Grab your ticket to ride and a cup of hot chocolate, because it’s time to take your seat with a favorite holiday adventure. Every year, families embark on a journey into the magical animated classic that is Robert Zemeckis’ The Polar Express. With another Christmas season approaching full steam ahead, we’ve got some fun facts about the movie to share. All aboard!
1. The Polar Express is based on an award-winning book
Released in 2004, the animated feature is based on a picture book by Chris Van Allsburg. The author and illustrator was already well-known at the time for his 1981 children’s book Jumanji, which has now been adapted into multiple movies. His book of The Polar Express was published in 1985 and, like Jumanji, was awarded the prestigious Caldecott Medal.
2. Guinness World Records recognizes it as a pioneer
The technique of motion-capture or performance-capture was increasingly employed in Hollywood moviemaking by the time Zemeckis made The Polar Express, but it was mostly for individual characters within live-action features. As acknowledged by Guinness World Records, though, this was the first feature-length movie to entirely use performance capture for all of its characters.
3. Tom Hanks plays seven characters
Robert Zemeckis likes casting a lot of the same actors in his movies, whether it’s the character actor Eddie Deezen or the major movie star Tom Hanks, both of whom portray characters in The Polar Express. But Hanks, who had previously acted for Zemeckis in the live-action features Forrest Gump and Cast Away, went above and beyond this time. He voiced and/or provided performance capture for seven characters: the protagonist Hero Boy, his father, the train conductor, a hobo, the Ebenezer Scrooge marionette puppet, Santa Claus and the narrator.
4. Hero Boy is actually portrayed by three actors
The main character of The Polar Express, Hero Boy, is a young kid, so it wouldn’t make sense for Tom Hanks to play him in full. The Oscar-winning actor did participate in the portrayal of the character through performance capture work, however, but then was joined by then-child actor Josh Hutcherson (The Hunger Games) for additional motion reference. The voice of Hero Boy was provided by another child actor, Daryl Sabara of Spy Kids fame.
5. The Polar Express is dedicated to Michael Jeter
Robert Zemeckis honored one of the cast members of The Polar Express whom he’d worked with for the first time on the project. Michael Jeter, who performed the motion-capture work for the train engineers Smokey and Steamer, was a character actor best known at the time for such live-action movies as Jurassic Park III and The Green Mile (with Hanks) as well as for the role of Mr. Noodle on the Elmo’s World segments of Sesame Street. He passed away more than a year before the release of The Polar Express, and the animated feature was dedicated to his memory.
6. The movie pays homage to its creators’ childhoods
Animated movies are easily filled with Easter eggs referencing all kinds of pop culture influences and personal trivia. Early into The Polar Express, the conductor calls out “11344 Edbrooke,” which was the address of Zemeckis’ childhood home in Chicago. Later, the train passes a department store called Herpolsheimer’s, which was a real place in Van Allsburg’s hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan, which is the initial setting of the movie. The premiere of The Polar Express was also held in Grand Rapids.
7. The North Pole is modeled after a famous train factory
In addition to paying homage to the author and filmmakers’ childhoods, The Polar Express also includes a great tribute to railroading history. All of the buildings at the North Pole, including the clock tower of Santa’s workshop, were loosely based on the architecture of Chicago’s famous landmark of the Pullman Palace Car Company factory, which manufactured many of America’s train cars from the mid-19th century through the mid-20th century.
8. This was Zemeckis’ first take on A Christmas Carol
Zemeckis had never really made a Christmas movie prior to The Polar Express. Part of Cast Away does involve the holiday, and the director did helm a Christmas episode of Tales from the Crypt. His second movie after The Polar Express, though, was a performance-capture animated feature adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. With The Polar Express, Zemeckis teased his interested in the Dickens story. There’s the Scrooge puppet and other Easter eggs referencing the Dickens story (the time 10:20 is one such nod). Plus the plot of The Polar Express plays like a reworking of the holiday classic, with many fans seeing the skeptical Hero Boy as a kind of young version of Ebenezer Scrooge who is made to believe in Christmas by the movie’s end.
9. The Polar Express is a Grammy winner
Despite The Polar Express receiving negative reviews from critics, the movie was a box office success and it received three Academy Award nominations, for its sound recording and sound mixing and the original song “Believe” written by Glen Ballard and Alan Silvestri. While it went home empty handed from the Oscars, as well as the Golden Globes, BAFTAs and other movie awards, it was honored at the Grammys for Josh Groban’s performance of “Believe” off the Polar Express soundtrack.
10. Fans now ride on Polar Express attractions worldwide
Sorry, kids, but there is no actual magical railroad to the North Pole. But we can imagine and pretend thanks to tourist attractions inspired by the book and movie of The Polar Express. From the Grand Canyon in the Southwest part of the United States to the Badlands of Canada to the railways of Great Britain, there are many companies offering holiday train rides for fans of all ages. And, of course, they offer amenities that will make you feel like you are Hero Boy venturing through the Arctic to Santa’s workshop.
