The surveillance room is a location in the 2004 film, The Polar Express. It is a big room at the North Pole where elves monitor all the children around the world and check when they are naughty or nice.
Role in the Film[]
Hero Boy, Hero Girl, and Billy get lost at the surveillance room while finding their way back to the North Pole Square. While there, the elves are doing some last minute work getting the presents ready. One elf reports on the last present having been wrapped, which is going to Grand Rapids, Michigan. However, the Elf General is upset by the type of wrapping paper and bow used.
Suddenly, an alarm sounds, signaling that a child has done something naughty. They find it to be a boy from Maplewood, New Jersey who stuck a piece of gum in his sister's hair. The Elf General asks if it is the same boy that put a thumbtack under his teacher's chair the previous year, but another elf says that was a different boy, whose name was Steven. Being so close to liftoff, the elves decide to do nothing for the moment, but to put the child on a check-twice list for next year.
Soon, the elves finish and take the pneumatic to the Square with one elf saying it is the fastest way. After they leave, the children go to take the pneumatic too, but it takes them to the wrapping hall instead.
Two songs that play over loudspeakers at the Communications Room include "Here Comes Santa Claus" and "Deck the Halls".
Behind the scenes[]
The surveilance room was featured after the filmmakers thought Santa would need a system to find out how good or bad the children have been. Jerome Chen once described the system as having tiny surveillance camera in the children's homes that would send an alert when a child does something naughty. Production designer Rick Carter recalled the room being compared to Grand Central Terminal in New York City at one point during production of the film.[1]
Trivia[]
- The surveillance room does not appear in the original book.
References[]
- ↑ Cotta Vaz, Mark. Starkey, Steve. (November 4, 2004) The Art of the Polar Express, Chronicle Books. p. 115. ISBN 978-0811846592.
| Locations | |
| Grand Rapids, MI | Grand Rapids, Michigan • Hero Boy's house • Herpolsheimer's • 11344 Edbrooke Avenue |
| The Journey | Forest • Flat Top Tunnel • Glacier Gulch • Ice Lake • Corkscrew Mountain • North Pole Bridge |
| North Pole | North Pole • North Pole Square • Surveillance room • Wrapping hall • Sorting room |