Review of Thunderbirds Are Go / Thunderbird Six (Box Set)

Introduction

I don`t know what MGM sent Stuart, but it certainly wasn`t the finished set of discs for this release. I tried in vain to contact both the Studio and their PR company for more information, but got completely ignored. So what can you do?

Thunderbirds was easily Gerry Anderson`s finest televisual hour - or more precisely 32 hours of edge-of-your-seat spectacle. If the series had been made live-action, it would have cost billions. As it was, it cost £40,000 an episode (not a fortune even in 1964) and was made at an industrial estate in the shadow of the Mars Bar factory in Slough.

Although it never sold (properly) in the US, it had enough impact in the UK to attract the interest of United Artists as backers for a big-screen version. Thunderbirds Are Go was given a budget of £250,000 and the production team geared up to shoot the movie concurrently with the second series. After completing six episodes of season two, Gerry Anderson was called to Lew Grade`s office and Lew dropped one of his customary bombshells - he wanted a new series rather than more of the same. At the time, ITC`s output was primarily aimed at US sales, so no matter how much the UK audience appreciated a show, if the Americans didn`t buy it, it was dead. With six episodes in the can, season two of Thunderbirds was unceremoniously cancelled and the production team applied themselves to the new show Captain Scarlet. Production on the movie ran through to completion and on 12th December 1966 the movie premiered at the London Pavilion cinema. Everybody expected a raging success, but the cancellation of the show should have been a bad omen. The movie tanked at the box office.

With the exception of the genuinely cringeworthy outer space nightclub where Cliff Richard Jr (!) and The Shadows are performing, Thunderbirds Are Go is as good as any tv episode, and with the comparatively enormous budget, the production team were able to pile on the spectacle.

David Picker of United Artists could not believe how badly the first movie performed, and to his eternal credit, he green-lit a second movie. Thunderbird Six went in front of the cameras alongside the tv adventures of Captain Scarlet. With a marginally higher budget than the first movie, the script stayed firmly in familiar Thunderbirds territory with International Rescue dealing with the hijack and sabotage of Brains` Skyship One luxury airship. The result was a much better film to the first, but by the time it was completed, Thunderbirdmania was truly a thing of the past and it would be 1992 before the old show would enjoy a renaissance thanks to the BBC.

The movies were a regular fixture on childrens` television through the 1970s and 1980s, but always in diabolical pan and scan editions. Even when these films were first released to DVD, the prints were non-anamorphic. This special edition redresses the balance, and with a proper widescreen image and Dolby Digital 5.1 sound you might begin to recapture the magic.

Video

The picture is in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen. The discs have been mastered from the best available quality print of the movie and while there is some dirt and wear and tear, the movie look a lot better than they have in the past. Colours are bright, details are fine.

There has been some debate about the aspect ratio of the movie. While Techniscope had an effective negative aspect ratio of 2.71:1, it was printed to standard anamorphic stock. As shown in theatres the picture would be nearer 2.35:1. Techniscope was a technical curiosity used to shoot a number of movies including the classic The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. It was a flat widescreen system in that it used standard lenses rather than cylindrical anamorphic lenses, but unlike standard 1.85:1 widescreen which discards all but the centre portion of a normal 8-perforation 35mm frame, Techniscope used a modified camera which exposed a 4-perforation frame half the height of a standard frame. This produced a widescreen image, and used half the film stock normally required. However, it required modified cameras and special lab handling. For exhibition in theatres, it had to be anamorphically reprinted to standard 35mm which meant the process fell quickly from favour. It is a curious thought that the Thunderbirds series was shot on standard 35mm (Academy ratio), so the movies intended for showing on theatrical screens were shot on half the negative area of the series intended for showing on tv.

Audio

As with the DVD release of the tv series, the films have been digitally remastered in sound as well as image. The soundtrack is easily the more impressive side of the restoration of the movies. Originally made in mono, the audio has been remastered to Dolby Digital 5.1, although the DTS mix boasted by the R1 print has been discarded for the inclusion of multilingual soundtracks in 5.1. The sound is, of course, much beefier than the mono mix, but lightweight compared with modern soundtracks. One thing Thunderbirds always excelled at are explosions and your soundstage gets a workout when Derek Meddings gets with the pyrotechnics.

Features

Both movies come with audio commentaries by director David Lane and producer Sylvia Anderson. They and other key personnel on the movies also appear on the six short featurettes included (and mysteriously missing from the review copies): History And Appeal, Factory Of Dolls And Rockets and Epics In Miniature on the Thunderbirds Are Go disc and Lady Penelope, Building Better Puppets and Tiger Moth on the Thunderbird 6 disc. The featurettes make fascinating viewing, and had they been left off this UK release would probably tip the balance for most fans` importing the US version.

There are four Easter Eggs (two to each disc), theatrical trailers for both movies, animated photo galleries and two quizzes aimed at youngsters. Both movies are fully subtitled.

The movies come in a light card digipak with slipcase and a ten-page collector`s booklet that includes promotional artworks printed on card.

Conclusion

For somebody like me who`s fiercely opposed to growing up in spite of being the same vintage as the show, this is a glorious wallow in Lake Nostalgia. These two movies aren`t perfect - if anything they sealed the fate of Thunderbirds and consigned the show to history - but they are glorious last shouts of one of the most popular tv shows of the Sixties golden age. While the Yanks had Star Trek, we had Thunderbirds. FAB.