Snowpiercer Movie Review | Ending Explained

Snowpiercer Movie Review...

 South Korean director Bong Joon-ho took theworld by storm, literally, with his fast-paced action epic Snowpiercer. 

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Even though the film was released in 2013,some fans are still left wondering what exactly happened in the film's final moments. If you count yourself among the many who aren'tquite sure what to make of the movie's dramatic conclusion, fear not! We're here to explain exactly what's goingon at the film's end. 

But before we board the train, be warned:Spoilers ahead. Occupy Snowpiercer It doesn't take too much time to realize thatthe social structure inside of Snowpiercer's titular train is meant to mirror our own present-dayglobal society, with the haves, the have-nots, and everyone in between occupying a "preordainedposition" in the socioeconomic structure. 

The train's wealthy elite live in the front,while its poor inhabitants survive in the train's tail, and yet they all share the limitedspace of the train, just as we all live on the same Earth. "We are all prisoners in this hunk of metal." 

Joon-ho told Vulture that this parallel ispurposeful, saying: "I wanted to emphasize the idea of the train,the physical train, as an iron box or metallic prison. There are so many characters, but they'reall stuck inside. They say they want to move to the front, andthey fight to get there, but they're still ultimately inside the train." 

In keeping with that theme, the physical makeupof the train is organized so that as you progress toward the front, conditions improve, whilethe further back you go, the worse off people are. "The number of individual units must be veryclosely, precisely controlled in order to maintain the proper, sustainable balance." And that's not the only aspect of the narrativethat's drawn from the real world. 

The Great Engine's Power Throughout Snowpiercer, we are constantlytold that the great engine powering the train is "eternal," leading us to believe it's poweredby some sort of perpetual motion mechanism, but in the end, we find out that's not thecase at all. Instead, the Snowpiercer engine is actuallypowered by child labor, with the child slaves hidden beneath the floorboards in the engineroom. 

That might sound like a travesty that's singularto the film, but some audiences have found a deeper significance to this development. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, forexample, the United States, Europe and colonies across the world relied upon child labor forthe creation of goods, and the International Labour Organization claims that 152 millionchildren worldwide are still subject to child labor to this day. 

If Bong Joon-Ho meant to make a statementabout the atrocities of keeping modern civilization afloat, this element of the movie was certainlyno accident. "Save the Planet"? The film also reminds us that we're puttingourselves on the path to extinction. "If we ever go outside the train, we all freezeand die." 

Humanity has long seen itself as either theconquerors or shepherds of nature, attempting to destroy the Earth one moment, and thentrying to save it another. But Planet Earth will exist well after humanityhas come and gone, and there's no machine we can build to keep us around for the longhaul. Snowpiercer reminds us of that. According to Joon-ho: "Inside the train, kids are taught that ifyou go outside, you're going to die. 

But outside the train, life is actually returning. It's nature that's eternal, and not the trainor the engine, as you see with the polar bear at the end." Furthermore, it's actually Mother Nature thatreally puts humanity in its icy grave in the first place, and not the homemade explosiveof the film's climax. And yes, even though these traindwellers managedto eke out some kind of existence for several generations following the cold-pocalypse,they still met their makers at the climax of the movie. That's right: everyone's dead. As Joon-ho confirmed: "They're all dead and that's a bit harsh. But it's a sci-fi film: If you can't say thesethings, or have these ideas in a sci-fi film, where can you?" If he meant this to be some kind of morbidpreview of the future of mankind, well, buckle up everybody. But there's still reason to hold out hope. 

"My friend you suffer from the misplaced optimismof the doomed." The will to survive Before you get too depressed by Snowpiercer'snihilistic message, know that all is not lost. According to the film's director, humanitymanages to beat the odds by not only surviving, but repopulating the Earth sometime afterthe ending of the movie. He told Vulture: "For them to procreate, it's going to takea little time. 

So, for me, it's a very hopeful ending. But of course there are so many deaths, andso many sacrifices… it's not so sweet. But those two kids will spread the human race." Of course, there are plenty who believe thetwo might be in some serious trouble, despite being pegged as the post-apocalyptic versionof Adam and Eve. After all, this is the first time they'llhave ever stepped foot on planet Earth, and there's a hungry polar bear right there. 

The chance that they're going to survive,let alone thrive in this cold new wilderness alone is a touch hard to believe for some,even if that's the eventuality that the director had in mind. A radical message One thing's for sure. Snowpiercer is more than just some genericsci-fi action movie. It offers a thinly veiled commentary on ourglobal socioeconomic structure as well as a statement regarding the futility of fightingagainst the powers of nature. 

More than anything, however, the film hasan even more radical underlying message: The only way to fix social inequality is to destroythe very foundations of our society. Not only do most of the train's inhabitantsdie from fighting before the avalanche occurs, the train itself is already on its way out. The engine is failing, the system is corrupt,and extinction is imminent. No matter how hard our heroes fight to getto the front, they are hopeless to fix the train's inherent problems. The Snowpiercer was never really going tolast forever, and the film suggests that only a hard reset can solve society's woes in reallife, too. 

Of course, all that would never actually workon-screen without it being a fun film, so whether you're picking up on the not-so-subtlestatements scattered throughout the epic action flick, it's still a thrill. Thanks for watching! Click the Looper icon to subscribe to ourYouTube channel. Plus check out all this cool stuff we knowyou'll love, too! 

Watch Trailer Here---