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Thunderbirds Vol. 1

Roadshow Entertainment/Roadshow Entertainment . R4 . COLOR . 200 mins . G . PAL

  Feature
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Almost everybody I know used to do it back in their munchkin days. You'd get up every school day just before 6am, park yourself securely (well, as securely as you could in the days of beanbags) in front of the telly and escape into an hour of the future world of the Tracy family, their various aides and their marvellous Thunderbirds craft. I'm sure many out there wanted to grow up with the chiselled looks and cool of Scott Tracy, but some of us just craved the wonderful life of Lady Penelope - the blonde hair, manservant, posh accent, cigarette holder and of course the funky pink bubble-topped Rolls Royce...

Now it can all be relived in glorious DVDness, with this, and an ensuing seven more discs, each containing four episodes of the classic series. Yes, sure the acting is a tad wooden, but just look what's in store for you with the first four shows (which inexplicably (and ultra-stupidly) are not divided by disc into their correct original production order)...

Trapped in the Sky (Episode 1): The super-dupersonic Fireflash passenger aircraft (capable of speeds up to mach 6 no less, and looking much like a cross between Concorde and a sex toy) is on its maiden voyage, complete with Mr Tracy's loyal servant Kyrano's daughter, Tin-Tin, on board. The only problem is that the somewhat nefarious The Hood has planted a bomb in the undercarriage, so if it touches down it will blow up. Cue International Rescue for their first ever gig - can they come up with a way for the atomic-powered (!) airliner to land safely before the entire payload suffers irreparable radiation poisoning?

Pit of Peril (Episode 4): The US army's experimental Sidewinder mobile tree puller-outerer (well, that seemed to be its function!), a huge weird-looking thing that comes across much like a cross between robot from Lost in Space and those big klutzy walking things from one of the Star Wars films, is in trouble after falling 300 feet into a blazing inferno - complete with three men aboard. After the army's botched attempts at a rescue, our heroes are called in to save the day, bringing what was probably the first televisual version of The Mole along with them (in this instance a groovy digging device). Can they get the inhabitants of the Sidewinder out safely before it's reactor melts down?

City of Fire (Episode 16): The Thompson Tower, a brand new and utterly humongous shopping centre cum city, is engulfed in flames due to a piddly little car crash in the underground car park. Authorities seal off the blaze-ridden sections unaware that a family of three are now trapped in there. With the fire raging out of control, and an evacuation of the entire building underway, guess who gets the call to save the day?

Sun Probe (Episode 11): The Cape Kennedy boffins have sent a "solarnaut" inhabited rocket up to capture a flare from the sun. Unfortunately once the probe tries to rejoin the main ship the retro-rockets are interfered with by the intense radiation, leaving our solarnaut buddies set on a collision course for the sun. To quote the quite wonderful '80s band We've Got A Fuzzbox and We're Going To Use It it's "calling International Rescue" time, so Thunderbird 3 (including Tin-Tin - yay girl power!) is sent to help - only it too suffers the same fate as the solarnauts. Can our remaining earth-bound heroes transmit the radio frequency to fire the retro-rockets before it's too late?

  Video
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Let's see, we're talking about something that is older than me here. Add to that the nasty habit earlier in television's history that stations seemed to have of not taking much care of their produce - seemingly in the often (but not always) mistaken belief that it was just throwaway entertainment - and any Thunderbirds fan would have to be impressed with what's on offer here.

Sure there's film noise aplenty (more so in some scenes than others), and a bit of the light and darks in other scenes, however considering the circumstances I can’t see much cause for complaint - this is certainly the best I've seen Thunderbirds ever scrub up, and probably the best we ever will.

As an idea of the clarity that has been pulled from the source prints, you can actually see that for some reason all the actors have fine strings attached to them. I wonder what on earth the story is with that? (Wha - what do you mean they're puppets?!)

  Audio
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All the sound has been remastered, appearing in lovely Dolby 5.1 Surround - now who could have ever conceived of such a thing when watching this plopped in front of a crappy little black and white telly growing up? Of course only so much can be done when dealing with a sixties vintage soundtrack, and I did find the score in particular to come up sounding quite harsh and screechy at times.

Surround activity proves to be quite fun, rounding out the soundtrack and adding a great deal of oomph to the many takeoffs, landings and sundry explosions. Some dialogue levels are a little up and down, mainly up when the likes of The Hood are doing their thing at the start of the first episode (as he's pumped through the surround speakers) and down a bit when anybody else is having a yak, but not to the point where you're riding the volume control.

Once again, considering the age of the material here I don’t think we could expect much better - and probably end up getting much more than many of us could have ever anticipated. Anybody looking to add to their 'reference disc' collection though will be sadly disappointed with this, in which case a word of friendly advice - go get a life!

  Extras
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Ooh, you don’t just get extra features here folks, you get "super features"! Well, in name at least...

The main menus are nicely animated and soundtracked, although they have a slightly nasty habit of resetting every minute or so, which can briefly get in the way of your selecting things. There are four sections here for fans to delight over.

First up is a ten-minute featurette entitled The Machines that was made last year. Hosted by a badly lit Brains (it would appear that they knew how to hide the strings a lot better 25 years ago), it's a quick informational run through on the main Thunderbird craft, interspersed with the occasional interview snippet with creator Gerry Anderson. These are interesting to glean the odd bit off goss from, such as the fact that he relished John being sequestered to the space-bound Thunderbird 5 as he didn’t actually like him. Curiously the layer change appears in the middle of this rather short presentation.

Next up is a stills gallery, thirteen in all that to be honest you probably won’t find yourself returning to in the future.

Twelve character profiles ensue, offering some interesting insights into the main players, such as the fact that the Tracy siblings were all named after famous astronauts.

Finally we come to some Thunderbirds facts. These are quite fun, telling us (a tad disappointingly) that "F.A.B" just stood for plain old "fabulous", and even divulging that Brains' actual name is Hiram K. Hackenbacker. I think I'd rather be known as Brains if saddled with that moniker too…

So in all their billing as "super" is a tad melodramatic, but there's definitely some fun here for fans to lap up.

  Overall  
Contract

This is another disc in a series whereby fan status will most likely be the deciding factor in purchasing. If you have been living under a rock your entire life and have never experienced the Thunderbirds there is a lot of fun to be had for all ages and genders, just don’t expect the full on high-tech product tie-in style frenzies akin to today's 'kiddie' offerings, because you're not going to find them here - which in many peoples' eyes will occasion much joy.

In all the Thunderbirds have never been seen or heard in a format offering such quality, which simply should be enough to get lovers of the series 5-4-3-2-1-going out, breaking out the credit card and racking up more debt.

And sadly I never did end up leading a life like Lady Penelope. No blonde hair, no posh accent, certainly no manservant, and the only pink rolls I have are around my tummy. Oh well, perhaps in my next life?


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      And I quote...
    "Yes, sure the acting is a tad wooden..."
    - Amy Flower
      Review Equipment
    • DVD Player:
          Pioneer DV-535
    • TV:
          Sony 68cm
    • Speakers:
          Home Built
    • Surrounds:
          No Name
    • Audio Cables:
          Standard RCA
    • Video Cables:
          Standard Component RCA
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