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[Camjo-Z]

My brothers and I had an epic argument about this last night and I need GAF’s opinion. In The Santa Clause, Scott Calvin becomes Santa Claus after accidentally causing the previous Santa to fall off the roof. While Scott is busy reading the card in Santa’s pocket that explains why he must take on the role, the previous Santa mysteriously disappears leaving only his suit behind. Now, here’s where the debate comes in. My brothers say that Santa clearly died, BUT…

• If Santa died, why did he just disappear?
• The elves are shown to love whoever is Santa, and they clearly know that Scott is not the previous Santa. So why do they just act like the old one never existed?
• What happened to Mrs. Claus?
• Does Santa really just leave his successor up to random chance? What if a serial killer happens to catch Santa off-guard? Will he now take Santa's place?

None of these questions can be answered satisfactorily if Santa just up and died after falling off the roof. HOWEVER, they all make sense if Santa merely faked his own death in order to pass the role of Santa onto Scott Calvin.

• Santa disappears because he simply sneaks away while Scott isn’t looking.
• The elves don’t mourn his death because they know he’s not dead, just retired.
• Mrs. Claus left to go wherever Santa is going so they can live out the rest of their days in peace.
• Santa specifically chooses his successor, which is why the role of Santa is never passed on to someone unscrupulous. He had to fake his death because he knew Scott would be too initially selfish to take on the role without being legally forced to.

Who is correct? Did Santa die? Did he retire? Is it completely pointless to speculate the hidden subtext of a mediocre Tim Allen vehicle with two even shittier sequels? Answer away!

 

[RoboPlato]

I always assumed Santa waving goodbye when they weren't looking was a sign that he was alive and passing the torch.

 

[EchoChamber]

Santa is a symbiote that's why the elves will never know why Santa is another guy because to them is always the same old Santa.

 

[The Real Abed]

Didn't we just have this thread? We literally just had this thread at Christmas.

 

[WrenchNinja]

I don't have an answer for you but I have a question of my own. How is Scott allowed to give his ex-wife and her boyfriend toys that they didn't deserve when they were kids now?

 

[DerekOfTheDykes]

Bruh you are thinking way too deeply into a movie where Tim Allen doesn't even question who brings the presents he isn't buying his children

 

[Camjo-Z]

I don't have an answer for you but I have a question of my own. How is Scott allowed to give his ex-wife and her boyfriend toys that they didn't deserve when they were kids now?

It's amazing what Santa can achieve when he wants to escape going to jail for kidnapping.

 

[thesoapster]

He became one with The Force.

 

[rjinaz]

I'm still sticking with my theory from the last thread that no, he didn't die and he planned everything from the start. He chose Scott Calvin (SC), he made a lot of noise to wake Scott up, and then faked his death. Probably wanted out of the contract. None of the elves seemed to care he was gone so in my mind he already said his goodbyes. That and Mrs. Claus was already gone.

Mind you this is just what I choose to believe when I watch it, there really isn't any evidence.

 

[Kinyou]

• If Santa died, why did he just disappear?

Santa is a Jedi

 

[TheChewyWaffles]

It's a movie.

 

[Pizza]

I'm seconding the "santa was a symbiote" movement

He oozes onto Tim Allen and slowly morphs him into a new host body, subtly suggesting Allen act more like santa. The old host body was probably looong dead, so it disintegrated like the old vampires from I Am Legend.

If you remember, morphing into santa was uncomfortable, horrifying, and compulsive. The guy had no option like at all, santa probably has all of his immortal children in on the whole thing, so when a dude whose already half Santa walks in they know the drill.

Mrs claus probably went to live in someone else, maybe the oldest elf with the Santa fetsih

 

[Wag]

Jack Frost killed him.

 

[Steamlord]

Following in the footsteps of visionaries such as David Cronenberg and Bob Clark, director John Pasquin delivers a truly unsettling entry in the body horror genre cloaked in a cheery, deck-the-halls facade that is only as deep as a dusting of snow. In a memorable turn by Tim Allen, our protagonist Scott Calvin is a bumbling but well-meaning single father struggling to raise his son. One Christmas Eve, in an apparent home invasion, Scott inadvertently kills the supposed invader, who turns out to be the jolly old elf himself. Scott is duped by the fine print on a card in Santa's pocket and soon learns, according to the Santa Clause - which might be more accurately described as a curse - that by putting on Santa's clothes, he is now forced to take on the role of Santa Claus himself. What follows is a horrifying series of transformations that Scott tries desperately to fend off, but to no avail. He gains massive amounts of weight, his hair turns white, and his facial hair grows wildly as he gradually comes to resemble the iconic Coca-Cola iteration of Kris Kringle. No amount of exercise and shaving is enough to reverse these transformations as Scott's body (and eventually his mind) becomes something thoroughly alien and unfamiliar, causing trouble in his work and in his personal life. Interestingly, this transformation doesn't even begin until the second half of the film, allowing the movie to establish an emotional core before the horror really begins.

For a time, Scott lives in terror of the obligation that has been forced upon him; physical changes aside, he knows that if the transformation is completed he will also have to leave behind everything he knows, including his son. His antagonistic ex-wife and her skeptical husband hold too much contempt for Scott to listen to his cries for help as his true identity is suppressed and the Santa within begins to rise to the surface. Even Scott's loving son Charlie is of little help, as his youthful naïveté prevents him from comprehending the severity of Scott's predicament, and instead results in elation that his father is the new Santa Claus. With no one to turn to except the elves that insist on coaxing out this new foreign identity, Scott finally loses himself and becomes something he is not. His own identity is obliterated as he becomes a mere symbol, considered a myth by many. By the time his ex-wife and her husband learn the truth, it is already far too late to help Scott, and he is forced to abandon his son and live hundreds of miles from civilization. In the film's only real misstep, this tragic ending is unfortunately glossed over with a contrived magic snow globe that allows Charlie to see his father whenever he wants, which I consider a major detriment to the film's troubling and emotional impact. I imagine this was a concession to the studio big wigs to ensure a profit. However, this is subverted with one of Charlie's final lines, "I think I'm going to go into the family business." Considering the nature of the Santa Clause, this comes off as amusingly sinister, though subtle enough to get past the censors.

Despite the slight cop-out at the end, however, The Santa Clause leaves us with much to ponder long after it is over. How many others shared Scott's fate? Was the man he killed just another innocent person upon whom the Santa mantle was forced, taking away everything he knew? How far back does this tradition go? How many hundreds of people have been turned into Santa, only to be freed by the release of death? To take the premise in another horrifying direction, what if a woman were to accidentally kill a Santa? Would the transformation alter her sex against her will in order to honor the North Pole's twisted contract? Was there ever even an actual, original Santa Claus? If so, is he the one who penned the damning document that would torment countless people and rob them of their lives? If not, who or what did write it? What entity wields that kind of power? A Santa cannot alter the Clause himself, hinting at some sort of greater power governing the procedures and adding a touch of cosmic horror to the film.

The movie does not provide easy answers, instead allowing these troubling implications to lurk in the background and fester in the viewer's subconscious beneath the thin veneer of holiday cheer. The Santa Clause is a nuanced rumination on the place of holiday tradition in a modern world that has buried it in cynical commercial capitalism, and the lengths to which those traditions, here given life, will go to preserve themselves. It is an examination of the powerlessness of the individual in the face of an unyielding, uncaring, and unfamiliar bureaucracy, drawing easy comparisons to the works of Kafka. The Santa Clause is truly a chilling tale, and I liken its protagonist to The Fly's Seth Brundle, a man with the best of intentions who is doomed to be transformed into something entirely alien, and who must navigate the changes in his relationships and his own identity in light of these awful developments. However, Scott perhaps has a fate worse than Brundle: to live in his new, foreign form, perhaps for hundreds of years, carrying out the yearly tasks forced upon him by the titular Clause long after everyone he knows is dead. Because unlike a hideous fly creature, nobody wants to deliberately put jolly old Father Christmas out of his misery.

.

 

[Alphahawk]

Yes, that's the entire premise of the film. This is akin to asking if the aliens in Aliens were really aliens or disguised woodland elves.

 

[Dictator93]

I am so sorry to post this. But it must be posted in a thread about Tim Allen.

 

[HeySeuss]

Of course the old santa died. It's weird though how they didn't mourn the old one but it was Christmas so they didn't have time to do that I suppose.

Besides, that would take away from the movie.