YMMV / Hugo

• Aluminum Christmas Trees:
  • Automata, clockwork robots that could perform pre-determined feats, have existed since the 16th century. Cruder automatons powered by levers and wind existed before that.
  • Color movies during the silent era of filmmaking. As explained in the film, the filmmakers hand-colored each frame with ink. Actual color photography was possible even before this era, but it would have been impractically difficult to create an entire film this way
• Audience-Alienating Premise: As this article points out, a PG-rated family film being directed by the same person who also directed a series of violent R-rated crime movies, in addition to starring the infamously crude Sacha Baron Cohen, was a major reason for the film's financial failure despite positive reception. However, it later got Vindicated by History.
• Award Snub: Lost to The Artist (another brilliant love letter to cinema in a different sort) for Best Picture at the Academy Awards.
• Awesome Music: Howard Shore did the music. What do you expect?
• He Really Can Act: Sacha Baron Cohen, one of the biggest polarizing comedians of the late 2000s, has a far more emotional and vulnerable role than usual and pulls it off very well.
• Nightmare Fuel: Both of Hugo's dreams, but ESPECIALLY the second one. The first dream is grim too since we see Hugo getting (presumably) run over by a train, although we never see it happening; our only hint at the event is the train emitting a piercing screech as it goes on to barrel through the station and crash through the window. The scariest part? It (or its ending, to specify) was designed as an homage to a real-life train crash.
• Signature Scene: The runaway train dream.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Papa Georges's backstory.
  • Shoe heels.
  • Hugo begging Inspector Gustave to let him go so that he could bring Georges' long-lost automaton back.
  • Inspector Gustave's embarrassment at his leg brace seizing up again, and his curt explanation. "You see, I was injured in the war, and it will never heal. Good evening, mademoiselle."
  • Some of the sadder illustrations of the book.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: The opening flyby of the train station. It really shows how well 3D can be used in the right hands. And the aforementioned dreams.
  • The final montage of Méliès' films wasn't post-converted to 3D. In order to get ahead of piracy, Méliès shot his later films with two cameras side-by-side, with one negative going to North America, the other to his native France. But when the two negatives of the same film were combined, they produced a stereoscopic 3D image. Méliès inadvertently shot in native 3D in 1902!

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