Let It Snow

A couple days ago, I saw an ad on TNT about a new, upcoming series that will be premiering on the channel in two months, on May 31, called Snowpiercer.  It looks uncommon for a TV show, a dystopian story set on board a train.  The iMDB describes its plot as, "Set over seven years after the world has become a frozen wasteland, Snowpiercer centers on the remnants of humanity, who inhabit a gigantic, perpetually-moving train that circles the globe."  The series stars Jennifer Connelly, who won an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress for A Beautiful Mind, and Daveed Diggs who won a Best Supporting Actor Tony Award for the musical Hamilton.. 

There's a point to all this.  Bear with me.  Here's the trailer.
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As I said, it's unique for a TV series.  And a good trailer.  Except for one thing.  For some surprising reason, they chose not to add this line --

"Based on the movie, Snowpiercer, directed and co-written by Bong Joon Ho, creator of the Oscar-winning Best Picture, Parasite."

Really.

The movie Snowpiercer is absolutely terrific, a dazzling, tour-de-force 2013 film that won 33 international awards.  Why on earth they don't mention the TV series' connection to this year's Oscar-winner is beyond me.  Perhaps because it's on a foreign film, but I doubt that because countless TV series have been based on movies -- and few (if any) based on Oscar-winning Best Pictures.  Maybe because the original source is a French graphic novel and they only bought the rights to that -- though I find it hard to believe that they wouldn't buy up all the rights.

By the way, although a Korean movie, it was in English for its international release and had an impressive cast, including Chris Evans (from Captain America and the Avengers movies), Tilda Swinton (Oscar-winner for Michael Clayton). Jamie Bell (who played Elton John's songwriting partner Bernie Taupin in Rocketman), John Hurt (two Oscar nominations for The Elephant Man and Midnight Express), three-time Oscar nominee Octavia Spencer,(who won for The Help). and Ed Harris from The Truman Show, Apollo 13 and Oscar-nominated for Pollock.  Even one of my faves, the wonderful Allison Pill (from HBO's The Newsroom and currently Star Trek: Picard and Devs) has a small role.

The iMDB description of the film is "In a future where a failed climate-change experiment has killed all life except for the lucky few who boarded the Snowpiercer, a train that travels around the globe, a new class system emerges."  In fact, like Bong Joon Ho's Parasite, the film has a strong class warfare center -- with a heavy emphasis on the warfare.

Here's the trailer of the original movie.  It doesn't do the film justice, but you'll get a good idea.  And it's highly recommended.  And yes, the movie is included on my list of train movies that I post every National Train Day.