I know right? The only thing I dont like about it is the main characters, which is a shame because the rest of the movie is amazing. The design, the animation, the songs (We got it!), and from what I recall I think I liked the story too.
Fun Fact: The ice would have to be around 9 feet (108in) (2.74 m) thick with no or little snow cover on top of the ice to support The Pere Marquette 1225 with a loaded coal cart and 5 passenger cars (300 tons in total) as shown in the movie. For comparison only 10 inches (25 cm) thick ice is needed to support a 7-8 ton truck
When this movie came out, people were astounded by the level of realism this animation had achieved. 15 years later we can enjoy these action scenes like they were created today. If you compare Shrek for ex. That came out on 2001, you can clearly see the differences.
100%, look at toy story. took weeks to render a single fame. now we have graphic cards which can render way higher fidelity in real time (30+fps). before it took weeks of computing time just to spit out one single frame.
Ok, so that Driver reversed a 300 Ton Steam Locomotive from 1941 with 5 45m long Passenger Coaches, did a J-Turn, maneuvered that Train over a frozen Lake to the other Side and perfectly got it on the Rails again...That´s perfection.
The scary thing is that this is actually possible albeit extremely difficult with thick enough ice. The wheelsets on the train and cars might as well be skates. This scene in particular was clearly inspired by the trans-Siberian railway which literally had its tracks running through lake baikal
If you were generally curious (the movie production is really smart with this one) the train was heavily connected to coal car unlike the passenger cars so it can take a pretty far bend before breaking off
I love that the music doesnt completely drown out the scene because hearing the conductor pull clacking levers and the shouting instructions as he's doing it is so amazing and adds so much. 'Chef's kiss' poifect
When I was in elementary school, sucking on a candy cane and drinking hot cocoa in the library, I witnessed a legend drift a 100 ton train across ice. And I didn't realize it until now.
Just remember, someone sat at a table while discussing the creation of this movie and said: "You know what this story doesn't have enough of? A train drifting on the ice as it breaks up under them. Forget that a train can't actually move on ice because its wheels would be like ice skates. We need a drifting train to make the story good." And not a single person said that was the dumbest fucking thing they ever heard.
Guys from Tokyo : "Only Japanese cars are able to drift " Dominic Torretto : " Hold on my beer " Conductor and driver from the train : " Hold on my hot chocolate "
*SPOILER* I dont want spoil this but when you slow ot down you can see that he just raised his hands up to balance himself but at the angle it looks like a dab
I'm not usually impressed with 3d animation, but this scene from 2004 showed me how much potential 3d animation actually holds that doesn't get used often.
@@jonasn7739 I've seen almost all of them. And although their 3d is very neat, but it's also always soft and warm (even the Toy Story 3's junkyard scene). They are owned by Disney so I can't really blame them. They use their 3d powers to render things more magical, while this scene in Polar Express looks and feels very grounded and very little suspension of disbelief is needed to believe in the stakes of this scene, all while locomotive's gritty textures and subtle vibrations make you go: "this looks like a real train and not some warmer & sterile rendition for some children's choo-choo-train." So yeah, Pixar makes soft, sterile and gooey 3d, but I'm more impressed with movies that use grittier textures, to help ground the movie & plot down so you could actually _sense_ the stakes rather than just acknowledge them. Rango and Polar Express beat any Pixar film in my book because of this.
@@jonasn7739 Apples to Oranges. Pixar films are very stylized with unique art styles whereas films like polar express and Jim Carey’s A Christmas are trying to push through the uncanny valley
I don’t know who deserves more credit: the crew actually drifting the train across the ice and saving everyone’s asses or the conductor shouting maneuvers and directing two crew members on both sides of him AT THE SAME TIME, all while balancing on top a train swaying back and forth while traveling at probably 100 miles an hour.
This is such a nostalgia. I've remember us whole family including my cousin watching this- night before Christmas Eve, a complete cold and silence atmosphere at this exact scene, holding our breath to the next thing that's about to happen. Gotta thanks RU-vid for recommending this.
This was legit my favorite scene of the movie, and one of my favorite movie scenes period, it's just so perfect with both the animation and the voice acting/ lighting/ sound effects/ general animation and the...oh what the hell it was just an awesome scene!
Let’s just take a moment to appreciate the fact that the engineer steering this locomotive just saved the lives of him, the other engineer, the captain, the children and the other staff aboard the train while making it look so incredibly easy.
@@llemion5659 No. The main character thinks it's a dream at the end of the movie, but he was later proven to be real by the bell he lost on Santa's sleigh.
Not really the controls are backwards because of the different surface there on if a wheel doesn’t turn and it just goes forward and backwards while drifting with a lot cargo going side to side it’ll start acting like a car
