YMMV / The Polar Express

• Adaptation Displacement: People who saw the film first seem to like it a great deal better than those who grew up reading the book during The '80s and The '90s. It also helps that the real inspiration and locomotive who played the train, Pere Marquette 1225, is steaming out of Michigan today, and that other railroad institutes operate trains based on the film each holiday season (with 1225's caretakers happily advertising its connection to the movie).
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Is the Hobo a Jerk with a Heart of Gold or a Trickster Mentor testing the boy through his own kind of way? Was he scaring the boy with the Scrooge puppet for the heck of it or was he trying to give him a little push? Given the Polar Express seems to be a one time experience for him, he might've thought that this would be the only chance the Hero Boy will get.
  • Is Mr. Conductor a nice guy who's just hamstrung by deadlines and gets cranky, or a fake nice guy who loathes these children and takes out his frustrations on them?
• Aluminum Christmas Trees: The train passes by Herpolsheimer's, which was a real department store in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
• Award Snub:
  • While it did garner nominations for Best Song, Sound Editing and Mixing at the Oscars, the film itself failed to get nominated for Best Animated Feature, losing its nomination slot to Shark Tale.
  • The film losing the award for Best Song is seen as this, as "Believe" has gone on to become a modern Christmas classic that is among the most regularly played on radio and streaming services every Christmas season. The winner, "Al otro lado del río" from The Motorcycle Diaries, has fallen into obscurity.
• Awesome Music: The film and its soundtrack combine original tunes, including ballads, children's fun songs and Christianesque pop with Christmas classics performed by the likes of Bing Crosby, Perry Como and The Andrews Sisters. It is simply awesome. Check it out. And that's not even getting into the Josh Groban song "Believe".
  • "The Polar Express" song that plays during the scene when titular express finally (and triumphantly) arrives in Christmas Town. The extended version with Mr. Conductor joining singing alongside children is equally awesome.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • The scene where the Hobo ghost scares the main character with a discarded marionette puppet. No other scene is scary in such a way, and nowhere else is the Hobo so antagonistic toward the main character.
  • As the elves dance and celebrate over another successful Christmas, the singer leading all this is an elf version of Steven Tyler, with absolutely no explanation for why this mythical creature looks and sounds exactly like the famous singer before he's offscreen and never referenced again.
• Base-Breaking Character: There is debate whether the Know-It-All is a legitimately funny character to watch courtesy of Eddie Deezen, or way too annoying and underdeveloped to be likable.
• Broken Base: The animation. Is it interesting to watch a movie done entirely with Motion Capture? Or is it taking a heavy dip into the Unintentional Uncanny Valley? Some also argue that, if the animation is that realistic, they could've easily just used live-action, while others point out that filming the movie as it is in live-action would be very impractical^note Factually, had the film been made in live-action, it would have cost $1 billion to make.
• Critical Dissonance: Despite the mixed reviews from critics, moviegoers loved the film for the most part. In fact, The Polar Express is one of the rare movies to receive an A+ grade from Cinemascore. Even though the film got off to a slow start ($23.3 million Friday to Sunday opening, $30.6 million since its Wednesday launch), grossing less than half as much as the second weekend of Pixar's The Incredibles, fantastic word of mouth from audiences eventually brought it to a respectable gross of $162.8 million, nearly 7 times its opening weekend (The yearly IMAX 3D rereleases from 2005 onward have added another $23.7 million for a running total of $186.5 million).
  • Not to mention in its third weekend (which was Thanksgiving weekend), the movie actually increased 24 percent over its second weekend; $19.4 million ($26.5 million over the 5-day weekend) vs $15.7 million.
  • On top of all that, the film has since gained a particularly strong cult following that continues to go on well after ten years of the film's release; frequent re-airings on ABC, Freeform, AMC, and even the Disney Channel have certainly helped the film retain its cult status. (It even gave Toon Disney its highest ratings when the film premiered on the network in 2006.)
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • The Conductor is by far the most beloved character in the film, even by detractors, for his stern but well-meaning attitude and frequent badass feats throughout the film. Being a Deadpan Snarker played by Tom Hanks helps.
  • The Engineers are quite well-liked, mostly thanks to their insanely badass driving during the frozen lake sequence.
• Fanfic Fuel: On whether Chris ever meets anyone from The Polar Express again—Billy at least lives in his town.
• Faux Symbolism: The Hobo's line, "You said it, kid!" carries echoes of Christ's line, "That's what you say. You say that I am." (That's from Jesus Christ Superstar, incidentally, but the point still stands.)
• Franchise Original Sin: Later films using Motion Capture directed by Robert Zemeckis, most notably Mars Needs Moms and Pinocchio (2022, Disney), faced heavy criticisms of slipping into the Unintentional Uncanny Valley throughout their entirety, playing a big role in their poor reception. Such a reception plagued The Polar Express as well, but the fact that it was the first film made using this technique, not to mention its overall faithfulness to Van Alsburg's original book both in terms of art style and story while adding a few memorable scenes of its own, blunted that criticism and allowed it to be even more appreciated in later years. Neither Mars Needs Moms nor Pinocchio could enjoy that, as advances in CGI technology by that time should have prevented both from slipping into UUV territory. It doesn't help that former was based on a very obscure book, and the later is part of the controversial Disney Live-Action Remakes lineup that is too often accused of either being too unfaithful or too faithful to its source material without making any significant changes.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • This movie could apply as an (counter-)example for the "Never Travel With Tom Hanks" meme.
  • While the Hero Boy is traveling through the car of discarded toys, the Hobo brings a Scrooge puppet to life. It wasn't too long before the creators of this film got their own chance to take a crack at this tale. They even used a train to help promote that movie (though sadly not this one)!
• Memetic Badass: The following men who famously managed to Tokyo drift a train.
  • The Conductor, courtesy of Tom Hanks. The hot chocolate scene also helps.
  • The engineers, especially for the frozen lake scene.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "WHO IN THE BLAZES APPLIED THAT EMERGENCY BRAKE?!"
  • "I'm da king o' da north pole!!!!"
  • Juxtapose any Eurobeat song, particularly those featured in the Initial D series, to this Multi-Track Drifting scene, and resulting in hilarity like this.
    • At some point during the scene, the conductor appears to be doing the dab, which led to at least one fan art. ^note (archived link on the wayback machine)
    • "GET US THE BLAZES OUT OF HERE!"
    • Or just referring to this film as The Polar Express: Tokyo Drift.
  • Following RebelTaxi's review of Motion Capture films in late 2018, the Know-It-All kid ended up becoming one. Specifically, this screenshot◊, which is accompanied by people stating facts or asking questions in an intentionally pretentious or obnoxious manner. For example.
  • One particular example using the Know-It-All template is "Sicko Mode or Mo Bamba", to mock people who consider themselves knowledgeable in hip hop then suggest two of the most popular hip hop songs of late 2018 and early 2019, thus showing their surface-level knowledge of the genre.
  • The "Hot Chocolate" song is this in some circles, for being both catchy and somewhat ridiculous in a charming way.
• Narm: The Elves singing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town". Especially in eeeexxtreeeemmmee sssslllloooo-mmmoooo... The way the bell is depicted falling off the sleigh makes it seem more like a grenade than a bell. Expect at least one viewer to shout "INCOMING!" during this scene.
• Padding: To be expected since it was based on a twenty-page picture book.
  • The hero girl's ticket being blown away by a wolf pack and almost being fed to a baby bird before it finds its way back to the train.
  • The "Hot Chocolate" sequence. Luckily it's a ton of fun to watch.
  • The train's path being blocked by herd of caribou.
• Retroactive Recognition: Tinashe, an R&B singer best known for her 2014 hit "2 On", played a role in this film as the motion capture for the Hero Girl before making it big in the music community.
• Signature Scene:
  • The Hero Boy discovering the train for the first time, which has been constantly recreated in numerous marketing campaigns.
  • The train riding across the frozen lake.
• Toy Ship: Chris (Hero Boy) and Holly (Hero Girl) get a bit of it, given that she makes eyes at him when they first meet, the great lengths he goes to to return her ticket, and two hugs throughout the film.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley:
  • A frequent criticism of the CGI. Considering how they made it, by filming the actual actors performing the whole film before overlaying it digitally, this is kind of expected. It's a little forgivable as this was the first film to be animated entirely this way.
  • The kids' faces in general, especially the Lead Girl (named Holly according to some art books). They're kids having the faces of 20 year olds.
  • The elf modeled after Steven Tyler trumps even the above in how squarely it lands in the valley. And it doesn't help that the scene he appears in begins with a zoom out of his face.
• Visual Effects of Awesome:
  • For all the "dead eye" complaints this movie gets, pretty much everything else is a gorgeous CGI recreation of Chris Van Allsburg's illustration style.
  • The scene in which Hero Girl's lost ticket flies out of the train takes great opportunity to show off just how pretty the CGI is.

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