History Headscratchers / ThePolarExpress

* So who ships the Hero Boy and the Hero Girl? I do, but no one seems to talk about it very much. It was hinted at the beginning when the boy gets on the train and meets her, and it seems odd this isn't mentioned on the YMMV page or any of the shipping tropes.
** These are ''children.'' Both of them seem to be around seven to nine years old. Any kind of romantic relationship isn't necessary and probably would be uncomfortable. Offering friendship doesn't mean there's any kind of romantic intention behind it.
*** Furthermore, since the tale is established as possibly being all a dream, they would have to permanently part ways at the end. That would have been a messy sub-plot resolution in an already-long movie. Not to mention a white-and-black romance (or even friendship) would have led to problems in the 1930s-1940s era.

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** If you mean when the bell fell, for dramatic effect. The song wasn't the point of the scene any more, and slowing down and quieting the song was meant to draw viewers' attention to the important parts of the sequence, as well as drawing out [[{{Overcrank}} something that would normally last for half a second to several dramatic seconds]].
*** ...and making the song sound like a dying cow is singing it? Stupid.

** Just one more piece of evidence that all of the other children are illusionary constructs to help the main kid in his learning experience, along with [[HeyItsThatVoice Mandark]] showing up in the middle of the stack of presents and shutting up and apologizing with next to no actual CharacterDevelopment, and the girl knowing or realizing things the conductor should have known all along and revealed for safety's sake instead of leaving it up to one of the kids to figure out.

** Also, keep in mind that every setback was inadvertently or otherwise caused by the Hero Boy, who the conductor knows from the beginning is having doubts as to the existence of Santa Claus. As they begin to stack on top of one another, it'd make sense for him to suspect that it was a mistake to let him on anyway, and that he was only using the opportunity to sabotage the trip for the other children. And how many times would anyone in a group of children, even excited children, feel the need to pull the emergency train on a train?

** Mayhaps it's because the weight of the train, while monumental, is spread out over a large area across the ice, whereas the cracks formed by the pin were from a single, solitary, and ''sharp'' impact point.

*** The Gameboy Advanced version of the VideoGame has a cut-scene where the conductor states, "and you, miss. You better get back to shovelling coal," which basically confirms what the troper above said. As for taking her over the roof, the door in the old toy car was double locked, implying that there may be a padlock on the inside, making it impossible to travel into the toy car from the passenger cars.

** Hopefully there's enough magic around to prevent any deaths on the train.

* This may be just me, but...the lessons the children learn at the end. The Hero Girl learns about leadership and that she should be confident in her own abilities, Billy learns that he should trust those who try to help him, and Lenny (the know-it-all boy) learns to...learn, and not be such a know-it-all. I understand that those are all aesops that can be applied to the real world. But the main character, Hero Boy, learns that he needs to 'believe', as though that's a major character flaw of his, and yet the only reason he was having doubts was because he was being taken on a train to the North Pole to supposedly meet with Santa Claus...not to mention the hobo who was there implying that it ''may'' have been nothing but a dream. Wouldn't most people be a little bit doubtful under those circumstances, and doesn't that make Hero Boy's ultimate lesson not as appropriate as the others?