.
[00:36:38] Rebekah: It’s not just that it’s real, it’s also that it’s not, it’s not as scary when your mind hasn’t already developed the ability to think through, again, all of the implications and the consequences of things like that.
It’s just like, oh my gosh, that’s scary. You’re like, oh my gosh, it’s scary. But you don’t necessarily think, oh my gosh, it’s scary because what if I have to live the rest of my life without legs? Because they got cut off in this terrible accident. You know what I mean?
[00:37:02] Tim 2: That reminds me of an account where my son in law, um, set up something at church one evening while we had some free time and we were eating inside.
I don’t know if Christian has the story about little children. He was probably five or six. And his brother, they got on either side of the seesaw, and, uh, older brother, who was a teenager and kind of heavy, would jump on one side of the seesaw, sling his tiny brother up into the air, and Josh caught him.
And they ran in and said, Oh, it was so fun. It was so fun. And as an adult, I said, please don’t ever do that again because children don’t recognize the consequences. It’s just fun. It’s just fun. I
[00:37:54] Donna: didn’t get hurt. He was OK.
[00:37:57] Josiah: Well, I wanted to mention peeking behind the curtain for our baby listeners that the core podcast group of us four, we usually do our own research and throw it all into one document.
And so when someone brings something up, I’m usually able to scroll in the document and see, okay, this is what they’re talking about. And I love that bringing in Christian, he’ll just throw these wild things that none of us found in our research. And I was looking on the document, like, Oh my goodness, I didn’t prepare anything.
I didn’t think about that. That was a possibility of talking about. I like the wild card factor of having Christian on.
[00:38:36] Rebekah: Well, and the person who wrote the book also animated the train. And so the author like created all of that. And so it was all intentional. Uh,
[00:38:43] Josiah: yeah. Illustrator or the author?
[00:38:46] Rebekah: The author is the same person as the illustrator in the physical copy of the book.
[00:38:51] Josiah: And he was involved with the movie?
[00:38:53] Rebekah: I don’t know about
[00:38:54] Josiah: that part. I
[00:38:55] Rebekah: just mean like it was illustrated by the author. These aren’t just random illustrations that somebody happened to do. That is a little
[00:39:02] Tim 2: different that the author would also be the illustrator. Chris Van Allsburg.
[00:39:07] Josiah: But I think that it’s crazy, because in my head, we were watching the movie right after listening to you read the book to us.
And we got to the North Pole in the movie, and I thought, finally, we’re back in the book material after 45 minutes of this long act two. And as soon as they get to the North Pole, they go off on a movie only adventure that’s completely out of the book.
[00:39:33] Rebekah: Yeah, that was the next thing I was going to say is that when they get to the North Pole, they don’t immediately meet Santa, which they do meet Santa in the book right when they arrive.
And so the main characters, I think it’s just the three. It’s not the kid with the high pitch voice. Am I right about that?
[00:39:47] Tim 2: He follows them. They don’t know he’s there. He’s following them
[00:39:51] Rebekah: because he shows up later. Okay. And so what you see is that the three characters that we follow the most hero boy, hero girl, and the lonely boy.
Um, they go into a factory and they’re following a gift. I think they’re following it because one of them saw their name on it.
[00:40:06] Christian: They’re trying to get back. Yeah, because the end car, the caboose essentially came was derailed and started like. That’s
[00:40:17] Rebekah: right, because it went backwards,
[00:40:18] Christian: started going uncontrollably backwards until it hit a turn
[00:40:23] Tim 2: style.
I think that’s called a turnstile. Why did they get in the caboose, though? I thought there was a reason. They did. It was because the the lonely boy had stayed in the back. And they went back there to talk with him. To try and get him to come out with them. That’s right.
[00:40:37] Josiah: And that leads them to being stuck in the factory.
It’s detached.
[00:40:41] Tim 2: Yes. Well, they go, they go to the turnstile for the train. And then from there, they try to get back to where they were. And they see a package. And they follow it. So I think it’s their first
[00:40:54] Rebekah: they’re first trying to get back to everyone. And then I believe it’s the lonely boy who sees his name on a gift and then they follow that gift through the factory, at which point.
Yes. And all the conveyor belts and stuff. At that point, I literally remember the first time we watched it because Christian asked if we could watch it the very first year in 2020. And I was like, Sure. And I don’t think I’d ever seen it. And we’re watching this. And I, you know, like I said, the ice scene freaked me out.
We get to this scene where they’re following the gift through the factory. And I’m like, What a bunch of naughty children. Where are these children’s parents? Like, I was just so annoyed. Which is so silly, but and then so they end up finding the rest of their group and going into the middle area
[00:41:38] Tim 2: when, when they do, you know, get a little farther.
The hero boy can’t initially hear the bells in the movie, um, but the other kids can. Um, do we think that the other kids were all skeptics as well? Is that why they were on the train? Was this their crucial year?
[00:41:59] Josiah: See, that’s my question. I know that it’s. for kids, but I’m trying to establish in my head, what is the magic of the polar express?
Because what themes am I supposed to be getting from this? For the hero boy, he has to learn how to believe. But the other kids have different lessons that they have to learn. So the Polar Express isn’t just about believing in Santa is what I get from that. It’s about all these different things, but what’s the point of Going to see Santa for things other than believing, or maybe being generous and giving others or giving to others or spreading cheer.
These are themes that I could get from seeing Santa, but, uh, you know, we’ll talk more about. The tickets getting punched later, I just am wondering if the hero boy couldn’t hear the bells, but everyone else could, everyone else could, that tells me that they aren’t skeptics like him,
[00:43:08] Tim 2: perhaps, perhaps there’s a reason for each of them being there.
And maybe it’s more about the adventure as opposed to simply seeing Santa? Yes. Yes,
[00:43:17] Josiah: the answer is adventure. It’s the adventure we had along the way. But I’m trying to decide, did the adventure really teach them all the things they needed to know? And why does the adventure need to have the end destination of Santa?
[00:43:31] Tim 2: For this one, the, uh, hero boy, the bell that he can’t hear flies off of the sleigh and lands near him. He picks it up and talks to himself, tells himself to believe, believe, believe, and then he can hear the beautiful sound in the book. He hears the bell right away, and, and the bell is cut from Santa Slay and serves as the first Christmas gift.
[00:43:56] Josiah: I think it works, the movie change, I think this idea of him being skeptical about Santa and believing is, is furthered by the movie change, but I do want to mention a funny thing, that whenever the bell flies off in the movie and it bounces really awkwardly, obviously they didn’t have mocap on a bell, because the gravity, the physics of the bell bouncing were very disturbing, and I remember mom, Your reaction was something along the lines of it was almost creepy.
How? Oh, I remember. Unreal. Bouncing. Unnaturally. I remember
[00:44:33] Rebekah: why, because in the movie, there’s like this far away, slowed down Christmas song in the background. And I’m just gonna be honest with you, it sounded like one of those weird movies. It’s like a horror movie at Christmas time where someone is about to get slashed.
I mean, it, it did not come off. I don’t think it came off the way it was probably intended. Yeah.
[00:44:54] Tim 2: They were probably just slowing it down for the effect for the bell to bounce slowly, but it does sound like the beginning of one of those. You’re getting ready to see somebody jump out and do something Really horrible.
Like the bell might have been about to explode. Yeah.
[00:45:10] Josiah: Well, Christian, what are you thinking of, of the bell coming off the sleigh? The kid not hearing it, but he’s picking it up. What is, what are your thoughts about that scene?
[00:45:21] Rebekah: Did it occur to you when you were watching it as a kid that that was,
[00:45:26] Christian: Not until later in the plot, I think what I remembered thinking is just like, Oh, cool.
That’s a bell, you know, like childlike curiosity where he picks it up, wants to ring it because it’s just a fun thing to do until he realizes he can’t hear anything. And someone else mentions that they can. And that’s when it occurs to him. That it is a magical bell.
[00:45:52] Josiah: I presume that you did not find any of these sequences creepy, like when all of the elves slowly sing Santa Claus is coming to town, that sort of thing.
And we’re just jaded.
[00:46:06] Rebekah: Cynics are old people. So in the movie, does he ask for the bell, or is the bell the thing that the first gift is?
[00:46:14] Josiah: I think that the boy gives Santa the bell whenever Santa brings him up.
[00:46:22] Rebekah: Yeah, he hands him the bell.
[00:46:23] Josiah: And then Santa gives him back the bell as a gift. I think.
[00:46:27] Christian: He does give Santa back the bell and then Santa asks what he wants for Christmas.
The boy whispers in Santa’s ear and we cannot hear the words that he says. That’s right. And then Santa holds up the
[00:46:39] Josiah: bell. Presumably, you’re supposed to think he says, I did want to mention in that whole sequence that we were just talking about, that the book has the hero boy, which isn’t, he’s not called the hero boy in the book or movie, but he’s listed as that in the meta book.
Text of the movie, the hero boy sits in Santa’s lap in the book, not in the movie. Doesn’t he, doesn’t he stand beside Santa in the movie? He stands in between Santa’s legs.
[00:47:11] Donna: Even worse. Oh no.
[00:47:14] Tim 2: No. Perhaps in the movie they made the choice, not only the names, but we wouldn’t do things that are only iconic. In Western culture,
[00:47:23] Donna: maybe.
[00:47:24] Tim 2: Yeah. The last change that we noticed specifically between the book and the movie was the movie’s conductor punches all the passengers tickets twice.
[00:47:35] Donna: He just punches all the passengers.
[00:47:36] Tim 2: It was just I did say punches the passengers tickets, right?
[00:47:41] Donna: You said it fine. It’s just.
[00:47:44] Tim 2: The movie’s conductor punches all the passengers tickets twice.
The first time, there are only two letters on each kid’s ticket, and they don’t know what in the world they mean, because they can’t see what’s written there other than just two random letters. But as they board the train for the return ride, he adds letters which complete magically meaningful words or phrases.
The B. E. Becomes believe for the hero girl. The letter she had become lead for the lonely boy. Billy first says, depend on. Then when he flips it, it says, rely on. And he flips it again. And it says, count on. Um, and the conductor looks at him knowingly. He needs to be able to trust and then, uh, the know it all, uh, his letters turn into learn except he’s got his finger over the R and he says, lean.
What does that mean? And he says, look at it closely. It’s learned. He says, no, I know how to spell it’s L E a and then he moves his finger and realizes that he has things to learn, which is just a reinforcement of the fact that he doesn’t know everything.
[00:49:01] Josiah: I think the tickets is a great way to add a little bit of an arc to a story that has one very simple arc.
And so adding this to the beginning and end of the movie, I think it’s a good change as far as if you want to make an hour and a half long movie, you got to do some things that arc and satisfyingly pay off at the end of the movie. So I think this one worked out.
[00:49:25] Rebekah: For what it’s worth, I thought that the two letters were their initials at first, but then all of them had the same last initial and I was confused.
Um, I still don’t understand why the lonely boy’s ticket changed every time you flipped it, but nobody else, like, flipped their ticket and nobody else noticed that. It’s just odd to me because. Depend on, rely on, count on, all mean the same thing?
[00:49:50] Tim 2: An initial thought that I would make on that is just that he needed, it needed to be reinforced with him.
So it wasn’t just one word, it was, yes, this means the same thing, this too, this too, this too. Just a way to reinforce it.
[00:50:05] Donna: Some just basic info about the movie and book, the book release. was on October 28th, 1985. The movie was released November 10th, 2004. So 20 years later, the book rating on 32 out of five.
The movie rating, I think this was one we mentioned, Rotten Tomatoes. It was considered rotten at 56 percent. Just barely under the fresh threshold. Yeah, just below fresh, but still in the rotten category.
[00:50:36] Josiah: Christian, is that rotten rating surprising to you? Rotten tomatoes. 56%.
[00:50:44] Christian: If it wasn’t a nostalgic movie for me, and it was just my first time watching it, I think that’s, I don’t know.
I mean, I think it’s an okay movie. I feel like it could be a little higher.
[00:50:56] Josiah: Now, Christian, on one hand, you don’t have to listen to critics. You can form your own opinion. Don’t let the critics sway you. I’ll just tell you. Yeah. You know, you, you don’t have to feel embarrassed if you just don’t agree with the quote unquote educated people that have a film degree.
You know, who cares? Yeah. Uh, you know, you enjoy what you enjoy. On the other hand, I think that a large part of that rating does come from the controversial animation, which we haven’t really talked about, because it’s not necessarily a change, so much as it’s just, if you’re gonna make an animated movie, you gotta animate it.
And so, it, I think we’ll talk a little bit more about the animation, but I do think the animation was a, Big part of it not being well received more so than the story, maybe.
[00:51:39] Rebekah: So the animation they used was a form of motion capture or in the biz mocap
[00:51:47] Josiah: groundbreaking,
[00:51:48] Rebekah: groundbreaking at the time because they were able to put all of the motion capture elements on to the actors.
People were able to literally like make expressions and speak and move and all of that was captured. And then that’s, that’s what they Used to create animation. We actually also saw part of the Jim Carrey’s Christmas Carol, where they used a very I think I think it was the exact same like style of motion capture production company.
And it it really was meant to be like a hyper realistic form of animation. However, it led to some of the most major criticisms of not only Polar Express, but also a Christmas Carol. Because
[00:52:26] Josiah: Beowulf and eventually Marge needs moms
[00:52:29] Rebekah: because it creates a very uncanny valley effect where the eyes look a little dead.
The the faces and bodies look like almost too real in some ways. The hair has to be animated strand by strand because that’s the only thing they can’t pick up. Can you imagine? Um, but I think that watching this movie, it, it does create like, it’s weird because their eyes don’t look at the correct direction.
In my opinion, it looks like their eyes aren’t actually looking where they should. And so motion capture is still used in a lot of like film, CG animation, whatever. But this particular form of, of motion capture, I think is the reason why the movie was not as much of a runaway success as they probably hoped that it would be.
Because it just doesn’t have, in my opinion, it doesn’t have the desired effect. I don’t like the effect. Like, I would have rather just be animated in a way that’s familiar to me.
[00:53:23] Josiah: It’s the uncanny valley. It’s I think it’s an odd choice. I think it completely makes sense. This was the most expensive animated movie at that point.
And so I think it makes sense as a cost saving measure to hire actors to play multiple roles. But I do think that there’s maybe an unintended bizarro factor to seeing Tom Hanks. playing the Conductor and the Hobo and other, and the Dad. He played seven. Gosh.
[00:53:54] Donna: Mom, who all did he play? He was Adult Hero Boy, the Conductor, the Hobo, Santa Claus, Hero Boy’s father, and the Scrooge Puppet.
[00:54:06] Tim 2: He was Santa. Wow. And some of those characters actually had his facial features. You can tell it was him. I looked at the, at the book, the illustrations of the book or what I would, what I would term kind of, um, a frosted glass look to the animation. It’s, it’s not super sharp. None of it, none of it’s really sharp.
It’s all, Uh, kind of fantastical, you know, in a way, uh, the train doesn’t, it’s lines aren’t sharp. Uh, everything’s a little muted a little bit. a little bit different. So maybe they were trying to do something just so completely different. And it just didn’t quite hit the mark.
[00:54:50] Josiah: That’s super interesting. I didn’t think of it until researching for this podcast about how the illustrations of the Polar Express book were such a big part of its influence on society on, on its success in 1986.
It won the Caldecott, is
[00:55:10] Tim 2: that how you pronounce it? That’s what I saw was Caldecott. The
[00:55:13] Josiah: Caldecott medal for its illustrations. And I didn’t even think, you know, it’s a magical story, it’s a Christmas, I think it’s very warm and I think it’s very heartwarming, but I didn’t necessarily think about how the illustrations probably played a huge part in its success, its initial success.
[00:55:31] Donna: The initial plan was for Hank to to film all the characters.
[00:55:35] Josiah: Oh, my.
[00:55:36] Donna: Whoa. And they got started and realized after they got into a little bit of filming, it wore him out. And so then they brought in Steven Tyler and, uh, Peter Scaleri and Michael Jeter brought in a few other people to to work up some of the characters.
And do some of the voices even I think even bringing in the some of the voice actors as well.
[00:56:03] Tim 2: I thought it was interesting that Hanks described the experience of working on it like in the black box and all that stuff as a return to the type of acting that acting in films does not allow you to do and compared it to doing theater.
So apparently the black box theater allowed him to. To do the like full scenes and things like that. I guess in movies you you film such small segments at times. that, you know, if you’re able to film a larger segment, it feels much more like theater where you just keep going.
[00:56:36] Josiah: Well, the acting is also much subtler in film, whereas in an animated film, you can be more theatrical, more cartoonish.
You can have bigger motions that theater actors are so good at, whereas film acting, I assume Tom Hanks was very used to advice. I’ve heard is act with your eyes. Well,
[00:56:55] Tim 2: in film acting, you know, you’ve got this 70 foot screen and you can fill it with a single face or a part of a face. So, you know, it is definitely a different kind of acting for sure.
Um, the author was also the illustrator, um, Chris Van Allsburg, and he also wrote Jumanji, which also became a film. Uh, Tom Hanks was apparently the first one that wanted to bring the book to the big screen in 1999. But when he said that and apparently financially backed it because he’s one of the producers, he stipulated that the movie had to be live action.
But when Hanks joined up with Zemeckis on the project, Zemeckis said live action would look awful, losing the richness of the book. He also approx, approximated the production cost to be about a million dollars and how much was it? A hundred and
[00:57:55] Speaker 2: sixty five. Oh,
[00:57:56] Tim 2: so he was just a hundred and sixty million, a hundred and four million off.
Yeah, he’s a hundred and fifty nine million off.
[00:58:04] Rebekah: I did want to just kind of look at the amount that the movie had made because it doesn’t follow kind of the typical, at least pre COVID expectations.
[00:58:13] Josiah: There were more releases, weren’t there?
[00:58:15] Rebekah: Yeah, so in 2004, the opening weekend in the U. S. only made 23. 3 million, which for a 165 million movie is pretty bad because you need to make about your production cost.
Opening weekend, and that’s again, pre COVID to make your profit. But in this case, um, it grossed 190 million in us in Canada. Overall worldwide grossed 286 million. So I think their idea of being, you know, kind of culturally agnostic worked, but the movie has now made a box office lifetime of. 314. 2 million because every year from 2005 through 2017, it was re released in IMAX.
It was also re released in 2018 and 2020, I assume on different formats.
[00:59:00] Tim 2: I’ve never seen it in IMAX. That would, that would be interesting for all of those exciting action parts that we were talking about. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:59:07] Rebekah: The final product. Made it into the Guinness Book of World Records because this was the world’s first all digital capture movie.
And so it was the first animation or otherwise movie that had been done with all digital capture, which I I kind of love that. I think that it deserves a spot, you know.
[00:59:24] Josiah: Yeah, I mean, it was a mistake. Even if in
[00:59:26] Rebekah: 2023 the effect is not as I think they would have intended.
[00:59:31] Josiah: In 2004, I mean, people didn’t love it.
[00:59:34] Rebekah: It was still groundbreaking though, technology wise, whether or not the effect worked. Yes, very groundbreaking. I also thought it was cool because I know, Dad, you mentioned that it seemed as if it was almost being designed as an amusement park. You know, pitch, which I think honestly, I mean, it still has a pretty significant following, considering how often it’s re released.
First of all, totally think you could do that. I think you could have a small section of a Disney park or whoever owns the rights to this where, um, You just like have all of the rides. Like, I think it could work really well, but I did think it was cool that there are a lot of train companies who offer Polar Express packages.
And so I assume they, you know, serve hot chocolate and, and different things like that. Most common. In the United Kingdom, where trains are a much more, like, kind of standard, uh, type of travel.
[01:00:26] Josiah: Nice. Now, Christian, what is your favorite song in the movie?
[01:00:32] Tim: Probably just the overall theme song. Is that Believe?
I think so.
[01:00:37] Rebekah: The one that occurs multiple times throughout the movie. Josh Groban. Yeah. Sang
[01:00:40] Josiah: that. Nominated for an Oscar and it did win the Grammy for best song written for visual media.
[01:00:48] Rebekah: So as we, uh, before we get into our final verdicts, I did want to say Uh, the movie, like I said, has received pretty inconsistent critical acclaim because some people love it.
And it has it’s you know, it was groundbreaking technology wise. And it has, you know, this charming book behind it that was a big deal. But there were a couple of reviews that I thought major critics gave that honestly and unfortunately, kind of reflect how I feel about the movie. But Roger Ebert gave it four stars, but he called it, quote, a little creepy.
Other critics were put off by the look. Peter Travers thought it was a failed and lifeless experiment. Uh, Paul Clinton, who’s at CNN, said it was at best disconcerting and at worst a wee bit horrifying. Perhaps the strongest displeasure was voiced by Jeff Pevere of the Toronto Star, who declared if I were a child, I’d have nightmares.
Come to think of it, I did anyway.
[01:01:44] Tim 2: That’s a little strong. I think. Can we give final verdicts? I mean, I. I would say personally, I thought it was good. There was, there was a lot, a lot of good about it. I enjoyed, I enjoyed the visuals. Uh, the human part of the visuals is where I found it the most creepy. Uh, the adventure was very childlike, you know, the hot chocolate musical number that was just.
frivolous, and that’s that’s childhood, and I thought it was a nice childhood movie. The first time I watched it, I thought the message of it was just a little unclear, or perhaps they tried to make a great movie with a great theme and all of that. But I think it kind of missed the mark. I thought it was pretty good if I were giving it stars out of five stars.
I’d probably give it four. So,
[01:02:36] Josiah: yeah, I think that the book is probably better, mainly because of the animation. For me, I would probably cut the lake sequence because I think that the factory sequence, once they get to the North Pole, is already enough. adventures outside what the book gave and so I would just cut one thing so I would cut the the lake sequence and I animate it traditionally or with CGI just not digital capture.
I understand it was groundbreaking but a lot of people would say. But it was a little bit disturbing and I did think there was a lot of magic in the book. It made me feel very cozy like I was sinking into the spirit of Christmas like a fluffy recliner.
[01:03:28] Donna: I too would give the book the nod. Um, I noticed from my personal relation to the whole thing and the way it made me feel.
Um, last night when Rebekah read it to us, She held it open for us as she was reading, so we could see the illustrations as well, and it did give me a very sentimental Christmas vibe of, of a very heartwarming story, and a story that has virtue in it and also has fun in it. So I would give the book a nod.
Generally, you’re not like animated stuff. So I have a few things, animated features that I like. But in general, that’s going to be my last go to as a well, you want to what do you want to see this weekend? Um, so maybe that’s painting my, my opinion as well, but, uh, I would give the book a nod and I, I, I did enjoy it.
I enjoyed the experience of reading and watching and learning about it, so I’m not sorry we did it. I think it was a great choice to open up our Christmas season, uh, our Christmas series, I guess, of, of, uh, holiday related episodes. Um, so I’m glad, I’m glad we did it, but I’m going to say the book this time.
[01:04:51] Rebekah: I think I prefer the movie this time, just because, uh, dad said this earlier today, but the book in this case has no detail, right? And so like, normally we like the book better for reasons related to the fact that it’s got detail that you miss in the, in the film. But in this case, the film added the entire plot with all of the characters and all those things.
And so I think for me, like that was more interesting and I didn’t love the movie, but to be honest, I’ve never had small kids. So like children’s books hold nothing for me. And I honestly don’t have any children’s books that I like very strongly remember and like have nostalgia about or Think about when it comes to Christmas or many other times of the year.
So for me, it’s like, the fact that it’s a children’s book is probably what’s gonna mean. I’m not like a huge fan of the book. Um, so yeah, I think I, I preferred the movie when it comes to movie over book. However, I think that I, the movie holds a special place for me in particular because my son loves it and it means a lot to him.
It’s not because I particularly love it or it’s like the best Christmas movie or my favorite. But knowing that every year on Christmas Eve, we have this movie playing while he’s giving us all hot chocolate that he’s, you know, put all of this thought and care into, like that makes the movie special to me in a way.
The book just has no hold on me. Very sweet. Christian, what’s your final verdict? Was the book better or the movie?
[01:06:23] Christian: I mean, I like the movie, but I.
[01:06:26] Rebekah: Did you know that there was a book From which it was created.
[01:06:29] Christian: Um, I didn’t know there was a book until last night, . No, no, that’s not, that can’t be true.
[01:06:38] Rebekah: I’ve been telling Christian for three months that we were gonna do this episode and he was gonna be our guest and it didn’t occur to him that our podcast is about book to film
[01:06:45] Christian: Magic.
Just, I, I did not connect the dots. .
[01:06:51] Rebekah: Well, I guess that tracks. Yeah. Did you enjoy the reading of the, the book though?
[01:06:54] Christian: Yeah, I thought that it was, you know, heartwarming and Christmas, you know, spirit feel fit filled. Yeah, it was good.
[01:07:04] Rebekah: Well, I think that’s the end of it for today. If you are still here, thanks for listening.
And I hope that you have a fantastic Christmas. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas.
[01:07:35] Tim 2: Merry Christmas, everyone.
[01:07:37] Donna: Merry Christmas.
[01:07:38] Tim 2: Merry Christmas and jingle those bells.
[01:07:40] Donna: And to all a good night. Bye bye.