Line #9 Headscratchers/ThePolarExpress


1	[[foldercontrol]]
2
3	[[folder: Selective Belief]]
4	* Why is it so hard for the Hero Boy to believe in Santa when he knows he's on a magic train?
5	** Because he thinks he might be dreaming. He says as much when discussing the matter with TheSpook.
6	** Also, if the parents don't believe in Santa Claus, then who the hell do they think is leaving all the presents under the tree? Are they just brainwashed into thinking they left the presents by Santa (which brings on a whole new level of FridgeHorror)?
7	*** A common, if not inevitable, problem with Santa-oriented movies. Just pass it off as AcceptableBreaksFromReality.
8	*** Maybe Santa hands out [[IdiotBall idiot balls]] for Christmas?
9	*** Possible explanation on the [=WMG=] page - a true visit from Santa is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
10	*** The other presents could be from the parents playing Santa. Maybe the bell is the only REAL gift from Santa, and each of the parents thinks the other gave it to the kid so he'd keep believing for longer.
11	[[/folder]]
12
13	[[folder: No Chocolate for the Poor]]
14	* Why was the poor kid sent to the back of the train, and not given any chocolate? While it does serve well as something for a kind-hearted child to rebel against by taking him chocolate and befriending him, it doesn't make any barking sense for the train taking good children in need of moral lessons to Santa to segregate based on wealth.
15	** 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 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.
16	*** I don't think so. Remember that all the kids, not just Hero Boy, had a lesson to learn; I doubt his subconscious would worry about filling in imaginary learning experiences for kids that don't exist.
17	** The whole existence of The Poor Kid seems totally wrongheaded and bizarre. Why even ''bring up'' the idea of kids whose parents are too poor to give them an extravagant Christmas in a kids' movie? And on top of that, the message seems to be "Santa visits the poor kids too, and they get big presents like everyone else!" BrokenAesop, anyone?
18	*** I think it was all part of the Conductor's plan from the beginning. Consider: He's implied (or outright shown) several times to know a lot more about what's going on than he lets on; for instance, although he only punches two letters into each ticket at the beginning, he clearly knows what lesson each kid needs to learn since he fills them in later. I think that segregating Billy from the rest of the kids was intended to impel Hero Girl to help him out even though she didn't need to. (A mark of a good leader is taking care of others, after all.) Either the Conductor would have brought Billy up front with the rest of the kids eventually, or he can see the future and he knew it wouldn't be necessary. I don't have a problem with it at all. As for giving Billy a present, I think the intended moral wasn't so much that extravagant Christmas presents will eventually fall out of the sky if you wait long enough; rather, it was that a defeatist attitude is unnecessary because you never know what will happen tomorrow.
19	*** To add to this, remember when the kids are in the gift bag, what do the elves say? "We knew you were in there the whole time." I don't think anything that happens either at the North Pole or on the train is unplanned.
20	** If you're asking about the movie: he went to the back of the train on his own.
21	*** The poor kid's ticket message was all about developing faith and trust. He'd probably been picked on for having cheap clothes or possessions at school and was too suspicious of it happening again to join the other kids up front.
22	** As mentioned above the kid went to the rear train car on his own. Also, the only thing the boy really missed out on was the show that went with the hot chocolate. Had the Hero Girl, for lack of an actual name, not secured a second cup for the kid, the conductor probably would have delivered some on his own, though it would have taken a bit longer.
23	*** But if the Conductor hadn't left the task of bringing the poor boy his drink to one of the other kids, the boy wouldn't have had the chance to learn to trust that not ''every'' other child is going to scorn him for his family's lack of wealth. And the "hero girl" wouldn't have had the opportunity to take the lead, which was ''her'' lesson.
24	[[/folder]]
25
26	[[folder: Why is the Conductor Aggro?]]
27	* Why did the conductor lose his temper at every little setback? If they've been running the Express for years and transporting a bunch of excited children to see Santa, surely they've had issues of emergency brakes being pulled and tracks being covered.
28	** Because it's [[VoodooShark already five minutes 'til midnight]]! Did you miss [[RuleOfDrama the half-dozen times he said that]] [[RuleOfFunny over the course of several hours]]?
29	** He's a ClockKing, albeit a rare example of a benevolent one.
30	** 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 brakes on a train?
31	*** Many children would get the idea to pull the brakes to allow kids who didn't board at first but changed their minds to safely board the train, just as Billy did. Billy wouldn't be the only child to change their mind after rejecting the journey initially.
32	*** It should also be noted that magical railroad or not, executives at the company do not take kindly to their trains being late. It's expected they keep their schedule on time or not at all, and the Conductor is certainly not the type to break that schedule, seeing as he's been on the job for years. Any delay to the train means that they risk falling behind schedule further, and with a lot of more treacherous terrain on the route, they can't take any chances. Plus, he is also a JerkWithAHeartOfGold, and he would hate for the kids to miss seeing Santa. Schedule or no schedule, nothing hurts worse than disappointed children, and that wouldn't have done him any favors.
33	[[/folder]]
34
35	[[folder: Who's the Hobo?]]
36	* I've seen this thing way too many times, as it's the default Christmas Eve Movie at my brother's house. One thing I still can't figure out is, what's the deal with the Evil Ghost Hobo Dude? Why is he there, either InUniverse or dramatically? I [[{{Padding}} think I know the answer]], but even with that, I don't get the rationale behind this character.
37	** I think he might be the Spirit of Doubt, in a sort of (in-universe) [[ScareEmStraight strawman]] way.
38	** He's TheSpook. And whether he really is "an angel" or not, for all intents and purposes that's the role he fulfills. He sort of indirectly helps out when necessary--usually by getting Hero Kid to face what's going on inside his head, but sometimes by revealing something covertly or even by saving someone's life. Perhaps he is indeed, as implied, a ghost, and is bound, by either his own remorse or some curse, to the train, to aid the people who ride on it. [[Film/{{Beetlejuice}} Hey, perhaps he committed suicide! You know what they say about those people, don't you? In the afterlife, they become civil servants.]]
39	** As for his background story, in a deleted scene on the DVD, the engineers reveal that the hobo was riding the roof of the train one night and was killed when the train reached Flattop Tunnel. He's been on the train ever since.
40	*** When the protagonist drops the girl's ticket the Hobo Ghost is seen napping in a hammock on the underside of the train. If he's dead, I wanna know what he was doing there. Also, if the above is true, then it adds a bit of {{Irony}} to his comment about there only being an inch of clearance between the roof of the train and the roof of the tunnel.
41	*** If he'd gotten killed by dozing on the ''top'' of the train, can you blame him for choosing to nap as far from the top of it as possible?
42	*** Considering that the engineers (called Smokey, the one with the beard, and Steamer, the plump man, respectively) are rather ditsy, it seems more likely that they're being a bit over-superstitious on the Hobo figure; especially considering that other scenes in the film imply that he's ''something/someone else''. Holly (The Hero Girl) believes that he might be a guardian angel. Then there's the question as to how the engineers knew if there was a Hobo who died on the train, especially since they wouldn't've found his body during the winter's night because of snow.
43	*** But the Hobo seems to be aware and concerned about the danger of being on top of the train when the train heads into Flat Top Tunnel. He wouldn't be trying to warn about and save him if the death was made up.
44	** This troper honestly believes that the Hobo is not a ghost, but is actually the mythological figure, Jack Frost. This is due to the fact that the Hobo has the ability to appear and disappear into the snow, and at one point he effortlessly managed to move on the top of a moving ice-covered train with a child on his shoulders in the middle of a blizzard. Moreover, at several points over the course of the movie, the Hobo is seen suddenly appearing to help the main character and the Conductor from the snow, one notable occurrence is when the train is sliding over ice. Then there's the fact that he calls himself the "King of the North Pole", something that would make sense if he was Jack Frost as the North Pole is in perpetual winter. The Hobo also appears to be a bit of a mischievous being, much like Jack Frost himself. It certainly makes a lot of sense, especially considering the fact that the Hobo clearly isn't human, as he manages to appear and disappear into the snow. He also helps Hero Boy many times, one time grabbing him from falling off the train, another time tapping the manual brake wheel on the speeding runaway observation car with his cup before disappearing. Moreover, one of Jack Frost's defining mythological traits is that he enjoys helping children, much like the Hobo himself.
45	** Probably the best confirmation that he ''is'' a ghost? There's no plausible reason whatsoever why he'd ask Hero Boy ''about'' ghosts, ''or'' find it so "interesting" that Hero Boy doesn't believe in them despite interacting with him, the Hobo, at some length, if he's '''not''' one.
46	** This will get more into the movie-making side of things than the in-universe explanation but consider the following. Perhaps rather than just doubt in general the Hobo is a representation of reasonable doubt. He makes a good point about how it's easy to take advantage of someone gullible enough to take a happy dream-like Santa on faith. He exists to be the counterpoint to the true believer that is the Conductor who takes it that the things to believe in most are the ones we can't see. The two of them work together to help the protagonist find a balance between believing in the important things he can't see, whatever you might believe those to be, and not playing the fool as he grows older because of it. Presumably, every kid with this sort of conflict who rides the Polar Express would have a similar experience.
47	[[/folder]]
48
49	[[folder: Slowing Down the Song]]
50	* Why the hell did they do an overcrank in the middle of a song, thus slowing down the song?
51	** If you mean when the bell fell, for dramatic effect. The song wasn't the point of the scene anymore, 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 five seconds]].
52	[[/folder]]
53
54	[[folder: Lead Us to the Answer]]
55	* All the boys seem to have a lesson to learn, but what about the girl? The main kid learned faith, the poor boy learned to trust, and the know-it-all learned humility (off-camera I guess), but the girl was already a leader from the start. Or did someone miss the scene where she gains her leadership qualities?
56	** Someone did. Next time they watch it, pay attention to when Hero Boy says "Are you sure?" At first, she stops what she's doing and cries, doubting herself, but later she believes in herself and leads them to the sound of the bell.
57	*** Fair enough she did hesitate. And, technically the know-it-all must have learned his lesson by being chastised by Santa. Still, the girl acts perfectly confident and independent [[AchillesHeel until asked if she's sure]]. It still kind of bugs me, but not as much. Thanks.
58	*** Part of being a leader is having faith in your own decisions. Having confidence only when people are following you without question isn't great leadership.
59	[[/folder]]
60
61	[[folder: That's One Sneaky Know-it-All]]
62	* How did they not know that the know-it-all kid was following them? Wouldn't they have seen him on the train or when falling onto the pile of presents?
63	** This Troper thought that he made his own way to the presents. After all, with all the things that went on, it is highly impossible that he was ''following'' them. When he saw them leave he assumed they were going to check out their presents, so he probably decided to get there before them.
64	** But wouldn't ONE of the elves notice a kid wandering alone?
65	** All the elves were gathering in the town square. Besides, Know-It-All Kid isn't so dumb that he'd let himself get caught.
66	*** Actually, one of the elves mention that they knew what the kids were doing the whole time.
67	[[/folder]]
68
69	[[folder: How Many Cars?]]
70	* The number of cars on the train never seems to stay a rigid figure. In one scene, there seem to be about five cars, another there are dozens, a third might show ten, and when they walk through them there seem to be but three.
71	** [[AWizardDidIt It's a Magic Train, it can have as many cars as it wants to!]]
72	** So when the magic train gains cars, does it spontaneously generate children in them too? Or when it loses cars...where do the children go?
73	*** The obvious answer is that the animators made some goofs during the film itself. In-universe, the best explanation could be representative of the protagonists' own doubts. Is he really on this train? Is he really going to see Santa? If that's the case, then the cars likely come and go to represent the strength of those doubts, with their true consist revealing itself once his doubts finally ceased.
74	[[/folder]]
75
76	[[folder: They Iced Mathematics]]
77	* How does a pin falling in the ice cause the entire lake to fracture, when a ''multi-tonne steam locomotive'' does not?
78	** It's sharper?
79	** [[Film/JurassicPark That's...that's chaos theory.]]
80	*** I always thought it was because the train is magic and can make itself weightless, but even if the pin was from the train, once it falls off it's not magic anymore and can break through the ice.
81	** RuleOfDrama.
82	** Mayhaps it's because the weight of the train, while monumental, is spread out over a large area across the ice, and the train did nothing to actually pierce through the frozen surface, whereas the cracks formed by the pin were from a single, solitary, and ''sharp'' (compared to the train) impact point.
83	** When the tipped-over engine rights itself, it creates a huge network of cracks in the ice. Had the sheer force of the engine slamming onto the ice not been distributed out over, well, every wheel on the engine, it likely would have broken through the ice. And when the train pulls a J-turn you can clearly see that the wheels leave deep enough scratches in the ice that the breakage almost exclusively follows them.
84	** And when the train hit the ice, it was nearly level. There was some breakage, but it didn't really slam into it from above. After that, it was mostly coasting on the ice like a giant metal ice skater, which could probably be supported if the ice was thick enough.
85	*** The train was running at such a high speed by the time it slid onto the ice, the pin was practically a projectile waiting to go off, not to mention Steamer had swallowed it while it was floating in zero gravity. With that strong enough of a force, combined with those factors, it was just sharp enough and fast enough to make the appropriate function.
86	[[/folder]]
87
88	[[folder: Chewing Gum at Night]]
89	* Steven is caught doing a last-minute naughty act of putting gum in his sister's hair. What kid chews gum, let alone puts it in his sister's hair, at five minutes till midnight, when they should all be ''asleep''?!
90	** Yeah, "should" be. Maybe they just pretended to sleep like the hero?
91	** I doubt a kid that young would be able to stay up that late. But even if he could, the most ludicrous thing about this is that he'd even ''think'' about something like that when he could have had other things on his mind. Whatever happened to the visions of freaking sugarplums dancing in his head?!
92	** Maybe he had done it earlier and they were just finishing up looking at what kids had done?
93	** Perhaps, but one of the elves announces "We got a troublemaker now!" and there's a loud blaring alarm as if it was a situation that had just come up.
94	** Maybe he's in a different time zone?
95	*** Maybe. The Naughty-or-Nice console looks to be a time/space visualizer of some kind; perhaps he did it a day or two earlier, but it only came up when he was being taken to task for it. Santa only knows if you've been naughty ''if you get caught.''
96	*** You take three hours off at midnight, that's only 9 o'clock. That's not unreasonable, and some kids are night owls. Lots of time zones in the world.
97	*** He's in Maplewood, NJ. The train sets out from Grand Rapids, MI, and seems to be on GR time for the rest of the film. That's all Eastern Standard Time.
98	*** Maybe he just pretended to be asleep as noted in the first possibility. But contrary to that option, no one falls asleep right away. Plus the video could’ve been done like a day or two like the possibility noted 4 times above.
99	[[/folder]]
100
101	[[folder: Consequence for No Ticket]]
102	* What was the conductor going to do with the girl because she didn't have a ticket? It seems pretty obvious he wasn't going to throw her off like the know it all said, but what ''was'' he going to do? And why'd he take her to the engine for it?
103	** She was working on her passage by helping the engineer.
104	*** Why'd he take her to the end and walk over the roof of the train instead of just walking through the train to the engine?
105	*** The Gameboy Advanced version of the VideoGame has a cut-scene where the conductor states, "and you, miss. You better get back to shoveling 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.
106	** The conductor may be required to make passengers leave the train if they don't have a ticket (though he will obviously have to stop the train first). The conductor, not wanting to do this, promotes them from passenger to crew member so they can still get to the North Pole. After all, [[ExactWords the staff don't need tickets to ride the train]].
107	[[/folder]]
108
109	[[folder: Not Believing Their Eyes]]
110	* When the Hero Boy explains at the end that he was the only one who still believed in Santa, it doesn't make sense because everyone else ''saw him for themselves''!
111	** The only other person on the train that Hero Boy was likely to see again was Billy, who lived in the same town at a known address. Hero Boy doesn't know the name, address, hometown, home state, or possibly even home ''country'' of any of the other kids on the train. So most of his friends hadn't seen Santa.
112	*** Know-It-All Kid is familiar with both Herpolsheimer's and the ''wrong-side-of-the-tracks'' part of town, so he probably also lives in the same town with Billy and Hero Boy.
113	** Ditto. This Troper always assumed that he was referring to his regular-everyday friends since it didn't seem all that likely he'd ever meet up with the other kids on the train ever again.
114	** The others didn't have a bell to remind them, so probably concluded it'd all been a dream when they got older.
115	*** Just a small mention, but it was never actually shown what the children spent their time doing on the ride home - they could've exchanged names, addresses, phone numbers, etc., and we just didn't see it. Still, though, that would involve assuming that any of them lived nearby, and I think his parents would probably be a little suspicious if the main character came up with a sudden urge to meet someone from another city (or state) that, as far as they knew, he'd never met before.
116	** 1) The ending narration came straight from the book, in which the other 3 main kids were not in, having been made exclusively for the film; 2) since the boy is still alive (at least at the time he is narrating this) there is still a chance he will meet them again after this.; 3) If he has met the other kids on the train at the time of the narration, he may have only seen at least one of them only once, so they might not count; 4) If he met and/or became official friends with them later in life, then yes, he was talking about his everyday friends (I assume from his school) because the movie happened during his childhood. 5) the 3 main kids are likely to still believe in Santa, as they each had their own lesson to learn and had also the special case of adventuring outside what should normally be the routine for all passengers (the whole lost ticket part, glacier glitch/ frozen lake, north pole journey, ECT.)
117	** Assuming the narration was referring to the friends he made on the train instead of his everyday friends who didn't share the experience, it's kind of important to keep in mind that the children are all pre-puberty (I'd say Hero Boy and Hero Girl are probably the eldest and even they are likely only around 11) and the only one to have an actual lasting physical reminder of that night is the Hero Boy himself with the bell and the note left with it. We don't keep memories forever and the memories we do keep are not picture-perfect snapshots that remain untarnished; they can become warped and changed over time, especially if there's no physical "anchor" to them. It really isn't unreasonable to assume that the further the children grew away from the whole experience, the less real it would seem to them and the easier it would be to dismiss it as a dream if they even remember it at all. This would probably also be exacerbated by parents outright telling the kids they must have been dreaming if they ever spoke of the journey. There's also the fact that children, especially at such a young age and in an era that predates social media, simply ''wouldn't'' keep in touch with each other across the long distance for very long, even if they exchanged names/addresses/phone numbers - correspondence would last a few years at most. Without that contact with others who shared the same experience, again it would be very easy to forget about it over time.
118	*** The narration doesn't make sense if the friends being referred to are the ones from the train. Billy and Chris live in the same town, yet they only would've become friends after the train ride. There's no way Billy could forget about or dismiss that night's events as his imagination, especially if Chris kept the bell with him well into adulthood. What could he say that would explain it, that it was a dream they had together ''before'' they'd even met each other?
119	[[/folder]]
120
121	[[folder: Bad Maintenance]]
122	* Christmas Eve is the most important date in the North Pole calendar. So why was there such poor maintenance on the equipment they used? The engineers on the train have to replace a burned-out light bulb and a defective cotter pin while the train was moving, both of which nearly caused a disastrous accident. And the bell on the reindeer harness was improperly attached. All of that should have been checked and corrected well before 12/24.
123	** Don't forget, the ''Express'' is not only magical but weirdly sentient. For example, it could ''sense'' the caribou crossing from miles off, but couldn't deal with them directly. Her solution: Get the two comedy engineers to where they'll see the offending herd. How to get them out there? Burn out the light bulb so they can replace it.
124	*** Steam locomotives are, by nature, constantly self-destructive machines. No matter how well you take care of them, something can and will go wrong on route. Remember, it seems like the train only runs once a year, and per FRA regulations, they have to be subject to total rebuilds every fifteen years, or 1,472 days of operation. 1225 still had six years left on her at the time the movie came out, so assuming this is the real 1225, she had only gotten a few basic repairs during downtime. Plus, Smokey and Steamer were pushing her pretty hard, so she was bound to have a few issues on the way.
125	[[/folder]]
126
127	[[folder: Jewish Elves]]
128	* Why were the elves Jewish?
129	** I don't think they were intended to be Jewish so much as New York stereotypes: grouchy, and obsessed with everything being done quickly and efficiently. The accent just has a lot of overlap. Kinda the same reason a Spartan King was played by a Scotsman: the stereotype associated with the accent fit the mood of the character.
130	[[/folder]]
131
132	[[folder: Not Feeling Cold]]
133	* Why don't any of the kids feel the cold despite it being the middle of winter and them being only in their pajamas?
134	** Maybe because it's Christmas Eve, so they're naturally excited, and on top of that, they're at the North Pole, of all places. All that excitement and energy would've made it so they didn't even mind the cold.
135	** Or maybe that's part of the magic. Considering that it can remain 5 minutes to midnight for a number of hours, it doesn't seem too far-fetched that the snow is a little less cold than it would be in real life.
136	** Even if they were cold, anyways, it's not like that would affect anything in the story. Complaining about how cold it is would really just be a statement of the obvious, and it's not like there's much they could do to change that.
137	** What's the very first thing the train crew does for the passengers, once they're all on board and settled in? Give them hot chocolate. Perhaps it was ''magically''-hot chocolate, enchanted to warm them up from within for the duration of their journey.
138	** Except that was once they were all on board and settled, which likely took a while to pick up all the children. Christmas Eve isn't considered a warm day after all.
139	[[/folder]]
140
141	[[folder: What if One Died?]]
142	* This is kind of morbid, but...what would the people on the train have done if one of the kids had died during the trip? Say, if the main character hadn't made it to the engine in time before they hit Flattop Tunnel...What would they have done then?
143	** Hopefully there's enough magic around to prevent any deaths on the train. Side theory: not only is the Hobo a ghost, but so are the conductor, the engineers, and even those guys who served the hot chocolate.
144	** Maybe, but there does seem to be a legitimate need to get the train back on track when the ice on the frozen lake begins to crack, and for the hobo to get Hero Boy up to the engine before they hit the tunnel.
145	[[/folder]]
146
147	[[folder: Why Does Christmas Not Work Out for Billy?]]
148	* Santa is completely real in the film, and he really does deliver presents to every good boy and girl. So, why hasn't Christmas "worked out" for Billy before? Has he been on the naughty list every year before now?
149	** It's possible that it hadn't "worked out" in other ways than just not getting presents, and/or that it hasn't really ''never'' worked out, just not for the past few years or so. It's obvious that he comes from a poor family, so if one (or both) of his parents were, say, [[AbusiveParents abusive]], argumentative, or [[AlcoholicParent alcoholic]], it'd be more than capable of putting a damper on his mood. (Especially so if he believed the presents came from them before the arrival of the Polar Express.)
150	*** Even if he got his presents and his parents were fine, maybe Christmas didn't work out because they couldn't afford Christmas dinner.
151	[[/folder]]
152
153	[[folder: Why Not the Whistle?]]
154	* At the caribou crossing, the characters clear the herd away by pulling on the fireman's beard. Wouldn't it have been easier to use the whistle, which is probably louder than the fireman's screams?
155	** Maybe the whistle would have caused them to panic and stampede.
156	** I was always given the impression that the fireman's yells were used to communicate with the caribou and tell them to move off the tracks. The train whistle wouldn't have accomplished that. (That's not to say that they wouldn't have tried it, but the pulling-the-beard came about before they needed to.)
157	*** Even if they could only communicate with yelling, why didn't they just tell him to scream rather than pulling on the beard?
158	*** They primarily pulled Smokey's beard as a means to assert dominance over the head caribou, since it matched their screams somewhat. The whistle would have more than likely spooked them, as pointed out above, and an army of caribou against a train full of children wouldn't have been a safe option. Besides, nobody could have seen the herd coming, and even if they did, nobody would have thought Smokey has such a sensitive chin.
159	*** First off, on the contrary to no one expecting that Smokey (the fireman) had a sensitive chin, they sure kinda probably would have because of how long his beard is. Chris (Hero Boy) slipped and had to hold onto Smokey’s beard. James (The conductor) decided to pull it anyway because as explained above, his screams matched the caribou sounds and without the beard pull, Smokey just screaming would be too weak. Also, they do eventually use the whistle at the crossing but that’s when the track cleared and to know that it was time to go. On the track, definitely would scare the heard (like noted above) and cause them to stampede and maybe attack the train and as mentioned a stampede of caribou vs. a train full of children is dangerous. But maybe it didn’t. Trains use their horns/whistles to alert that they’re coming. As mentioned above, the crew couldn’t see the heard coming because they had to check the engine’s light. And again, James is a [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold jerk with a heart of gold]] and a [[ClockKing Clock King]] and doesn’t want anyone to dilly-dally because he’d disappoint the children so he came to the first option in mind, pulling Smokey’s beard to communicate.
160	[[/folder]]
161
162	[[folder: Why Did They Change Their Minds]]
163	* So in the beginning when the train arrives at the boy's house and he meets the conductor, he is hesitant about going and almost didn't ride. What suddenly made him change his mind? The same goes for when the train arrives at Billy's house.
164	** In both cases, the boys still have a sense of adventure and hope, despite their cynicism.
165	** They were indecisive. They changed their minds. You said it yourself - they were hesitant. You've never had that happen before?
166	[[/folder]]
167
168	[[folder: How Do They Know the Song?]]
169	* In the scene where the Hero Boy enters the passenger train after getting on (and meets both the Hero Girl and Know It All Kid), the kids sing the Polar Express song. How do they know it when the train was not known about until kids see it for themselves (In fact the song out of universe was made for this movie so didn't exist "many years ago")?
170	** For that matter, how did Hero Girl and Know-it-All Boy know it was magic?
171	** Maybe the Conductor taught it to them? The train has presumably been going all over the US (if not the world) by the time the Hero Boy gets on - since his and Billy's house are the last two stops - so the kids who got on sooner will have had to be entertained ''somehow'' in that time. As for how the Hero Girl and Know-it-All Boy know the train was magic...they're young children (and the Hero Girl explicitly still believes in Santa and thus likely the concept of magic in general) confronted with a previously completely non-existent train complete with tracks that apparently run through actual streets of towns and cities showing up outside their front door with a Conductor who tells them they're going to the North Pole on Christmas Eve. Exactly what conclusion ''other'' than "magic train" do you expect them to reach from that?
172	** This Troper's guess is that the Polar Express was likely spoken of in legend InUniverse, hence why there would be a song of it.
173	[[/folder]]
174
175	[[folder: When Did it Take Place?]]
176	* When exactly did this movie (Plus the book it's adapted from) take place? All we know is that it was many years ago, and the Hero Boy is narrating the beginning and end as an adult.
177	** The book was published in 1985, and with the exception of the tech at the North Pole, the movie doesn't show any signs of trying to advance the time of the setting. The most telling evidence is the scene of Hero Boy flipping open a book that he has in his room for evidence as to the existence of Santa, which wasn't even in the book. Combined with other things like a lack of cell phones, the implication is that the story takes place before computers and personal technology became widespread.
178	** The Herpolsheimer's depicted in the movie existed from 1951 until '85. The building now houses a United States Bankruptcy Court, Western District, State of Michigan.
179	** So somewhere between the fifties and the seventies?
180	** In the beginning, the Hero Boy looks at a magazine dated December 29, 1956. So it's got to have taken place sometime after that.
181	[[/folder]]
182
183	[[folder: The Conductor's Boss]]
184	* Who is the boss that the conductor mentions in the forsaken and abandoned toy car? It could be Santa, though that begs the question of why the conductor doesn't say so.
185	** Of course it's Santa. They just don't say his name because he's the boss. The chief. the big guy. He whose name is only to be spoken when absolutely necessary. It makes him appear more mystical.
186	[[/folder]]
187
188	[[folder: The Polar Coaster]]
189	* When the train goes down the roller coaster like Glacier Gultch, how did the passengers that were inside the train appear unscathed? Other than the Know-It-All telling the Hero Boy about it, the children act as if nothing happened.
190	** Maybe everyone inside the train was magically shielded from being disturbed by what was going on outside.
191	** They're little kids, they were probably having the time of their lives. Except Billy, he was probably scared out of his mind.
192	[[/folder]]
193
194	[[folder: Holly (Hero Girl)'s song]]
195	* Billy comes from a poor family "on the wrong side of the tracks", and doesn't believe in Santa because he has never gotten presents from Santa because his family can't afford them. Then Holly starts singing about presents and Santa Claus at Christmas, which feels very insensitive to me.
196	** Seeing as Santa exists in the movie, it probably wasn't presents that Billy's parents couldn't afford, but maybe the fancy dinner.
197	** One of the first things she does in her verse of the song is to demonstrate empathy for Billy's situation ("With all this Christmas cheer / It's hard to be alone"). This is the first moment in the entire film that Billy is actively choosing to verbally communicate with anyone, even if it starts with just him singing to himself and not thinking anyone's listening. He and the Hero Girl connect via the song and their mutual love of Christmas and continued belief in Santa (Billy never indicates he doesn't believe in Santa, just that "he's never come around"; he's also able to hear the bells later on), despite both acknowledging that it's a nicer time of year for some than others. The song, if you really listen to the lyrics, isn't so much about the material aspect of Christmas as it is about Christmas being at its best when you know there are others celebrating with you - it's that sense of communal joy above all else that Billy's clearly been missing out on (for whatever reason), and that's exactly what the Hero Girl gives him through singing the song with him and sharing her feelings about the holiday, which in turn allows Billy to share his. It's at that moment the two of them truly start learning the lessons from their respective tickets: Billy learns that there are people he can trust and the Hero Girl learns that leading requires confidence in your own approach as well as looking out for others; notice how when she first makes her presence known to Billy by joining in the song, Billy instinctively begins to clam up again but rather than backing off or doubting herself as she did before when the Hero Boy questioned her decisions, she continues to sing and encouraging him to open up and keep communicating with her. And it works.
198	[[/folder]]
199
200	[[folder:Apply the Brakes Again!]]
201	* If Steamer (the engine’s driver) found out the throttle was jammed, could he have applied the brakes to check? It would’ve been better and Chris (Hero Boy), James (Conductor), and Holly (Hero Girl) wouldn’t have to deal with a roller coaster ride down to the ice.
202	[[/folder]]
203
204	[[folder: Red Lever]]
205	* What is the red lever in the engine if it’s not a brake?
206	[[/folder]]
207
208	[[folder: No One Required To See Santa]]
209	* Why did the Conductor tell Holly that “No one is required to see Santa.” when asking if Billy could join the group. He knew that Billy eventually joined the group to see Santa. Why couldn’t he give him a chance?
210	[[/folder]]
211
212	[[folder: Know-It-All’s Gift]]
213	* Were there any other gifts for Know-It-All aside from his socks? Would he think that Billy’s goulashes are for him because he wanted goulashes or they were to go with the socks?
214	[[/folder]]

Context Headscratchers / ThePolarExpress