Welcome to Multiversity’s coverage of Snowpiercer, the television show loosely based on the 1982 graphic novel “Le Transperceneige” and more directly influenced by the 2013 film by Bong Joon-ho. In this episode entitled “First, the Weather Changed,” we are introduced to the 1,001 car train that moves across the frozen, post-apocalyptic wasteland of Earth. We also meet our lead characters, Andre Layton (played by Daveed Diggs) the former homicide detective in the Old Life turned revolutionary at the tail of Snowpiercer and Melanie Cavill (played by Jennifer Connelly) who is the “Voice of the Train” making announcements to all the riders of Snowpiercer from the front of the train near the perpetual motion engine. As the wheels continue to turn on the Great Ark, here are my five thoughts on the pilot episode and brace yourselves for spoilers for my final thought.
1. Comparing and Contrasting
It seems natural to compare Snowpiercer the television series to its critically acclaimed predecessor. The film was the piece of media that ultimately put the Snowpiercer property onto a majority of peoples’ radars. In other words, it’s necessary to say that there could be no Snowpiercer television show without a Snowpiercer film. Much of the television show borrows heavily from the movie: the interior design of the tail and bourgeoisie cars look incredibly similar, the scene with Andre timing the gate sequences as the Tailies are fed their protein blocks matches Chris Evans’s introduction in the film, and Alison Wright donning a fur coat a la Tilda Swinton’s Minister Mason is closer to parody than tribute. However, the television series also seems to eschew many of the exaggerated and bizarre elements of the movie in favor of a more grounded approach to class examination with sympathetic characters from both sides of the train, new cars that highlight varying facets of class, and a central conceit that’s less about revolution and more about cooperation. It’s interesting that the writers of the television series and the movie see the vehicle of Snowpiercer as a way to engage discussions of class differences, but are able to explore two separate philosophies.
2. “…But instead, they froze her to the core.”
I was impressed with the animated opening at the start of the show. Before I watched the episode, I thought the worst things the show could do is (1) ape the movie and (2) lack style. Thankfully, this opening sequence with its rotoscoped animation playing while Andre narrated the events that lead to Snowpiercer’s creation was a nice choice and helped the show carve out its own space. The narration itself roots the story closer to our world than the movie did with Andre taking direct aim at climate deniers and technocrats who were complicit in the freezing of Earth and the creation of Snowpiercer. No mention of the ominous CW-7 here, just billionaires dooming the future of the planet.
3. Murder on the Snowpiercer Express
After the animated sequence and a brief introduction to Melanie, the next ten minutes of the episode follows like the opening scenes of the movie. Part of me thinks this was intentional with the writers trying to play with the expectations of its audience. On paper, I can see this working, but the story beats and the similarity of characters in the tail with the movie was more perplexing than engaging. Surely, this wasn’t going to be another story about the Tailies revolting, right? Right.
As Andre is summoned to the front of the train and thus botching the plans of the Tailies’ revolution, suddenly the whole-wide train opens up as our two leads from opposite ends of the train meet face-to-face. We learn that there has been a murder on Snowpiercer and that Andre was a homicide detective in the Old Life. Melanie, the “Voice of the Train,” asks Andre for his help to solve the murder in exchange for better treatment for the Tailies by bumping them up to third-class privileges. I really like the idea of a murder mystery working as the central conceit of the plot simply because the story of revolution has already been told. The Whodunnit is a fantastic way to explore the setting and characters of Snowpiercer which was something the movie barely got a chance to accomplish and are the things I find most compelling about Snowpiercer.
Continued below4. The Chains
As Roche, the head of security, leads Andre through the train to interview suspects, one of the new cars the audience is introduced to is The Chains a third-class car made up of cut-up containers by bohemian types in polyamorous relationships “living and screwing in groups” (i.e., chains). For me, this new car embodies the potential the writers have to explore class dynamics and sympathetic characters in ways that the movie didn’t have the time or space to be able to. The Chains as a place is representative of the hip neighborhoods that are just safe enough to hangout in and tour before going back to the safety of an upper-class home. The same sentiment was repeated near the beginning of the episode with a first-class passenger complaining that she wants to visit the third-class cars because “the noodles are better.”
Furthermore, we’re introduced to Zarah, a resident of The Chains, and Andre’s previous partner in the Old Life. Zarah originally boarded Snowpiercer with Andre and the other Tailies and moved up to the third-class cars in exchange for her work in the Nightcars. In their conversation, Andre accuses Zarah of selfishly betraying her Tailies and Zarah defends her actions saying she never wanted to board Snowpiercer in the first place. In fact, Zarah would have rather killed herself like her mother and his brother did as the Earth began to freeze. “But instead, you made me live. For what? For the Hell of the Tail? So you don’t for a second have the right to judge my choices.” In Bong Joon-ho’s film, the class differences in Snowpiercer drew strict divisions between the lower classes and upper classes of the train. Here, there are a multitude of blurred divisions making the distinctions between passengers difficult to condemn on the basis of class alone.
5. Spoilers: Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!
Considering how much the episode has expanded on the movie adaptations’s core elements, I did not expect any sort of twist and was quite satisfied with the prospect of exploring more of the 1,001 cars and the origins and motivations of its passengers. The final five mintues, however, revealed a very different engine room from the elegant design the audience may have expected from the movie and surprise, no Mr. Wilford. In fact, Melanie changes from her polished Hospitality uniform into an MIT hoodie and sweatpants and leans back in a chair as she pilots Snowpiercer with her colleague addressing her as Mr. Wilford. There’s no elaborate engine room and seemingly no use of child labor to power the engine. This is quite the twist and it opens up many questions about what happened to Wilford, who Melanie really is, how do people continue to promote Wilford as a deity-like figure, and so on. I’m really excited to see that the show is taking chances like these and is not content with living in the shadow of its predecessor.
