MovieChat Forums > Snowpiercer (2014) Discussion > Why everyone try to make sense

Why everyone try to make sense

posted 7 years ago by laffitte-manon
14 replies | jump to latest

Every topic I read are as crazy as "yeah but who took care of the rails" "Polar bear wouldn't survive"...
Jesus christ guys, this is not some scientific movies, it's almost beyond a sci fi movie. Its a TALE.
If you care about what you call "plot holes" (which I call uninteresting details) then you sure didn't enjoy the movie the way you should have.
Who would have read a tale from Lafontaine and be like "wait, foxes don't speak". Some idiots probably.
Anyway the real questions we should ask ourselves are within the characters, the message, the metaphors.
One thing that question me was, if Wilford told the truth about Gilliam helping him or was it a trick?
I don't know, Gilliam did tell Curtis to cut his tongue.
What do you think?

[–] tanis_ivy 7 years ago

That's the recent trend, and an annoying one at that. Just enjoy the story.

[–] gabrielledessinatrice 7 years ago

No one made a 2-hour long movie solely based on an undeveloped Lafontaine tale. If such a thing were to made, it would need a great plot that could convey the themes of the original story.

However, the genre of this movie is science fiction, it was not a tale/fantasy. It should be somewhat believable, and instead it offered little coherence. The " deep meaning" was rather simple and poorly executed. I think if the directors had given attention to detail and worked on developing a great plot, the messages would have been better transmitted and received. It’s not a groundbreaking work either because post-apocalyptic films are not something new. There's a new one coming every year.

Understand that any of the themes in this movie aren’t new: system of classes, maintaining balance, etc. Anyone can come up with them, but not everyone can make a great movie discussing them. The way this film carried the messages it wished to share offered little to appreciate.

All the directors had to do is make it believable, give us great dialogue, have consistency, carry their ideas with logic. And it failed.

[–] Sturmknecht 7 years ago

Couldn't agree more.

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Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? - Who watches the watchmen?

[–] criztu 7 years ago

One thing that question me was, if Wilford told the truth about Gilliam helping him or was it a trick?
I don't know, Gilliam did tell Curtis to cut his tongue.
What do you think?

It's called Social Dialectics. Look up Kant's dialectics, or Good Cop - Bad Cop.

[–] laffitte-manon 7 years ago

I believe the situation here is a little extreme for that scheme don't you think?
After all, Gilliam is at the back of the train, losing arms and legs, eating *beep* while his "partner" is living a luxury life at the front?
And he's OK with that? For the greater good?
I don't think a partnership would work with such inequalities

[–] criztu 7 years ago

I believe the situation here is a little extreme for that scheme don't you think?
After all, Gilliam is at the back of the train, losing arms and legs, eating *beep* while his "partner" is living a luxury life at the front?
And he's OK with that? For the greater good?
I don't think a partnership would work with such inequalities

Well, it's a theory by Kant - Dialectics, look it up.

For the police to maintain authority over the people, there has to be crime. The more abject the crime, the more control the police get. Good cop - Bad cop.
For the sheep to stay inside the pen, a big bad wolf must lurk outside the pen.
Without crime, the police can't exist. Without Gilliam, Wilford can't control the train.

[–] laffitte-manon 7 years ago

Yes I understand the theory, and I know Kant.
What I'm saying is, why would Gilliam sacrifice himself in his own will, for Wilford, for the greater good.
Good cop bad cop, ok , but both cops have the same pay and privileges.if you understand what I mean.
Here, Wilford gets it all and Gilliam lives a life of misery

[–] criztu 7 years ago

Here, Wilford gets it all and Gilliam lives a life of misery

Yet Gilliam trains Curtis, who will remove Wilford, who lives in solitude, with nobody around him, infertile.

You'd think that a father without a son, but living in luxury, has a better life than a father with a son, living in poverty. You'd be in error. Read "Gilliam's son Curtis" as "fertile doctrine", as Wilford is surrounded by decadence, as the oppressing class is consuming, destructive, not creative or productive.

To understand that suffering has the same value as pleasure, read Nietzsche's Will To Power.
Gilliam and Wilford as a metaphor for dialectics, represent the two poles of society. That is, look at society as a single entity, with two valences - pleasure and suffering, hot and cold, day and night, winter and summer, youth and old age, eating and sh!tting - if you want to taste a delicious cake with your mouth, expect to experience the foul smell at the other end of your digestive system.

[–] wulfthar 7 years ago

One thing that question me was, if Wilford told the truth about Gilliam helping him or was it a trick?
I don't know, Gilliam did tell Curtis to cut his tongue.
What do you think?

That's intriguing,and yes I think Gilliam worked with Wilford, but he hoped Curtis had a possibility to change the things, that's the reason why he recommends him to cut Wilford's tongue...he knows that he would have convinced him to take his place and maintain the status quo.

Juliet Parrish: You can't win a war if you're extinct!

[–] pandemonium91 7 years ago

I think Gilliam worked with Wilford, but he hoped Curtis had a possibility to change the things, that's the reason why he recommends him to cut Wilford's tongue...he knows that he would have convinced him to take his place and maintain the status quo.

That got me thinking...is it possible that Gilliam was actually a triple agent? First pretending to work with Curtis, then revealed to be Wilford's partner in crime, but in actuality working with Curtis all along? Gilliam could have agreed with Wilford in the beginning but changed his mind along the way, hence the "cut out his tongue" advice; it's possible that this is how Wilford roped him into this to begin with.

[–] wulfthar 7 years ago

It appears that his plan was to take the water reserve coach to demand better conditions, and tried to dissuade Curtis to go any further.

Perhaps at that time he realised Curtis could have made it, but I disagree on your triple agent theory as for me it's clear he always worked for the good of the rear passengers and Curtis worked for him, not the other way around.

Juliet Parrish: You can't win a war if you're extinct!

[–] pandemonium91 7 years ago

Gilliam's plan? Could be, I forget if they had the talk before or after Mason told them about the ice being collected at the front of the train.

I mean, the triple (and even double) agent theory is fairly ridiculous because I doubt anyone would agree to hack off his own arm (and leg?) and live in those conditions for 18 years for the abstract "good and balance" of everyone on board. Wilford could have known about Gilliam's "it's easier to hold a woman with two hands" line because he had people/devices to spy on the passengers through.

[–] WoodCheese 7 years ago

It's a stupid movie. You CAN create worlds, as long as they work within that world's logic. But you cannot deny logic, that's not how films work.

If you write Harry Potter, I believe that in that world there's magic - I have no problem with that. But if Harry Potter can become a superman all of a sudden - that's BS. You need to set up the world beforehand and then move the audience through it.

Clearly, in Snowpiercer, the writer didn't have a world in mind. He didn't know anything about the world and how it functions, other than there's a train. That's it.

This is what's called BAD and LAZY writing. He could've spent more time and figure out a way how to use logic in this, and the movie would've been SO MUCH better. Now, it's all BS. I feel tricked and robbed. No explanations, no rationale. Garbage movie.

[–] pandemonium91 7 years ago

I think it would have made the movie more interesting to give more details about the outside world, not just the handwaving "very cold atmosphere" explanation and the teacher's propaganda clip and speech. Animals don't just go extinct for 18 years and then revive their species when convenient. Unless you assume that they were frozen under all that ice? But I doubt they could survive for so long without some kind of life support system. Tracks don't hold out that long without maintenance either, especially under extreme cold.

It would frankly be easy and take little time to explain those two aspects in-universe: Wilford also designed tracks made from a special material that was very resilient, and the "everything out there is dead" part could be shown as just propaganda (which it was, to some extent).

In your Harry Potter example, the magic works because it's established as believable within that universe. In OP's La Fontaine example, animals talk because we're used to seeing that in fables, it's a convention. The messages should be built on a solid foundation, the reader/viewer shouldn't be tripping over missing basic (and reasonable to know) information before even reaching the message of the work. The science fiction genre demands either a lot of technobabble or a lot of realistic explanations - point is, it has to be believable -, it's one of its defining characteristics.