The Polar Express has been my favourite Christmas film for as long as I can remember. I come back to it every year for the beautiful music and animations, but what I love most is spotting a new detail every time.
For those who don’t know, the basic premise of The Polar Express is that Chris (better known as Hero Boy), who is starting to question whether Santa Claus is real, is woken up on Christmas Eve by the Polar Express stopping outside his house ready to carry him away to the North Pole. On his journey there, Christ meets Holly (the Hero Girl) and Billy (a lonely boy from the same town as him) and together they explore the North Pole after getting separated from the Train Conductor and the other children on the Polar Express. Throughout the film, we watch Chris rediscover the Christmas magic and his belief in Santa Claus, which makes it a heartwarming reminder of magical childhood Christmases.
What makes The Polar Express truly nostalgic is its use of motion capture technology which created a highly realistic, yet animated, 3D world. It was the first ever feature film to use this technique which essentially involves the actions and movements of live actors being recorded and then translated into animations using CGI imaging. This meant that many of the film’s scenes closely resembled the illustrations from the original 1985 book of the same name. Furthermore, The Polar Express has an amazing soundtrack, with some of my personal favourite songs being ‘Hot Chocolate,’ ‘When Christmas Comes to Town’ and ‘Believe.’ They are timeless songs that never fail to put me in a festive mood and instil some Christmas magic in me!
Finally, my favourite fact about The Polar Express is that Tom Hanks plays six different characters (seven if you include the Narrator, who is an adult version of Chris, as a separate character to the Hero Boy we see in the film). Not only did he provide the voices for these characters, but their expressions and movements were also modelled off of his, showing just how sophisticated the motion capture technology used in the film is.
I would really recommend giving The Polar Express a watch this Christmas. Even if you’ve found it a bit creepy in the past, why don’t you give it another go this year as the film marks its 21st anniversary, and the book celebrates its 40th birthday? I’m sure it will fill you with Christmas magic!
5/5
Image Credits – The Movie DB
