Author Chris Van Allsburg published a children’s picture book called The Polar Express in 1985. The book would go on to sell more copies each year than the last and made the New York Times bestseller list four years in a row. By 1999, the book had caught the attention of acting legend Tom Hanks, who wanted to adapt the film on one condition – a potential adaptation had to be in live-action.
Hanks’ frequent collaborator, director Robert Zemeckis, made it no secret that a live-action adaptation would be a terrible idea due to the massive potential budget of $1 billion. However, the two were able to compromise by making the film with state-of-the-art motion capture technology.
This was accomplished by having real actors’ black box performances be filmed with motion-capture equipment. For many, this proved a tedious experience. In particular, Hanks was intended to play every single character, before whittling the requirements down to seven roles after the task proved too difficult.
However, according to cast member Chris Coppola, who played Gus the Toothless Boy, Hanks came up with a secret weapon for managing his numerous roles. One of the secrets to Hanks’ performances was his shoes, according to Coppola.
“The shoes were very important to him. If he was playing the boy, he wore a certain kind of shoe. If he was playing the dad, he wore his slippers. If he was playing Santa, he wore Santa boots. If he was playing the hobo, he wore the hobo shoes. And those really helped to gather his character as he was acting,” said Coppola.
By the time the film was finally released in 2004 – five years after Hanks began the discussions for an adaptation – critics were initially divided as to the film’s hyper-realistic look. Durham College Film and Motion Design professor, program coordinator, and researcher Jennifer Bedford argues this has bogged the film down by modern standards.
“The film was groundbreaking for its time, being the first film to use motion capture for an entire feature film,” said Bedford. “The technology was really in its infancy […] leading to that uncanny valley effect where characters appeared almost human but not quite, so it led some people feeling uneasy about that film.”
Despite the film’s limitations, The Polar Express remains a landmark in the history of animation for proving that motion capture can be used to tell a full, two-hour story, something which James Cameron brought to an excellent degree with his hit Avatar films.
Ever since Avatar was released in 2009, visual effects have advanced to such a great degree that some have argued it is possible to remake The Polar Express as a full, Disney-esque live-action adaptation without having to sacrifice an unmanageable amount of money for budgeting. However, as with any live-action remake, there is some debate over whether the idea can be fully realized.
“I do think that, if there was a want to remake, as a live-action, The Polar Express is completely feasible using today’s cinema technologies,” said Bedford, citing the significant advancements in CGI animation over the last 25 years.
“Additionally, we have a whole new generation of folks who have grown up with animation that is more realistic, and so I think the buy-in value from the viewer is much higher than, say, it would have been at an earlier time,” said Bedford.
Coppola, however, does not feel quite the same way.
“If Warner Bros. is deciding to make a remake of Polar Express and to make it live-action, I think one of the things they’re not worried about is how much it would cost,” said Coppola. “They would, ultimately, but they’re not going to make it the same. They’re going to budget it for today’s costs.”
A live-action remake of The Polar Express could serve as a long-overdue realization of this classic story as Tom Hanks imagined it a quarter of a century ago. The technological advancements of the 21st century could allow this remake to breathe new life into a beloved tale while also representing the culmination of what Chris Van Allsburg began in the 1980s. This remake would offer both Allsburg and Hanks the opportunity to finally witness a modern holiday classic as they always envisioned it.