A spectacular, warm, magical way to end the album and the score. This cue serves as a representation of all of Silvestri’s main themes from the film, including the incredibly memorable “Believe” theme, the “Polar Express” theme, the theme from “When Christmas Comes to Town”, perhaps the most gorgeous moment on the album, and the afore-mentioned “Spirit of the Season” theme. The final solo Silvestri contribution on album comes in the form of a long-form suite which closes out the album in a suitably festive manner. This second half of “Seeing is Believing” is a breathless, dazzling cue which gives way to some fast-paced, full-throated orchestral performances of three Christmas carols including “Deck the Halls” and “Jingle Bells”. While after that point the actual musical cue goes on to become a rollicking action track, on album it is cut off after a minute and a half as another action cue from near the end of the film is tracked in. After presenting a new mysterious, magical theme with twinkling percussion, Silvestri piles on the weight with soaring strings, horns and epic choir.
Up next is “Seeing is Believing” which is actually a cut and combination of two musical cues from the film. This is just one of the many themes which people were humming after exiting the theatre. First up is “Spirit of the Season”, a festive carol of Silvestri’s making which presents the instantly recognisable, propulsive main theme. On the commercial album, Silvestri’s score contributions are limited to just three spectacular cues. Silvestri’s score was an instant hit with movie-going audiences and critics and remains popular. What put this score over the top for many and made it an enduring classic was Silvestri’s fantastic, memorable themes coupled with an unbridled energy not seen since the likes of John Williams’ Home Alone.
In short, there is no mistaking that this is definitely a Christmas score through and through, replete with all the twinkly percussion, effervescent warmth and positivity, and quotes of Christmas carols typical of these affairs.
Silvestri gave The Polar Express a traditional, large-scale orchestral score, choosing not to go outside the norm with regards to instrumentation and tone when it comes to holiday movies of this type.
Zemeckis was clearly aiming for the film to be the next great Christmas movie classic as it bears all of the traditional holiday hallmarks other modern classics like Elf and The Santa Clause while even incorporating some aspects of Home Alone like an exceedingly warm tone and cinematography, themes of ‘believing in Christmas’ or something similar, a focus on child-like wonder, etc…Īlong for the ride was film composer Alan Silvestri, Zemeckis’ longtime collaborator. The story of a boy who is whisked away on a locomotive heading towards the north pole to meet Santa is an enduringly popular one, with the short children’s illustrated book commonly considered a Christmas classic. Robert Zemeckis’ 2004 animated feature ‘The Polar Express’ was essentially a large-scale, feature-length experiment that pushed the boundaries of mo-cap even if in animation it was not quite ready for prime-time.Īs forward-thinking and progressive as the technology behind The Polar Express was, the film itself was definitely more traditional, child-friendly holiday fare. Motion capture was one of the key developments of that time period and while the technique was not new by any means, the 2000s saw a boom in the growth and maturation of the now ubiquitous technique. The decade of the 2000s was something of a golden age for cinematic, movie, and film technology, with directors like Peter Jackson, James Cameron, and Robert Zemeckis taking an active role in the development and deployment of all sorts of brand new tech.