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Trains. They span continents. Subways connect our American cities (if you live in New York, LA, or DC). They might even help us survive the apocalypse. But they also feature heavily in superhero movies. And in this video, I want to ask why.
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00:00 Why Trains
01:00 Trains are History
06:12 Trains are Cinematic
19:25 Trains are Choice
source
What's your favorite train scene?
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I see Marvel has successfully influenced people to mispronounce Lagos.
Does this film Sliding Doors fall under the category of trains representing choice (I know not a superhero movie but still)?
Also, trains are just cool
This is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object
7:24
I LIKE TRAINS.
Trains? You and I remember Budapest very differently.
Meanwhile in Japan, 5 trains combined to form a giant monster-fighting robot.
Even the Turtles eventually live in an abandoned subway.
19:30
I think another important aspect about why trains are so popular in superhero media is because they go choo choo
I think another important aspect about why trains are so popular in superhero media is because they go choo choo
Autism. There, I solved it.
Where is Sheldon!!!
I made this connection when incredibles 2 came out, so the fact that you're talking about it means I'm not crazy.
Maybe it goes back to the "more powerful than a locomotive" trope?
Superhero films are made for kids, and kids love trains..
THANK YOU !!!! I HAVE SPENT THE LAST SIX MONTHSSS THINKING ABOUT TRAINS IN, admittedly, ACTION MOVIES (and not just superhero movies, but still)
Faster than a speeding bullet. More powerful than a locomotive. Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. I’d say all three of the items recur because they genuinely are incredible feats. Reacting to a bullet, stopping a train, and surviving a fall from extreme height all work as cinematic set pieces.
because trains are cool. next question
This is what we train for.
Trains can also show us a character's nature, stopping a train from crushing can be the ultimate show of strength and heroism. At the same time crushing a train an be the ultimate shoe of villainy; we truly understand just how evil and uncaring for human life Omniman is when he uses his son to cut through an entire train and all his passangers, killing hundreds of civilians and leaving his son covered in blood and guts and traumatized.
I think you're also missing one element, you touched on it briefly, but didn't grab to key point. Trains have a huge history in early cinema, from film noir to westerns, and movies and directors love nothing more than to reference other movies. so it's really just one long chain of A inspiring b inspiring C, etc. etc. I'd also argue that you've missed out some other highly influential "superhero" train movie moments that predate or overlap the start of the modern superhero genre: Mission Impossible and The Matrix.
As a train enthusiast, I really love this video and I think it's one of your best yet. It's very well written and explores the topic in depth. I need more video essays like this.
Eh. For me while "More powerful than a Locomotive" is the original bar to pass. That derives from the old movies where the heroine was strapped to tracks and had to be saved which predates comic book hero comics. Out running or rescuing from a train is Hero 101.
This is probably one of your best works.
TIL train enthusiasts are being fed by comic book movies 😂
Does Snowpiercer make more sense as a pair apocalyptic survival mechanism now?
It most likely does.
I had no idea that listening to a guy who talks about the superheroes and trains can be that entertaining! This video essay is amazing
Superheroes have to be better/faster/stronger to “solve the trolley problem.” That said, it makes total sense that they almost always need to train in their respective media 🙃
Great now every time a see a train sequence in a Super hero movie or show I’m gonna judge it heavily now.
Not a Super Hero movie but my favorite train moment is properly Train to Busan it’s just one big train sequence
My take is that trains often represent an achievement of humanity: a giant metal beast that no mortal person could dream to stop.
To see someone, then, be able to deal with these things with such ease puts them above humans in an instant.
You know what this means we need a Super Hero movie that takes place entirely at a train station or on a train
Because Spider-Man 2 made it popular
simple: most of these heroes cant fly and trains is only land transport that carry a high number of people. if a hero saves more lives, he is more worthy of the label.
So… Planes?
While not superhero media, there is a train scene I like from Red vs. Blue.
Agent Carolina has an unstoppable flame wielding enemy coming after her. To escape the city before a nuke blows it up, she grappling hooks onto a skytrain and rides out of there only for the villain to follow her. The villain follows, but when he tries to shoot fire at her, he finds the flame going right back in his face, as Carolina breaks every window causing the air to rush in. Not only did the train provide a close quarters environment for Carolina to fight in, a specialty of hers, but it also debuffed the villain, taking away his fire use.
And the wind is what gets me.
Most fights involving trains as an environmental hazard are all about how powerful the train is, but they never really touch on the tangentially related how fast a train is. The example in the video of Wolverine using a bullet train to his advantage feels it approaches this concept closest. With characters trying to hold on as best they can and dodging obstacles as they come. But what about the wind? Many fight scenes on top of trains typically won't acknowledge how much of a breeze would be up there so they can have their cool fight scenes take place not only on a cool moving platform but also with a hazardous floor below, a moving surface. It was very cool to see wind acknowledged as an environmental factor in Red vs. Blue, and I'd like to see more of it.
One idea this gave me was perhaps a wild west train fight. Characters brawling in a train cabin, ending up on the roof somehow, and then the wind changes and blows the smoke from the train itself down along the train and forcing them back inside the train to keep fighting. What about a fight scene where a character is trying to escape a train with hostile characters around them and the fight ends with them escaping by activating a parachute that they had for some reason and just flying off the train. Could work for a gadget based character like a spy or something. Maybe even just general weather could be something on a train. Break a window and blast a blizzard at an enemy. Fighting on top of a train during a storm could be very slippery.
Feels like untapped train potential is still out there, which is incredible given all its years of cinema.
The algorithm is genuinely so busted that people who just want to make videos talking about their interests have to disguise it as a super hero movie essay to get anyone on this platform to see it
Was going to skip this one. Glad I didn’t.
I didn’t even watch the whole thing, but my answer to the question in the title would be because trains are awesome
Amazing deep dive Nando!
Two of the best fight scenes in a movie will undoubtedly be on a train or in a club of some kind