The Polar Express (film)

The Polar Express is a 2004 American 3D computer-animated film based on the 1985 children's book of the same name by Chris Van Allsburg, who also served as one of the executive producers on the film. Written, produced, and directed by Robert Zemeckis, the film features human characters animated using live action motion capture animation.

The film stars Daryl Sabara, Nona Gaye, Jimmy Bennett, and Eddie Deezen, with Tom Hanks in six distinct roles. The film also included a performance by Tinashe at age 9, who later gained exposure as a pop singer in the 2010s, as the CGI-model for the female protagonist.

Castle Rock Entertainment produced the film in association with Shangri-La Entertainment, ImageMovers, Playtone, and Golden Mean for Warner Bros. Pictures, as Castle Rock's first animated production. The visual effects and performance capture were done at Sony Pictures Imageworks. The film was made with a budget of $165 million, a record-breaking sum for an animated feature at the time.

The film was released in both conventional and IMAX 3D theaters on November 10, 2004. It grossed $310.6 million worldwide, and was later listed in the 2006 Guinness World Book of Records as the first all-digital capture film. The film also marks Michael Jeter's last acting role before his death, and the film was thus dedicated to his memory.

Plot
On the night of Christmas Eve, a Grand Rapids, Michigan boy (Voiced by Daryl Sabara) is growing bitterly skeptical of the existence of Santa Claus. As he struggles to sleep, he is roused by the arrival of a steam locomotive on the street outside his home, and dons his robe to investigate, tearing the robe's pocket as he retrieves it. Outside, the train's conductor (Tom Hanks) introduces the train as the Polar Express, bound for the North Pole. The boy initially declines to board, but jumps aboard the train as it pulls away.

In a passenger car, he befriends a spirited and amicable girl, and a condescending know-it-all. The train stops to pick up an impoverished child, Billy, who also declines to board; Billy changes his mind, and the boy applies the emergency brake to allow him to catch up to the train, much to the conductor's chagrin (until he understand that it was for Billy to climb aboard). As Billy sits alone in the train's rear dining car, hot chocolate is served in the passenger car, and the girl saves her hot chocolate for Billy. As she and the conductor cross to the dining car, the boy notices she left her ticket behind unpunched, but loses hold of the ticket between the cars when he attempts to return it. The ticket reenters the passenger car, but not before the conductor notices its absence and escorts the girl back to the rear car.

The know-it-all claims that the conductor will jettison the girl from the back of the train; the boy recovers the ticket and dashes to the dining car in search of the conductor, climbing onto the roof from the rear platform. He meets a hobo camping on the roof, who offers him coffee and discusses the existence of Santa Claus and belief in ghosts. The hobo skis with the boy along the tops of the cars towards the train's coal tender, where the hobo disappears. Here, the boy discovers that the girl has been made to supervise the locomotive while engineers Steamer and Smokey replace the train's headlight. The train is forced to stop while the conductor disperses a herd of caribou that is blocking their way, whereupon the engineers return to the cabin and the boy, girl and conductor remain on the catwalk on the front of the locomotive. The throttle's split pin sheers off, causing the train to accelerate uncontrollably down a 179-degree grade like a rollercoaster and onto a frozen lake, where the engineers repair the throttle with a hairpin and drift the train to realign it to escape the broken ice with the tracks. The boy returns the girl's ticket, and as the three return to the passenger car, the boy is accosted by an Ebenezer Scrooge marionette (controlled by the hobo), taunting him and calling him a doubter.

The train finally arrives at the North Pole, where the conductor announces that one of the passengers will be chosen to receive the first gift of Christmas, from Santa himself. The girl discovers Billy still alone in the rear car, stating that Christmas doesn't really work out for him, so she and the boy try to persuade him to come along; however, the boy accidentally unhitches the car, sending it back along the line to a railway turntable in Santa's workshop. The children sneak through an elf command center and a gift sorting office before accidentally being dumped into Santa's sack, where they discover that the know-it-all stowed away along with them, hoping to open his Christmas presents early. The elves rescue them as Santa arrives, and the boy grows frustrated, unable to see Santa through the crowd. A jingle bell flies loose from the galloping reindeers' reins; the boy initially cannot hear it ring, until he finds it within himself to believe. He returns the bell to Santa as he passes, and Santa selects the boy to receive the first gift of Christmas. The boy asks to keep the jingle bell, and places it in his robe pocket.

The wayward rear car is returned to the train as the children board to return home, but then the boy discovers that he had lost the bell through the hole in his robe pocket. He returns home and awakens Christmas morning to find a present containing the bell. He and his younger sister Sarah ring the bell to their delight; their parents, not believing in Santa, lament how the bell is "broken". As an adult, the boy reflects on how his friends and his sister grew deaf to the bell as their belief faded over the years. However, the bell still rings for him, as it will do for all those who truly believe.

Cast

 * Tom Hanks as the Hero Boy (motion-capture only), the Hero Boy's father, the Conductor, the Hobo, Santa Claus, and the Narrator (the Hero Boy as adult)
 * Daryl Sabara as the Hero Boy (voice)
 * Josh Hutcherson as the Hero Boy (additional motion-capture)
 * Leslie Zemeckis as Sister Sarah (motion-capture only) and the Hero Boy's mother
 * Isabella Peregrina as Sister Sarah (voice)
 * Ashly Holloway as Sister Sarah (additional motion-capture)
 * Eddie Deezen as Know-It-All
 * Jimmy 'Jax' Pinchak as Know-It-All (additional motion-capture)
 * Nona Gaye as the Hero Girl
 * Chantel Valdivieso as the Hero Girl (additional motion-capture)
 * Meagan Moore as the Hero Girl (singing voice)
 * Tinashe as the Hero Girl (motion-capture modeling)
 * Peter Scolari as Billy the Lonely Boy (motion-capture only)
 * Hayden McFarland as Billy the Lonely Boy (additional motion-capture)
 * Jimmy Bennett as Billy the Lonely Boy (voice)
 * Matthew Hall as Billy the Lonely Boy (singing voice)
 * Michael Jeter as Smokey and Steamer (motion-capture)
 * Andre Sogliuzzo as Smokey and Steamer (voice only)
 * Dylan Cash as Boy on Train (voice)
 * Brendan King and Andy Pellick as the Pastry Chefs
 * Josh Eli, Rolandas Hendricks, Jon Scott, Sean Scott, Mark Mendonca, Mark Goodman, Gregory Gast, and Gordon Hart as the Waiters
 * Chris Coppola as Gus the Toothless Boy and an Elf
 * Connor Matheus as the Toothless Boy (additional motion-capture)
 * Julene Renee as the Red Head Girl and an Elf
 * Phil Fondacaro, Debbie Lee Carrington, Mark Povinelli, and Ed Gale as Elves
 * Charles Fleischer as the Elf General
 * Steven Tyler as the Elf Lieutenant and the Elf Singer
 * Dante Pastula as the Little Boy
 * Eric Newton, Aidan O'Shea, Aaron Hendry, Kevin C. Carr, Bee Jay Joyer, Jena Carpenter, Karine Mauffrey, Beth Carpenter, Bill Forchion, Devin Henderson, and Sagiv Ben-Binyamin as Acrobatic Elves
 * Evan Sabara as a Young Boy (additional motion-capture)

Architecture
The buildings at the North Pole refer to a number of buildings related to American railroading history. The buildings in the square at the city's center are loosely based on the Pullman Factory in Chicago's Pullman neighborhood.

Polar Express Locomotive
The locomotive featured in the film is an American 2-8-4 Berkshire type steam locomotive, with a cowcatcher, modeled after the Pere Marquette 1225, which had spent many years on static display near Spartan Stadium in East Lansing, Michigan on the campus of Michigan State University, where Chris Van Allsburg recalled playing on the engine when attending football games as a child.

In July 2002, Warner Bros. approached the engine's owner, the Steam Railroading Institute, to study the engine. The engine in the film is modeled from the PM #1225's drawings and the sounds from recordings made of the 1225 operating under steam. The whistle, however, was taken from Sierra Railway #3.

IMAX 3D version
In addition to standard theatrical 35mm format, a 3-D version for IMAX was also released, generated from the same 3-D digital models used for the standard version.

Home media release
The film was released on DVD as separated widescreen and full-screen versions in single and two-disc special editions (with bonus features) and on VHS on November 22, 2005, one year after the film came out. It was released on Blu-ray with bonus features and presented in the original widescreen aspect ratio on October 30, 2007.

Critical response
On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews, the film has a weighted average score of 61 out of 100 based on 36 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 55% based on 202 reviews, with an average rating of 6.4/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Though the movie is visually stunning overall, the animation for the human characters isn't lifelike enough, and the story is padded." Despite the polarized reception from critics, The Polar Express has been popular among audiences. The Independent reported in 2011 that the film "is now seen by many as a classic". CinemaScore reported that audiences gave the film a rare "A+" grade.

Roger Ebert gave the film his highest rating of four stars, saying, "There's a deeper, shivery tone, instead of the mindless jolliness of the usual Christmas movie." And "It has a haunting, magical quality ..." Acknowledging comments by other reviewers, Ebert said, "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." Richard Roeper gave a glowing review to the film as well, saying that it "remains true to the book, right down to the bittersweet final image." James Berardinelli gave it a 3.5/4, stating that it is "a delightful tale guaranteed to enthrall viewers of all ages", and ranked it as the 10th best film of 2004.

The character design and animation were criticized for dipping into the uncanny valley. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film a 1 out of 4 stars, and called it "a failed and lifeless experiment in which everything goes wrong". Stephanie Zacharek of Salon gave the film 1.5 stars out of 5 and said, "I could probably have tolerated the incessant jitteriness of The Polar Express if the look of it didn't give me the creeps." Geoff Pevere of the Toronto Star stated, "If I were a child, I'd have nightmares. Come to think of it, I did anyway." Paul Clinton from CNN called it "at best disconcerting, and at worst, a wee bit horrifying".

Box office
The film opened at #2 and earned $23,323,463 from approximately 7,000 screens at 3,650 theaters, for a per-theater average of $6,390 and a per-screen average of $3,332 in its opening weekend. It also brought in a total of $30,629,146 since its Wednesday launch. The weekend total also included $2,100,000 from 59 IMAX theaters, for an IMAX theater average of $35,593, and had a $3,000,000 take since Wednesday. In its second weekend, it grossed another $15,668,101, declining 33%, averaging $4,293 from 3,650 venues and boosting the 12-day cumulative to $51,463,282 and over Thanksgiving weekend made another $19,389,927, increasing 24%, averaging $5,312 from 3,650 venues and raising the 19-day cumulative to $81,479,861. The film has made $186,493,472 domestically (including IMAX re-releases), and $124,140,582 overseas for a total worldwide gross of $310,634,054.

The film had its network TV premiere on ABC, December 1, 2006. The airing brought in 13.2 million viewers, winning its timeslot and ranking 20th in the Nielsen ratings that week, according to TVTango.com.

Awards and honors
The film was nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Sound Editing (Randy Thom and Dennis Leonard), Best Sound Mixing (Randy Thom, Tom Johnson, Dennis S. Sands and William B. Kaplan) and Best Original Song for "Believe"

The film was nominated at the 3rd Visual Effects Society Awards in the category of "Outstanding Performance by an Animated Character in an Animated Motion Picture."

In 2008, the American Film Institute nominated The Polar Express for its Top 10 Animated Films list.

The "Polar Express Experience"
In November 2007, SeaWorld Orlando debuted the Polar Express Experience, a Motion Simulator ride based on the film. The attraction is a temporary replacement for the Wild Arctic attraction. The building housing the attraction was also temporarily re-themed to a railroad station and ride vehicles painted to resemble Polar Express passenger cars. The plot for the ride revolves around a trip to the North Pole on Christmas Eve. Guests feel the motion of the locomotive as well as the swinging of the train on ice and feeling of ice crumbling beneath them. The attraction was available until January 1, 2008, and is now open annually during the Christmas season.

The 4D film, distributed by SimEx-Iwerks, has been shown at other amusement parks around the world including Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden, Dollywood (during the annual Smoky Mountain Christmas event), Vancouver Aquarium (2009 — 2010), and Warner Bros. Movie World (during the White Christmas events in 2010 and 2011).

Video game
A video game based on the film was released on November 26, 2004 for GameCube, Game Boy Advance, PlayStation 2 and Windows, developed by Blue Tongue Entertainment and published by THQ. The plot of the game is more different than the film version. Within this time, the Ebenezer Scrooge puppet who is set as the main antagonist of the game, attempts to prevent the children from believing in Santa Claus by stealing their tickets and trying to stop the children from making it to the North Pole.