The Polar Express December 3, 2005
Posted by Phillip in : tehfamliy , 1 comment so farMy wife recently purchased the critically acclaimed movie The Polar Express for a “holiday movie”. I have to admit, I had my doubts. I’m not into movies that are animated, pixarmated or children’s movies in any form or fasion. So I was very suprised when I loved this movie. It’s true that Tom Hanks really can do any role. I heard a rumor that on the second DVD there is a short documentory about how they made the movie. I still need to check that out.
The funny part is, my wife didn’t buy the movie for me. She really bought it for Phillip Jr., you see, he is obsessed with trains. He loves them. He has a large collection of Thomas the Tank Engine toys, books about trains and all sorts of other stuff. We go to Brackenridge Park and ride the train at least once a month. When he sees me working on my computer, he comes over and says “Daddy, picture train.” Indicating to me that he would like to sit in my lap and look at pictures of trains on teh intarweb.
I really suprised him a couple months back when Darrell and I went to Virginia for Novell training, we stopped into the Smithsonian and Darrell was kind enough to get some pictures of me with some trains. He likes those pictures a lot.
Anyway, before I turn into Neal Stephenson and get completely off topic. The movie was excellent. If you have ever read the book, don’t expect too much to be the same. Apparently in order to stretch a 15 page book that is mostly pictures into a rougly 2 hour motion picture, you need to extend your schema and do some major character development. This includes making new characters out of no where. Which is fine, the book is the book and the movie is the movie. They are two separate entities. They are both worth it, check them out.
I am sure Ian will make some amusing post that reads something like “You know what I liked about the movie? NO READING.”