Have you seen Snowpiercer, the motion picture? If you enjoyed the movie, you will probably want to check out the new series on TNT/Netflix bearing the same name. The Snowpiercer releases new episodes per week and takes you to the exact same train with the same origin story like the movie. It doesn’t feature “Captain America” in the lead role, but is it still a good show and worth your time?
The Snowpiercer is a TNT/Netflix series. Its first season began releasing in May of this year and we get new episodes each Monday.
The show has the exact same name as a movie featuring Chris Evans (who plays Captain America in the Marvel Cinematic Universe) from 2013.
If you are wondering if Netflix’s Snowpiercer show is worth your time, yes it is. You don’t need to see the original 2013 movie it is based on. If you have, however, you may find it hard to overlook the minor, yet striking differences in both plot and character archetypes. The show begins ten years before the events of the movie and serves as a prequel to it. It’s a good mix of story, gory moments, action and mystery!
What is Snowpiercer’s story
The Snowpiercer tells the story of a post-apocalyptic dystopian Earth, frozen to its very core. The only survivors are passengers on a self-sustained perpetually moving train that circles the globe over and over.
The ice age created by humanity’s own experiments starts in 2014, according to the original Snowpiercer movie. The TV Show follows that and picks up from 2021 – seven years after the disaster.
In the very first episode of the new show we see a brief overview of the events that led to the freezing cold weather and average temperatures of minus 119 degrees Celsius.
Constant wars and global warming led to rising of the temperatures everywhere. The scientists attempted to cool down the planet, but instead they froze it completely.
In the final moments before the ever-lasting winter took over a few thousand passengers were lucky to board a self-sustained perpetually moving train, equipped with everything it needs to survive on its own.
The one thousand and one train cars are split into three classes – as tradition dictates. In the tail, however, there are a group of people, who, apparently, boarded the train without a ticket. They sneaked or forced their way in.
It is here, among these “tailies” where we meet some of the main characters in the TV Show. Chris Evan’s character from the 2013 movie was also a part of the tail section occupants.
At the time the series start it has been nearly seven years since the train’s departure.
The movie starts us off at around the seventeenth year after the disaster.
The order on the train is pretty much the same. There’s the neglected tail section people and the rich spoiled first class passengers.
The series started off very intriguing and full of mysteries to be revealed and questions to be answered.
I enjoy this kind of shows and movies that feature a post- or near-apocalyptic event, but focus more on people’s fates and their struggles, rather than on the event itself.
In the show both points of view are intertwined from the very beginning. We are not just following the tailies. Instead we get to hear and see the lives of passengers from all classes and parts of the train.
We learn that to maintain this train and keep it operational a certain level of order is demanded and order applies for all passengers – from the tailies all the way to the front cars occupants.
Who are the important characters in Snowpiercer
The one and most important character in the movie is Chris Evans’ Curtis. He leads the rebellion in the year 2031.
The movie is only a small piece of the whole story. It explains how the perpetual train comes to its end.
I doubt we will ever get to reach that point in the TV Show, no matter how many seasons TNT/Netflix decide to produce. We do have nearly ten years of time to explore to learn how Curtis’ rebellion came to be.
In the movie Curtis is inspired to rebel with his tail-section group by his father-figure Gilliam.
Gilliam, as we later learn, conspired with Mr. Wilford himself, the inventor and creator of this train. Wilford is played by Ed Harris, by the way, but he only appears near the end and only for a short time.
The two of them planned the rebellion with one main purpose – to reduce the train’s population in an attempt to bring back the balance.
The series talk about this balance from the very first episodes. We learned right away that a few years before the current events in the show Wilford Industries (the company managing the train) had ordered that no more children be born in the tail section. Many women have been sterilized.
In the year 2031, the movie reveals the same struggle on board. The methods used to maintain the population, however, are much more severe and brutal.
Just imagine what it would be like to live for seventeen years inside a metal construct (an arc? a coffin?) and more or less to constantly hear and feel the never-ending “click-clack”. Almost as depressing as living in the Metro tunnels and stations, I suppose (reference to the Metro 2033 books and video games)
Back to the cast! While Curtis is the main focus of the movie and understandably so (most of the budget probably went to pay for Captain America to take the lead role, I assume), the rest of the cast are not very popular or purely unknown names to the general public. The big exception is Ed Harris, of course.
In the TV Show the best known name is that of Jennifer Connelly. She plays Melanie Cavill – a first-class Wilford Industries employee and the secret leader of the train.
We don’t have to wait long to learn who she actually is and here comes one of the biggest differences in the stories between the movie and the series!
Jennifer’s character Melanie is actually Mr. Wilford.
We see at the end of the movie that Curtis is offered to take over from Ed Harris and become the next Mr. Wilford.
We could use this as a means to explain how and why in the show Mr. Wilford is in fact a woman. Perhaps the original inventor and creator of this train did not survive long or maybe never even boarded it? Or… he was killed by a passenger, perhaps by a character from the series?
How and why Melanie is Mr. Wilford, this should be one of the main secrets to be revealed by the end of the first season. I hope for it to be so.
The first-class passengers are portrayed as spoiled and their “first world” problems are petty compared to the misery and struggles the tailies have to go through every day.
Jennifer plays her role perfectly demonstrating that even the wealthy and spoiled first-class passengers and the train crew have big problems before them, not just who gets to use the sauna today or what sushi to have for dinner.
That side of the rich passengers, is something the movie doesn’t fully show. If it did, it would have been a plus for its story.
The very first voice we hear in the show belongs to Daveed Diggs. He plays Andre Layton – a former homicide detective from the time before the cold. He now lives in the tail section of the train. Layton is one of the unspoken leaders for the rebellion that is being planned.
The second episode of the show dives much deeper in to the story we are about to follow for (at least) the first season, I presume. This is the murder mystery plot.
I will not tell you more of the show’s plot, because if you haven’t seen it yet, this is more than enough of a teaser, I think, for you to go check it out at least. Don’t forget to tell me if you like it and why!
Melanie and Andre are the two sides of the coin, but they have a common problem to solve in the show. Melanie knows Andre’s past as a detective and hires (or rather forces) him to solve the afore-mentioned murder mystery in third-class section.
The Snowpiercer series are not easy on the eye, but the blood and gore are well-measured and properly timed. Committing a crime often results in punishment by extending a person’s hand outside of the train and letting it freeze in the cold. This is present in both the movie and the series.
I don’t know why, but I was caught in a surprise when the second episode started talking about the cannibalism and even included it in the main plot. Not sure why I didn’t expect this. I guess I thought it would be a more mellow show… for some reason.
What you might like and dislike in the Snowpiercer Series
The first thing I disliked was the announcement that the show will not arrive in a bundle. Having just finished “The Last Dance” has reminded me of the two sides of this coin – it is amazing to come home after work on Monday and have two new episodes to watch, but it is also dreadful to have to wait six more days for the next.
The first thing I liked in the show is how true it stays to the already established story and world from the 2013 movie. Yes, I picked up a few details that annoy me as being obviously different between the two, but that’s a drop in a bucket.
The show runners had to change them for the show to have good longevity, most likely. Speaking of show runners – the movie director Bong Joon-ho is involved with the series as well.
The biggest issue I have right now with the story is that Mr. Wilford is not Ed Harris… it is Jennifer Connelly. I can’t find it in my memory a bad performance of Ed Harris. Jennifer, on the other end, is playing her character quite well.
So, what then annoys me? It’s the fact that I don’t know how from the seventh year to the seventeenth year of the train’s life we get from one Mr. Wilford to the another. Most of all – why is Jennifer’s character being referred to as “Mr. Wilford”. What is that big mystery that Netflix is hinting at?
That annoyance comes mostly from the fact that I have gotten used to watch Netflix shows in a binge. Now I need to wait a number of weeks or even months to learn the secret.
Damn you, Netflix! Well played!
It’s not like I was going to cancel my subscription, but with the severe competition from all other streaming providers, I guess Netflix has finally learned that releasing shows in bundles of full season at a time is not exactly very beneficial financially speaking.
If I had to choose which is better – the movie of the series – I’d pick the series. In the series we will learn a lot more about this train, its occupants, the events that led up to the frozen Earth (hopefully) and how it all reflects on the people, who boarded it.
The movie focuses too much on Curtis and all other characters appear to be secondary in my opinion. The series already has hinted at a ton of interesting story lines happening all over the train and it better explains the world that these passengers live in.
Have you noticed how I called the series to be better than the movie? IMDB seems to disagree with me, but I’m perfectly fine with that.
I saw the movie three times with the most recent one being just last month. I like it a lot. Just think that the show is better and I hope my review you are about to finish reading explained well enough why I prefer it over the movie.
For some unknown to me reason the movie has a score of 7.1/10 and the show is one point below with 6.1/10 (currently).
I suppose it is up to you to watch the movie and the show and to tell me if you agree with my opinion or not.
Important note: The Snowpiercer series aired for the first time on TNT on May 17, 2020 for USA and China. Netflix distributes the show world-wide. I watch it on Netflix as where I live it is the streaming service that offers it. In the article I refer to it as a “Netflix show“, because it is marked as “N Series” indeed.
