Thunderbirds (film)

Thunderbirds

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Jonathan Frakes
Produced by Tim Bevan
Eric Fellner
Mark Huffam
Written by Peter Hewitt
William Osborne
Michael McCullers
Television series:
Gerry Anderson
Sylvia Anderson
Starring Brady Corbet
Bill Paxton
Anthony Edwards
Sophia Myles
Vanessa Anne Hudgens
Ben Kingsley
Music by Ramin Djawadi
Hans Zimmer
Cinematography Brendan Galvin
Editing by Martin Walsh
Studio StudioCanal
Working Title Films
Distributed by Universal Pictures
Release date(s) 23 July 2004 (2004-07-23) (United Kingdom)
30 July 2004 (2004-07-30) (United States)
Running time 95 minutes
Country United Kingdom
France
Language English
Budget $57 million
Box office $28,283,637

Thunderbirds is a 2004 science-fiction adventure film loosely based upon the 1960s television series of the same name, directed by Jonathan Frakes.

The film, written by William Osborne and Michael McCullers, was released on July 24, 2004 in the United Kingdom and July 30, 2004 in the United States, with later dates for others. The film uses live-action actors playing the Tracy brothers rather than the Supermarionation marionettes used in the television series.

The film had mainly negative reviews, and was a financial failure at the box office. The film's soundtrack features the song "Thunderbirds" by boyband Busted which reached number one in the UK charts and later won the 2004 Record of the Year award.

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Plot

The film is set in spring 2020. Fourteen-year-old Alan Tracy (Brady Corbet), sent off to a distant boarding school, is the youngest of the sons of Jeff Tracy, a retired American astronaut (Bill Paxton). Jeff, a widower, has formed International Rescue, and raised his sons to act as a secret, volunteer organisation which uses highly advanced technology to save lives worldwide. Jeff and his older sons (John, Virgil, Scott, and Gordon, who like Alan were named after the Mercury Seven astronauts) are joined in this effort by Lady Penelope and her butler/chauffeur Parker (a man whose "checkered past" comes in handy). Their futuristic hardware is largely developed by genius scientist Ray "Brains" Hackenbacker (Anthony Edwards), who lives at the International Rescue base on Tracy Island, somewhere in the Pacific, along with his son, Alan's best friend, Fermat (Soren Fulton). There's also caretaker Kyrano (Bhasker Patel), cook, Onaha, and their adolescent daughter, Tintin (Vanessa Hudgens), who does not seem to get on with Alan, although Lady Penelope observes that the two actually have a budding romance. Alan is eager to join his family in their work, but his older brothers still see him as just their little kid brother; not ready for duty. During the movie Alan is grounded for the summer after he and Fermat sneak into the Thunderbird 1 silo and start the engines nearly revealing International Rescue's location.

Ben Kingsley portrays the arch-villain known as The Hood, a character introduced in the first episode of the television series, brother of Kyrano. Bitter over having been abandoned and presumed dead by the Thunderbirds in an early rescue attempt, he has come to destroy them and take their machines to use in a daring raid on the Bank of England (renamed Bank of London, for the film) vaults. He launches a missile to wreck Thunderbird 5, the orbiting communications station. The Tracys - except, of course, for Alan - launch into space aboard Thunderbird 3 to rescue John Tracy, who is manning the station when it is hit, and The Hood takes over the secret island base.

Using his mental powers to overcome Brains' resistance, The Hood takes control of the Thunderbirds home base, aided by his confederates Transom (Rose Keegan) and strongman Mullion (Deobia Oparei). He also disables the control systems, stranding the rescuers aboard the disintegrating Thunderbird 5, briefly transmitting a message to reveal his connections to the organisation's history. Alan, Tintin and Fermat, having observed the invasion of The Hood and his minions, then hearing his plans, launch a hasty resistance. Fermat disables heavy-lifter Thunderbird 2 as they retreat from the base, then flee to the mountaintop radio transmitter site. They make contact with Jeff Tracy, who tells them to wait for Lady Penelope to come and take charge. However, the impulsive Alan leads the other two teenagers into ill-planned action, resulting in their capture. Lady Penelope and Parker arrive on the Island to help Alan, but they find The Hood has taken the Tracy Mansion, and a fight begins with Lady Penelope and Parker against Mullion and Transom whom they managed to defeat but are likewise captured when they are overpowered by The Hood's mental powers, and Alan is forced to give Thunderbird 2's missing guidance processor to The Hood. The island's defenders all end up locked in the walk-in freezer while The Hood, Transom and Mullion head off to London.

Escaping the freezer, the first order of business is to rescue Thunderbird 5 and the Tracys. Reporting The Hood's scheme, Alan gets his chance to go to work as he manages to convince Jeff to let him, Fermat and Tintin go after the Hood as his father and brothers would never make it in time. John, Brains and Lady Penelope back Alan up and Jeff reluctantly accepts. The three launch for London in Thunderbird 1, chaperoned by Lady Penelope and piloted by Alan and Fermat while Parker heads for the Bank of London to meet up with them in FAB 1.

The Hood and his accomplices, having arrived in London, use International Rescue's drilling machine The Mole to begin tunnelling toward the vaults at the Bank, in the process damaging the support pylons for a public-transit monorail, which falls into the River Thames. Alan, Tintin and Fermat land next to Thunderbird 2, then they begin their rescue of the submerged monorail and its passengers. Alan turns over piloting duties to Fermat, then launches in the Thunderbird 4 rescue submarine. When Alan and Fermat are unable to connect the lifting cable, Tintin dives into the water, swims down to the stricken monorail where she secures the cable, then joins Alan aboard Thunderbird 4. Jeff and his other sons arrive just in time to see the successful rescue, then Jeff, Alan, Tintin and Fermat rush to the bank, where they are joined by Parker.

Lady Penelope and Jeff get captured and Fermat and Parker defeat Mullion by working together. As Alan and Jeff try to find the Hood, Alan asks his father if the Hood was telling the truth about Jeff abandoning him, Jeff admitting that he left the Hood behind during the rescue but also admitting that he only did it because he couldn't see any way to save the Hood that wouldn't have resulted in the deaths of both. Alan and Hood fight while Tintin traps Transom. With Hood using his mental abilities, Alan starts to lose but Tintin arrives on the scene just in time. She then proves that she has mental powers similar to her uncle's and actually overpowers him in the resulting duel (presumably due to The Hood being weakened from fighting Alan as he grew weaker the longer he used his powers), which results in the evil Hood falling into mortal danger. Alan, who has to choose between saving the Hood and letting him die, saves him, saying, "I don't want to save your life, but it's what we do."

The Hood, Mullion and Transom are arrested by the police with the Hood promising to "see you soon, Jeff." With the evil-doers turned over to police custody, the Tracys return home, where the three young heroes are inducted into International Rescue. Moments later, a call from the President has the Thunderbirds (minus Jeff who stays behind, but including Alan and presumably Fermat and Tintin) off on another mission.

Cast

Reception

The film is essentially a science fiction adventure aimed at the very young, but with a great number of "in jokes" and references for the older generation which grew up with the original series, including visible strings on a character's hand in one scene and the Hood's mind powers causing Brains to walk like his original puppet counterpart.

By August 2004, the film had taken a relatively low worldwide total of about $28,000,000. It cost roughly $57,000,000 to produce. The film received mixed to negative reviews, but had a mixed fanbase. Those familiar with the series tended to be more negative in their views, accusing the filmmakers of abandoning the concepts of the original series in favour of the Spy Kids angle, with reviewers dubbing it "Thunderbirds Are No-Go!"[1] (a riff on the catchphrase from the original series, "Thunderbirds are GO!"). Empire gave the film two out of five stars. Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a 20% "rotten" rating and a consensus calling the film a "Live-action cartoon for kids." Yahoo! Movies and Entertainment Weekly gave the film a C+ rating. Metacritic gave the film 36 of 100.

Fans of the original series directed heavy criticism at the film through the Internet even before its release.

One of the few aspects of the film to receive positive acclaim (other than the special effects) was Sophia Myles' performance as iconic superspy Lady Penelope, a portrayal in a style identical to that of her television counterpart. The Thunderbirds craft, as well as Tracy Island, were also seen to be very close to the style of the original designs. Purists disliked the fact that FAB-1, Lady Penelope's car, was a Ford rather than a Rolls-Royce. However, this was because the producers could not reach a suitable agreement with BMW, who own the Rolls-Royce marque; the car manufacturer insisted that only an actual production model could be used. Ford stepped in with special version of their Thunderbird model, duplicating the six-wheel system on the Supermarionation Rolls. FAB-1 steers with the four front tires.

The Ford Motor Company supplied a number of vehicles to the production, including an advanced off-road vehicle which prominently sported the Ford logo, a Ford Windstar, a Ford Ka and Ford Thunderbird which are owned by Lady Penelope, as well as many Ford C-MAX and Ford F-150s in various locations, leading to jeers over the too-obvious level of product placement by the car manufacturers - a sentiment actually shared by director Jonathan Frakes, as revealed in the DVD audio commentary.

During development, creator Gerry Anderson was invited to act as creative consultant, but was left out when the studio felt there were enough employees on the payroll acting as part of the creative team. The studio offered him $750,000 (£432,000) to attend the premiere but Anderson could not accept money from people he had not worked for. He eventually saw the film on DVD and was disappointed, declaring "It was disgraceful that such a huge amount of money was spent with people who had no idea what Thunderbirds was about and what made it tick."[2] He also said that it was "the biggest load of crap I have ever seen in my entire life."[3]

Co-creator Sylvia Anderson, and the one responsible for character development, was given a private screening of the film and attended the London premiere. She had a far different opinion. "I felt that I’d been on a wonderful Thunderbirds adventure. You, the fans, will I’m sure, appreciate the sensitive adaptation and I’m personally thrilled that the production team have paid us the great compliment of bringing to life our original concept for the big screen. If we had made it ourselves (and we have had over 30 years to do it!) we could not have improved on this new version. It is a great tribute to the original creative team who inspired the movie all those years ago. It was a personal thrill for me to see my characters come to life on the big screen."[4]

Filming location

The location for Tracy Island was filmed on North Island, a boutique island resort in the Seychelles, although originally said to be somewhere in the South Pacific, presumably Fiji, Samoa. Tonga, or French Polynesia.

Film history

This was in fact the third theatrical release based upon the series created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson. It was preceded by Thunderbirds Are Go in 1966 and Thunderbird 6 in 1968, both films using the Supermarionation production techniques of the series.

Thunderbirds was dedicated to the memory of Stephen Lowen. Stephen Lowen is credited as a Rigger on the film.

Timed to coincide with the theatrical release of Thunderbirds, the two prior films were released on DVD. The DVD versions of all three films include a number of extra features, including historical and production information.

References

  1. ^ Sandhu, Sukhdev (July 23, 2004). "Thunderbirds are no-go". The Daily Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/3621169/Thunderbirds-are-no-go.html. Retrieved May 25, 2010. 
  2. ^ "Talking Shop: Gerry Anderson". BBC News Online. 2008-10-07. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7655589.stm. Retrieved 2008-10-07. 
  3. ^ Fitzsimmons, Caitlin (February 7, 2009). "Gerry Anderson auctions Thunderbirds treasures". The Guardian (London). http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/feb/07/gerry-anderson-thunderbirds-auction. Retrieved May 25, 2010. 
  4. ^ "Thunderbirds ‘The Movie’". Sylvia Anderson Official Website. http://www.sylviaanderson.org.uk/html/movie.html. Retrieved 2011-02-24. 

External links