First-time viewers of The Polar Express, including my then 4-year-old son, might notice that the animation in The Polar Express movie is a little different from conventional animation. While he didn’t quite have the vocabulary to express it in detail, he did say that it looked different, but couldn’t elaborate. I immediately knew what he was talking about though, and it is indeed… different…

The Polar Express was the first full-length film made entirely using motion capture technology. This makes the characters’ movements more lifelike and realistic, something that we’re simply not used to seeing in conventional animation. Some people have said that it makes the characters feel a bit uncanny, but I personally love it and feel that it brings something new to what is a beautiful story.

Motion capture technology, although previously used in Hollywood at the time, was still a fairly new technology, so the animators combined it with conventional animation to complete the characters’ movements. Tom Hanks, who plays a full 7 characters in The Polar Express, said that it was a little tricky to give each character their own personality and movement style, so he eventually resorted to wearing a different pair of boots for each character to help him create their unique movement.

Since The Polar Express came out, motion capture technology has advanced quite a bit, and I often wonder what The Polar Express would look like if it were re-released using today’s technology. Would it still have that sense of wonder?