UPDATE: Hi all who’ve linked in to my Snowpiercer ramblings. Thanks for coming. To be honest, I’m used to rambling in a bit of a bubble, not for a wider audience. This was never meant to be an official, last-word on the film. Bong is great, but I did not like this movie, so I was trying to work out why. So these thoughts are a bit half-formed. Take them for what they are…
ORIGINAL: I didn’t want to pile on Snowpiercer, having made a couple of bitchy Tweets about it on Sunday. But perhaps I should expand on my thoughts a little bit…
In case you’ve missed it, Snowpiercer is Bong Joon-ho’s adaptation of the French science-fiction graphic novel Le Transperceneige. It’s about a train circling the frozen Earth, after a misguided attempt at fixing global warming caused the planet to completely ice over, killing everything. The train is incredibly divided by class, which, unsurprisingly, makes the poor folk in the back rather unhappy. So one day, a guy in the back, Curtis (Chris Evans), leads the poor in a revolution against the rich people in the front of the train.
Oh, there will be SPOILERS, so proceed at your own risk.
As I wrote Sunday, I found Snowpiercer to be rather ridiculous, heavy-handed and empty-headed. Not offensively terrible (like Kim Jee-woon’s I SAW THE DEVIL or everything Michael Bay has ever touched), but just really “meh.” For a director as good as Bong Joon-ho, I expect better and hold him to a higher standard.
Big picture first: the story just doesn’t work. It doesn’t work as science-fiction, and it doesn’t work as allegory. Just because a story with huge freakin’ plot holes was made by a favorite director doesn’t mean those holes aren’t there and aren’t massive. Even if you accept the silly idea of a train being the only thing to survive this massive, planet-wide cooling (and with a movie like this, you just sort of have to accept the initial premise, or why even watch?), nothing following makes sense.
Case in point: the last frickin’ scene in the movie (again, SPOILER!) … which shows that there is indeed life left on Earth. For a giant mammal to survive 17 years of this icy weather, things could not have been nearly that bad. It had to live somewhere. It had to eat. Clearly, things were not as bad as we were led to believe, which undercuts the whole point of the movie.
Nor does the train itself make any sense. There’s just no way the closed ecosystem of the train could support 1,000 people, at least not the train that we saw. And where do they get all those cockroaches?
The basic plotting is full of problems, too. Ko Ah-sung’s character has some kind of magic telepathy, which is unexplained and rather random (and certainly doesn’t match the rest of the film). People act like the train has been zipping through the frozen wastes for a hundred years, or even a thousand, not seventeen.
And the end of the film features not one but THREE big soliloquies, as Evans, Song Kang-ho, and Ed Harris all have to explain their characters and the big picture and whatever else hasn’t been made clear. That much exposition is a pretty bad sign a story has gone off the rails (train pun!).
Also, the ruling class on the Snowpiercer train are some of the stupidest villains ever. There are about a thousand ways they could have maintained order better if that was the goal.
Okay, if the story makes no sense at any sort of speculative-fiction level, maybe it was intended as an allegory for something about life today. But, then, an allegory for what? Today’s class divisions and rising inequality? I don’t think so. There are no parallels between the economics of the train and today’s inequality (you’d need to show the rich cars co-opting support of some of the poor cars for that to begin to make any sense).
Maybe capitalism itself is a high-speed train rushing through the frozen desolation it created? Ugh, now my head hurts.
Another thing I noticed that pissed me off: what’s with the trope used by so many (bad) sci-fi stories these days about the whole apocalypse and subsequent uprising being part of some convoluted plan to control things? Wilford’s speech at the end of Snowpiercer could have been said by the Architect in Matrix 2. And a lot of the themes parallel the story in Hugh Howey’s Wool.
I suspect the film suffered from that insufferable 386-generation trait, the romanticizing of the democracy movement and the violence that gave birth to modern Korean society. Given that Bong is a Yonsei University sociology major from the 1980s (a hotbed of the student movement), this is an understandable failing, but it’s still a pretty big failing. The equations are very simplistic: poor = good, rich = bad. Poor teaming up to oppose the rich with massive violence = very very good. Cathartic for some, I guess, put ultimately it is pretty childish. And Snowpiercer is rather dark and serious to be so childish.
Oh, all the axe-swinging in a key fight scene mid-movie makes me wonder how involved Park Chan-wook was in the movie — it looks like something right out of Oldboy.
But, in the end, the biggest failing of Snowpiercer, in my subjective opinion, is that it’s just not very entertaining or interesting. It starts slowly, has little action or fun stuff, and is way too dour most of the time.
Anyhow, after all that negativity, I think I should end with something positive. So … Song Kang-ho and the translation machine had some funny bits. And Ko Ah-sung is great. I’m really looking forward to seeing her in more films in the future.
Sorry to sound all negative. I’m sure Bong Joon-ho is going to make plenty more great films in the future. But Snowpiercer was a total misfire.
100% agree with you mark.
Yes Ko Ah Sung is great. Her physique doesn’t seem to change much from The Host era but her acting ability certainly is. Don’t get me wrong she also superb in Host, but it always nice to know an actor/actress constantly develop their acting ability as they age, not just stagnant.
I think your 386er misgivings are perhaps misplaced. The film doesn’t really show the violence, or the overthrowing of society in a very good light, as it proves to be ultimately futile. By the end of the film its pretty clear that it’s not about class war.
I’m surprised you didn’t mention religion as a potential allegory, as it seems to me to be the most likely candidate. the references were laid on fairly thick, after all.
Perhaps, following on from that, North Korea might be a better fit in some ways, with its deified leader protecting a suppressed people from a hostile outside world, but maybe that is far fetched.
They should have kept the bit where the polar bear eats those two at the end, though.
Hi Paul:
Thanks for the comment. Yeah, I admit that was one of the more tenuous parts of my analysis. But there were some visual elements that I didn’t like and I was trying to figure out why.
As for the futile thing … well, the Korean saying is “You die, I die.” So there’s a lot of futility built into the system. 😉
– Mark
This is the first time that I have visited this website after it was linked to me by a friend.
Firstly, it seems that I wasn’t the only person who was annoyed with the science, or the lack thereof, in this movie. The polar bear at the end of the movie got me a little annoyed as well.
That being said, I took away with me a very different opinion of the movie, especially in the allegorical sense of the story. Perhaps you could give it a read and tell me what you think.
http://thekoreanforeigner.blogspot.kr/2013/08/the-philsophy-of-snowpiercer.html
Awful movie. We saw it at a screening in NJ. One of the worst movies I have ever seen and I have laughed through “Battlefield Earth” numerous times. I am not surprised it has been cut in length. Tilda is laughably bad. NUMEROUS plot holes.
To me , the train is an allegory for any closed belief system: It works a an allegory for the North Korean Juche ideology ( this fits with the fact that life IS actually possible outside the train), a an allegory for religion/religious fanatiscism, particularly Christianity with Wilford representing mighty Jahwe (the Creator and Lord who is not to be questioned) and Gilliam representing Jesus (preaching and practising self-sacrifice and letting people feed of his flesh), or even an allegory for mental illness with different parts of a fractured self oppressing and fighting each other,thus imprisoning and limiting the person suffering. Freedom and dignity can only be achieved by overcoming such closed,imprisoning belief systems. But a a straight clas-war metaphor, the story is a failure, you are right.
Great review, I couldn’t agree more.
I like to blame the french for the plot fails, as it is based off a french comic.
I have not read it all, but I rather like the comic. The artists seem to have a good sense of tone for the subject, which Bong totally lacked.
Just watched it. Absolutely horrible. I’m actually pissed.
It could have been so much more, but ended up an empty tin can.
q’s? i have a million, but how about:
-why were some of those axe swingers wearing masks with no eyes cut out??
-why were some eyes, on the other hand, cut out – and more over, why did they have eye makeup on??
-why did guards not use guns with bullets when they have plenty?
-for that mattter why didnt axe swingers use guns with bullets?
-anyone see them throw the switch on the lights for the axe swingers re:tunnel entry?
-whats with the slow as shit pace whenever the koreans were involved?
-whats with koreans exporting their hate for japan into this movie? every bad guy had to utter some jp…
-why does this train need to go around the world?
-why didnt the guy just use the train engine as a gen-ny and build a private biosphere?
-why does that k-girl wear three different fur coats at the end? zippers/ponchos/etc…and why no gloves…and why is it not all that cold??
-why blow up the train again?
-how did that k-girl know the kid was under the floor? oh yeah, magic powers…why is that again?
-whats with the over the top sushi eating?
-why can they stop and eat some sushi while revolting on a small train?
-how did that gun across the valley through windows while the train is in a semi-circle (seemed smart for about 3 seconds) work exactly? train is moving at a decent speed and yet they were directly across from on e another for 5 minutes or so????
-religion re:train engine in just 17 years? no other religions?
-were do all the paper supplies come from for the kids in the clean and perfect kindergarten come from ? paper mill? how about the colors of the papers? dye plant?
-where did those fur coats come from again?
-the guy who never dies..point?
-track must be awesome to not need any upkeep
-train external parts too…amazing
-built a love train but decided last cars would have no windows?
-no one else put a train on the tracks?
-why did they blow up that train again??
-why is the last 20 min. in slo-mo?
-why did intro tell me”all life extinct” and then show me a train of a 1000 people (not to mention polar bears)
-so…they kept the people alive at the back for kids…that they didnt need until the train started falling apart…nice proactive thinking…
-all kids are the same age?!
-birth control a plenty or sex is taboo in the future?
-why do revolting people always pause for speeches?
-again, why does the train need to go around the world?
-why are there only japanese (bad guys), chinese, korean, american, and a random slice of various uk properties on the train?
-how did those non-eng. japanese get on? stopover in japan?
-and the koreans? bridged to korea and another stop? or did they all come to usa and hop on? or did everyone go to korea and hop on?
-train only goes in mtns? (and a couple small cities??)??
-toothpaste/shampoo/medicine/etc…all made in various factories on the train?
-all that tech and a train round the world was the best the guy could come up with?\
-why around the world again?
-why are the people repressed yet have subversive pictures everywhere?
-was that old fart at the back of the back train – with private room – elected? or is he just exactly what the movie was trying to bitch and moan about except he was a good guy which in turn just made a mess out of that allegory….????
and on and on and on…
slightly worse than d-war…slightly better that quarantine (that movie just made me angry while this one mostly confused me)…
ps-anyone else notice the train constantly changed length?
I agree with all of your main points. I had so many problems with the film, Did they farm the roaches? That would make more sense. Where were the animals, the chickens and pigs and cows? You see meat, but no animals. It might have made more sense if they were eating the tail-enders, creating the illusion of being upwardly mobile, with people in the back lamenting how those who moved up forgot them all, etc. Where did their clothes come from? After 17 years, not much clothing would be left. Why were the tail-enders forced to cannibalism in the first months? Why were they forgotten at the point when supplies would have been (theoretically) abundant? Where did the people at the front sleep? We see luxuries, parties, saunas, restaurants, but no living areas. Likewise, the polar bear bothered me MOST. I thought the movie would have been awesome if you’d been left with only two survivors who know there is no food and they will, despite their furs (where DID they come from?) will still freeze in hours (when exposed skin turns solid in minutes). “We took the train! Yay! Now we’re screwed!” That would have been a more controversial but more enjoyable ending. Also, Wilford’s plan for Curtis at the end made no sense at all. Didn’t he have other, better options? I loved the movie, but on thinking about it, I agree that it’s a mess.
Lots of valid points here.
I just finished watching it and I wondered to myself…If this was just a Korean movie with only Korean actors…would I have been easier on the film and just let all the plot holes go? I actually thought it was a Hollywood film at first. But I think I tend to take all the plot holes in foreign films for granted. Anyway it’s fairly easy to see the ones in this movie so let’s get to it.
1) In the start of the movie they stick a mans arm out of the train as a ‘punishment by frostbite. Basically, it’s so cold that you might freeze to death outside even if the train speed makes the cold even harsher it still means it’s not fit for life yet. So stopping the train to get out would be a pretty stupid idea.
2) If the Korean guy with the bomb wanted to blow a hole to get out of the train why couldn’t he just place the explosive on the window that clearly could be broken after a few rounds of bullets. He clearly had a lot of those explosive drugs at the end of the movie.
3) If they wanted Curtis to get to the front and drive the train why put him through hell to get there? The purpose would be defeated if he got shot, stabbed, axed etc. The only test I saw was that he let Edgar die for the greater good.
4) For 17 years they are in the train. They found a way to make cockroaches. Couldn’t they have made something to replace the little kid in the engine. really?
5) The train and tracks had to be built before anyone got into it. So the hierarchy system and the train route was already decided. Their should be more history to it than what the movie describes.
6) Where are they right now? Europe? It would make sense cuz you can’t have a train going over seas. But that would mean other countries didn’t think of any other alternatives or try saving the train dwellers. It’s a little weird to begin with.
All in all if you had a movie with this premise you could have had a better back story that is believable and then had an amazing story after it. The future world of the film could’ve been such a great form of allegory instead of the nonsense lesson it is forcing down our throats. Couldn’t human existence work without such blood shed? They crash the entire train for the few people in front considering the entire train just breaks apart who knows if there were any survivors except the last two who walked out of the train? I wish this was a movie with showing human spirit rather than human greed and darkness. This could’ve been one of the best SciFis ever made but now it’s just bloody grit movie that sells. Sad.
Tried to tell everybody this movie was crap over a year ago when I saw it with friends at a screening in NJ. Worst movie I have probably ever seen.
There definitely are plot holes and dumb action sequences but it didn’t ruin it for me.
Point is simple, it shows rat race.
Ed’s character tells you that even if you are a winner you are still a rat, you are still on the train, trapped with predetermined choices.
I think it’s a great representation of our society.
Most of the people are indoctrinated to like the train (the class scene shows you indoctrination), some hate it and wanna take over at any cost (which doesn’t make them any better then oppressors) and some want to leave it but they are to scared and afraid they won’t survive without it.
This was a nonsensical movie without getting all-worked up over which direction the light-switches flipped. It’s an allegory. One made pretty obvious by the fact I just saw it in one of the world’s most expensive cities; after catching a scum encrusted train from the boonies; to see it in a grand old gilt-covered theater; surrounded by wealthy lanyard wearers in reserved seats; and I swear to god… the audience found it hysterical when
Spoiler:
Alex Chin (the lead actor whatever he’s called) gave his “I ate babies” speech. No kidding. That’s a hilarious joke to Australians. Guess they’re further forward on the ice train and can appreciate it differently to me… anyway:
While we’re on the subject of bizarre choices for plot… no one noticed:
The snowpiercer’s tracks were bare of snow but for ice clumps? And,
Spoiler:
The obvious answer to who is placing the message tubes – that couldn’t possibly be anyone else.
And… how did that dude watch that plane every year from drug prison… and clairvoyant? Why didn’t he just give her a crystal, a Richard Dawkins Bible, and a Harry Potter book to rub it would have been a more culturally relevant.
And wasn’t this more or less the plot of the earlier French Sci-Fi book The Ice Company?
Ok, how about this question? The lady that led them part of the way to the front (and the guy running the engine) exhibited the same hand movements as the children that had to manually operate the train, but they were both clearly more than 17 years beyond the size required for that manual position!
This movie was so terrible, I was actually seething with rage as I was watching it in the theater. It started around the stupid shooting through the train glass scene and didn’t let up until it finally, mercifully, came to and end. People did clap at the end, now I’m wondering if I actually saw a different movie than they did…maybe I had a hallucination of some terrible movie while they were watching something brilliant. Yes, this movie was so bad, it actually had me questioning my own sanity.
You got to admit, though, as bad reactions go, that was a pretty great bad reaction. Much better than just “boring” or “mediocre.”
Sweet whispering Jesus man, thank you. Thank you so much for seeing this film as the pile of plot holes that I saw as well. With its massive acclaim, I was starting to think I was alone. I would hug you if I could.
Basically a thinly veiled excuse for a slasher film, complete with psychopathic mastermind.
Medical plot holes galore. If the tail-enders were put in a “bare metal box” for the first month with no food or water how did they even survive the first week? If you cut off a limb, eating a little part of it will not compensate for the metabolic demands of blood loss/ healing response. Not to mention that under those conditions you’d probably die of infection. Yes, if you get severe frostbite, you can get a type of dry gangrene where the frostbitten part separates cleanly and bloodlessly, but it takes weeks. If you freeze a limb then smash it off, it will still bleed when the stump defrosts (as all who’ve dropped frogs in liquid nitrogen in science classes will attest). Or you’ll get wet gangrene and die. Why isn’t everyone in the windowless tail end getting rickets and scurvy? The train has plenty of water and energy, but in terms of protein it’s a closed system. No way to make it last 18 years unless you’re recycling bodies and every drop of blood splashed on the windows. Why hasn’t there ever been an epidemic in such an enclosed community?
I can understand anticipating the need for guns on the train, but how did they anticipate they’d need so many pikes and axes? Or is there a forge on the train? There’s obviously a safe way of getting the kids into and out of the little engine spaces they’re in, to feed them and clean them and swap them over, so why does Curtis have to stick his arm in the machinery and end up with it amputated? Symbolic but pointless. There were fur coats on some of the adults near the front of the train (not sure why they need them if the train is sealed and heated) so taking one from someone who’d worn it when they came forward to fight at the bridge could explain the adult size fur coat at the end, but not the child’s one.
The original story being a metaphor for class war is very probable since it was written by a French, and France is one of the last countries in the world where marxism is still considered as a viable school of thought and a useful critic of capitalism, with Cuba and North Korea (I’m French btw, so don’t view this as generic french-bashing).
Good article.
first; beautiful alegory of the class sistem. Nice efects and cast, great.
but……………
1.In the scene where theres a shoot out between Curtis followers and that big Henchmen from oposite cars of the train.
-Where did Curtis learn to shoot whit such accuracy? On the narrow train with no guns/bullets?
-Theres an insane distance between the cars to even think on a shoot out.
-If they can break those windows, why Naam and Yoko did´nt try to jump trought the glass to escape the train?
-How those henchmen ,the ones who executed Gilliam, ended up behind Curtis´s followers?
-After killing Claude, why not take Wilford hostage and gain some time to plan their escape to the outside?
I haven’t even finnished watching this train wreck.
I don’t need to watch the whole thing to know,
this is the worst movie I have ever seen or will ever see
Grrrrrrrrrrrrr plus derrrrrrrrrr = blaaaaaaaah
Thanks to everyone who voiced their displeasure with this diatribe of a movie.
Why……just why, it makes my head hurt and I want my time and money back.
I’m turning it off now.
IM GONNA WATCH SOMETHING ……..? BETTER.
LIKE A DOCUMENTARY ON SEPTIC TANKS
I liked it. Why? It was fun to wach . Also it’s more about arête than anything else. Rise to the top by chopping people up and gain power to support your ideals.
You hit the nail on the head. What a garbage program.. It’s biggest achievement was leaving me so spiteful as to inspire negative feedback here, a rare feat.
Protagonists – 2/10
Villains – 1/10
Acting – 1/10
Concept – 7/10
Cinematography – 2/10
Immersion – 1/10
Left a sour taste in my mouth. Would recommend anyway avoids this film where possible.
Cheers
I disagree, I liked the brutality and the surreal atmosphere that the film presented. In my opinion it was one of the best action films of the year.
Wow. 15 months later and the comments are still coming in. I never expected this post to be so popular when I wrote it. Thanks to all for your thoughts, pro and con.
Here are some of my thoughts regarding the questions posted in the comments. Have not read the comic.
A LOT of people brought up the polar bear.
Civilization would fall before humans. Once civilization falls, the humans would have no heating or any large scale industries. That is when they would have to survive the cold without technology. Many animals do not rely on human civilization to survive. Many animals can survive in temperatures well beyond limits for humans. A polar bear happens to be one of those animals.
-Questions
My random answers.
-why were some of those axe swingers wearing masks with no eyes cut out??
-why were some eyes, on the other hand, cut out – and more over, why did they have eye makeup on??
Costume design. Visual appeal.
-why did guards not use guns with bullets when they have plenty?
-for that mattter why didnt axe swingers use guns with bullets?
Wilford wanted Curtis to get to the front. Like they said, the whole plan rested on the fact that they had no bullets. Wilford needed the revolution to succeed up to a point. Once it went too far, they brought out the real guns.
-whats with koreans exporting their hate for japan into this movie? every bad guy had to utter some jp…
That is how it works for most films or any forms of expression. A bit of the culture/bias seeps into it.
-why does this train need to go around the world?
-why didnt the guy just use the train engine as a gen-ny and build a private biosphere?
Maybe to pick everyone up? You would have to assume while people were boarding, it was not cold enough to kill yet. A stationary biosphere would not be able to “save” all the cultures.
-why blow up the train again?
Only way to force people to go outside.
-how did that gun across the valley through windows while the train is in a semi-circle (seemed smart for about 3 seconds) work exactly? train is moving at a decent speed and yet they were directly across from on e another for 5 minutes or so????
Not just that. It would literally be impossible for a human being to accurately shoot from a moving tiny window to another moving tiny window with that much wind, distance, and momentum.
-religion re:train engine in just 17 years? no other religions?
Extent of brainwashing for the fronts. Extent of “poorness” for the back. This seems like more of a conscious choice to make it a class struggle not a religious one.
-were do all the paper supplies come from for the kids in the clean and perfect kindergarten come from ? paper mill? how about the colors of the papers? dye plant?
-where did those fur coats come from again?
Based on my understanding of the film, which is sparse at best, the train is ridiculously long. We are only shown certain sections. We saw a dentist in there somewhere. They do seem to grow stuff on the train.
-track must be awesome to not need any upkeep
-train external parts too…amazing
If you accept the premise that the train is powered by a perpetual motion engine, then indestructible rails, train, and whatever is not that big of a leap.
-built a love train but decided last cars would have no windows?
-no one else put a train on the tracks?
Maybe because no one else could build a perpetual motion machine or indestructible train parts. This goes along with the basic premise. You either accept the basic premise of the film and watch it, or just don’t watch it. The windows might have been Wilford’s design from the beginning. He probably envisioned a closed system from the start.
-so…they kept the people alive at the back for kids…that they didnt need until the train started falling apart…nice proactive thinking…
-all kids are the same age?!
-birth control a plenty or sex is taboo in the future?
It seems they harvest the back for people all the time. This could have been explained better. We did see them meet that guy who cooks the cockroaches. You have to assume they have taken more than those 2 kids. The parents already knew to hide them. They definitely should have made it longer than 17 years. It would have made everything more believable. The climate improvement, the brainwashing, the “balanced” ecosystem, etc.
-why do revolting people always pause for speeches?
Dramatic effect? I don’t know about this one. Most movies do this. Not just with revolting people either. Just a lot of random speeches…
-how did those non-eng. japanese get on? stopover in japan?
-and the koreans? bridged to korea and another stop? or did they all come to usa and hop on? or did everyone go to korea and hop on?
-train only goes in mtns? (and a couple small cities??)??
Cheaper to film. You don’t want to CGI entire frozen landscapes. Also, the train goes around the world. Not too hard for there to have been major stations for people to gather before the cold got too extreme.
-toothpaste/shampoo/medicine/etc…all made in various factories on the train?
Yes. Super long train. Not every car was shown.
-all that tech and a train round the world was the best the guy could come up with?
-why around the world again?
Already answered. Train for mobility to save as many as possible.
-Did they farm the roaches? That would make more sense. Where were the animals, the chickens and pigs and cows? You see meat, but no animals.
They farmed animals. Long train.
-It might have made more sense if they were eating the tail-enders, creating the illusion of being upwardly mobile, with people in the back lamenting how those who moved up forgot them all, etc. Where did their clothes come from? After 17 years, not much clothing would be left.
Farming includes cotton, not just husbandry.
-Why were the tail-enders forced to cannibalism in the first months? Why were they forgotten at the point when supplies would have been (theoretically) abundant?
The population after the initial boarding’s would have been too high. Wilford might have done this on purpose to build towards the future.
-Where did the people at the front sleep? We see luxuries, parties, saunas, restaurants, but no living areas.
Super long train.
-Likewise, the polar bear bothered me MOST.
Refer to top.
1) In the start of the movie they stick a mans arm out of the train as a ‘punishment by frostbite. Basically, it’s so cold that you might freeze to death outside even if the train speed makes the cold even harsher it still means it’s not fit for life yet. So stopping the train to get out would be a pretty stupid idea.
Wind chill is a large factor when it comes to moving vehicles. This happens to be some sort of perpetual motion machine that can ram through thick ice walls. The speed of the train would be pretty high. That would explain why the guy’s arm was frozen solid. What should have bothered you is that it didn’t break off outside the train from the wind.
2) If the Korean guy with the bomb wanted to blow a hole to get out of the train why couldn’t he just place the explosive on the window that clearly could be broken after a few rounds of bullets. He clearly had a lot of those explosive drugs at the end of the movie.
It seems like he wanted to stop the train and not just blow up the back which might have possibly derailed this impossibly long train. From what I understood, this train is super-duper long. We only see a few sections. Wilford claims Curtis is the only person to walk the entire length of the train. A lot of distance and isolation/hierarchy to overcome. The problem is the lady with the tape measure was in the back and so was the bad guy who refused to die. This could be sort of explained by the fact that we only see portions of the back. It seems to be extremely long. So the lady and the bad guy have only been to the “front” of the back.
3) If they wanted Curtis to get to the front and drive the train why put him through hell to get there? The purpose would be defeated if he got shot, stabbed, axed etc. The only test I saw was that he let Edgar die for the greater good.
Another test would have been killing a crap-load of people for the benefit of some other people. The test was administered by Wilford with the help of John Hurt’s character. This might have been a decade long test or more.
4) For 17 years they are in the train. They found a way to make cockroaches. Couldn’t they have made something to replace the little kid in the engine. really?
The engine is special. It will never break. It was apparently another part of the train that is powered by the engines that broke.
5) The train and tracks had to be built before anyone got into it. So the hierarchy system and the train route was already decided. Their should be more history to it than what the movie describes.
Definitely. A crap-load more backstory would have been helpful.
6) Where are they right now? Europe? It would make sense cuz you can’t have a train going over seas. But that would mean other countries didn’t think of any other alternatives or try saving the train dwellers. It’s a little weird to begin with.
They used the Bering Strait. You have to remember the world is frozen over. They go around the world. There was a map in the video shown in the classroom. It is kind of weird that they celebrate Washington and Lincoln’s birthdays.
My problems with this film.
They mentioned the African part of the tracks is over a dessert. It is supposed to be super hot but the train can withstand it as well the freezing cold. That should mean there is some middle ground between being baked and being frozen. Humanity should have found that sweet spot and rebuilt there. The train is not needed.
Needs more backstory about the train. I assumed the train was ridiculously long and only a tiny fraction was shown to us. I mean the back of the train where the poor lived seemed to consist of a lot of cars. They crammed thousands of people into it. Probably 100 cars just for the back. They don’t have to show each section. They could have just suggested that there was agriculture, industry, and what not in other sections of the train. Reinforce the infinite length.
It felt like the film was trying to do too many things. That was its downfall.
Yeah, I’m without words.
I watched this because it was in the “critically acclaimed” section of Netflix.
I can not fathom how it has the aggregate rating it does on IMDB or RT.
Everything about it was subpar. The acting and scripting were groan-worthy. The plot made no sense whatsoever. The heavy-handed allegory, the pacing, the effects. Everything. It was ALL bad.
Is this an “emperor has no clothes” scenario where all these people don’t want to call it out for what it is because they’ll look unfashionable or uncultured, or did I miss something? Because I think it’s the former.
Hi, just watched this on NF and needed to find some like-minded discussion!
Just wanted to add this tid-bit since I didn’t see it mentioned yet – but even the line Ed gives Chris at the end, that Curtis is the first to traverse the length of the train, is plainly wrong since that lady who takes the kids in the beginning is sitting right there when he says it. Maybe she went around to get back or something?
Wilfred tells Curtis that he was the first “human being” to walk the length of the train… So either Claude is a robot, or Wilfred doesn’t view women as humans.
I’m going to have to read the comic now.
Worst movie ever. I watched this with my husband, son and his girlfriend because Netflix said, “if you liked Hunger Games, you’ll like this.” Seriously? Not one thing about this movie made sense. It’s not full of plot holes, it is a plot hole. We only finished it because we thought there had to be something that worked. Nope. Never. I have no clue as to why anybody liked it, other than maybe controlled substances.
In addition to everything else people said, at the end the Ed Harris character is eating steak. Has it just been frozen for 17 years and nobody ever defrosted it? Did it not get freezer burn? If not, where are the cows? Are there chickens? How did you feed these animals? How do you grow crops–wheat, corn, vegetables of any kind? Sushi? Really? No, I don’t buy that whole aquarium car it tried to sell me. The echo system of the ocean cannot be contained in a train car. Also, how did they build rails across the oceans? Couldn’t have been post-apocalypse, right? So it had to occur before hand, and take years and how do you get pilings deep enough and oh so, so many questions.
And people cut limbs off of themselves so that other people could eat? Seriously? Eating babies? WTF? In the history of starvation I have never, ever heard of people killing and eating children or babies. No. Just no. People don’t do stuff like that. No. It’s not that only good people don’t. Bad people don’t.
And another person said, why a train? Why not a dome? It doesn’t make any sense. None.
Maybe there’s a whole rich vs poor thing point being made, but it gets lost in the abject stupidity of this film. I can suspend disbelief, but I couldn’t suspend thought.
I’ve lost all faith in movies whatsoever. This may be the movie that makes me not watch movies anymore. I rarely watch them, but now it may just never happen again. The whole thing seemed insane and stupid, but I kept telling myself “hey it got 95% on RT, I’ll let it finish.” It never got good, not even close. The plot, acting, script, all areas are complete failures. I’ve seen bad movies, I’ve seen very bad movies, and now I’ve seen the worst movie I’ve ever seen and will ever see.
loved ! this movie
I just (finally!) watched this on SciFi. But the farther along it went, the more WTF questions kept piling up. So here is my spew of them, and it feels so much better just to let this all out…
The movie was released in 2013. In it, the world freezes over in 2014. So the train and tracks would have needed to be built long before this. This train travels the world, taking a full year for one transit. It seems odd to essentially place the beginning of the movie in the present, yet ask us to believe that this gigantic worldwide construction project has been going on for years already. If it had been placed just ten years in the future, then it could have been accepted that the train and tracks were built in time for the freeze.
The train and tracks were not built with the intention of surviving a worldwide freeze — that was an accident, and luckily there was this train which was already or just started to be in operation. However, the map of the train route shown in the classroom’s propaganda movie clearly shows it crossing the Bering Strait, plus crossing the Sea of Japan and the North Atlantic to the Aleutian Islands and into North America (https://brentofthefabulouswild.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/snowpiercer-route.jpg). This makes zero sense in a pre-frozen world (why build a railway on top of an ocean?), and could not possibly have been constructed with 2014 technology with the world descending into a global death-freeze and mass humanity extinction.
Some have wondered why have the gimmick of everyone being on a train, when this could have been far easier and still allowed the same plot if it had been a stationary building, or underground. But if you accept that the train was built before the freeze, then it kind of makes sense to make use of it after the freeze. And you can rationalize that the Eternal Engine is what keeps the heat on, and that it only works when the train is running… yeah, I know.
The train apparently is fully automatic. There is no forward window. It was built to be able to smash through any obstacle made of snow or ice, and Wilford apparently has full confidence in it. The only chance of seeing something on the tracks is if the train is rounding a curve and someone happens to be looking out the window. Even then, all they can do is shout a warning. The train, by description, never stops. Woe be it if a landslide, tree, etc falls across the tracks (see: End of Movie). And, as someone else wondered, no one else in the world tried putting their own train on the tracks? The tracks that site unused for 364 days of the year? That could make for an unpleasant bump.
Why were children needed to make the engine work? Are we expected to believe that the engineering genius who designed the Eternal Engine could not come up with a machine that mimicked the movements of a child’s arm? It makes zero sense to require the engine’s performance to depend on a child who 1) needs to perform the movements flawlessly over and over for hours on end; 2) who hopefully won’t defecate/urinate/vomit/ before his/her shift ends; and 3) who won’t get dizzy or fall asleep and fall into the machine (and what damage could THAT cause?).
The other child’s actions were also unexplained. Part of the engine pulled itself out, the child got into a sort of cockpit and began to operate it, then the it pulled back into the engine. If this part of the engine’s operation required a human operator, why was it designed that only a child or small person could do so? In a pre-frozen world, when the train was presumably intended to be a moneymaker for Wilford, what possible sense could this make?
Or maybe the children are manual replacements for broken parts? In which case, how did the train keep running with a broken part until the kid was inserted? And, really, what engine can YOU think of, anywhere, that could be fixed by putting someone inside it? Go ahead, I’ll wait…
According to the director’s own drawing of the train’s layout (http://www.mtv.com//crop-images/2014/06/05/snowpiercer-train-diagram-bong-joon-ho.jpg) the abattoir (slaughterhouse) is directly behind the classroom. The tail-enders walked through the beef and chicken carcasses before they entered the classroom. But where are the cows and chickens? They aren’t to the rear — that’s just the water and protein cars, the aquarium, greenhouse, and zoo. (And seriously, why would you make people walk through a refrigerated meat room on their way to those other cars, which are quite nice actually and obviously a “destination”?) In front of the classroom are about 15 cars labeled “guest rooms and other things,” so conceivably the cattle and chickens could be there. But that means the school kids need to walk through cattle cars to and from school each day, which makes no sense (but it is supported by the wheelbarrow full of eggs coming from the front). So, that could be the answer, but it’s a lousy design for a train, one that could easily be fixed by anyone looking at the plans during construction and saying, “Hey…”
Speaking of animals, what do they eat? Are they being fed protein bars? I don’t know how well a cow and chicken could survive on processed bugs. And how many cows are needed to be sustainable? If they are eating grain and grass, where is it coming from? And where is the real greenhouse? Not the pretty one we saw, but the industrial one to grow food for years for the front-enders? (And where are the bugs being raised? You need a LOT of bugs to make all those protein bars daily for years and years. Geez, how fast do they breed and grow?)
A much better solution (plotwise, not better in reality) would be if the children were not being used for the engine, but instead for Wilford’s perversions. That would have been instantly understandable and would have eliminated all of the kids-in-the-engine questions. And it would have taken Wilford’s I’m-better-than-you certainty and shown it for the lowlife scum he really is, or something else more interesting than a bored guy living in a tube with steak and whores.
Also, if the meat-car scene had been eliminated, then there would have been no questions about where the animals are stored. Steak appears nowhere else except on Wilford’s grill. This would have the added benefit of making the front-enders, and Wilford in particular, more revolting. When we watched him make a steak, we knew it was a real steak from a cow, because the movie had already established that. But without the cows, keeping everything else the same, then the question becomes: What is he eating? Curtis’ reaction as he looked at the steak could easily have been revulsion at the realization that it was human flesh, meshing well with the implication of his earlier confession, and making for a great and horrendous realization. But if it’s a cow steak, then his look is just… kind of pouty. “I’m not gonna eat that and be like you.”
The movie states categorically at the very beginning that all life on Earth was destroyed due to the freeze, which must be like a super Ice Age that affects the planet all the way to the equator. So all the land is frozen, and probably most of the oceans as well. Possibly the middle of the Atlantic and Pacific are not frozen, but who knows? Still, many fish and sea creatures could survive, although I don’t know how the oxygen content of the water would be affected by 17 years of a frozen surface. But air-breathing animals – dolphins, whales, turtles, seals, walruses, etc – would die, or be confined to semi-frozen areas of the ocean far away from the mainland. So how did the polar bear survive? What is it eating? It’s an apex predator, so it depends on eating animals smaller or weaker than itself. It can’t eat seals (not if it’s close enough to the mountains to climb them). So it eats land animals. And there must be enough of them to sustain it, and other polar bears as well (because there must be a sustainable population of them). The further down you go in the food chain, the more animals there needs to be. And what are they eating? If not each other, then vegetation. But all the vegetation is dead. And we were already told in the beginning that all life (not people, ALL life) became extinct: “the world froze, all life became extinct.” Okay, so this is not quite true due to the occupants of the train. But we’re giving them a pass because they were able to “escape.” That does not, however, give a pass to all the other animals that need to exist outside, animals that need FOOD. So, finally circling back, the polar bear makes no sense with the explicitly stated plot. Either we were lied to in the beginning (all life became extinct, except for the species that didn’t), or the polar bear is a spirit guide of impending death.
The last scene: There may or may not be other survivors from the crash. But no matter what, they are in the middle of a mountain range, there is no food or water, there is no fire (they used the last match, and there’s nothing to burn anyway besides what’s already on fire), there is no shelter except the wreckage, and everyone who may have survived has absolutely ZERO survival skills for this situation. Therefore, it appears that, with the train destroyed, so is the last of humanity.
Just please don’t ask where they got the snow boots or the child-size fur coat.