THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO, On Amazon, A Review: It's Just As I Remembered It, FUN

If you're old enough, you may remember watching the Thunderbirds British science-fiction TV series from Gerry Anderson. The series used marionette puppetry and what's known as "scale model" special effects.

The premise revolved around an organization called International Rescue, was run by the Tracy Family out of a secret island base in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and they had the coolest toys! Ever.

It takes place in the future and was fun to see the family tackle rescues around the world with their super-cool air, space and sea craft. My favorite was Thunderbird 2.

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As it stands, shows from my deep, deep youthful past that I enjoyed back when the wheel was just starting to get its round shape, always left a warm spot in my heart from the memories.

And I also learned that sometimes, you need to leave those warm spots alone and not destroy them. Too many times I've found something I liked as a kid, rewatched it, and destroyed those warm memories with the horrors of how bad it was. As as kid you don't care, you just want to watch this fun stuff on TV. But as an adult, those warm memories get DESTROYED!

Since the original 60's series, they've had a few goes at it, including a live-action version in 2004 that I bet Bill Paxton, Ben Kingsley, Anthony Edwards, and Vanessa Hudgens hope you may totally forget about. Except when people like me mention it.

So when Thunderbirds Are Go was announced to be coming out on Amazon Prime, I was somewhat excited but tried to stay tempered about it.

Then it came out on Amazon and I had to check it out, just for old-time's sake. (The link in the last sentence takes you to the video, a link at the bottom of this TV review will take you to the toys on Amazon.!)

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After catching the first episode, I ended up catching the entire season of this 'Kids Series,' and though some might consider it hokey as a show or that I even watched it, it was hokey fun to watch these half-hour snippets of my old memories getting refreshed and not destroyed.

This new version is mostly CG with some toys, I mean scale models involved, and  actually did not totally suck. They had some quirky humor here and there plus the usual collection of daring rescues, all from their secret base in the middle of the ocean. All the while, they continue to run into the same bad guy trying to rule the world, called The Hood!

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The voice cast is led by Rosamund Pike as Lady Penelope, Thomas Brodie-Sangster as John Tracy, Kayvan Novak as Brains, Rasmus Hardkiker as Scott Tracy, David Menkin as Virgil Tracy, Teresa Gallagher as EOS, David Graham returns to voice the multi-talented and incredibly patient driver, Parker, the hilarious Sandra Dickinson as Grandma Tracy, Angel Coulby as Kayo, and Andres Williams as The Hood.

And if you watch the show you may recognize the voice of the launch countdown as that belonging to the late Peter Dyneley. He voiced the launch countdown and the character of Jeff Tracy in the original mid-60s series, and in homage, the new series uses his spectacular voice to send the ships off to their rescue missions.

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I love the updates to the ship sequences.  When T-1 gets airborne, watch the patio furniture go flying. And the updated secondary boosters are just completely awesome to hear.

T-2 launch sequence is as its always been. Though to be honest, WHY NOT WIDEN THE RAMP just a bit more!!!??? LOL.

And if you don't dwell on it too much, you won't wonder why, on a secret island base, they have secret pilot ramps. Or just how much fuel they must use to fly around like this and to get from their mid-pacific location to anywhere in the world. So no, don't ruin the fun and dwell on that.

ALSO, if you must know, during the radio communications, when one or the other of the chatters sign off with "FAB!," you should know that it means nothing. It started out just being their catchy response phrase like 10-4!, but better that the production came up with back in the 60s, and it stuck.

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All in all, I  hope this catches on with the youth of today. It still has the charms and fun of an exciting action-adventure series and does not try to set itself into a solid, believable technological world. It just has cool ships doing cool things, while teaching some great values to our young viewers, giving the old viewers a warm and fuzzy feeling about a show from their past.

They have some cool videos you can share with the kids if they want to know more about each Thunderbird...  called Inside The Thunderbirds.  It's sure to be a hit with your younger family members. And it goes in order, like the countdown, 5, 4, 3...   (Crap... got caught up watching it!)

Yea, go check out at least one episode of the Thunderbird, just get that old nostalgic feeling back. They did hit on it just right.  If you were a fan, you'll become one again. And now I have to go dig up my 1960s metal diecast of Thunderbird 2.

If you're really getting nostalgic, check out the collective of Thunderbirds stuff on Amazon!

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQwgIZ__WrY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_qBvZlMaFc

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