How old is the polar express

It doesn't just run on tracks, but on time as well. During the descent down Glacier Gulch, just before the engineer pulls the bobby pin from his mass of red hair, a small Flux Capacitor can briefly be seen amongst the gauges and knobs that make up the train's inner workings. But the true question is can it really go 1.

For someone who doesn't appear until the last act of the film, Santa has a strange and almost supernatural presence spread throughout the film. The belief in Santa is presented as a test of faith and plays as a constant theme throughout the film, and Santa Claus himself is even given a big and almost angelic reveal when he finally does step out on screen.

Although Santa is a character targeted mainly at children, the message of having faith is a very mature storytelling choice. Whether that's seeing Santa as a real entity or the meaning of Christmas itself, a certain amount of belief is very much required to understand on a deeper level.

A single silver sleighbell has become a powerful Christmas image thanks to this film and the book on which it's based. The use of the bells becomes a prominent feature both in the first and final acts. They act as both the catalyst to the story that unfolds and residual proof of Santa's existence. The film opens with the boy waiting to hear Santa's sleighbells on Christmas eve, but not hearing a sound until the Polar Express appears right in his front lawn.

Later in the film, he's unable to hear them until he comes to grips and finds his belief, putting his faith to the test and showing the power of belief. Tom Hanks is definitely a film icon - and that's the understatement of the year. He's played a lost castaway, a cowboy, and even Mr.

Rogers and Walt Disney. But in this festive feature, he plays not one, not two, but six different roles! That's a huge chunk of the main cast when you think about it. Hanks not only plays the conductor of the Polar Express but the narrator, the boy's father, the hobo, the Scrooge puppet, and even Santa Claus himself. Granted, Hank's natural voice can be felt in those first two, but we're really impressed by his wide range for these different characters. Not only did Tom Hanks voice several characters in the film, but he provided the motion capture for a certain few as well, including the facial structure for the boy.

Say what you want about Robert Zemekis's use of the animation technology, we gotta give him credit for utilizing Hank's talent. Motion capture is not the easiest thing in the world to do, but we tip our hats to the actors involved who give such a wide display of emotions to bring the various characters to life. It might venture into the uncanny valley at times, but we still got an enjoyable movie out of it.

We caught this on our first viewing too, but we can't for the life of us figure out what its purpose was. During the jazzy "Hot Chocolate" musical number, the girl takes a cup of hot chocolate for Billy in the back car.

First, we see her sneak a mug and hide it under the table, but when she's given another she hides it under the chair. We don't know if this was an accident or if this was the same cup of cocoa just moved to a different spot, but it certainly stuck out to us on our last viewing. We're calling out the filmmakers on this one, but it was an interesting way to show us what the animation was capable of doing. When the girl loses her ticket and it's sent fluttering out the window, it goes on a brief adventure around the snowy forest.

Desperate to find the Hero Girl, the Hobo helps the boy by skiing down the rooftops. The Hero Boy jumps into the tender of the locomotive right before they reach Flat Top Tunnel and finds the girl driving the train. After the driver, Steamer and his aide, Smokey replace the light, Steamer witnesses something unusual ahead and orders to stop the train.

The Hero Boy applies the brakes and the Conductor witnesses a caribou crossing. The train continues on, but the cotter pin of the throttle sheers off. Moving at extreme speed, the train becomes a roller coaster as it crosses Glacier Gulch and enters a frozen lake.

The lost cotter pin pierces the ice, causing it to crack. Smokey uses his hairpin to repair the throttle's pin. As the ice cracks, the Conductor orders Steamer to get to the other side of the tracks, who does so successfully before the ice lake shatters completely. The Conductor takes the two kids to a room with abandoned toys. The Hero Boy is scared off by one puppet, the puppet of the evil Ebenezer Scrooge from A Christmas Carol operated by the Hobo, and retreats to the observation car where the Hero Girl and Billy are singing.

The trio sees auroras and the train finally reaches the North Pole. Upon arrival, the children form lines while the Hero Boy and Hero Girl see Billy depressed and alone in the observation car. They try to convince Billy to go but the carriage is uncoupled and rolls downhill backwards, but stops on a turntable after Hero Boy applies the brakes by turning the brake wheel.

According to Guinness World Records , the film was the first all-motion capture film ever made. Motion capture has become a popular technique in high-budget films that blend CGI and live action, but it failed to take off in animated features. One reason may be that human characters animated in a hyper-realistic style tend to border on the slightly creepy side. Critics described the human characters in The Polar Express as dead-eyed and zombie-like , and the film is still brought up as a prime example of the so-called " uncanny valley " the unsettling feeling that people have when interacting with androids or other super-realistic humanoid simulations.

Like most of the children in the film, the main character is never given a name. Because the movie was made using motion capture, Hanks had to act out each part on a soundstage as well as speak the lines. In cases where two of his characters would share the screen, Hanks would have to act opposite a stand-in before switching to his second role to film the rest of the scene. Two actors lent their vocal talents to the Hero Boy—Tom Hanks, who plays the character as the adult narrator, and Spy Kids star Daryl Sabara , who voices him as a child.

Along with Tom Hanks, The Hunger Games star Josh Hutcherson , who was just 12 years old when the film was released, did motion capture work that was used to animate the character.