Polar Express - Odd and disturbing?

[GloriaInEccentrica]

watched this yesterday but i found it really creepy. is it supposed to be?

i love it!! ds thinks its the best film ever.

I find it really odd too, there is something a little sinister I think.

all the emptydeserted spaces with records playing atthe wrong speed. ugh.

there's somethign not quite rigth about the animation imo

we watched ALaddin at Christmas and it was fab to see a trad hand-drawn no-cgi cartoon again - FIL was particularly impressed

it's the eyes
dh can't watch it -creeeps him out lol

I love films where adults aren't nice to children. But sort of save them in the end, IYSWIM

ds (5) loved it, it is one of the only films he is not scared of, although my friends dd really doesn't like it which i think is because the people aren't 'real and they aren't cartoons.

I don't like it.. find it claustrophobic, dunno why. just think its horrible.

Naturally my dc and dp love it

All the 4 of us love this film, it's our christmas favourite.

Thought I would hate it as the animation is very surreal, (and has Tom Hanks - bleugh) but the DCs and I loved it.

It is quite creepy and sinister, but again, that increases the appeal a bit.

the kid reminds me of chucky - couldnt watch. dont like the eyes.

i don't know if it's intended, but yes, hate it - really sinister and the children don't like it either - just watched in wide eyed fascination, a few times, before deciding that was quite enough of that.

I hate the music and the weird elves and the danger. I hate the alcoholic bloke on the roof more than anything.

It's like 'hey kids, this is Christmas in Euston station with all the drunk people, but it's just so cosy'

What's the point/ethos?

It is very creepy.

There's a hypothesis about why this type of animation,and robots that look like humans scare us. It's called The Uncanny Valley theory.

You can read about it here or there's a short Youtube video which explains it.

Absolutely love this film. When I first saw it at the cinema I came out almost believing in Santa.

My favourite scene is the one where the ticket blows out of the window. The animation is breathtaking.

Strange I have seen it loads of times with my family and have never thought it creepy.

Oh I love the Hot Chocolate scene, I've always thought this film to be magical and not creepy in any way.

Weird how people see things so differently huh

We went to see this in the cinema when it first came out. I quite liked it.

DS seemed completely indifferent to it, but has never expressed any desire to see it again, so I suspect he may have found it a bit creepy.

DH didn't like it, but his main beef was the style of animation - either animate it or use people, why bother to mix up the two. (He is an engineer and sees things in very black and white terms ).

A real 'Marmite' film from the look of these comments, though.

I watched it in German recently (never seen it in English and know v little German): I thought it was horrible.

I saw a few minutes of the film yesterday and the style of animation reminds me of the recent (Disney/Pixar) A Christmas Carol which I found a little odd too.

A lot of the adult characters were OK but the children all spooked me out. Like a couple of people have already mentioned, I think it was the eyes.

Its the eyes - they are dead.

My DD went through a phase (in June bizarrely) of watching this and it creeps me out.

It reinforces my love for Pixar and how wonderful they are!

Its very odd cause my DS (nearly 5) hates it as well. He is totally obsessed by trains so we thought he'd love it when we got it last year and he really really didn't like so put it away to watch it this year and yet again it freaked him out. MIL very helpfully got him the book for christmas and he won't even look at that either...maybe there is some kind of odd subliminal message in it somewhere!!

My ds came home from school on last day of term telling me the teacher had shown the class a horror film- further investigation turns out it was Polar Express- he's generally quite chilled but this film freaked him.He's 6.

It's one I put off for my DD for a while as it is quite 'nightmarey'.

I hated it too. It is utterly devoid of warmth. The moralising throughout the film is blatant and mawkish, and the message of the film is very questionable if you ask me.

I hated the hobo on the roof - just didnt see the point of him. Freaked DS1 out - and he is not easily freaked!