Intcatinfo
A Masterpiece!
Fairaher
The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.
studioAT
This was the first big screen outing for Gerry Anderson's puppet characters, and sadly was a film that never lived up to the hype.I think the fact that the plot was sort of a strung out version of one we'd seen on the TV show may not have helped, and also at this time it may have felt odd for people to pay to see something they could get at home on the TV for free.It has its moments, but for all the moments of high action, there are also some slow moments, that feel like we're being force fed a lot of information rather than being entertained.I think when people think of 'Thunderbirds' they remember the TV version rather than this or the other film that was made.
The_Secretive_Bus
I grew up on Thunderbirds repeats as a kid. The excitement, the explosions, the majestic Barry Gray scores... It was a wonderful programme. Even now I have a great soft spot for it and own the whole series on DVD. Though the episodes now seem quite padded here and there and I watch it with much more cynicism than I did as a child, I still love it. A good episode of Thunderbirds is the perfect nostalgia trip for me.Sad to say, then, that the Thunderbirds movies retain little of the qualities that made the TV show such great fun. Perhaps it's the script: Gerry and Sylvia Anderson were far better leaving the scripting duties to other writers as they couldn't write decent dialogue for peanuts. They wrote Thunderbirds' debut episode, which has awful expository dialogue and lots of pointless sequences that go nowhere - but the episode as a whole is still a classic due to the frenetic atmosphere, the sense of doom and the fantastically imaginative rescue (it's the episode where the Fireflash plane lands on three little buggies). "Thunderbirds are Go!" is just horrendously boring. The first ten minutes are taken up with the Zero-X ship being assembled. Very slowly. Later on we have a long dream sequence where Alan imagines going out for a date with Lady Penelope, which features Cliff Richard and the gang having a sing-song (a musical segment in a Thunderbirds movie - what were they thinking?!) and the entire subplot of what the Zero-X astronauts get up to on Mars has no bearing on International Rescue at all.The Tracy brothers get hardly anything to do in their own film (John, as is customary, has about 5 lines of dialogue, and Gordon just sits about looking glum - even everybody's favourite, Virgil, has barely any screen time at all). Nor, in fact, are the Thunderbird craft used all that often. In 100 minutes of film there's only one real rescue (featuring Thunderbird 2), with IR overseeing operations at the beginning of the film - which involves them sitting around and peering contentedly at control panels. You'd think with 100 minutes - double the length of one of the TV episodes - the Andersons could've plotted loads of thrilling situations and rescues that involved all the Tracy brothers and their Thunderbird machines, but it was not to be. Thunderbirds 1 and 3 swoop about for a few seconds. Thunderbird 4 isn't even in it (despite being on the DVD cover). Nor are the pod vehicles present - couldn't we even have had the Mole drilling away at something? It really is a tedious film. And that's not even mentioning Alan Tracy ignoring his girlfriend, Tin-Tin, and fantasising about Lady P instead. Way to be a good role-model for the kiddies, Alan. Then again he was a snot in the telly series too...Maybe I'm being too hard on what is meant to be an inoffensive kids' film featuring explosions and great model work. But then again the TV show was a genuinely exciting and exhilarating programme, which, at its best, provided great entertainment. "Thunderbirds are Go!" has an uneventful plot, awful dialogue, no decent set-pieces, and - the cardinal sin - a boring rescue that doesn't even utilise the Thunderbird craft to the best of their abilities. It's difficult to imagine kids being wowed by it. You'd be far better off going back to the telly series. Show your kids the Fireflash episodes, or that brill one where giant alligators attacked a manor house. Heck, show them the daft one where Parker encouraged everybody to play bingo for half an hour. Both younger viewers and adults looking for warm nostalgia will be disappointed with "Thunderbirds are Go!" Avoid.
michduncg-1
OK - here's the deal with the Thunderbirds phenomenon: Gerry Anderson & his then wife Sylvia had been producing puppet shows since the late 1950s for the British ITC worldwide distribution company. Progressing from Supercar, thru Fireball XL5 & Stingray (the 1st British TV show filmed in colour), they hit pay-dirt with Thunderbirds. The formula was simple - a worldwide organisation, with good looking heroes (made of plastic of course!), some pretty women for glamour, and lots of hi-tech craft, gadgets and gizmo's. To appeal to the important US market, the characters were often American, although this changed with Captain Scarlet when the cast was made up of a variety of international personnel. The shows were set in near future (about 100 years hence), and were designed to excite kids. And thats just what they did. But as a by-product, they excited adults as well! Thunnderbirds Are Go! gave Anderson and his huge team based in Slough (on the same industrial estate that David Brent occupied 40 odd years later to be exact!) a chance to deliver a colour show to the UK market. Unlike the US (with their inferior NSTC TV system), European TV wasn't available in colour, so all the UK kiddies watching TV only saw B&W. So, the big attraction in the UK for this film was the fact that you could see Thunderbirds in full colour and in cinema sound.So the biggest adventure was launched, with the awesome Zero-X craft crashing not once, but twice, on its way to Mars. A huge opening scene, new characters, a dream sequence, alien encounters, a space battle. Having said all that, the basic plot is a rewrite of 'trapped in the sky', the Thunderbirds pilot episode, with extra padding. The Cliff Richard sequence is very surreal, but I am surprised that none of the Brits have picked up on Bob Monkhouse being the night club compere! The sets were fantastic and were in fact redesigned from those used on the TV programme, so that they looked better on the big screen. Also they looked a lot more hi-tech, with lots of stainless steel and primary colours - very James Bond in fact. Not surprising when you consider that the man doing the special effects was none other than Derek Meddings himself. And it was this attention to detail, the bangs, the noise, the jets, the rockets, the explosions, the splashes, the gadgets (the video telephone and electronic conference voting systems to name but two that have now come to frutition!) Thats what we watched Gerry Anderson for, and why we still love his programmes.In all of Gerry productions, the values have been very much on hardware, although he has employed some of the best scriptwriters. I don't think anyone could claim that his stories have pushed the frontiers of sci-fi, but I don't think he ever meant to. He just meant to entertain, and this film should certainly do that!
tfrizzell
Tedious and demented mess that has puppets (not a misprint) involved in outer space exploration, sabotage, rescue missions and even risqué behavior. Laughably stupid picture that has a small following even today and has recently inspired a live-action remake with Ben Kingsley (!?) and a demented parody by the makers of "South Park". Meant to be innovative and unique in 1966, "Thunderbirds Are Go" is little more than a weak Saturday morning matinée idea with few financial resources and even fewer brain cells. Sleep-inducer that should be ignored by all. Even the youngsters will get sick of the creepy creatures that admittedly have about as much talent as many Grade-D performers in Hollywood today. Turkey (0 stars out of 5).
