Snowpiercer's message(SPOILERS)

[FaxModem1]

So, recently rewatched Snowpiercer. I love this film. It's a great film about revolution, class divisions, post-apocalyptic society, etc.

But, is the message what it presents what people think it presents? Consider the ending. Oh, and SPOILERS:

For those who don't know, Snowpiercer is a film about how the entire planet is covered in ice and snow from some apocalyptic event(one to stop global warming). The only survivors of this event are on board a train built by Wilford, an eccentric billionaire who made a train and rail track that crosses the entire planet, taking a year to do so. If the train ever stops, everyone on board would die, thus making humanity extinct.

However, the train has a class system. Those in the front are the elites, hobnobbing and enjoying their lives. The people in the middle of the train are comfortable, and enjoying themselves. And in the back, the tail of the train, are the lower classes, those who were given free tickets and didn't ahve to pay for one to get on board in order to escape death. Their lives are terrible, used as labor, and stuffed like cattle into one car.

So, naturally, after conditions have gotten bad enough for them, the people in the tail section rebel and have a revolution to get to the front of the car, and overthrow the system. But, that's not what happens.

Instead, all of humanity outside the train, are dead. All the revolutionaries and people from the tail end of the train, from their actions, are dead. And due to the actions of individuals in the train, all of humanity within the train are dead too. Even the two innocents, who escape the train, find themselves within reach of a polar bear, having no weapons or capability to fight it. Even if they do, it's so harsh and deadly outside, they will be dead from frostbite.

This could be argued to be a message about how life has survived, and humanity has a chance, but in fact, it just means that a polar bear has found it's dinner.

So, what is this arguing? The film could also be argued to be saying that fighting the power, improving things, or being unsatisfied with how things are is fruitless, as all it leads to is death, and the end of the world. Curtis's revolution ends with everyone dead. The plan to derail the train? Everyone dead. The only two survivors? About to be eaten by a polar bear.

The message: Though your masters are cruel, and things are horrible, it is better to stay in your place and survive than to rebel or try to change things, as that will only lead to everyone's death. Better to stay in your place, or everyone will die, even if it's inhuman conditions.

Is that what the ending is really saying? Because that seems to be the interpretation that they're going for by the events of the film.

[Simon_Jester]

You could equally well argue that the message is that a stratified class-dominated society is inevitably going to self-destruct due to its own internal contradictions, and that if the people running the supertrain had really wanted things to go smoothly, they would have done everything they could to make the lot of the people in back something other than pure misery.

[Q99]

'Metaphor for capitalism' is the normal take I see, and it fits pretty well, haves and haves not and how they got in their on the first place (it was literally made by rich people to cater to their entertainment).

You could equally well argue that the message is that a stratified class-dominated society is inevitably going to self-destruct due to its own internal contradictions, and that if the people running the supertrain had really wanted things to go smoothly, they would have done everything they could to make the lot of the people in back something other than pure misery.

Everyone's on the train, and by letting things get this far, you're inevitably going to derail.

At the same time, the train is all they know, and it's not like anyone knows a safe way off. This is their world.


The people at the end aren't necessarily dead- the Polar Bear means there is life and food. If there was not... in an odd way, they'd be worse off. If they do survive, though, it's in an unknown world.

[Starglider]

Snowpiercer was far more silly than that. The engine literally ran on dead children body parts, which I guess could be a heavy-handed sweatshop metaphor if technologically nonsensical. More relevantly, the personality-cult-dictator running the train deliberately started and enabled the revolution, as a means of population control. Is this supposed to be an allusion to Agenda 21 e.g. blending some far-right conspiracy with the far-left ideology? Seems pointlessly risky although at least technically plausible in that it's the only way the uneducated revolutionaries could have got through the security. No actual capitalist elites would pick 'incite socialist uprising to be muderously suppressed' as the preferred strategy for population reduction no matter how amoral they were, it's just hopelessly inefficient and risky in both the 'uprising might succeed' (will definitely succeed if you do this repeatedly) and the 'potential for massive collateral damage' senses.

[FaxModem1]

Snowpiercer was far more silly than that. The engine literally ran on dead children body parts, which I guess could be a heavy-handed sweatshop metaphor if technologically nonsensical.

No, living children, they were just doing sweatshop work because new parts were impossible to make and they were small enough to fit in the machinery to do the work.

[Sidewinder]

Snowpiercer is the most ridiculous and oversimplified movie about the caste system of living that I have ever seen. It's more in-your-face about the injustices of being forced to live in filth while others live in opulence than even Slumdog Millionaire, but unlike Slumdog, Snowpiercer's caste makes no goddamn sense whatsoever in either real-world or its own movie-world universe. It tries hard to say "this way of living is wrong!" but it's so retardedly pathetic about jamming its point down the viewer's throat that it turns its plight of the poor into a mockery of what it's attempting to convey. Not to mention that there is no way in fucking Hell that (even given the dumb-as-fuck setup that this movie calls a "plot") this kind of quickly tossed together social order would have ever worked in real life if non-2-dimensional people lived on the train that the whole movie takes part in.

<snip>

Okay, so the rich keep the poor rear-enders down (because this movie is a heavy-handed as all fuck allegory using the subtlety of a sledge hammer over our dumb heads to show that rich people are heartless, sadistic, and evil, and poor people are all 100% noble, sympathetic, strong, and good), and every so often they come into the rear cars to collect some small children, but then one day (after 17 goddamn years of this shit) the poor try to rise up and take over the train! Hurrah! So bearded Chris Evans gathers his people to go after and save the most recent child abductees, and murder a shit ton of rich people along the way.

<snip>

When they finally murder their way up to the train engine we then find out that not only is this flick a sloppy metaphor for class rights, but it's really just a terrible and retarded remake of The Matrix: Reloaded. You see, bearded Chris Evans is really Neo, John Hurt is Morpheus, and Ed Harris is the Architect, and the Architect tells Neo that the train is the only reality, and that he has been chosen to run it in the future, but to do so he must stop his initial quest to destroy it.

The Architect chose Neo for this task and he wanted him to make it to the engine car (despite sending wave upon wave of armed soldiers, and his own personal Terminator at Neo to murderize him) so that he could see the truth, and then choose his correct destiny. Guess what Neo bearded Chris Evans chooses... GUESS, damn you! Yup, he figuratively hawks a loogie in the Architect's face, but then his cool Korean buddy (the only guy I was rooting for in this whole movie) uses the narcotics made from explosives that he's been stealing from the rich the entire journey to blow a hole open in the train, causing an avalanche that kills everybody on the train but Korean buddy's daughter and one of the small children originally kidnapped from the rear cars... Then those two survivors go outside (to where that one guy had his arm stuck out into earlier in the film, which then caused it to become a block of ice after only being exposed to the elements for 7 minutes) and see a polar bear, and they know that things can live outside the train again... But they'll DIE anyway, because they're just children, and they're on a mountain, and there's still 30-feet of ice covering the whole goddamn planet. Oh, and a polar bear.

Why do writers shoehorn such hypocrisy down my throat? Let's not deny the fact the author of Le Transperceneige or the scriptwriter of its film adaptation either want to be rich, or are already so.

[Q99]

Why do writers shoehorn such hypocrisy down my throat? Let's not deny the fact the author of Le Transperceneige or the scriptwriter of its film adaptation either want to be rich, or are already so.

Desire to make money for oneself doesn't preclude one from noticing the problems in the system.

Heck, that's one of the points- It's very hard to stop this trainride and no-one knows how.

[Zixinus]

Maybe the message is: even in the most desperate of situations, humans will find a way to fuck their situation up.

Sometimes social commentary is deliberately vague to make it "feel in the gaps yourself" nature.

[Q99]

If there's a weakness of many eurocomics of Snowpiercer's ilk, it's an over reliance on symbolism and social commentary.


But hey, if you want social commentary modeled in a physical location or journey? There's the first place to look.

[Darth Lucifer]

I already don't want to watch Snowpiercer, and this thread confirms exactly why. The clips I found on YouTube are forgettable scenes of mediocre shit put to film (except for Tilda Swinton, she's awesome) and the entire concept is ridiculous to begin with.

CinemaSins did a fantastic job of ripping this movie to shreds. I'd love to see Chuck @ SFDebris do a review, but I'd feel terrible for him to have to sit through it in order to do so.

[madd0ct0r]

congratulations on commenting about a movie you've not watched and won't. It has brought an insightful voice to the disscusion.

[Sidewinder]

congratulations on commenting about a movie you've not watched and won't. It has brought an insightful voice to the disscusion.

The movie's message is very well known, for the same damn reason World War 2 propaganda films' message is very well known; he does not have to watch the movie to know it. If you know a movie's message is "Your race sucks, you should just let [insert opposing army of your choice] kill you and everyone you know," or "Your nation sucks, it should just let [insert opposing air force of your choice] bomb it to rubble," or something equally insulting, why should you watch it?

[madd0ct0r]

congratulations on commenting about a movie you've not watched and won't. It has brought an insightful voice to the disscusion.

The movie's message is very well known, for the same damn reason World War 2 propaganda films' message is very well known; he does not have to watch the movie to know it. If you know a movie's message is "Your race sucks, you should just let [insert opposing army of your choice] kill you and everyone you know," or "Your nation sucks, it should just let [insert opposing air force of your choice] bomb it to rubble," or something equally insulting, why should you watch it?

I don't care whether he watches it or reads it iin and of itself. I think someone who has not read or watched something is going to be unable to discuss details of something. As you say, they might be aware of a general perception but they will be unable to contribute anything but generalities, assumptions and echo chamber shot. It dosent add to the discussion.

[Q99]

CinemaSins did a fantastic job of ripping this movie to shreds. I'd love to see Chuck @ SFDebris do a review, but I'd feel terrible for him to have to sit through it in order to do so.

Here's a thing about CinemaSins- he doesn't seem to, like, get allegory, or subtlety. And didn't pick up on that allegory even though it's really what the movie is about, so, woosh, really missed the point.

CS has a tendency to make up sins/ 'sin' stuff that the movie explains as if it didn't. Some of his early videos were good but nowadays I consider him to have gotten *really* lazy.

A SFDebris review would be completely different.

[Sea Skimmer]

I agree he's lazy, but this is not a subtle film at all either, its an over the top joke. I see the message it has, but the joke version ending in doom doesn't add anything useful.

I liked some of the action, it wasn't badly made.

[Q99]

I agree he's lazy, but this is not a subtle film at all either, its an over the top joke. I see the message it has, but the joke version ending in doom doesn't add anything useful.

I liked some of the action, it wasn't badly made.

That he misses the non-subtlety is the point ^^

I feel he's riding on the coattails of Honest Trailers and his early, less crappy vids. I've seen enough problems in other videos where he just makes stuff up or says "They don't do X" when they do X or whatever, that I can safely say he gives very misleading impressions on videos and their actual flaws. He can heavily sin something that's not actually true.