Is The Polar Express antiscience? (spoilers in the OP)

Cafe Society
1

I caught this movie on Netflix yesterday. While the visual effects of this movie are nothing less than stunning, I have to say, this movie leaves me feeling conflicted.

On the on hand, I keep telling myself, “Lighten up Shakes, it’s just a kid’s movie.” But then on the other hand, I can’t help thinking “WTF?”

I get that nearly every movie has that one kid who doesn’t believe in Santa. This kid is usually portrayed as a bully or a pseudo villain. And by the end of the movie, said kid finally feels the yule tide spirit and believes in Santa Clause and all is right in Christmas town.

That’s one thing, but what they did in TPE, is take that meme into an entirely different level. In this movie, the non believer simply isn’t some cynical kid fed up with all things Christmas. This was a kid who applied logic behind his reasons for doubting the existence of SC. I mean, he broke open an encyclopedia, researched the North Pole, thought about how big Santa’s sleigh would have to be to carry all those toys, etc… But does any of this get acknowledged as a good thing? No it does not, in fact, he gets patronized for it:

Like the line from, from Hobo ghost guy “Do you believe in ghosts?”

“No”

“Oh interesting” (“Interesting”, when said in this tone is just code speak for “You’re a dumbass.”)

Then he goes on to get mocked because he dared doubt himself for very good reasons. The take away message being, you should believe in things blindly; even when you have good reason not to.

And then, at the very end, the kid has this sleigh bell that can only be heard by kids who believe in SC. The narrator (or the kid in question all grown up.) goes on to say that eventually, his sister and all his friends stopped being able to hear the magic sleigh bell. But not him though! He can still hear it to this day!

Which led me to believe, this whole story was narrated to me by a frick’n psychopath. :smack:

2

[Disclaimer: I have not seen this movie, nor do I intend to.]

Could the same not be said of virtually every big blockbuster movie? The hero - whether he’s fighting aliens, tracking a serial killer - prevails, not because he applied his mind to the matter but because he was guided by his “intuition” or “heart”.

3

Quite a while back, there was a thread about this very thing.

One of the responses that stuck with me was: many of these movies which promoted a “just believe” message were the product of the sadness adults felt at watching their kids grow up.

I’ll go a step further and add to that: maybe this kind of message is also a product of the ambivalent feelings we all have toward growing up and our nostalgia about our own childhoods.

Growing up has its drawbacks as well as its advantages. We lose something even as we gain more autonomy. To believe in Santa is to believe that anything is possible, even when it defies all natural laws.

Many of us miss that time when we believed in the impossible, and that, I think, is what is reflected in movies like The Polar Express.

4

So science = looking stuff up in an encyclopedia, does it? OK then.

5

Well, in juxtaposition with: “Just click your heels three times together and wish yourself home Dorothy”, sure.

6

It’s better than nothing, I guess. Better than blind faith.

I, too, got an anti-science vibe from the movie. I submit that the reason it stuck out so badly, though, is that the movie just wasn’t very good. I mean, if it was a GREAT Christmas movie, and we were all enchanted and charmed, we’d be more inclined to ignore the stupid message. But since it was mediocre at best, the flaws were more glaring.

7

I’m voting for “Lighten up Shakes, it’s just a kid’s movie.”

8

It’s a kid’s book made into a kid’s movie. The book was praised for its detailed illustrations and calm, relaxing storyline. In 1986, it was awarded the Caldecott Medal for children’s literature. Based on a 2007 online poll, the National Education Association named the book one of its “Teachers’ Top 100 Books for Children.” It was one of the “Top 100 Picture Books” of all time in a 2012 poll by School Library Journal.

It’s one of a great many “Santa Claus is Real” children’s books, TV Specials and movies, and should be treated accordingly.

9

I beg to differ. I don’t think that makes a difference. It is important, what we are teaching our kids in their movies. I thought the lesson of Cars 2 was a terrible lesson to learn for childrem:

In that movie, Lightning is embarrassed because his friend mater is a total hick, everywhere he goes, he does stupid hick things and makes messes and is generally an embarrasment to be around. It was Lightning who was said to be in the wrong, because you “need to accept your friends however they are”.

I thought that was kind of bullcrap, and that it was Mater who needed to learn the lesson. Cause the other lesson quietly sneaked in there was, “You never need to attempt to better yourself, at all, because your friends are obligated to accept you however you are. Never try to clean yourself up a little or learn a new skill or god forbid! act appropriate to the occasion.”

Like it or not, these are the lessons that kids learn. Now yes, it is a kids’ movie, and thus fun just to enjoy, but there’s no real harm in analyzing it a bit either.

10

“You shouldn’t take too much notice of science when you’re talking about Santa” is not quite the same as saying “You should despise science and all it stands for”, if you ask me.

11

Star Wars is the ultimate pro-paranormal, anti-science/technology movie. Does Luke rely on his hypersophisticated space fighter to nuke the Death Star? No, when his end of humanity is on the block, he turns it all off and “uses the Force.”

12

Not really. Believing something because one book tells you so is no different than believing something else because a different book tells you so. The path of science here would be to observe that the train is indeed taking you to someplace that looks very much like Santa’s workshop, and deducing what you can from that observation.

13

I haven’t seen the movie, but I have read the book. What struck me is that the book seemed to lack any soul. It went through all the paces of a Christmas story, but there’s no substance.

Perhaps having all the stereotypical elements of a Santa-doubter story, without anything to really drive the narrative, makes the weakness of it stand out?

14

You know, back before the internets, encyclopedias were once considered a reliable source for academic research.

15

Really? I can’t recall a time when they were acceptable beyond high school. Like textbooks, they could be a useful repository of information, but their citation in undergraduate (and obviously postgraduate) papers was frowned upon.

16

We’re talking about a 12yo kid.

17

This is tangential to the main point of the thread, but I too think “science” isn’t the right term for this. I think “skepticism” may be a better fit.

18

And what if he instead considered, say, the Bible to be a source for research? It’s no different.

19

Chronos, would you not agree some books are more credible than others?

20

That’s a puzzling statement. Even the crappiest encyclopaedias apply some resemblance of scientific method to their research. It’s not like the people writing articles just makes stuff up.