Snowpiercer

[skizzerflake]

Tonight’s film was Snowpiercer and what a strange film it was. A mostly Korean production, but with a lot of Czech participation, based on a French book, the might be the most fun you’ve had at the movies since The Road. Set in a post-apocalyptic world, frozen over after an attempt at stopping global warming went wrong in 2014, the little that’s left of humanity is circling around the icy world on a perpetual motion train, designed by a wealthy industrialist.


As you might guess, social segregation has set in, with the wealthy living a life of decadent ease in the front of the train and the dirty, miserable underclass being in the back. Bloody rebellion seems certain. When a leader emerges, things get real bad. What will happen? Will the rebellion succeed? Are things really as they seem? You have to see it to find out. I found myself thinking about movies like not only The Road, but The Hunger Games, Soylent Green (a synthetic food plays and important role), Elysium, On the Beach and elements of lot of other stories of a dismal future.


This movie is intense, brutal, savage, and often really ugly and sometimes suffers from dialog that doesn’t seem to render as well in English as it might in Korean, including one serious verbal blooper that brought out a lot of laughs on the subject of baby-eating. I was somewhat surprised to see a full theater, even if it was small one, and an action and FX heavy sci-fi movie at the usually artsy Charles. It’s probably NOT like anything else you will see this summer and, if you can take it, it’s well worth updating your picture of the human-engineered end of the world. The effects are quite good and, but the time the movie is under way, you forget that the basic premise of the whole world remnant riding around on a train doesn’t really make much sense, because the train just seems like a metaphor for the worst in human stupidity. The movie really drags you in, quite amazing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6UmqNuMdY4

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Tonight’s film was Snowpiercer and what a strange film it was. A mostly Korean production, but with a lot of Czech participation, based on a French book, the might be the most fun you’ve had at the movies since The Road. Set in a post-apocalyptic world, frozen over after an attempt at stopping global warming went wrong in 2014, the little that’s left of humanity is circling around the icy world on a perpetual motion train, designed by a wealthy industrialist.


As you might guess, social segregation has set in, with the wealthy living a life of decadent ease in the front of the train and the dirty, miserable underclass being in the back. Bloody rebellion seems certain. When a leader emerges, things get real bad. What will happen? Will the rebellion succeed? Are things really as they seem? You have to see it to find out. I found myself thinking about movies like not only The Road, but The Hunger Games, Soylent Green (a synthetic food plays and important role), Elysium, On the Beach and elements of lot of other stories of a dismal future.


This movie is intense, brutal, savage, and often really ugly and sometimes suffers from dialog that doesn’t seem to render as well in English as it might in Korean, including one serious verbal blooper that brought out a lot of laughs on the subject of baby-eating. I was somewhat surprised to see a full theater, even if it was small one, and an action and FX heavy sci-fi movie at the usually artsy Charles. It’s probably NOT like anything else you will see this summer and, if you can take it, it’s well worth updating your picture of the human-engineered end of the world. The effects are quite good and, but the time the movie is under way, you forget that the basic premise of the whole world remnant riding around on a train doesn’t really make much sense, because the train just seems like a metaphor for the worst in human stupidity. The movie really drags you in, quite amazing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6UmqNuMdY4

Yeah, I thought "Snowpiercer" was really insane. I'm ambivalent about it. I don't know if I like it or not. Probably not overall.

 

[markw]

Sounds like a netflix or cable freebee to me.

 

[skizzerflake]

Sounds like a netflix or cable freebee to me.

What I like about seeing a movie like that in a theater is the surprise of finding out that lots of people came, in spite of the strangeness of the film and observing their reactions. It was a combination of befuddlement, grimacing at the violence and "WOW!!!" The last time I saw a movie where I was as blind-sided was when I saw Particle Fever with an audience that consisted mostly of physicists and astronomers. They really got why hadrons are important and I eventually caught on. Were I to see a movie like Snowpiercer on Netflix, I would probably like it, but when I told others that it was a really interesting but hyper violent movie about a train, made by Koreans and mostly acted by Europeans, they would just look at me like I was nuts, but at least the live audience was there to let me know that somebody else thought that it was a better way to spend the evening than Transformers.

 

[Alex2507]

Getting out and seeing something different is good. I should try it sometime.

A few years ago I went through this subforum and picked a bunch of odd (for me anyways) films to Netflix. Mostly it was what I think they call film noir and the epic Chinese ones like Hero etc. Some were great and some were not so great but I'm glad I saw them all.

The one Transformers I saw left me feeling happy that it had finally ended.

Snowpiercer is a pass for me. Gore is something I actively avoid so thanks for the heads up.

 

[cinhomartins]

I was compelled to watch this movie based on good and positive reviews such as this. But i really gotta say: this is one of the worst movies i have seen in quite a while...

I'm sorry, but not a single scene or dialogue makes ANY sense and your capability for suspension of disbelief must be astronomical to enjoy the movie. In a way it IS a worse movie than Transformers, not because the last one is any good - it is obnoxious and i could not ge past the second one (although the image of Megan Fox bending over a car engine is one i treasure very much ) - but at least you know what to expect from the former, while the sci-fi one leads to hoping for a good and meaningfull plot.

You have to love how different we all are, no?

 

[skizzerflake]

I was compelled to watch this movie based on good and positive reviews such as this. But i really gotta say: this is one of the worst movies i have seen in quite a while...

I'm sorry, but not a single scene or dialogue makes ANY sense and your capability for suspension of disbelief must be astronomical to enjoy the movie. In a way it IS a worse movie than Transformers, not because the last one is any good - it is obnoxious and i could not ge past the second one (although the image of Megan Fox bending over a car engine is one i treasure very much ) - but at least you know what to expect from the former, while the sci-fi one leads to hoping for a good and meaningfull plot.

You have to love how different we all are, no?

In a zero to 100 world, the reviews seem to be in the teens (where you get a 10 for the projector light not burning out for the length of the film) or the 90's...not much middle ground. All through the movie, I kept thinking it just might drop to the teens (especially the baby eating dialog), but it ended just in time while I was on a high moment. If nothing else, it's not a conventional movie!

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

The more I think about this movie, the more I like it. It is an odd movie for sure. It reminds me of reading one of those renowned literature novels by some crazy old dead authors.

If it were English Literature, I bet the professors would have a field day reading about all the different interpretations of this movie.

It's just a crazy movie.

 

[mtrycrafts]

Is that a standard width train or specially built for the purpose of round the world travel?
Wonder what rout gets them over land all the time.
Any mention of the number of people on it? Hydroponics?
Why does it need to be constantly on the move?

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Is that a standard width train or specially built for the purpose of round the world travel?
Wonder what rout gets them over land all the time.
Any mention of the number of people on it? Hydroponics?
Why does it need to be constantly on the move?

100% Sci-Fi train. Pretty wide width I think.

I guess the train had some kind of superconductor perpetual engine.

 

[mtrycrafts]

100% Sci-Fi train. Pretty wide width I think.

I guess the train had some kind of superconductor perpetual engine.

So, they had to build special tracks around the planet for this train. Wow. How long to construct, who paid?

 

[cinhomartins]

So, they had to build special tracks around the planet for this train. Wow. How long to construct, who paid?

You already went too far... i stoped wondering at "Why"...

 

[mtrycrafts]

You already went too far... i stoped wondering at "Why"...

That is next. They didn't know what to do with all that perpetual energy? Had to to make it work?

But, all this must have been a very slow process. Did everyone else just die? When the last spike was driven, except the ones on the train?
There is no way they can survive. Numbers and nature.

 

[shadyJ]

Lol at you guys trying to make logical sense out of an allegory. Give the left half of your brain a break once in awhile. This movie is just a parable with lots of action. Personally I like when a movie goes for all-out dream logic.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

So, they had to build special tracks around the planet for this train. Wow. How long to construct, who paid?

Some rich genius train-expert bastard who foresaw the apocalypse way before everyone else.

 

[skizzerflake]

Is that a standard width train or specially built for the purpose of round the world travel?
Wonder what rout gets them over land all the time.
Any mention of the number of people on it? Hydroponics?
Why does it need to be constantly on the move?

It's not a train or a movie that obeys common sense laws of fact. The world is frozen over so apparently oceans are not much of an obstacle. It needs to be on the move all the time because its creator says it does.

 

[mtrycrafts]

It's not a train or a movie that obeys common sense laws of fact. The world is frozen over so apparently oceans are not much of an obstacle. It needs to be on the move all the time because its creator says it does.

Well, I would think it would follow a little common sense but it seems none was.
If the planet is covered by ice, where did they get the raw materials and how did anyone survive long enough to complete this train and try to live on it, let alone class divided.
Or, if they started before all the ice how did they get it on top of it.
Sure, it is a movie but it includes a train that we know something about, maybe not that propulsion system of course. Just saying, a little bet of how it got there really would have been nice.
But, I may use netflix or redbox and watch it on the computer.

 

[mtrycrafts]

Lol at you guys trying to make logical sense out of an allegory. Give the left half of your brain a break once in awhile. This movie is just a parable with lots of action. Personally I like when a movie goes for all-out dream logic.

Well, they may want to make a moral or political point but on top of a little, not much, common sense background like that train could be built even though the propulsion may be psi-fi totally.

 

[skizzerflake]

Well, I would think it would follow a little common sense but it seems none was.
If the planet is covered by ice, where did they get the raw materials and how did anyone survive long enough to complete this train and try to live on it, let alone class divided.
Or, if they started before all the ice how did they get it on top of it.
Sure, it is a movie but it includes a train that we know something about, maybe not that propulsion system of course. Just saying, a little bet of how it got there really would have been nice.
But, I may use netflix or redbox and watch it on the computer.

It's a fantasy, like warp drive or transformers or superheros. Nobody really needs to know why Superman can fly or just what the heck kryptonite is.

 

[Alex2507]

Nobody really needs to know why Superman can fly or just what the heck kryptonite is.

Good points but I'm still kind of hoping that Super Man inspired x-ray vision glasses As Seen on TV will work as promised. Oh puh-lease let those work.