'Silo Meets The Expanse' Sci-Fi Series Misses The Point Of The Superior Movie Version
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A post-apocalyptic sci-fi series is compelling enough to be compared to shows like Silo and The Expanse. However, compared to the highly acclaimed movie that precedes it, the show in question seems to reach its full potential. It stands alone as a decent dystopian drama with four complete seasons, but it completely misses the point of the movie it follows.
Bong Joon Ho's Snowpiercer, which premiered in 2013, was conceived from the French climate fiction graphic novel Le Transperceneige by Jacques Lob, Benjamin Legrand and Jean-Marc Rochette. While the movie was not as big of a hit as the director's Oscar-winning movie, Parasite, it still earned immense acclaim from an international audience.
Surprisingly, the movie was followed up with a TV series of the same name. With Jennifer Connelly as its lead, the show seemingly had immense potential because of the vast world-building potential of the original movie. However, in hindsight, it is hard not to compare the show with the movie and notice how it fell short of achieving greatness.
The Snowpiercer TV Show Is Good, But The Movie Is So Much Better
Bong Joon Ho's Snowpiercer is no less compelling when one merely sees it as a survival thriller with incredible action set pieces. However, beyond these surface-level elements, the movie also operates as a brilliant metaphor for socioeconomic hierarchy and class warfare. Every car the movie's impoverished "tail cart" folks manage to cross in the movie represents an ascension through class stratification.
The core theme behind the movie's drama is that the overarching class system needs to be completely destroyed because it will never be reformed from within.
While the Snowpiercer TV show, too, reveals the divides between the cars in the central train, it never makes a compelling metaphor out of it. Instead, it unfolds more as a murder mystery and an institutional procedural. To sustain and justify its long run, the series expands the original world by explaining everything from water recycling to the judicial systems inside the train.
This, too, has its own appeal, but it significantly dilutes the relatable "eat the rich" narrative from the movie. Bong Joon Ho's movie is driven by a sense of urgency and even its final twist highlights how difficult it is for the lower class to break free from oppression unless the upper class actually wants them to. This sense of urgency almost disappears in the show as it remains fixated on political maneuvering.
Snowpiercer's TV Series Was Plagued With Behind-The-Scenes Setbacks
One of the biggest reasons why the Snowpiercer TV series struggled to reach its full potential is also the behind-the-scenes issues it faced during production. From the beginning itself, the show was marred by everything from creative disputes to production delays. The series was originally developed by writer Josh Friedman.
Owing to creative disputes, however, Friedman departed the project. He was then replaced by Graeme Manson, who envisioned a significantly different story for the show. After Friedman, director Scott Derrickson, too, decided to move away from the project after helming the pilot. These early clashes eventually led to massive reshoots and recasting that harmed the show's tone and identity.
Even the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021 slightly impacted the production of Snowpiercer season 2. Looking back at these early issues, it is hard not to see how Snowpiercer could have been far better than it turned out. It might also have been as big as Silo and The Expanse if it tried to match the Bong Joon Ho movie's thematic vision and ambition. It is still a decent 4-season sci-fi drama that can be watched at least once.
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Snowpiercer, directed by Bong Joon-ho, is a post-apocalyptic sci-fi film set in a future where the remnants of humanity survive on a perpetually moving train. The story follows the struggle of oppressed passengers from the train's rear as they attempt to reach the front and alter their dystopian reality.
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Snowpiercer
6/10
- Release Date
- 2020 - 2024-00-00
- Network
- AMC, TNT
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Melanie Cavill
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Mickey Sumner
Bess Till
Snowpiercer is set aboard a perpetually moving train that carries the last survivors of humanity after Earth is frozen into an uninhabitable wasteland. As passengers remain divided by a rigid class system, former detective Andre Layton is drawn into a murder investigation that exposes growing unrest and ignites a struggle over who should control the future of the train.
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