I'll be seeing this on Saturday morning.

In the meantime, if you want to see something disturbing, check out the picture of Tom Hanks at the New York Times.

No, that's not an audition for Hellraiser's Pinhead.

I'm gonna have a hard time getting that image out of my head while I watch this film.

I'm a big fan of the book, but so far, the trailers (with the exception of that initial,e effective teaser-trailer) haven't done anything to increase my anticipation. The more I see of the film, the more it looks like a touchy-feely cheese-fest.

Am I the only one watching the 'Polar Express' preview who has found the eyes of the characters in this film to be rather soulless and creepy?

It's one of the few 4 star reviews I've written this year. I loved it. Does exactly what it sets out to do. I'm convinced it will become a holiday staple in many many households for years to come.

I saw Polar Express and Finding Neverland within 24 hours of each other and found much common ground. Though Neverland had a far more serious subtext, they both left me feeling elated and filled with an appreciation for the wonder and power of child-like imagination.

The Hollywood Reporter raves.

This is a movie carefully crafted to capture the imaginations of LITTLE KIDS. And I don't think any other interpretation of it will work very well. I think if I'd just seen it on my own, I wouldn't have cared much for it. But watching it in an audience of small children was very revealing. The little kids around me, disregarding those with ADD, were in awe. One in particular was so transported that she kept walking slowly down the aisle in anticipation of reaching the North Pole and her mother had to keep chasing her down. The girl's face looked just like the boy's face when he sees the aliens in Close Encounters.

It really is a beautifully animated film, and the story contains only one in-joke or nod to the adults (and that one is painfully ill-advised).

It's very much in the spirit of the book, full of clever ideas, and bearing Zemeckis' stamp of whimsy.

My favorite line:

Santa: "This bell is a symbol of the spirit of Christmas ... just as I am."

My least favorite line:

"It doesn't matter which train you take. It only matters that you get on board." (or something like that)

It's a perfect film for parents to take small children to. And if older kids enjoy, I'll compliment them for their lack of cynicism.

Question: When you watch this film, do you notice a spooky similiarity between Black Rider signals and the call of a caribou?

Interesting how in spite of that dense network of sensors, the character's face is still nowhere near as animated as Hank's.

My morning screening was also CGI: The Incredibles. Pixar and Brad Bird: Perfect together!!!

Jeffrey Overstreet wrote:
: It really is a beautifully animated film, and the story contains only one in-joke or
: nod to the adults (and that one is painfully ill-advised).

Let me guess: "And the grass is..."

Definitely beautifully animated, and I can only wonder how the roller-coaster-ride scenes will look in the 3-D IMAX versions of this film. And no, I didn't find the eyes "creepy" -- for the most part, they were quite believably animated. This film felt like a definite step up from the likes of Final Fantasy, I think.

Alas, I'm not too fond of films that go through the motions of supporting and encouraging children's belief in the existence of imaginary beings, such as Santa Claus, so if I WERE to review this film, I don't think I'd be giving it very high marks. I am intrigued by the fact that this film has received so much attention from the religious press, who seem to be playing along with the film's fideism in the hope that "faith in faith" will eventually lead to faith in something true.

: It's very much in the spirit of the book . . .

I've never read the book, and had never even heard of it until I saw the ads for this film -- how much of the film comes straight from the book, and how much of it is filler designed to pad the movie out to feature-length? Cuz it did feel like there was some filler here.

: . . . full of clever ideas, and bearing Zemeckis' stamp of whimsy.

The bit with the ticket floating in the breeze was especially reminiscent of the leaf floating through the credits of Forrest Gump, though I'm not sure how many people would want to be reminded of that particular film's cynical "whimsy" while watching this one.

I have to say I've also often found Zemeckis too contrived to be enjoyable, a fact that really hit me in the late '80s when he made Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and the Back to the Future trilogy -- his are the sort of movies in which every tiny detail becomes an important plot point, and he telegraphs this through the prominent placing of certain objects in the foreground of certain shots, etc. His films just aren't allowed to "breathe" the way that the films of better filmmakers are, IMHO. And there were a few moments in this film that reminded me of that weakness of his.

: My least favorite line:
: "It doesn't matter which train you take. It only matters that you get on board."]
: (or something like that)

Yep. Actually, I think the character says something like, "It doesn't matter where the train is going..." And considering how many near-accidents this train had, skidding over the frozen lake etc., I would say it DOES matter very much where the train goes!

: Question: When you watch this film, do you notice a spooky similiarity between
: Black Rider signals and the call of a caribou?

Um ... no ... no, I don't think so ...

maybe unnecessary, but I'm being overly cautious...



Haven't seen the movie yet, but this bit is in the trailer, which was shown before The Incredibles, and DH's comment was, "What if the train is going to Auschwitz?" He can be very cynical.

There was a similarly irksome "it doesn't matter what you believe as long as you believe something" bit in Secondhand Lions, which in most other ways I loved.

Saw it. Read the book. Not a fan of either, though I give them credit for capturing the spirit of the book much better than Jumanji. In fact, they captured the writer/artist's style so perfectly in this film that I didn't even know that the book it was based on was by the writer-artist of Jumanji and I still compared this film to Jumanji the book in describing it to someone else.

But Jumanji, though an equally plotless excursion into fantasy and imagination, at least had novel situations and striking imagery. The Polar Express struck me as a series of cliches and artificial emotion, and the North Pole I found to be somewhat creepy, with all its empty, abandoned streets and canned Xmas muzak -- all 100% secular BTW.

Peter, you'll be glad to know my CT review makes a big deal about what you call the "faith in faith" issue.

But I'm still giving it three stars. My review will explain why...

BethR wrote:
: Haven't seen the movie yet, but this bit is in the trailer, which was shown before
: The Incredibles, and DH's comment was, "What if the train is going to Auschwitz?"

[ LOL! ]

Read this, and you'll see that the "faith in faith" view of the film doesn't seem to be a problem for the screenwriter. He doesn't want the film to seem connected to any specific faith journey.

Reading this interview makes me like the film even LESS.

To my mind, the more Christmasy a Christmas movie is, and the more it focuses on the "true spirit" or "real meaning" of Christmas, and ESPECIALLY the more it focuses on things like belief and faith, the more problematic and objectionable it is to me to leave out any Christian content whatsoever.

I'm getting really, really, really, really tired of the forced desacrilization of Christmas that the media and marketing sectors of our culture are foisting on us, but even so this film goes a lot further than some in a direction that doesn't merely focus on the secular aspects of Christmas as grind the Christian aspect into oblivion.

Yeah, but is it a realistic aim for Hollywood to produce Christmas movies about Christmas rather than, for want of a better term, 'the holiday season'? Personally I find it quite a laudable aim that there are Hollywood filmmakers who will make *anything* which envisions Christmas as being about more than consumerism and make the point that it should be a time to consider that there's more to life. And then the Church's role is to pick that up and explain what that search is really for.

Maybe I'm easily pleased (actually, I know I'm not but I'm just being nice) but the fact that we got The Polar Express this year rather than garbage like The Santa Clause and Jingle All the Way doesn't annoy me in the slightest. Although, of course, I am shooting myself in the foot by not having seen the film yet. But I agree with everything Jeffery says about bearing in mind the audience this film has been made for and thus am hopeful for it.



You won't be going to see The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe then, Peter?

Phil.

Don't be too pleased yet. Apparently we're also getting Christmas with the Kranks...

Shantih wrote:
: Yeah, but is it a realistic aim for Hollywood to produce Christmas movies about
: Christmas rather than, for want of a better term, 'the holiday season'?

I'm not focused on what aims are "realistic" and what are not -- I am focused on how I, as a Christian, respond to and deal with certain kinds of stories. And at a certain point, I think it behooves us not to just roll over and let the Hollywood industry steam by.

: Personally I find it quite a laudable aim that there are Hollywood filmmakers who
: will make *anything* which envisions Christmas as being about more than
: consumerism and make the point that it should be a time to consider that there's
: more to life.

And yet you implicitly defend the consumerist impulses that lead Hollywood to make films that fall safely within their "realistic aims"!



One of the longest-standing paradoxes (or hypocrisies, take your pick) of the movie industry is that it makes vast sums of money by celebrating poverty or by preaching anti-consumerist or anti-wealthy messages -- this goes back at least as far as Charlie Chaplin's The Tramp and extends into the present day with films like Titanic. So it's no big whoop that we have yet one more movie which tells us, after we have trudged past all the other stores at the shopping mall and bought our tickets and our popcorn and our drinks and our snacks and played our videogames in the lobby and pondered buying the film's tie-in books and soundtracks, that the "real spirit" of Christmas is not in material goods. There is nothing particularly unique about The Polar Express in this regard.

: But I agree with everything Jeffery says about bearing in mind the audience this
: film has been made for and thus am hopeful for it.

I, too, agree that we must bear the target audience in mind. And I think films like this may confuse them more than enlighten them, especially given how realistically the opening reel captures the Very Real Doubts that children who have been fed the Santa Claus lie will begin to have at a certain age -- "The Discovery", as that Norman Rockwell painting glimpsed in the film puts it.

: You won't be going to see The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe then, Peter?

Heh. Whole different ballgame, there. Children KNOW that everything we see in Narnia is make-believe (even if Aslan's statements in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader blur things a bit by hinting that he is not merely an allegory for Christ but IS Christ himself, within the framework of the stories). And I'm all for encouraging a child's imagination. But I am also all for earning a child's trust by telling that child the truth. Which is why I am very grateful that my parents made it very clear to me, from as far back as I can remember, that Santa Claus was just a make-believe thing that we did every year for fun. Otherwise you end up with those situations in which children, having discovered that Santa Claus doesn't really exist, begin to think that God and other benevolent figures of judgment don't exist, either.

Switching sub-topics entirely, I have to say I am fascinated by the way a very high-tech film such as this one can pine so romantically for the technologies of a generation or even a century ago (except for those video monitors that the elves have, I guess, though even THOSE look a little old). But I am also not sure what it says about this film's Santa that he doesn't seem to do anything but ride the sleigh -- all the actual WORK is done by those slightly creepy, multitudinous elves.

And hey, what's with the Steve Tyler cameo!?

I'm very unconvinced by that. Especially because the Narnia stories are rooted in 'our' universe and are about 'real' children in a fantasy world, not a completley constructed one. The framework Narnia takes is designed to make it *more* real, not less. Again, commiting horrible crimes by talking about a film I haven't seen, but nothing I've read about The Polar Express makes me think it's committing great psychological crimes against kids. In the same way I don't consider myself damaged for having looked for Narnia at the back of my wardrobe many a time after first reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

A truly awesome pun in there considering the subject of this thread. I do hope it was intentional.

Phil.

Everything in my experience with kids rejects this.

I definitely disagree with you about the Narnian "parallel worlds" device being to "make it more real, not less." Narnia exists to be a world in which we can imagine that what is myth here is fact somewhere else. Whereas The Polar Express is about imagining that what is a myth here in this world is actually not a myth at all, but a fact in this world.

Then let them MAKE a movie about "the holiday season," and not pretend to do any "explaining" about "the real meaning of Christmas." Don't bring "faith" and "believing" into it, and then make out that "believing" is something you work yourself up to by trying really hard, like the Little Engine that Could.


Nothing in the climactic relevations at the end of this movie suggests anything about there being anything more to life.


And also to denounce false, misleading, sentimental attempts to gloss over the search.


In a way, though, The Polar Express is actually MORE problematic than, well, The Santa Clause 2 anyway (not the original, which has a rather sour spirit), because it's entirely focused on Christmas and "belief" and so forth in a way that Santa Clause 2 wasn't. Santa Clause 2 had one line about "the real spirit of Christmas" (where it turned out to be basically nostalgia) in the midst of a silly plot about Tim Allen needing to get married in order to stay Santa Claus. The Polar Express is a whole film about the meaning of Christmas, so its failure to deliver anything substantial on that front is a more glaring and serious problem.

That is a very useful summation. Although much depends on the context in which Narnia is originally read. I wouldn't say it's an entirely obvious difference for someone to grasp on their own at an early age. The 'intellectualising' (or exploration of the world behind) of the story was something I had to do myself because I was reading the books by myself. Being able to explore Narnia, and all the other childhood worlds, with my own kids will be one of things I get most excited about when the time comes.

As for the rest I must await the coming of The Polar Express itself in a month's time!

Phil.

My review is up at CT Movies.

My review, just over the line from Jeffrey's in the opposite direction

A converging opinion from my bud Larry Toppman of the Charlotte Observer:
[indent]Have you ever read the wonderfully simple picture book "The Polar Express" to your children? Did you think, "If only this peaceful story of hope and belief could be vastly inflated into a pretty but saccharine movie filled with near-death experiences and treacly songs?" If so, your Christmas wish has been granted.[/indent]Ebert's four-star RAVE

[indent]"The Polar Express" has the quality of a lot of lasting children's entertainment: It's a little creepy. Not creepy in an unpleasant way, but in that sneaky, teasing way that lets you know eerie things could happen. There's a deeper, shivery tone, instead of the mindless jolliness of the usual Christmas movie.[/indent](Remind me, which "usual Christmas movies" have been characterized by "mindless jolliness" lately? Surviving Christmas? The Santa Clause flicks? The Family Man? How the Grinch Stole Christmas? Jack Frost? Jingle All the Way?)

I guess my main argument for giving the film a thumbs-up is that, for me, visual beauty is a very big plus, in spite of the flimsy story and ridiculous "spirituality." I'm glad I saw what I saw, even if the story I was told made me wince.

Jeff, I liked your review, and I do understand why you edged onto the other side of the line from me. Emphasis aside, I think our reviews are very close. I think your take is quite defensible, and, speaking for myself, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the film to like-minded film enthusiasts. For mainstream audiences, I prefer to leave this one in the "your call" range, but I wouldn't say your choice to go the other way was "wrong," or even that I really disagree with it. It's just not the way I went.

So ... you mean ... I don't get to turn this into a flame war?

The Uncanny Valley, or why POLAR EXPRESS is so creepy

An interesting, if somewhat crass article. I actually came across this concept of "The Uncanny Valley" earlier - it might have been on this forum, actually, though I found no reference to it with the search engine - in regards to Pixar's films, I believe.

Isn't this really the perfect definition for Bad Santa?

Hmmm, here's one more reason why it might be a good thing if they never make a third Toy Story movie -- it seems Tom Hanks movies always underperform when he teams up with a director for the third time. Earlier this year, there was The Terminal (directed by Steven Spielberg, who had worked with Hanks on Saving Private Ryan and Catch Me If You Can), and now, The Polar Express (directed by Robert Zemeckis, who had worked with Hanks on Forrest Gump and Cast Away) was able to scrape up only $23.5 million -- less than half of what The Incredibles made this weekend, and a pittance considering the film's rumoured $170 million production costs and $100 million marketing costs.

Suffice to say Tom Hanks should probably NOT team up a third time with Ron Howard (who directed him in Splash and Apollo 13) or Penny Marshall (who directed him in Big and A League of Their Own) or Nora Ephron (who directed him in Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail).

Small alert.......

Caught POLAR EXPRESS this weekend with my 8-year-old. He was completely engaged throughout (and even needed to hide his face during a couple of the more intense "rollercoaster" scenes - he doesn't like rollercoasters...) He liked the Hot Chocolate song and the When Christmas Comes to Town song. (I like that one too.) There is some clammer in my family to go see it again. It will at least be a rental some day.

The "have faith in a fiction" aspect was present, though not a bad as I was expecting. I like a good Santa Claus story, but have trouble with ones that go out of their way to make belief in Santa a sacred thing.

Some of the visuals were eye-popping. A beautiful film to look at. Any scene where the train itself is the focus was a sight to behold. I agree with some who say the characters faces still seem too wooden or stiff. It would have perhaps been better if they had gone with a more animated approach, such as the Princess Fiona character in the Shrek films.

Three items at the end of the film had the affect of reducing the overall impact of the story for me:

(1) The rock star cameo
(2) The "It doesn't matter where the train is going, what matters is deciding to get on" quote. For one thing, that sentiment did not seem to be the "theme" of the story, or the journey, so why was it put at this important point as if it WAS the theme? And as others have pointed out - as it is worded, it's a lousy sentiment. It most certainly DOES matter where the train is going, and even in the context of the movie, it mattered where the train was going.
(3) Having a note from "Mr. C." in the Christmas present containing the bell. This may have been part of the original book - I've not read it. But to my mind, the ending would have more impact if it had been just the bell in the box, with no note. Especially since they just re-established the ripping of the pocket on the robe as the boy got out of bed to come downstairs

B

(sorta, kinda)

THAT'S the "in-joke" I was referring to in my review. I was thunderstruck that, after such admirable restraint, Zemeckis suddenly let Stephen Tyler into his Christmas movie.

Jeffrey Overstreet wrote:
: I was thunderstruck that, after such admirable restraint, Zemeckis suddenly let
: Stephen Tyler into his Christmas movie.

Well, if daughter Liv gets to play an elf in the Lord of the Rings movies, then I guess papa Steve had to be allowed to play one too!

I won't complain too loudly, but when people on the board --including the administrator! --repeat spoiler information, aren't they supposed to add a "Spoilers" tag before their own posts?

It's too late for me to be surprised by the rock-star cameo; I can only hope others are spared.

I dunno, given that a number of newspaper articles have referred to the Tyler cameo as well, I don't think THAT'S a particularly big spoiler.

Well, except, of course, for the fact that it "spoils" the FILM for some people.

I dunno. I’d feel a lot better if you both had that “33% Warning” bar staring at you for the next several weeks—the same penalty I once incurred for a similar offense, setting off one of my periodic board tantrums.

Alan?

Just kidding, of course. But if you reveal that Triumph the Insult Dog shows up in the North Pole during the final moments of “The Polar Express,” then I’ll really be upset.

I realize you're joking, Christian, but maybe I should have included a spoiler warning. But it doesn't spoil ANYTHING about the plot. It's such an insignificant, throwaway moment ... which is precisely why it struck me as such an odd and jarring moment in that film.

David Sterritt does, too. From his Christian Science Monitor review:

"It's hard to figure out why the filmmakers would spend enormous amounts of time and money to turn the genuine Tom Hanks into an animated Tom Hanks, but at least they've done a good job with him and the rest of the cast - except for the characters' eyes, which have an unreal look that's almost creepy at times."

Well, I'm still waiting for release here but my warm feelings towards The Polar Express are beginning to cool considerably. It's all Tom Hanks' fault. Speaking at the London premiere:



So there you have it. Santa really is bigger than Jesus...

Phil.

Another hilarious story from the folks at Dateline: Hollywood...

THOUSANDS OF CONFUSED, EAGER CHILDREN BOARD AMTRAK TRAINS AFTER WATCHING ‘POLAR EXPRESS’



Hey, you don't have to tell me... I'm there right now.

I couldn't resist sending this to my brother-in-law, who forwarded Charles Colson's take on the Polar Express to the DH and me the other day. Colson, like Tom Hanks, seems to read Santa Claus as a metaphor for God and/or Christ:



There's certainly something to be said for that, but I'm not sure this movie is the something.

Here's an interesting discovery. I was looking at this past weekends box office returns (Nov 26 - 29th), and noticed that The Polar Express had a 23% increase in ticket sales, as compared to the previous weekend. There wasn't any increase in theatres. Perhaps this movie will end up playing better than previous weeks indicated, as Christmas draws near. If you look at the 5 day Thanksgiving holiday weekend gross (Nov 24th - 29th), The Polar Express numbers are 69% higher than the previous weekend. The Incredibles and National Treasure had 24% and 30% increases, but these numbers become negatives (-11% and -8.5%) when looking at the 3 day weekend gross. Only The Polar Express maintained an overall increase in revenue.

I can't think of another film that has had this kind of increase in revenue, that played in 1000 plus theatres... not counting films that first opened in a limited amount of theatres and then went into wide release. Perhaps Titanic did.

I don't know... Peter seems to be the person to go to when it comes to box office numbers. Have you seen a situation similar to this?

Baal_T'shuvah wrote:
: Have you seen a situation similar to this?

I haven't looked at American Thanksgiving-style long weekends with that kind of scrutiny, no.

I've been away from this place for a while...new job, new life...but had to chime in on the discussion.

I've seen this film in IMAX 3D...TWICE! This is one of the more memorable movie experiences I've had in my life. I forsee me telling the grandkids about seeing this film when I'm old and gray and heading down the hill...

I have no problem with the message of the film. There is indeed a Christmas spirit that emodies American culture each year. For us as believers, Jesus Christ is the main (and, yes, proper) focus of Christmas. For others, it's all about the gifts. For others, it's a time for love, hope and reaffirming faith. For me, the film reinforces the latter. I can't find much fault with that.

Baal_T'shuvah wrote:
: Perhaps this movie will end up playing better than previous weeks indicated, as
: Christmas draws near.

Yeah, it seems reports of this film's demise may have been premature. At the rate it's going, it'll cross the coveted $100 million mark today, its 30th day of release.

PE as evangelical film

If PE is an evangelical film, I don't like it as such. From something I wrote but never posted online, at least in full:[indent]A common New Testament dictionary definition of “faith,” often heard in Evangelical circles, is “trust in, cling to, rely on.” This language is echoed in Warner Brothers’ computer-animated The Polar Express in one of a number of short inspirational messages that the Conductor (Tom Hanks) punches into his young passengers’ tickets with his ticket puncher. One boy’s ticket message carries an extra magical punch: The message changes as he turns the ticket over in his hands, variously reading “count on… rely on… depend on.”

But “count on, rely on, depend on” what exactly? Even Santa Claus (Hanks again, the pitch of his voice artificially dropped) won’t say. In an intriguing line, Santa identifies himself as “a wonderful symbol of the spirit of Christmas,” yet goes on to say only that “The real meaning of Christmas is in your heart.” Whatever that means.

The Polar Express comes close to evoking the theme of believing in God in a sly question from the mysterious rail-riding Tramp (Hanks yet again) on the snow-covered roof of the Polar Express during a seemingly chance encounter with the young Hero Boy (voiced by Daryl Sabara, though Hanks provided the motion-capture “performance”): “So, what exactly is your position on the Big Man?”
“I want to believe,” Hero Boy answers cautiously.

The Tramp nods knowingly. “But you don’t want to be bamboozled… taken in… suckered. Seeing is believing.” But this point of view is contradicted by the Conductor: “Sometimes seeing is believing… sometimes the most real things are the things we can’t see.”

It’s an interesting idea, even if the “Big Man” in question is not the Ancient of Days, but only Santa Claus. If The Polar Express were merely vague about the object of true Christmas faith, it might still be possible for Christian viewers to supply the specifics themselves.

But belief in The Polar Express isn’t ultimately faith in things unseen, but merely accepting what one can see. The whole premise is that Santa Claus actually sends a train to Hero Boy’s house to pick him up and bring him to the North Pole. Hero Boy sees Santa’s North Pole home. He sees the elves. He sees a gargantuan pile of Christmas presents gathered into a sack the size of a dirigible. He sees flying reindeer. He even catches a glimpse of the bearded fellow himself through a crowd of elves, though (despite the fact that Santa’s elves are nowhere near as tall as Tolkien’s elves) Hero Boy finds himself, like Zaccheus, unable to get a good look at the Big Man because of the crowd.

At this point the film suggests that the reason Santa himself remains hidden from Hero Boy’s sight is that Hero Boy still doesn’t “believe.” We know he doesn’t have real faith, because he can’t hear the magical North Pole jingle bells that, as in the short Chris Van Allsberg picture book upon which the film is based, can be heard only by true believers.

Thus we get a scene in which Hero Boy tries to muster up real faith that will be pleasing to Santa, concentrating real hard like the Little Engine that Could (“I believe… I believe…”). It’s like the mirror image of poor Linus in his pumpkin patch in “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown,” trying pathetically to be as “sincere” as possible despite having no indication of the Great Pumpkin ever taking the slightest interest in him.

For Peanuts creator Charles Schulz, himself a Christian, Linus’ Halloween angst was a satire of a certain kind of religious mistake, the belief of certain Pentecostal-type Fundamentalists that if God fails to reward one’s prayers with miraculous results, it must be due to a deficiency of faith on one’s own part. The makers of The Polar Express, on the other hand, have no idea Hero Boy’s dilemma is as much a parody of faith removed from true faith as is Linus’s crisis, though in the opposite direction.

Here Santa has actually sent a train for our Hero and brought him to the North Pole, yet — despite experiences that would have sufficed to make a believer out of David Hume or The Amazing Randi — he’s still dithering. That’s not what faith is about. Small wonder an unbelieving writer recently commented in an online forum that the theme of faith in The Polar Express “is just a bit wee bit undermined by the fact that Hero Boy is given a whole bunch of empirical evidence that makes the entire concept of faith unnecessary. I mean, I'm a diehard atheist, but I'd be willing to give the notion of God another twirl if somebody came by my apartment and took me on an express ride to Heaven and back, you know?”

Perhaps the height of The Polar Express’s fatuous pseudo-spirituality is this pseudo-profound line from the Conductor: “The thing about trains is, it doesn’t matter where they’re going. What matters is deciding to get on board.” (Quipped a friend of a friend: “What if it’s going to Auschwitz?”)[/indent]

A few comments here.

I also saw the film in IMAX 3D. I thought the film was a fun, amusement-park ride that didn't patronize its young target audience. That, right there, is remarkable. I loved the grandeur given to Santa, and that the elves were the good ole mischevious kind, not the sylvan immortals of Tolkein's realm.

Yes, the film left me wanting more Christian substance for Christmas. But, as long I'm not directing my daughter to take this film as source material, I am comfortable with its inclusion. Christmas is about more than Jesus--not less. The early church ignored the birth of Jesus altogether, and for centures Ephiphany was favored over the observation of our Lord's birth. We know the date is incorrect. Trees, wreaths, lights, candles, yule logs, gift-giving, and other traditions did not originate in Christian celebrations of the season.

The only religious reference I could find in the film was an allusion to the song Hark the Herald Angels Sing. Sadly, without knowing the Gospel, I would think most people would guess the angels were heralding the arrival of Santa, not God with us.

THIS note, from Slate, however, makes me want to vomit:
[indent]HomeWord Radio, which claims to reach more than a million Christian parents daily, broadcast three shows promoting the film. At one point, the show's host wondered excitedly if the movie "might turn out to be one of the more effective witnessing tools in modern times." Motive also produced a promotional package that was syndicated to over 100 radio stations in which Christian recording artists like Amy Grant, Steven Curtis Chapman, and Avalon talked about the movie as they exited preview screenings.[/indent]

With regard to the 'faith' angle, and the evangelical community take this film as a serious treatment of faith, I am gravely disheartened. Faith is the evidence of things not seen, not the refutation of fact. There is no Santa Claus. One can go to the North Pole (at least before it melts away). There is nothing there. Technically, there is no North Pole (no land mass). I put my daughter's presents out last night and filled the socks--not Saint Nicholas, who has been dead for centuries. "Faith" in Santa is merely an assention that the Santa myth and the childhood wonder of the season is worthy of celebration and delight. Faith in Jesus is faith in the "God who is there," the risen Christ. These are radically different kinds of faith and I have serious reservations about any 'minister' who equates the two. There are rational, historical, reasons for believing in Jesus--it's NOT an irrational faith.

I'm with utz on this one - I loved it, and am eager to return for a second helping - maybe tomorrow. Visually extraordinary, for one thing. The frisson between Santa Faith and Jesus Faith I find intriguing, not off-putting, so that whole stream of discussion here seems to me pretty much beside the point. (Definite kudos, though, to DH and his Auschwizt jibe).

Seems to me we all reach a point in life - well, several points, probably, but certainly this is something that tends to come up as we're rounding the corner into adulthood - where we find ourselves wrestling with disenchantment. The "magic" goes out of Christmas, we find out...



...there's no Easter bunny...

...and we question all the weird stuff we heard in Sunday school. Some of us are lucky enough to let go a whole lot of security blanket beliefs we've latched onto in childhood while holding onto other grand improbabilities, and retaining (or rediscovering) a certain childlike capacity for wonder. I see this as a film about that passage out of naive childhood into adult childhood (as opposed to cynical adulthood). Lewis messes around with this sort of thing in characters like Edmund in "Wardrobe" or Eustace in "Dawn Treader" - or with the wilting of Susan's faith that's mentioned in the later Narnia books.

The film's a little scary, a little creepy! Well I say, God bless it! Fear is close to wonder: the best non-Jesus Christmas story is, after all, a ghost story. And if we're not willing to venture out of what's sweet and comforting, I don't think we're likely to get anywhere near awe or joy.

Somebody found the vintage Christmas songs played through distant speakers at the North Pole eerie. I found them extraordinarily lovely and evocative: they pulled at me with a strange sort of beauty. There was a blend of loneliness and comfort there that I found haunting and reassuring both at the same time. So much so that I checked out the song listings at IMDb when I got home, and downloaded as many as I could from iTunes - providing me with a wonderful shock, and a reminder that people weren't always so Either/Or about Christmas, with the Christians righteously rallied under the Birth Of Christ banner and the consumerist Army Of Commerce marching behind a mercenary Santa Claus. Check out the original lyrics to that hymn to Santaism that I've never had much time for. I'd previously picked up on the "hang your stocking and say your prayers 'cause Santa Claus comes tonight" bit, but didn't see the prayer reference as anything more than some idea that kids would be pleading with God to get their chosen consumer item. But as far as I know, these lines have been excised in recent years; at least they were new to me;
"He doesn't care if you're rich or poor he loves you just the same
Santa Claus knows we're all God's children, that makes everything right
So fill your hearts with Christmas cheer cause Santa Claus comes tonight."

And then the real kicker;
"Peace on earth will come to all if we just follow the light
So let's give thanks to the Lord above 'cause Santa Claus comes tonight..."

Sure, it's a clumsy mix of Santaism and Christianity. But personally, I delight in that kind of awkward dance of sacred and secular, tacky and true - all year round, and especially at Christmas, when it's all carried to a wonderful extreme. Flesh and spirit, silly and sublime, humanity and divinity - bring it on!

I'm a sucker for Christmas, I'm a sucker for the power of gift-giving and gift-receiving, and I'm a real sucker for stories about what I'm going to loosely refer to as "vocation" - about people living out a life that honours the way God has made them. About people being given particular gifts and then being called on to use them. It's there in the Narnia stories - a sewing machine and a sluice gate, a bow and a quiver full of arrows, an ivory horn, a sword and shield, a cordial "made of the juice of one of the fire-flowers that grow in the mountains of the sun." (Apparently even a confirmed old bachelor like Jack Lewis had room for Father Christmas in his battle against the White Witch). Tolkien has almost precisely the same sorts of gifts being endowed to people, mostly by the elves, and the same theme resonates throughout his whole magnificent story, as various characters grow into the fullness of their character, giftedness, calling - Strider assumes kingship, Gandalf Greybeard becomes Gandalf The White (in contrary motion to Saruman, who betrays his calling), Eowyn proves herself a warrior in the image of her father (who proves himself worthy of his lineage), Sam the gardener and the other hobbits in their own ways become Heroes - indeed, it's a story all about the inner gifts of character being uncovered through necessity and sacrifice. I'm just back from THE INCREDIBLES, and it too is all about calling: the cost of calling denied or evaded, the life-giving power of calling restored, the inevitability of calling - "it's in your blood."

And at that level, I was really shaken up by THE POLAR EXPRESS. When the conductor punched those tickets at the end of the ride, an affirmation of what had emerged on the journey and a reminder, a gentle prodding, a call to carry those thing forward into their adult lives, I felt the power of naming the strengths that had been called out in these children (and the weaknesses that had been challenged) as something, yes, sacred.

There's something divine about recognizing that each of us bears some part of the image and likeness of God, and that we can be transformed further into his likeness by discovering those gifts, using them to bless. That we really do need each other, because each has some gift that will serve The Fellowship at some needed time. It may be celebrated at the coronation of the king, it may be punched into our ticket at the end of a wintry journey, it may be given to us by Father Christmas on a snowy night in Narnia and someday turn the tide of battle or save the life of our brother. The Wise Men brought gifts to the infant Jesus, gifts that proved prophetic about the role he was to play in human history, a destiny he would grow into - it was in his blood.

There's something essentially Christmas in these stories of gifts, in these stories of journeys and new life - birth and rebirth. Ebenezer Scrooge visits the scenes of his life and, eventually, wakes up a changed man. George Bailey is given a vision of what the world would have been like without his quiet, hobbit-like presence in the world - he sees how the way he was made, and the quiet way he lived that out for his friends and family, preserved a community - he sees, and he is transformed.

LORD OF THE RINGS has acquired a Christmas connection because of the timing of the films' advent on movie screens, but that Christmas connection will last for deeper reasons. THE LION, THE WITCH & THE WARDROBE has Christmas at its heart, and when it opens next December that connection will deepen and carry over into the Narnia stories that follow. In so many ways they share essential things with A CHRISTMAS CAROL and IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, and so they join a kind of Christmas Canon, stories about magic and wonder, ghosts and angels, gifts and destiny, new birth and fresh starts, stories about gifts given and gifts received. A canon which I believe THE POLAR EXPRESS will be joining.

If not at your house, certainly at mine.

I have moved STEVE and PETER's BICKERING about Christmas and Church government here.

Major tangent, boys. Next time take it outside.

AND thank you, Ron, for that delightful post; you give a lot to think about as (as a parent) I have been wrestling with some of these things.

SDG wrote:
: As if the drama of church history were the story of five bishops who bear the title
: of patriarch!

Oh, heck, why go back only THAT far? As you know, the model of Petrine submission to the conciliarity of the church goes all the way back to the Council of Jerusalem, as per Acts 15. And let's not forget how Paul chewed out that "chief steward" of yours, and ultimately successfully at that, when the steward erred, as per Galatians 2.

But now we're REALLY off-topic. My apologies!

Ron wrote:
: Visually extraordinary, for one thing.

More show-offy than extraordinary, I thought. E.g., that bit with the ticket flying through the forest was definite padding, and all too reminiscent of the leaf in Zemeckis's Forrest Gump. And then there are the roller-coaster rides -- fine if you're just looking for an IMAX 3-D theme-park ride, but just more padding in any other context. This film would have been more effective (and, for whatever it's worth, it would have been truer to the book) if it had been a short film.

Come to think of it, I am reminded of that early-'80s animated film The Snowman that a friend at church loaned me a few weeks back. It's about half an hour, and it's cute and lovely and covers similar ground to The Polar Express -- a boy wakes up in the middle of the night and visits Santa and whatnot, etc. But The Snowman doesn't try to overwhelm the viewer with the full might of its technological prowess, and it expresses just as much wonder about the natural world as it does about the supernatural (the boy shows off his home to the snowman, before the snowman takes him out flying over the snowy fields), and it is exactly as long as it needs to be -- it doesn't feel the need to pad itself out to feature length.

And I am also reminded of what an awful, awful travesty the Ron Howard / Jim Carrey version of The Grinch was, much (though not all) of which can be attributed to the fact that they tried to puff a short film up to feature length. The Polar Express falls into that same hole -- though it is nowhere near as tacky and tawdry as Howard's film.

: Some of us are lucky enough to let go a whole lot of security blanket beliefs
: we've latched onto in childhood while holding onto other grand improbabilities,
: and retaining (or rediscovering) a certain childlike capacity for wonder.

I honestly cannot think of any "security blanket beliefs" that I ever had to give up, whether we're talking about Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy, so the confusion between those beliefs and the stuff they teach in Sunday School was never an issue for me. I do remember believing that Lee Majors really had bionic implants, simply because I had seen them on TV and of course the camera never lies, but once I realized how special effects work, it was no biggie.

: The film's a little scary, a little creepy! Well I say, God bless it! Fear is close to
: wonder: the best non-Jesus Christmas story is, after all, a ghost story.

And the best Jesus Christmas story is a bloodbath -- lest we forget one Herod the Great!

Ron, I find it interesting that you spend most of your defense of this film writing about OTHER films'n'things. In other threads, you have said that people who review a film should cite "specifics", so I am wondering how many specific things you find praiseworthy in this film, and whether you think any of the specifics-oriented criticisms of the film have merit?

FWIW, I still stand by my "bait-and-switch" interpretation of the film -- the way in which the early scenes evoke the disillusionment of growing up are TOO real, TOO grounded in the way things really are, that it just seems wrong to snap right around and peddle more of that candy-cane fluff as though it somehow answered the issues raised by those early scenes.

Alan Thomas wrote:
: I have moved STEVE and PETER's BICKERING . . .

Methinks you moved a couple posts too many. My initial response to your claim about the church ignoring the birth of Christ liturgically actually included a very on-topic comment or two.

: Major tangent, boys. Next time take it outside.

Or learn not to take winkies so seriously (this is directed more at SDG than at Alan, but...).