A Christmas Carol Train Tour - Photos & Early Thoughts on the Film

This past Saturday, I hopped on a train to Grand Central to hop on a different kind of train - the A Christmas Carol train tour. The Christmas choo-choo was making its final stop in NYC, and I thought - what better way to celebrate Halloween than by checking out some behind-the-scenes goodies from a must-see holiday film?

I don't know what I was expecting, but the train tour was in fact, an entire Amtrak train. How many behind-the-scenes goodies can you fit into a train car? Turns out, a lot.

There were costumes.


And artifacts from the Charles Dickens Museum (!!!)

And maquettes.


And 3D models.


And an introduction to motion capture, for those of you who haven't ever watched a Lord of the Rings DVD extra.

And a look at scenes of the film in various stages of rendition.

Once you finish the train tour, guests were invited to visit this giant blow-up theatre to watch some preview scenes from the film. Now, I like my Christmas Carols the old-fashioned way: with Muppets (annnnd .... "It Feels Like Christmas" is in my head, perhaps forever). Since I only got to see selected scenes, I can't fairly critique the film itself, but here's a quick rundown:

The Good:

The 3D is gorgeous. I mean it. The scenes look so vivid, so deep, so rich - it's Dickensian London come to life.

The Bad:

The people in this film look ridiculous. Motion capture is fine when you're turning a person into, say, Gollum, but using motion capture to turn people into people just seems strange and superfluous (Also see: The Polar Express). Turning Jim Carrey into Scrooge via motion capture seems like a more expensive way to make him look like his CGI-free Count Olaf in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (great movie):

Filmmakers will tell you that the beauty of motion capture is that "if you can dream it, you can do it," but isn't that true of special effects in general? And just because you can, does that automatically mean you should? I think this movie would have been better served by having real actors in a CGI-enhanced world, a la Harry Potter or the more recent Star Wars films.

And I get that it's Jim Carrey and blah blah blah, but why not cast a British actor to play Scrooge? Carrey's accent is, well, you'll see. Let's just say the fact that all the other actors are British doesn't help matters.

I don't mean to humbug the movie - after all, I haven't seen it. Wonky CGI people aside, the film looks beautiful and I'm a sucker for a Christmas movie. Especially the ones with Muppets.
---
Related Links:

* The Princess and the Frog Art & Designs
* Do We Really Need a Pirates 4?