i started doing “reviews” (more like rants) of the episodes of the 2015 thunderbirds reboot. these originally existed on facebook but then i realised i had this website with nothing on so enjoy (with added pictures:
note: this is sort of an in depth first impressions thing on the new thunderbirds, there are some spoliers so if you want to see it first head over to itv player or something. there are also some obscure references, so be prepared to google anything you don’t get.
just watched the new thunderbirds thing and it was pretty good.
i have just one complaint: everyone but alan is voiced by blur from transformers. seriously! there’s no pauses between sentances, not even pauses for drama. frikken brains even went through a whole paragraph of text without his stutter showing up once! when you’re sacrificing essential mannerisms of a character to pack in textwalling then you need to rethink your scriptwriting and voice direction. in fact if there were pauses at all i’d think that the player was in fast forward mode or otherwise glitched.
it could also do with some more witty dialogue between the characters, well written humour is always appreciated.
kinda hope that that’s just early instalment weirdness and gets fixed by at least the 2nd season cause i see a lot of good points in there: the hypermarionation or whatever cgi style is pretty cool and i really like the redesign of the thunderbirds, nice asthetic. tb-5’s got a neat ring centrifuge thing, great update of the design to a near future semi-realistic station, love the fact that the cgi lets them do it in zero-g too. thunderbird 3’s nacelles are now part grabber arms, that’s neat, also them removed the elevator from the centre which makes a bunch of sense, they also moved the cockpit down to the ring, instead of up in the nose, so loads of more room for potential space oriented episodes, and also for space hoverboards apparently.
also digging the new suit sashes matching the craft colour scheme, that’s kinda ingenious. brains’ voice is a little different from usual but it kinda reminds me of Isaac Sumdac which kinda fits the character. tintin’s been renamed to “kayo” apparently, probably to distigish her from a certain Belgian journalist who had a movie reboot recently, and the hood uncle plotline seems to be getting more attention. also she apparently gets a b̶l̶a̶r̶g̶ ̶s̶t̶a̶r̶f̶i̶g̶h̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶f̶r̶o̶m̶ ̶r̶a̶t̶c̶h̶e̶t̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶c̶l̶a̶n̶k̶ ̶1 stealth thunderbird and b̶e̶a̶s̶t̶ ̶h̶u̶n̶t̶e̶r̶s̶ ̶o̶p̶t̶i̶m̶u̶s̶ ̶p̶r̶i̶m̶e̶ ̶b̶a̶c̶k̶p̶a̶c̶k wing pack. the hood also has a giant tie bomber, doesn’t look that much like that when the lauch clamp “wings” are jettisoned.
also the tracy boys are apparently double orphans… well obviously not, if the show isn’t cancelled then jeff’ll show up at one point, it’s just a trope or something.
the Tracy boys also have distinct characterisation already, pity it isn’t explored that much.
if the writing improves then this could be a really great series. it just doesn’t hold that well when compared other shows that i’ve seen recently.
for example: transformers: rescue bots. a show in which a family of 5 rescuers who use advanced technology including 4 extrodinary vehicles (who are also transformers and well developed characters but the analogy breaks down there) and a command centre to rescue people from various emergencies, with an overarching human antagonist who wants to steal their tech. they are assisted by an absent minded professor… stop me if this sounds familiar. i mean come on! they both have an absent/dead mother! rescue bots may sound a lot like a rip-off of the original thunderbirds but it does the concept really well, and since it’s a show aimed at “younger kids” and i’m enjoying it very much at 16 it must be doing it universally well. so if the standard is rescue bots then so far thunderbirds doesn’t hold up that well to it, except on the cgi front, rescue bots suffers from really conspicuous cgi in action sequences
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but i am hopeful, not everything starts of perfectly.