Right, this is going to be a post that has next to no reference to ‘Doctor Who’ and will have no mention of ‘The Space Pirates’. Apart from that one just there. No this is going to be about the series that was an obsession before ‘Doctor Who’, ‘Thunderbirds’ or as it’s new incarnation is dubbed ‘Thunderbirds are Go’.
There is a special place in hell reserved for this movie.
Within days of Gerry Anderson passing away, ITV announced it was commissioning a new series of ‘Thunderbirds’. There were collective groans both after the disappointing reboot of ‘Captain Scarlet’ a few years earlier that was given as much love as a dead dog and the fact it seemed to be a shameless cash-grab. In 2004 Thunderbirds was rebooted as a big screen movie, helmed by Jonathan Frakes, aka Commander Riker in ‘Star Trek – The Next Generation’. Now Frakes helmed ‘Star Trek – First Contact’, which is an outstanding science fiction movie, whereas ‘Thunderbirds’ (timed for release at the tail end of the series’s revived popularity at the beginning of the decade) single handedly destroyed his career. If you’ve ever seen it, picture ‘High School Musical’ meets ‘Apollo 13’. From what I’ve read, I don’t blame Frakes, there was all sorts of interference from studios and writers, his job as director became glorified turd polishing. He was only given the project because he had an ‘efficient shooting style’, which had earned him the nickname ‘Two Takes Frakes’. This is what makes the movie a cash-grab, you can have two out of three of these things, good, fast, cheap. Universal went for all three, alienating casual audiences, hard core fans and Gerry Anderson himself by more or less totally disregarding the source material.
Meth – Not even once.
This catastrophe seriously derailed the plans to revive the series on TV as the ‘Thunderbirds’ brand was tarnished and was considered a failure. Anderson’s attention was then diverted to ‘Captain Scarlet’, which went to full CGI series in 2006, but was killed by scheduling. ITV decided to air the series as part of Saturday morning magazine programme ‘Ministry of Mayhem’, which had no individual programme billings so ‘Captain Scarlet’ could appear at any point in the morning, with rough timings only given during the show itself, and then the episodes were split into 2 parts. I recall watching the first episode, which was an absolute pig because they would procrastinate with all sorts of delaying tactics, and then made no mention of the second half. So in tuning in for the first episode, I only actually saw half of it. The rebooted series was later rerun in afternoons on CITV but then the episodes were marked as repeats and as such, old news.
How have things changed for ‘Thunderbirds’ nearly 10 years later? Well thankfully the movie has been long forgotten, unless Channel 5 decides to cash in on the newfound popularity. Well the first episode was given a prime time 5pm slot on Saturday, during the Easter Bank Holiday weekend. Bold move ITV. To be fair, it’s been given its fair share of publicity. Externally it’s been given a fair share of criticism for the CGI character design, being compared to ‘Teletubbies’ of all things, for the so called baby faced characters. I actually believe that most of the characters appear to be faithful to the character designs of the puppets, so this cheap shot is moot as far as I’m concerned. Looking at the positives however, heaven knows how but somehow, the world famous Weta Workshop in New Zealand got on board to produce models that would be used for live action filming. Impressive. Milk SFX would be providing the CGI. Milk SFX, has produced the CGI effects for ‘Doctor Who’ most recently, many of their team having been part of The Mill, prior to it going into administration. It would seem like the best of both worlds would be coming together.
Spandex will be very big in the future.
With the first episode having aired, how do I feel? Well… it’s a resounding meh…. Actually that is a very unfair assessment, the good parts were great, the not so good parts were just not as great. Firstly a summary of the first episode, The Hood plants a series of devices across the globe, controlling them by satellite, he generates seismic disturbances, holding the authorities to ransom in order to meet his absurd demands including handing over the Thunderbird machines. The plot is somewhat padded out by what would be generously dubbed a ‘homage’ to ‘Ol Lord Parker’s ‘holiday’ from the original series, where a displaced receiver dish, threatens to cook a town below by reflecting the sun’s rays. I can forgive this once, but if it becomes a regular occurrence, they may as well save their cash and screen the original episodes.
The most marked changes are the absence of Jeff Tracy, missing presumed dead after an accident caused by the Hood. Brains is now asian, to inject some diversity into proceedings but at the same time is a bit of a stereotype. TinTin has been renamed Kayo as she is supposedly highly skilled in hand to hand combat, and by the end of the episode is upgraded to a fully fledged member of the International Rescue team, responsible for Thunderbird S, a new stealth craft. The introduction of which is quite rushed, going from a minor annoyance to Kayo not having a ship of her own, to Brains having built it completely for purposes yet to be specified by the end of the episode.
The new Thunderbird S… introduced because… to do… things.
Everything else is pretty much faithful to the original, even down to how the team reach their craft, which is actually quite impressive considering that without strings attached to Gerry Anderson, they could have completely bastardised the whole thing. From the off, what strikes you is the shift in terms of the music. Whilst the theme music is composed mostly of the original theme, it does spiral off into very generic action music and the original theme is never heard again. It’s a musical way of saying ‘Thunderbirds is back, it’s the same show you might remember, but we have made some minor changes that we’ll pepper out as we go on, starting here, because it’s new and we want to make it accessible.’. I don’t know why because the theme and music is so iconic. A more traditional score would have been more effective. If it’s good enough for James Bond. But this is probably down to changes with how programmes are scored now. They are scored to the action as it happens, whereas in the 60’s generic themes would have been created to use through the series. This is where the old, triumphant Thunderbirds theme motif becomes conspicuously absent. None of the music in the episode is particularly memorable, which is sad, but not a deal breaker.
Kayo… is she Tin Tin or isn’t she? If she isn’t, where the f*ck did she come from?
What is absent is any kind of audience surrogate, which does let the story down. From the opening moments, we’re in the thick of it. International Rescue is established already and it is a lot to take in. In the original series Tin Tin was moving to the island and the episode was IR’s baptism of fire. As a result, the tone and the pace are a bit all over the place just asking you to wolf down various exposition in parts, and gratuitous action in others. If we had witnessed this following a character like Kayo for example, the introduction would have been a lot smoother. As an establishing episode it works, but it is a very brutal and unforgiving introduction overall. We would have been able to empathise with an all new female lead in a predominantly male dominated environment, and the revelation that the Hood is her Uncle and presentation of Thunderbird S at the end of the episode would have actually had some significance.
What kind of father leaves his son, alone on a space station for what seems like forever? ‘If I had a black-light, this place would look like a Jackson Pollock painting.’
What the episode does well, is forming a narrative that gives all the Thunderbird craft and respective pilots something to do and not just that, but a fair part of the action. What doesn’t work so well is that a consequence of that is that the characters don’t really get an opportunity to shine in their own right. I would say the Virgil and Gordon are served best here, but that’s not strictly true as both the writing and vocal performance are quite generic, bordering on arrogant, which to me makes him somewhat unlikable. The characterisation of the rest of the team is somewhat bland but not hopeless, nor without merit. It is always a bit of a setback wiping previously established character clean for a reboot, like you’re waiting for them to catch up, but we’ll see what the rest of the series holds here. Interestingly, with the absence of Jeff, coordination duties are delegated to John Tracy up in the space station. With the eye in the sky, this is sensible, even if it’s a bit sad that he’s just floating up there solo as here he seems like something of a tragic figure. Whereas the original John would sometimes only get about 3 minutes of screen time if at all.
Thunderbird 1. Still glorious after all these years.
What is less successful is the shoehorning of Lady Penelope and Parker into the story. Whilst it’s great to see David Graham voicing the character again, if anything sounding more sprightly than before. They really have nothing to do in the already quite frantic and jam packed script, aside from showing us FAB1 is now a Rolls Royce again and not a Ford Buttplug. Sadly though it can fly, which is one of the less plausible abilities. Speaking of the craft designs however, I have to say they are mostly excellent. Sure Thunderbird 2 and Thunderbird 3 look a bit boxy, but that’s progress. Thunderbirds 1 and 4 have probably been most successful here being subtly reinvented but also functional. But still, if you manage to mess up the design of Thunderbird 1, you should be shot. The aesthetic is good overall, this extends to the set designs which are again faithful to the originals, but the scenic models border on beautiful. I adore traditional model filming techniques as there is a physicality, not just in terms of how objects interact with each other, but in terms of lighting and depth and detail, that just can not be replicated in CGI. Whilst CGI will date, models will not. Picture the difference between the effects in the original ‘Star Wars’ and the prequels. The prequels already look dated, the originals, still stand up.
Where is everybody? Rendering probably.
Even some of the vehicles that appear are models, which is fantastic to see as some of them are quite intricately detailed. But this begs the question, why aren’t the regular vehicles models? Surely this would be more cost effective as they would get more use. Whilst I understand the upgrade of puppets to CGI is a logical progression, and work well with the physical sets, the CGI Thunderbirds combined with the physical sets, is a bit jarring. Most notably when Thunderbird 2 launches, a beautifully crafted miniature set is not spoiled, but compromised by the CGI Thunderbird 2. Given that this sequence is shown twice in the episode, which seems a bit like overkill, surely this sequence alone would have been worth doing with solely models. In other areas however the combination works, such as where Thunderbirds 1 and 2 have to hold stable an underwater station, when they are at risk of being dragged down into the sea, the water is blown about as if to interact with the ship’s jets. This actually works really well, I actually felt a sense of jeopardy which I only get with models as something is at stake of being destroyed. Considering the ships at stake were CGI, this is quite an achievement.
Needs more ‘splosions.
Overall I would say the first episode was mostly a success, but there is a lot of work to be done. Firstly, the characters really need to come to the fore. Whilst the ships is an appropriate hook for early episodes and the kids, this can only work for so long. For the series to survive and for viewers to invest in it the characters need to flourish at some point. The whole exercise is meaningless if there is no personality driving it. How can the team do this? By writing intelligently and really pushing the actors. It’s not much to ask, but too many ‘kids shows’ have this ‘it’ll do’ attitude as if young people aren’t human beings. This saddens me as being young is the one thing we’ve all had in common. You can’t be raised on quality and output something half arsed. That can only gradually decline into oblivion. Any old thing can survive for a short while on the popularity of some cool looking ships, but ‘Thunderbirds are Go’ has the capacity to survive on something more. Look at the success of ‘Doctor Who’ post 2005. If it had the Daleks in every episode it wouldn’t have lasted half the time it has, whereas people worldwide have managed to invest in the many, many characters driving it week on week. ‘Thunderbirds Are Go’ has the capacity to really lift children’s TV out of a slump.
However, what worries me, is that ITV having screened the first episode at 5pm on Easter Saturday, has bumped the rest of the series to 8am every subsequent Saturday. Word is, they are banking on ‘On Demand’ and ‘Catch Up’ viewing, but on the strength of one episode, that is a big ask, and when TV commissioning is largely based on viewing figures, this smells like death by scheduling, as commercial TV channels are not yet in a position to base their programming on the extent of post broadcast viewing. It is either a very brave move, or a very cynical one. Either way, I think it seems to be a waste of what has the potential to be a very successful series.
Nerd World Problems 