Toot toot, all aboard the trailer for Snowpiercer’s third season
Three seasons in, things haven’t much improved for Daveed Diggs and the rest of the train's steerage
Aux News Snowpiercer
Since the Lumière brothers first frightened audiences with their visceral exploration of locomotive terror, The Arrival Of A Train, the train has been a potent metaphor for an approaching, unstoppable upheaval. Of course, the train might not have been coming directly at those screaming theatergoers, but it might as well have been.
That trend continues with TNT’s television adaptation of Bong Joon-Ho’s class-war fable Snowpiercer. The only difference is when that CGI train barrels toward the camera, viewers who have been hanging out in the very warm waters of cinematic literacy for the last one hundred years aren’t rushing for the exit. We’ve come a long way, baby.
Now entering its third season, Snowpiercer is the first of, apparently, several Bong adaptations to make their way to television—the next being Parasite. The director’s off to a good start because Snowpiercer has a lot going for it, including Oscar-winner Jennifer Connelly, Tony-winner Daveed Diggs, and Horn Of Gondor-winner Sean Bean. And you know what? Congratulations to Sean Bean on making it through three seasons without having his character killed off.
The new trailer appropriately introduces a new character, Asha (Archie Panjabi), and a New Eden, one of the rare patches of green left on the snow-covered planet. But not so fast, bullet train that stays in constant motion by zipping around the globe without stopping or it will freeze. Sean Bean’s Mr. Wilford is consolidating power and isn’t interested in having steerage getting any of those delicious inalienable rights humans deserve.
We here at The A.V. Club thought Snowpiercer’s second season was an improvement on the first. In her recap of the finale, Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya wrote: “Even when the writing veers onto rougher track, these episodes do ultimately pull of what they set out to do. The action and suspense come together with the central themes of uprising, power, and survival to make for a propulsive and satisfying finale.”
We’ll see if Snowpierecer makes it to the next stop safely on January 24, 2022.
8 Comments
“Since the first train went into the first tunnel in silent black and white, trains and tunnels have been a potent metaphor for doin’ it”I agree with the 2nd season reviewer. They have not been able to rehabilitate the character who were killing people and cutting arms off, but they had everyone else become dehumanized by the system to the point where they’re all in more of the same…boat…train?The quality of the second season was far beyond the first, and it should stay good because it has a good ensemble. It had some neat dippy sci-fi parts (the mad scientists), and was overall good fun.Also, Bean was barely in the first season so he kind of didn’t make it three seasons yet. ooo he gonna die
My wife’s into the show, so I’m sorta aware and paid attention to the commercial.It looks like it’s more than just one little warm patch – the voiceover even states that the planet is warming again, and there’s a shot of trains in motion over a very defrosted ocean.It’s got the potential for a good story. Wilford has to keep the train moving or risk losing everything – he’d be a former rich guy with a train and little else to recommend him even BEFORE someone talked to his fellow passengers/crew/rebels/assassins/metaphors. Wilford refusing to let the people go, people realizing increasingly that they can just stop the damn thing and get off if they can get control from him.I’m kinda sad it’s been renewed for S4. Itld be a hell of a way to end the story – one last fight against a doomed Wilford, him willing to literally throw everything and everyone to a bitter death rather than cede power…
Are we really still rehashing the long debunked “train panic” myth in 2021?https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/did-a-silent-film-about-a-train-really-cause-audiences-to-stampede
Isn’t it an adaptation of the original comic, Le Transperceneige, rather than the film? Let’s hear it for comics!
“And here we are again, opening scene. The train hurtles across decaying tracks in a snowscape that offers no hope of long-term surival. The train itself is older by the day and rattles and shakes with both physical and metaphorical exhaustion. The interior is as redolent of unwashed people and farts as it has ever been and all of them, every one, is going to have at least one speechifying moment that may or may not have any bearing with the show’s plot.
Welcome back to Snowpiercer, season 3.”
The trailer is trying to convince us that Melanie is really dead. I’m not buying it.They even built in two ways for her to survive – New Eden and the fact that her survey found places that were warming, so she would no where to try to head to.
While I thought Snowpiercer begged for more content (the world of the movie was extremely interesting and the movie, by necessity, had to rush through a lot), but I have to say a Parasite series holds no interest for me. What more is there to tell of that story? The same story with different rich and poor families?
Really enjoyed the first two seasons. I like the idea of this sort of ark on tracks and how it has to keep moving to keep power and warmth. In real life the track would have come apart or been blocked somewhere by now but it’s still a cool premise. There’s a lot of good new seasons coming in the next couple months, the expanse, this, Vikings Valhalla, I’m sure the last kingdom s5 it’s on its way. All great shows. Ozark is probably coming soon, I’m sure Westworld s4 is too. Not sure when house of the dragon is coming. I really hope masters of the air (Hanks/Spielberg WW2 mini) comes in 2022, been waiting for like 7 years.