the horrors of THE POLAR EXPRESS

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Ho-ho-hope you've been good little boys & girls this year, otherwise Tom Hanks might not let you take a ride on The Polar Express! This movie is a true nightmare before Christmas, thanks not only to the early motion capture technology used to bring countless Tom Hanks to life (or something vaguely resembling it), but also because there's just a bunch of random scary shit throughout for no reason?? Grab yourself some hot chocolate (oooh we got it!) and join me, Jake, & Mike for this yuletide ride!

Plot (via Wiki):
On the night of Christmas Eve, a passenger train known as the Polar Express stops on the street outside a boy's house. The boy has been growing skeptical about Santa Claus's existence. The conductor (Tom Hanks) says the train is traveling to the North Pole. The boy, although reluctant at first, climbs aboard and meets a spirited girl and a know-it-all boy. The train then stops to pick up a boy named Billy, who also initially refuses to board, but changes his mind as the train moves away. Much to the conductor's annoyance, the boy applies the emergency brake, and Billy is allowed on board, but he decides to sit alone in the observation car. A platoon of dancing waiters serve the children hot chocolate with the girl saving a cup for Billy.

When the conductor and the girl go to give Billy his cup, the boy notices that the girl's ticket has not yet been validated and tries to return it to her. In doing so, the wind blows away the ticket out into the wilderness, but it soon makes its way back to the train. After the girl discovers that her ticket is missing, the conductor leaves with her. Assuming that she will be thrown off the train, the boy finds the ticket and traverses the rooftops to find the girl. He encounters a mysterious ghostly hobo (Tom Hanks) that helps him reach the engine. The boy discovers the girl has been put in charge of the train while the engineer and fireman are replacing the engine's headlight. The boy applies the train brakes before a herd of caribou blocks the tracks. As the train continues its journey with the conductor, boy, and girl exposed to the elements standing on the front of the train, it travels at an extremely fast speed because the throttle handle's cotter pin came loose and fell off. Once they reach a frozen lake, the cotter pin is replaced and the train engineer narrowly gets the train back onto the tracks just before the ice breaks.

The conductor takes the boy and girl back to their seats and they join Billy in the observation car. The train finally arrives at the North Pole, where the conductor announces that one of the children will be chosen to receive the first gift of Christmas from Santa himself. While the girl and boy attempt to convince Billy to join them, the boy accidentally uncouples the car, causing it to roll away and speed downhill along a track into a tunnel towards a railway turntable inside Santa's workshop. The children make their way through an elf command center and a gift-sorting office facility, where Billy finds a present in his name. They are dumped into a giant sack of presents, where they also find the know-it-all. After the sack is loaded onto Santa's sleigh, the elves escort them out before Santa (Tom Hanks) and his reindeer arrive.

A bell flies loose from the galloping reindeer's reins; the boy initially cannot hear it ring, until he finds it within himself to believe. He returns the bell to Santa, who selects him to receive the first gift of Christmas. Santa agrees to let him keep the bell. As the children board the train to go back home, the boy discovers that he lost the bell through a hole in his pocket. The boy arrives home and the conductor wishes him a Merry Christmas.

He wakes up on Christmas morning to find a present containing his lost bell with a note from Santa. He and his younger sister Sarah joyfully ring the bell, but their mother and father (Tom Hanks) do not hear it because they do not believe in Santa. The boy reflects on his friends and sister eventually growing deaf to the bell over the years as their belief faded. However, despite the fact he is now an adult (Tom Hanks), the bell still rings for him, as it does "for all who truly believe."

#polarexpress #tomhanks #commentary