The last of the original Thunderbirds gets watched today. First up Thunderbirds Are Go, the 1966 feature film from Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's 21st Century Productions. I'm pretty sure I went to see it when it came out, we were fans of the show which was running on Canadian TV back then, and at 14 I was going to the movies pretty regularly. Unlike the US networks the Canadian TV networks didn't turn the Thunderbirds down for their stations. The Wikipedia says that Lew Grade failed to sell the show in the US and that led to stopping the second series with just 6 episodes done. The box office reports for the movie were poor with theaters half full or less. Complaints mirror my reaction to the film especially about the long model scenes and dumb script choices.
The movie starts with a long sequence in which a multi stage spaceship, the Zero-X, is assembled and launched. It's like you're seeing the assembly in real time. The creators continue to pad out their stories with lots of vehicle porn. Since there seems to be no security in that 2065 future the Hood has snuck on board the Zero-X. Just like he did in an early episode of the TV show. While he was talking pictures of the inside of the ship his boot got caught in the hydraulic lifter assembly. The ship went out of control and crashed. Why The Hood was on board is the big security question. Why he would wait to take pictures of the ship during the launch is still astounding to me. He escapes out of a sliding panel in the ships floor. Gerry and Sylvia Anderson wrote the screenplay and they were the some of the worst writers on the series.
The board of officers vote on the second launch of the new Zero-X spaceship and based on the 866 page report on their failed security they ask International Rescue to observe the launch. Lady Penelope gives all the astronauts a medallion and that is used to spot the Hood who's made himself up to be one of the astronauts. He pulls a gun and runs off with Lady Penelope's Fab 1 in pursuit. The Hood makes it to a speedboat and a waiting helicopter. Parker shots down the helicopter after it tries to take the Fab 1 out.
The launch is successful and Lady Penelope goes out to a nightclub with the Tracy boys. Alan, stuck on Tracy Island while the rest of the guys were needed in the Zero-X mission wants to go out too but Mr Tracy says no way. You'd think the need to be on call all the time would be stressful and sure enough Alan has a dream about going to a space restaurant with Lady Penelope. I thought the band sucked but Alan and Lady P thought they were way out. It's the actually Cliff Richards and The Shadows singing and playing. I'm not a fan of the guy or the band at their best and this isn't it. Alan gets so excited he wakes up and falls out of bed. It's all kind of sad and not as funny as they hoped it would be.
The Zero-X gets launched and makes a successful tip to Mars where they inadvertently shoot a giant rock snake. More of the critters shoot at the landing module with fireworks from their mouths. The Earth men escape and head back to Earth. Of course they have more trouble when they get back home. International Rescue comes to their aid. They rescue the crew at the last minute and the Zero-X crashes into the small town below. Lots of stuff blows up. If there's one thing you can count on with any of the Anderson shows it's going to be explosions. The Tracy's have a nice dinner, in disguise, at a restaurant.
All in all I was disappointed the second time I'd seen the movie in recent years. If only they had made a better movie. I can say the same thing about the second feature that Gerry and Sylvia did two years later.
Thunderbird 6 is mostly about a giant airship that Brains develops for a business syndicate. It's also about Brains trying to develop a new vehicle for the Thunderbirds, the 6 in the title, without any sort of input from the Mr Tracy. He tries 3 times and gets tuned down for them all. That makes little sense but that's the Anderson's writing style. I can't say much for their sense of humor. Poorly thought out slapstick involving Lady Penelope's chauffeur Parker left me cold.
That's the big airship that Brains invents. I think that might be a Japanese model kit. The airship uses some mechanical method of keeping itself afloat. That will get wrecked at some point so there's more need of help from International Rescue.
There's Brains with one of his guesses on what Mr Tracy wants for Thunderbird 6. He throws it on the floor in anger when Mr Tracy says, "Nope, get back to work". Brain's also a bit miffed that he couldn't go along on the maiden voyage of the new airship. Mr Tracy makes him stay on Tracy Island and work on Thunderbird 6. Mr Tracy is a bit of a dink, like a lot of bosses.
That's a Japanese soundtrack and you can see where the big airship ends up, stuck on a top at a rocket launching space. Later there will be a huge explosion as the thing crashes to the ground. The cause is a shoot out in the middle of the magical mechanical gravity reducing room. The Tracy's aren't the best with guns.
I might have liked this one a bit better than the first one today. Now I'm done with the Thunderbirds. Yay! Next week I'll be back to watching more crap on Amazon Prime. I need to get some use out of that membership.
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