I was lucky enough to be able to attend Disney’s Christmas Carol Train Tour.  I knew ahead of time that there was a tour through several train cars and a 10 minute glimpse at some of the movie; but when I arrived I quickly realized that it was nothing like I expected.  The train was wrapped and very impressive looking.  Upon entering the first of the 4 cars I was shocked.  There was a Victorian feel from how the walls were decorated to the floors and even the ceilings, which looked like the sky, added to the warm welcoming feel.  Each car was filled with something different taking you on a journey of how the movie was made.

Outside of train

First up was costumes and painting on the walls of all the different characters.  In cases were actual artifacts from the Charles Dickens Museum in London.  As I continued on through the cars I saw statues of the characters and huge models of buildings.  TVs on the walls walked me through the processes they used for the CGI and creating the visual effects.  There were interviews with the cast; Jim Carrey, Robin Wright Penn, Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, and others.  There is a car set up showing you what the suits the actors wore look like.  There are monitors set up so you can explore the city in “A Christmas Carol” and receive even more information about what went in to making it.  And finally you have the opportunity to have your picture taken and then morphed into characters from the movie.  You get to see a preview on the screen and later they are emailed to you.

Victorian costumes, artifacts & paintings

Character paintings

Charles Dickens artifacts

Building models

Clay rendering of Jim Carrey as Ebenezer Scrooge

CGI process with Jim Carrey

Motion capture suit

Outside of the train it felt like Christmas, there were carolers and snowflakes were lightly falling.  Somehow the train tour and outside could easily appeal to both adults and kids.  For kids there was a table set up with activity sheets and temporary tattoos and, inside the train, while there is a lot of information given out, it is done in a way that even kids could be interested in it.  There were even contests for both kids and adults.

Carolers

Activity and contest tents

Then I got to watch a sneak peak of the movie.  The theater was amazing.  It was a blow up building that was two stories tall.  Inside I found a seat and put on my 3D glasses.  Now let’s face it “A Christmas Carol” has been done many times before and in many different ways and CGI is not new, so what could they possibly do to make this one stand-out?  Well, granted I was only able to see a few short scenes but based off of those few minutes the movie looks great.  It appears that they manage to stay true to the original story while still managing to throw in a few laughs for the kids.  The CGI is some of the best I have seen to date.  Normally when it comes to CGI the teeth always standout and look horrible; but this time around that was not the case.  I honestly don’t think that they could have picked a better actor for Scrooge than Jim Carrey and he is several of the characters, actually many of the actors are numerous characters.

Two-story blow-up theater

I am not a huge Christmas movie fan; personally I am bigger into Halloween movies.  But for hours after the event I was in a Christmas mood.  I wanted to drink hot chocolate, start buying gifts, and decorating.  Before seeing the video footage this was a movie that I was going to just wait until it came out on DVD and then maybe watch it.  Instead I am looking forward to it and want to see it with my whole family.  I guess it is possible that maybe I just got swept up in moment; but the fact remains that everything I saw had something to do with the movie and that has me very interested in seeing more.

VIDEO OF THE EVENT:

MORE IMAGES:

Last car with Scrooge's "feast"

Another CGI-rendering screen

Ribbon-cutting ceremony