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One thing I do like is that the plot makes it feel like every life on board Snowpiercer matters - it takes a long time to make a human, and every person killed is a loss of skills, labour, knowledge, and one step closer to extinction. Even though we see a lot of nameless extras get killed, it feels important, unlike a lot of post-apocalyptic fiction, where people feel disposable and characters are perfectly OK with indiscriminate murder. I really enjoyed the film, but I'm enjoying this slightly less surreal and more grounded version more. Daveed Diggs and Jennifer Connelly have been fantastic, adding Sean Bean in the mix should be something special.
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Jan 28, 2021 00:12
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Ruth's naive complete trust in Wilford, despite him not doing much to earn it was interesting in season 1, hopefully they move away from it, or have her feel divided loyalties as his true nature is exposed. She's more likable and redeemable than the character played by Tilda Swindon in the film, who filled the same role.
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Jan 28, 2021 01:25
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Steven Ogg tends to get typecast a little, but he puts so much energy into his performances.
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Feb 3, 2021 01:03
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Regarding the debate about the engine, remember that when the supply train showed up, they were hopeful it had spare parts for repair, just in case. The engine is limitless, but not the amount of energy it creates, and it can break. Then again, this is a world that has train tracks that cross the entire globe, so you've just got to roll with it. Snowpiercer, for all its social issues, at least has a sustainable food supply. Even if the food is bad, there's enough of it, and they're trying to distribute it more evenly. WIlford's train doesn't have enough food - they're still reliant on tinned stocks, which will run out, and they don't seem to have any livestock. For all the mistakes Melanie made as leader, she tried to create a closed ecosystem, Wilford wanted to run the train as his own fiefdom, where he could gorge himself on the last few dregs, letting humanity go extinct, that's why she left him behind. The problem is, the supply train is more people in a smaller space than the main train, so he's been able to ramp up the cult of personality even more so.
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Feb 3, 2021 13:59
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Oasx posted:If Big Alice lacks food, why the heck are they growing weed instead of food? Wilford isn't planning for sustainability, or really for anyone who isn't Wilford.
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Feb 3, 2021 14:22
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ilmucche posted:How did everyone learn the secret wilford hand signal so quick? I thought they were copying him doing it as he walked through the train?
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Feb 4, 2021 00:52
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Melanie tried to re-balance the train, but it was her lack of transparency and fear of first class that let her down. If she'd said from the start "Wilford was going to use you as cattle, I'm the one who built the train, I wanted us to have a chance, let's try and work together", she might have got more done with the tail, but First Class and the staff would have revolted. Ruth explained that Wilford recruited her by hand, and he's probably done that a lot to build loyalty - like how he basically took credit for making the engine, when it wasn't his idea. The train was never designed to save humanity - Melanie has had to try and make it into that. Melanie's main flaw is that she was scared to rock the boat too much, which makes sense, given how fragile the train is. But when you've got 400 people, who have a wide range of skills, experience, or could be taught new ones, it's both inefficient and demoralising to keep them in the dark, only sometimes using a few for tedious manual labour. She was good at managing resources, but not good at managing people, Leighton has the opposite problem, which is why the dynamic works so well. I like how its less grim and dystopian (and surreal) than the film - giving the audience hope that they can work out a better solution. Then Wilford shows up!
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Feb 4, 2021 23:20
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There were some alright people in first class, but it was unsustainable with the amount of resources and space. Melanie could have avoided a lot of the issues if she'd integrated the tail into 3rd class some more. Give them a fixed role, or apprentice them into needed roles, increase the food quality a bit and have staff be more polite, and that's a big way to increasing resource production and stopping social unrest. They'd probably have to stay in the tail for living, but letting them go into 3rd and 2nd class during the day to work and socialize seems like a quick fix. But she's too focused on the big picture, not individuals.
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Feb 5, 2021 14:49
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Melaine's mindset is "try and save as much as humanity as possible" vs Wilford's "I'm the king of my own castle". A lot of First Class characters seem to have the mindset of "I paid to get luxury" rather than "I contributed funds to help people survive, in exchange for a place". Ignoring the tail to their own devices for so long early on was a mistake - if the train had got them into a system and stopped the violence at the start, it would have turned out better. We haven't seen when Melaine tricked Wilford off the train yet, but the wording implies that she set off without him, rather than kicked him off after the start of the voyage.
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Feb 6, 2021 00:01
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Seems like they're moving away from Ruth's divided loyalties now - they used her obsessive attention to detail for a joke, but it seems like she's thrown in fully with Layton and Melanie at the end. Josie wanting revenge makes sense, but killing Melanie would be the worst idea she could have, considering that you know, she runs the train keeping everyone alive. Although Josie did seem more violent in season 1 than Layton, wanting to burn down the system, rather than re-balance and fix it. That kind of revolution is unsustainable, because someone's get to get governing afterward, otherwise it turns into infighting, the destruction of the life support and goodbye humanity. We kind of saw that in the film, but things aren't that bleak in season 2...yet.
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Feb 10, 2021 01:55
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Isn't it Icy Bob? Wilford doesn't seem to have some kind of elaborate masterplan, he's just making up whatever will benefit himself most at the current time. Seven years in an echo chamber isn't good for anyone's sense of scope and the engineers said that he was manipulative and cruel enough pre-apocalypse.
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Feb 10, 2021 19:53
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DaveKap posted:
Ah, my mistake. I like the idea that Wilford picks people for horrifying genetic experiments based on if their name is Bob or not.
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Feb 11, 2021 01:09
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Mokinokaro posted:He's a self serving charismatic idiot who as Oldmemes pointed out has been in a cult of personality for seven years. Also he's not the genius engineer/inventor he sells himself as: Melanie was the one who actually created the engine, Wilford seems to have largely put up the capital for it, and taken the credit. I can't imagine the paperwork for building an elaborate system of train tracks around the entire planet.
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Feb 11, 2021 13:04
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The people in the Tail can at least sleep without Wilford giving long speeches through the speakers in the bunks! If season 3 has a proper ending, it could work as a three season show - Legion did that really well, so it can be done. Scheduling Jennifer Connolly and Sean Bean seems like it'd be hard, and Daveed Diggs is getting bigger, so a well done three seasons could end fine.
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Feb 11, 2021 14:31
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Anyone read the graphic novel(s)? If so, how does this adaptation fair next to them?
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Feb 13, 2021 17:35
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Wilford wasn't the most stable of people before the apocalypse according to Melanie, him being in a tiny train with people who hang off his every word has made it worse. He really wants to sleep with Audrey again, and she's able to use that desire against him to gain the upper hand - the guy is obsessed with control, so there's some BDSM undertones there. It's nice they're fleshing out Audrey more, she was interesting but under developed last season. Thoughts: I liked Bess's new outfit, very Harrison Ford in Blade Runner, suits the noir-y edge she has now. The pastor is trying to be inclusive and tolerant, but maybe he shouldn't let a Wilford cult use his prayer room. I think this is the first time they've confirmed train numbers, and there's only just above 2000 people? That's very tight, and fairly close to extinction, unless there are some bunkers or other trains out there. Fiona Vroom has been promoting the show on her twitter, so maybe we'll see the school teacher later in the season? I like they didn't have anyone ruin the encyclopedia, but everyone seems to see how important written knowledge is after the apocalypse, even the morally shady characters. It's a pet peeve of mine when you have the trope of people destroying books in post-apocalyptic fiction because "who needs old world knowledge", even if its to show who the bad guys are. So that's a refreshing change.
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Feb 16, 2021 20:15
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Melanie was willing to go as low as 400 in suspended animation in the drawers if the train failed, which is very tight.
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Feb 16, 2021 20:57
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Ur Getting Fatter posted:I remember the reference to the bunkers but didn't they also say that even those would have failed by now? I might be misremembering that, though. It was entirely speculative - iirc they was making the point that there was a good chance that the train might be the very last of humanity left, so they had to start acting like it. Not only does Snowpiercer move, it has a sustainable ecosystem, something that even Big Alice didn't have, so bunkers definitely wouldn't. Sustainability is the key. In the film sustainability wasn't a big a concern for Wilford, and certain resources were already going 'extinct'. Ed Harris Wilford had starting using child labour instead of spare parts, because the engine had broken down so much due to lack of maintenance. And because of that, the train fails, and humanity most likely goes extinct. So they're doing better than that! OldMemes fucked around with this message at 01:30 on Feb 18, 2021 |
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Feb 18, 2021 01:24
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The film ends with as far as we know, the last human refuge destroyed, with the two survivors out in the cold. Because rather than working together to solve problems film Snowpiercer had just become an unregulated mess, with WIlford living in luxury, rather than fixing anything. It's basically what would have happened on the show Snowpiercer, had Melanie not pulled her switcharoo.
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Feb 18, 2021 13:41
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Z the IVth posted:Doesn't Snowpiercer also need the spare parts and supplies from Big Alice as well? They mentioned genetic stocks to regrow their cows. Yep, the engine can run forever, but the parts which make up the engine can break, as can other bits on the train. Knox wanted any parts off Big Alice to give them breathing room in case something breaks.
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Feb 20, 2021 20:13
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Lena Hall is great this season. Were the colours more a bit more muted this episode, or was it just my PC?
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Feb 23, 2021 23:59
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Overthrowing first class wasn't about a literal "eat the rich" thing, but sharing out resources evenly, giving everyone equal treatment under the law and letting people move up and down the train freely. Everyone still has jobs and a role and a bunk, it's just fairer. They did show in the first season that some of the first class passengers supported that, they were just outnumbered by the ones who didn't. Icy Bob being chill (the pun!) was cool, since they'd only shown him as a huge muscle bound screaming man so far. This show is good at subverting your expectations - like you except Pike to be a bad guy (since Ogg mainly plays them), but he's just a bit of an anti-hero with a selfish streak. I'm guessing Melanie is fine, and we'll probably have an episode soon largely from her POV to fill in the narrative blanks. The mention of bees - I thought they said the colony collapsed? I don't know much about how bees work, can they recover from that?
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Feb 24, 2021 22:28
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You know that's how young women tend to talk to each other nowadays, right? It struck me as banter more than anything. Aside from black market trades of goods, how do people pay for things in the market and night car? I'm guessing bed and board is the main payment for doing work, so how does the legitimate economy work? They haven't shown people spending Wilford bucks or anything.
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Feb 25, 2021 15:04
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So what we thinking, has Audrey defected, or gone undercover? I think it could go either way.
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Feb 25, 2021 17:19
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Mokinokaro posted:I think she's undercover because she failed to set up the radio. I really like that I feel like I can't predict where this show will go. Its always refreshing when that happens.
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Feb 25, 2021 19:51
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It's really interesting how the show presents the ethics of the act of people sneaking onto the tail. In most post-apocalyptic fiction, where there's an "ark" that can shelter some of humanity and ensure the survival of the species, the people who try and force their way in are uniformly presented as the bad guys - the selfish faceless crowd who either don't have the right to be there, or refuse to face their fates with dignity - if these people get in, no-one will be saved. It's a crab bucket thing - "if I can't survive this, no-one will". Greenland did it, for example. In Snowpiercer, its reversed and the lines are blurred. It seems that governments had failed to offer a safe place for at least a selection of their citizens, so its left to unregulated private industry to fill in the gaps - not a good idea at the best of times, even worse when its someone as unstable as Wilford in charge. Obviously every human life is worth preserving, but the thousands who showed up to storm Snowpiercer would have known that not only would they have not gotten in, but that they could end up destroying humanity's last refuge. However, the show does the opposite to what the genre normally does, and shows that at least some - i.e. mainly Layton - were RIGHT to storm the train. Without him, humanity's fate on the train would be far darker than if he hadn't. I can't remember if they explained how people ended up in third class in the film, if they were assigned the train, or if they snuck on. I just thought it was interesting how the show flips a common trope in this kind of fiction on its head and gives it far more depth than other stories have. Seconding that this week's episode was amazing, and that cliffhanger. 
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Mar 2, 2021 19:57
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The train is officially ten miles long, unofficially as large as the plot needs it to be. .....onboard Snowpiercer, 1001 cars long.
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Mar 3, 2021 00:22
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Ur Getting Fatter posted:I suspect either Javi and/or Ben are toast, since I imagine that if Icy Bob is going to be used for anything it's to go straight up to the engine and take it over. Since they're one of a handful of people who knows how the engine works, and how to operate it and maintain it, I'm guessing Wilford is leaving them alone. Though it'd be funny if he took the engine and realized that he has no actual idea how to run the train, because he's not an engineer, and doesn't actually understand how it all works.
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Mar 5, 2021 17:12
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The old Russian lady was on the train because of her connection to Wilford, not her usefulness to the train. Despite how unhinged he is, we've seen he does have a sentimental side, deep down. The tension just keeps getting higher and higher. I'd forgotten about that Ruth arm bit - that was from when she was more an expy of Tilda Swinton's character from the film, and they've gone in a different direction since then.
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Mar 9, 2021 23:31
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Cult of personality aside, what do third class think having Wilfred in charge is going to do for them day to day? Melanie was using a less ruthless version of Wilfred's plan, and that was pretty bad. At least with Layton they get better food and more freedoms, they just have to tolerate the tallies in exchange. The Alex/Emilia dynamic is really natural and well done. Icy Bob is being prepared!
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Mar 10, 2021 18:42
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This show is so good at creating convincing relationships between characters. Even though Mrs. Roche was in two episodes, they really managed to sell the connection between them, and it was a "ouch" moment to see her in the drawers.
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Mar 17, 2021 00:01
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Layton looking absolutely broken, bathed in the red emergency light was just a depressing moment. The LJ/Oz stuff is interesting - it feels like they've transitioned to more comedy relief characters without being too nerfed as potential threats later on. Icy Bob  Actually most of the characters are in mode now.
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Mar 19, 2021 00:36
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Wild speculation time! Maybe this series will end with Snowpiercer too badly damaged, and they have to merge with another train, or an outpost, and the conflict next season comes from the characters trying to adapt to a new environment (like in the comic), and having to live under a new regime, where even the previous top brass of the train don't have much say - basically everyone from Snowpiercer is lumped together and becomes the equivalent of third class/the tail in this new setting. It'd be interesting to see Wilford reduced to "just another guy in the crowd", who has to climb the ladder, after all his effort to take the train. Just wild guessing on my half. If not, there's 2000 people on the train, plenty of excuses to introduce new characters that way still.
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Mar 25, 2021 01:09
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The Brakemen are the 'civilian' police force, and they're the de-facto peacekeepers in Layton's regime.
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Mar 28, 2021 01:32
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I don't think there was a single bad performance this season, but Sean Bean's might be up there with his career best. The sheer tension he was generating during the dinner scene was amazing. The carnival had the same kind of surreal fever dream feeling that the second half of the film had. Jennifer Connelly leaving is a shame, but understandable - it didn't feel like Melanie's story was quite over yet. There's a good chance Layton just made several species of fish extinct, isn't there? I would have hoped that the scientists would have been a bit more developed, but the hints at the immoral stuff they're up to were creepy enough. And its a big cast already. Season 3 should be fun - Wilford going increasingly mad as the smaller train desperately tries to catch up should make some interesting drama. I do love that the entire thread was united by how much they like Icy Bob. Because the show introduced a character called 'Icy Bob' and it worked. OldMemes fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Mar 30, 2021 |
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Mar 30, 2021 23:21
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Yeah Wilford's plan to cull the population probably involves drawers, not murder. If the train is the last of humanity, 2000ish people is already worryingly low numbers - even though Wilford isn't thinking long term, people take a long time to make, and there's not exactly fresh supplies of them from outside. We've seen that the train can sustainably support that number, at least in terms of food production, whereas Big Alice can't. They don't even have enough engineers - Wilford is the only one left on the main train who can operate the engine, and its implied that his understanding is surface level at best. Also if the pirate train has the Snowpiercer engine, and Big Alice is running the train, is it like a ship of Theseus thing? Which should be considered the 'real' Snowpiercer now? The idea that the tail people just so happened to be such a mix of people who all just so happened to get to the train despite being from all over the place seems a little contrived, but this is a setting with train tracks that cover the entire globe and perpetual motion engines, so I'll let it slide. And we've gotten some really memorable characters from it.
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Apr 1, 2021 18:19
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DaveKap posted:In the movie, the tail was purposely created to balance the numbers when Wilford and the train needed them balanced. In the TV show.... as far as I can remember, there's literally no reason for the tail to exist. The only reason it wasn't excised is because Mel didn't want to be the monster Wilford is. IIRC, in the film, they implied that the people in the lowest class had been placed there deliberately - it seemed that they'd been invited onboard as a preserve a cross section of humanity refugee thing. In the TV show, it was just the people who just so happened to be at the station and just so happened to force their way through the blast doors before they sealed shut. It doesn't make masses of sense of some of the tail got there, but it has given us some great characters, and like I said earlier, its an interesting inversion of the post-apocalyptic trope you see a lot in, where the main characters have a path to safety, but the faceless crowds trying to force their way into safety are shown as misguided at best, selfish at worse. Then again, Bess implied that governments collapsed a while before the Freeze, so there's no-one to create alternative civilian safe zones outside of the train.
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Apr 2, 2021 14:23
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I think they're going with a nature vs nurture theme with Alex.
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Apr 3, 2021 19:11
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Remember that in the show, Wilford isn't a tech bro offering pie in the sky promises, he literally made a train track that spans the world, and a perpetual motion engine. Of course, it was actually Melanie who made those things possible, but he's not going to let that stand in the way of marketing. Wilford is now the only person who knows how to operate the engine onboard the main train, it's implied that his understanding is fairly surface level, and he's too high/drunk/bonkers half the time to do the work. Looks like the main train is in for a bumpy ride next season.
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Apr 4, 2021 00:53
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Plus they can only really see where the tracks are, it looks like a lot of the globe isn't covered by the rails. It's been implied that they don't really know much about the failed weather control chemical actually worked, either.
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Apr 4, 2021 16:31
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