Thunderbirds: 50th Anniversary Specials [BLU-RAY]

Not sure what planet the previous reviewer was from but as an original Kickstarter supporter I am in full support of the team in getting these episodes released. They are excellent and need a wider distribution. I am just happy to have had a limited time of exclusivity to enjoy them first. As far as I am concerned Thunderbirds Are Go again......

...I have only seen snippets of these amazing productions on YouTube and on a making-of documentary. I think it's tragic that these are no longer for sale!! Almost no one is a bigger Thunderbirds fan than I. I think it's unfair that I can't buy them. Take my money!!

I don't understand any of the criticism from others, this is a labour of love and is simply superb. A huge amount of effort, attention to detail and expense has gone into these new episodes to make them look and feel like three more, contemporary episodes. For those that don't know, several Thunderbirds audio adventures were released in the 60s as vinyl records. Most were abbreviated versions of the TV episodes, but three were new stories. The audio from these has been taken, expanded upon and used as the basis for the soundtrack of these new TV episodes. With considerable care and sheer brilliance, the original look and feel of Thunderbirds has been lovingly recreated and married to the old audio recordings of the original cast. It is no exageration to say we now have 35 original Thunderbirds episodes (plus two films). I loved them and cannot rate them highly enough. If you love Thunderbirds and you get the chance to buy this, you'll love these new episodes too.

Started as a Kickstarter project to follow on from the Filmed In Supermarionation documentary by Stephen Là Riviere, it was intended only to film the first of these 3 new episodes, but enough funds came in to encourage the team to ask for more funds to film the second, after which it was decided to ask for more money to do the third. As it was crowdfunded, everyone who donated was given a mention on the DVD special features section. My name appears there, even though I never donated. I think my wife saw the campaign and donated in my name. As the DVD's were supposed to be delivered by Christmas 2016, but ended up being shipped up to 5 months later (due to the thousands of copies needed to be shipped), I might end up with two copies on Christmas day.For the Supermarionation DVD mentions before, several Iconic scenes were recreated, including the enormous explosion in the opening credits. Some of this footage appears in the new episodes. One of the main selling points of that documentary was that it was filmed in Gerry Anderson's original Slough studio, adding that extra air of Authenticity. New puppets were created of all the characters and it was these that were used in the new episodes. They look ever so slightly different to what we are used to seeing, but bear in mind that different heads were sometimes used in the original show.So onto the DVD itself. The packaging is first rate for a DVD of a 60's show. It compliments some of the packaging of DVD releases of the original series nicely, and stands up better than my complete series DVD, which is too in your face for me. It appears to be modeled after the posters for the original cinema release of the film Thunderbirds Are Go in 1966.The menu is better than on the DVD of the original series, featuring three pods underneath Thunderbird 2, and you click on a pod to select an episode. Below that are the menu options, including setup (subtitles are under this menu, for many languages) and special features. The menu music puzzled me. It appears to be a radically different arrangement of the theme tune, from the original Barry Gray master tapes that was never used in the show.The three episodes were all completed in the original Slough studio, with modern digital cinematography and techniques being used to record everything. The resultant footage was then graded to look like the original series. I'll comment more on that later.The soundtrack and voiceovers come from three audio albums released in the 1960's, augmented with the original music cues for the series, from the aforementioned Barry Gray master tapes. The resultant combination of the restored audio from the disc with the music from the series creates a brilliant soundtrack that for the casual listener, seems the same as the original series, albeit die hard fans will notice a few subtle differences.The episodes are all written by staff writers from the original show, and one is co written by the voice of Parker, Brains,Gordon and a whole host of supporting characters, David Graham, who is on the new 2015'revival in his old role as Parker.The reenactments look great. This is no half baked revival, but the real deal. Real voice artistes, real music and real puppets. Very little footagd from the real series has been used. The stock footage of the palm trees on the beach, and the long shot of the island are both original, as is the countdown sequence in the credits up to "Thunderbirds are go!" The end credits use the original art cells from the series borrowed from the archives. As the crew differed from episode to episode, these changed each week. The new crew details has been faithfully overlaid over these in the original font. The addition of launch sequences and little cut in's such as the overhead shot of Thunderbird one flying along, help to pad it out. The original mini albums lasted 21 minutes each, and didn't feature the intro, and with a feature run time of 85 minutes, about 22 minutes of padding has been fitted in.At least one line from the episode Introducing Thunderbirds has been omitted, "Goodness, it came right up from the centre of the house!" spoken by Lady Penelope. Also, there's a song of the Abominable Snowman as sung by Penelope and Parker that could have been used as well. They could have elongated landing sequences and added more on flight footage to lengthen each episode, and possibly filmed new sequences to lines from the original series and fitted them in as well.Special features aren't up to much, but are about par for the course with DVD discs nowadays. I doubt this will be on TV soon, as ITV own copyright with Pod 4 films who made it. And although a DVD release would probably sell well, though the amount ITV would demand from each sale would be too much. If you can get a copy for under £25.00 it's worth it.All in all this disc is a must have for any thunderbirds fan. You honestly can't tell it's new footage. Only the end credits and the ITV logo give the game away.

I was able to pick u a copy of the Bluray and I felt like a 6 year old again, delirious with excitement, as I dropped it into the player.I wasn't disappointed. As it happens I owned the 'Introducing Thunderbirds' 7" Single as a child and played it to death, much of the dialogue came flooding back to me. As a crowd funded project it is sensational, let's not forget each episode of the original series cost around £1 Million in today's money, as such these episodes were never going to have the same production values. Some of the shots of the craft in flight are a bit wobbly and a fair bit of copy/paste of the original series has been inserted but no matter, it's a fantastic trip down memory lane. The extras are joy to watch, I assume they're the same on the DVD.There are some strange production choices for instance in 'The Abominable Snowman' Scott acquires a dark blue, fluffy uniform with a zip-up front from somewhere and Gordon's uniform looks very odd in 'The Stately Home Robberies' too. Puzzling as the 3rd episode is clearly where most of the money went. Some odd goofs too. In Stately Homes Dawkins and Charles inexplicably swap seats in the Helijet, in the long shots of Fab 1 Parker is wearing his usual chauffeur uniform but in close-up is wearing a snazzy tweed outfit. In Introducing Thunderbirds Parker seems to be looking down the wrong end of his binoculars.But who cares, I watched in child-like wonderment, thanks to all involved from this 6 year-old 60 year-old.