Wednesday 29 February 2012

Season 16, Episode 8 Review: Thomas Toots the Crows


To think fans thought they had seen all of the worst episodes there would be, to feature animals, but today’s episode showed us that we shouldn’t think the writing for the series can’t go down to an all new low, for we saw just how low Thomas’ IQ really is in the CGI series, he was just meant to get the crows away from Farmer McColl’s fields, what does Thomas do, chase them round the whole island. Does any more need to be said?
 But as normal, the CGI was brilliant!  It was great seeing Henry pulling the new, very modern looking trucks, of which to me, look a lot like the rolling stock used today on British Rail by EWS, are they? And it was fantastic seeing that close up of Thomas’s wheels with the crows above in the sky, it reminded me very much of Nitrogen’s prototype poster for the 2014 Thomas film, (OF WHICH I CAN’T WAIT FOR!!!!!) The crows were brilliantly animated, and as normal, I can’t find any fault in the work done by Tiernan and his team.
The writing is another story, because today’s episode wasn’t, for it was the same old 3 strikes with Thomas. Please, can you make our number 1 engine smart again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! For as said before, it really hurts me within how much I love Thomas, to see him getting more and more air-headed by each episode.
But anyway, thanks for reading, hope you’ve enjoyed my review, AND I CAN’T FREAKING WAIT FOR BLUE MOUNTIAN MYSTERY!!!! But I’ll go into my feelings on what’s now been shown to us this weekend, but for now, goodbye!
Jacob

Tuesday 28 February 2012

Season 16, Episode 7 Review: Thomas and the Rubbish Train

I must admit, when I first read that this episode had been written by Andrew Viner, I was expecting it to be better than normal, for after writing the series 12 episode, Rosie’s Funfair Special, he reviled he was a fan of the Railway Series as a boy. But within the low standard Sharon Miller has for the series, today’s episode was just as terrible as usual. I don’t see why HiT hasn’t cancelled the series, and created a spin-off called Three Strikes with Thomas Time, to be shown on Channel 5 in the morning? for we wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Yes, the railway realism of a back engine is something not seen very much in the current version of the show, despite it once of course, being considered a very normal sight in Thomas, for everyone remembers Edward and Gordon from their childhood, and both of Viner’s episodes have revolved around bankers. But I couldn’t help but think how much this episode lacked in railway realism, for once again, the engines can decide what line the points are set to, and branch lines don’t normally lead back to the Main line, and for all Thomas knew, there might have been another train coming.
 What I have noticed in the past few episodes is that the term “freight truck” seems to be what they now say in the British version of the show. We of course all know why this is, for the American voices are recorded before the British ones, as part of caring more for the American market, and in the American Thomas, the troublesome trucks have always been referred to as freight cars. But why don’t the engines in the CGI series, just say car, for you can easily say truck over it, and why can’t Angelis just say truck? When I hear them say freight truck being said in the British version of the show, I’m made all the more aware that the series is now written with the American audience first in mind.
As normal, the CGI in today’s episode was brilliant, it’s such a shame that because of the controlling forces, a writer who grew up with Awdry’s original stories, and an animation team dedicated to all things Thomas, can’t together, give their full potential, and I’m sure many fans will agree with me in that, but there maybe a chance that in the better written future series, we can have another script from Mr. Viner, and if not, like the team at Nitrogen, I wish him all the best with whatever he does next.
Thanks of reading as normal,
Jacob

Monday 27 February 2012

Season 16, Episode 6 Review: Flash! Bang! Wallop!


If you were hoping for today’s episode to be a rewrite of the Railway Series story, We Need Another Engine, forget it, as soon as I heard the ominous words “I am Gordon, I’m fastest and best, and pull the express,” I knew we were getting the usual, despite today’s episode not being written by Sharon Miller. For it was the normal three strikes with Thomas, being his usual CGI self, for he was thinking only about being in the photographs, and not about anyone else or his job on hand. But it wasn’t Thomas’s fault that James and Percy were diverted into the sidings, it was the signalman’s, and also, having a train go past another at speed is very normal, for on most railways, if there are two lines running parallel, the second is for trains going in the opposite direction.

But enough about the script writing,  because for me, the animation in today’s episode was even better than usual, and showed all the more clearly how dedicated Nitrogen are to Thomas, for when James was being put back on the rails by Rocky, it almost looked just like the classic scene from Thomas and the Breakdown Train, and many of us fans were also reminded of Thomas, Percy and the Coal when seeing Percy having a similar incident to the one he had in the original episode we all know so well, but made to look different so not to make  it seem like Ms. Sandys Clarke had ripped off what is probably Christopher Awdry’s most loved Thomas story, (even though I’m sure most of the writing team  haven’t ever read or seen Thomas, Percy and the Coal, let alone any other Thomas story besides their own, and even they can’t remember it). But we all got a shock when seeing the photos of real engines inside the Fat Controller’s railway book, for there inside, along with a picture of a Beyer-Garratt 2-6-2+2-6-2, (a locomotive type that Greg Tiernan has admitted having a soft spot for) we saw Duck’s old friend, City of Truro.

Now, last week, Greg reviled that he thought it was for the best that Nitrogen’s contract with HiT ended, for they were worried if they couldn’t keep up to the same standard as before, which is fair enough, but what would you rather have in the director of Thomas? someone, who when having to insert two photos of real life locomotives into an episode, chooses one of his favourite locomotive types and a famous engine, known for appearing in one of the original stories we all know and love, or someone who thinks a train is just a train, and puts in 2 locomotives, not caring whether or not they are British, or if they have anything to do with Thomas’s rich, railway realistic past. In fact, that’s a good question to answer in your comments, if you were Greg Tiernan, which two engines would you have put in the Great Railways book? My two favourite locomotive classes are the Gresley A4s and the LB&SCR E2s (which of course is Thomas’s class) but within the A4s are present in the series throw Spencer, I would put in the real life Wilbert the Forest Engine and 60163 Tornado,  wonder what yours are going to be.

Thank you for reading, have a nice night, and if you are doing the same thing as me, happy reviewing!
Jacob

Friday 24 February 2012

Season 16, Episode 5 Review: Ho Ho Snowman


Since his introduction to the series, Charlie the purple fun engine has been greatly hated by many fans, who see him representing everything wrong with the series as it is, I of course don’t hate anything Thomas, but I have deeply asked myself question of what is Charlie’s purpose in the series? Besides being that of all the characters now, as a marketing tool. As everyone knows, most of the Thomas characters were original introduced with a reason for being on The Fat Controller’s railway, they would be given a function you would expect of a real railway engine, the engine was introduced to help in the yard, to work on the quarry tramway, to join another engine on his branch line, ect. Charlie was introduced to tell what he calls jokes, of which many think are more terrible than Christmas cracker jokes, written 50 years ago, by Bruce Forsyth. Despite what us fans think of him, Charlie has been one of Hit’s only characters to have been given as much attention to, just showing how lazy the writing of the show is.

But anyway, many of us could write a whole series on our problems with Charlie, onto what I actually thought of today’s episode. To think after hearing the first line of the episode, I felt really badly, as Sharon Miller would put it, for the episode started with Angelis saying; “On the Island of Sodor, it was wintertime,” when he should have said; “It was wintertime on the Island of Sodor,” he’s the greatest Thomas narrator of all time and you now have him saying lines like that, no wonder he’s no longer doing it in his old enthusiasm.
Moving on, we next see Thomas and Charlie shutting trucks on Gordon’s hill!!!!!!!!!!  We were less than 15 seconds in the episode, before seeing something totally against railway realism. The only positive about this episode was Thomas saying he didn’t like wearing his snow plough, for all the continuity errors in Hit’s version of the show, they can still at least maintain that.

To think today’s episode was based around one of HiT’s greatest, Henry the hypochondriac, the big green engine that was once grumpy, but good hearted, despite feeling sorry for himself when feeling ill in Awdry’s earliest stories, has since series 8, become more scared of everything, and more air-headed, yet, he’s now been given Edward’s old title of the wise old engine, he must have known it was someone pretending to be the snowman, and he must have seen Charlie in the siding, I’ve seen this in many other episodes recently, when one engine is hiding from one engine, behind another’s train, and why is the snowman there? Was it a trainspotter who was tired of having to wait by the siding, for an engine go by, (because he was trying to make his special special look extra special) that he built a whole snowman?

Then after the strikes take place, we see the scene when everything is made up. In it, we see all the engines at the sheds, instead of doing their jobs, and the only time we see Henry’s driver in the whole episode, which was when he opened Henry’s door, once again proving that the driver and fireman are just the human drowns that do the engine’s bidding, and when it happened, we heard the line; “Henry’s driver opened Henry’s door.” To think this whole act at Tidmouth Sheds alone shows how much the Thomas series now is just less than an eco of Awdry’s original work, as kids growing up with the classic Thomas series, we believed that these were talking trains, working on a real railway, and part of this was the clever language Awdry used when writing for the characters that we know and love. We usually hear of the children of today not getting the best schooling, or not being imaginative, and the fact that the modern day incarnation of the most loved children’s character of all time suffers from sleazy, repetitive writing is certainly not helping matters.

I’m very surprised in the fact that no parent, no so called processor of the welfare of children, or any of the people that have claimed over the past few years that Thomas is sexist, Enid Blyton was a racist, or Rastamouse is a stereo­type, hasn’t complained about the terrible grammar and the wrong messages being found in the current series, oh wait, those are the people that only criticize something deeply loved by both children and adults when they can find something in it that’s not there, the ones that never complain if there actually is something racist or inappropriate on television, only something that would get them 30 minutes of fame on The Matthew Wright Show. I was so happy last year when the anti-PC groups and the Awdry family themselves were expressing their anger at HiT referring to Christmas as the Winter holidays in the new episodes, saying it was the political correctness that the great man who gave us Thomas, would have despised, and it creates all the more friction towards the Muslim community in Britain, and as the anti-PC groups were saying, we should be telling our MPs or informing groups if we have a problem with what is considered good programming for children, and they’re right, complain if you think the writers of Thomas are sending messages like it’s alright to think badly of someone else because they’re different in how the steam engines have been towards the diesels in the last few series, or if you think it’s teaching kids bad grammar, for I remember when they were saying that about the Teletubies, (even though that was their way of speaking). You may think what’s the point in doing so? Sharon Miller’s now left, and who knows what’s  going to happen to HiT since it’s now been bought by Mattle, but at least we can make it that what HiT has done to Thomas and the current generation of children will be frowned on forever, and not just by the fan base.

Tuesday 21 February 2012

Thomas and Friends: The Complete Series 13 Special Edition DVD Review


Yes, I finally have it, I got in the post last week, and I thought as a break from reviewing series 16, I’ll do my first DVD review.

The DVD cover has a card cover over it, of which is made to look very similar to that of the Series 12 DVD, but with a front view of the full CGI Thomas, although, the front view picture of the old Thomas we all know and love with his CGI face, used on the last Complete Series DVD, is used as the picture on the side of the DVD Cover, I don’t know if they were meant to put the front view of the CGI Thomas on there or just as little thing to keep the models with us, I like to believe the latter.



The back of the DVD’s cover says of the brand new CGI animation and the new characters in the series, (even though Hiro, Victor and Kevin  were all introduced in Hero Of The Rails before hand) but it doesn’t give you a list of the episodes from the series, so if you don’t know what episodes are in Series 13, click here!

I take the card cover off and open the DVD to discover the disk itself, and the 2012 Take and Play character list, an excellent bonus if you ask me.


Of course, most of the episodes themselves were bad, just like in every other series made by HiT Entertainment, but of course, the CGI was brilliant.  Tickled Pink was great for it  was quite like Henry Sees Red, sort of like a sugar coated version of it I guess. The Trackmaster Thomas advert was a cracking extra, but apart from that, there are no other special features on the disk.

If you’re the huge lifelong Thomas collector like me, this will be a must have, despite how terrible most of the episodes are, but many will agree that’s it’s worth it for the brilliant CGI created by Nitrogen. It also makes a great present for kids, but prepare to put your fingers in your ears first Mum and Dad. But one of the greatest things about it for me, is it has subtitles, for I have several DVDs of series 13 in French that I bought last time I was on holiday, and now I can rip the episodes with English subtitles, and the audio off the French DVDs and put them together, they would be a great way of getting children to learn French, even though there’s no point in them doing so now, since we’re all going to be speaking Chinese in the future.


But anyway, that’s my review of The Complete Series 13 DVD, hope if you do buy it, you’ll get joy out of it, thank you very much and goodbye,
Jacob

Sunday 19 February 2012

Season 16, Episode 4 Review: Percy and The Monster Of Brendam

Yes, thank goodness it wasn’t a repeat of Percy’s Best Friends, but it was so predictable, I knew it was going to turn out to be Cranky all along, as I’m sure everyone else did.  To me, it felt like an extended version of one of the learning segments from the model series, of Percy trying to make out the things he sees when travelling throw the night, and I didn’t understand why he couldn’t make out what they obviously were in that. Not surprisingly, Edward, Henry and Toby were all acting totally out of character,  and Percy cared more about finding this monster than collecting his delivery and what trouble he’s causing, and just puts everything right at the end of the episode. So today’s episode was just another great textbook example of why we are glad Sharon Miller has now left the writing team.
But the episode was another textbook example of why we are deeply sorry that Nitrogen aren't continuing the animation for Thomas after this series, for today, we could clearly see that good old Greg has kept his promise, for we saw  the LMS 20T Brake Van on the back of Stanley’s train, and was that Toad behind Edward's????????!!!!!!!


We all know how devoted Tiernan and co. are to Thomas, the main man himself being a fan of The Railway Series since childhood, and a keen trainspotter, with a great passion for Thomas’s world, as that of  David Mitton before him, but we never see the team’s full potential, and it’s really such a shame that HiT probably don’t think as much of the people that  have helped make Thomas as appealing as he always has been to the current generation of children, growing up in a world of everything  being digital, along with one of many problems, and parents that want things to be as safe as possible for them, as the lazy head writer that could be replaced with anyone to get better scripts, even if  they weren’t a name from the show’s heyday.

As we all know, the series starts here in the UK tomorrow, and I have the series set to record so I can see them in better quality, (no offence to NWR1991, I’m sure none is taken) but one thing I did last year on the night before series 15 aired was get out my complete series 1 DVD, and remembered the Thomas of my childhood and the one of Awdry’s original vision, before a whole month of blasphemy in the latest series, and I suggest that idea to all fellow Thomas fans of the great island nation that gave him to the world, for HiT can made as many badly written episodes as they want,  but we can revist The Railway Series and Seasons 1 to 5 and remember our childhoods with our number one engine as much as we want.

Good night, and have a nice week,
Jacob

Saturday 18 February 2012

Season 16, Episode 3 Review: Express Coming Throw


In today’s episode, Thomas is given the job of taking Dowager Hatt and her gusts to a party at Knapford station, while showing them the sights of Sodor.
You know, yesterday I thought that Ms. Miller might have started making Thomas a bit more smarter, but oh no, in today’s striker, Thomas’s job was to get the passengers from A to B, what he’s meant to do normally, but he couldn’t even do that, he dedicated to leave Dowager Hatt’s gusts at the quarry, and at a field, surely if he had gone on with them inside the express coaches, he would have proven to them that he could pull them.
Also in today’s episode, we also saw Gordon acting the same way he has been for the whole CGI series, once again, we had all this “I’m Gordon, I’m fastest and best, and pull the express,” why?  Gordon has already established himself as thinking he’s the finest and strongest engine on Sodor, that’s what we’ve always known about Gordon, but it’s just been a character assassination in the past few series and to think we had a whole episode of him saying how good he is in Gordon and Ferdinand.
 It’s shameful that within the fact that Thomas is aimed at children, it’s felt that you can just copy and paste, why? When it was Awdry himself, being dedicated to making his stories, which are second nature to us, entertaining for both children and adults, that was a great part of the formula that made Thomas and his friends the great success that they are in the first place. But did Sharon Miller care when writing her episodes, no, at the end of the day, she was laughing because she was being paid by the biggest children’s programming company in the world, what did she care about the children watching it, nothing. Many fans have wished her the best for the future, despite our feelings on her writing, but I don’t. Thomas means a lot to me and to all the many others here on the World Wide Web, and to the poor children of today. Yes, she shouldn’t take all the blame for all what’s happened to Thomas, but still, if you’re reading Ms. Miller, I hope you never work in children’s television again, let alone write for any other show again. If the writers of Peppa Pig and Chuggington can write scripts that are not half bad, why can’t you? I suppose I’m maybe being a little too harsh, for you aren’t reading this review because you would be in shock to see good writing, yeah, ok, I only got a B in my English at school and like a lot of people, I don’t claim to be the best when it comes to grammar, but I’ve probably put more thought into this review than you did into the actual episode.

Friday 17 February 2012

Season 16, Episode 2 Review: Ol’ Wheezy Wobbles


In today’s episode, It’s a bad day on Misty Island, for Ol’ Wheezy the crane has stopped working, but Thomas is sure he can help back from Sodor. That’s riiiiiiight!!!!!!!!!!!
First of all, it’s good that after 3 series since Misty Island Rescue, the Logging Locos, along with Ol’ Wheezy and Hee-Haw, are still with us, unlike most of the characters HiT have introduced in their time with Thomas, for as we know, some haven’t appeared since the episode they were introduced. Many fans are also glad to hear Ferdinand say a lot more than just his catchphrase, and there wasn’t very many awfully written sentences in this episode, are us fans finally being listened to? Well, today, we didn’t have a three strikes and you’re out episode, oh no, we had a FOUR strikes and you’re out episode, and surprise, surprise, the lead tank engine was engine X.

Within how much I love Thomas, it really hurts me to see our number one engine being the central role in almost every episode of HiT’s version of the show, for it’s always the same lazy plotline, if you don’t know what the three strike rule is, it’s this: Engine X does something, does it again and again, and then learns what he’s done wrong, but then repeats the same mistake in the next episode. At least it wasn’t also focused on something sugar coated that had nothing to do with normal railway operation, and at least Thomas did listen to what Den and Dart wanted, dispite thinking what we all were, in why did Den and Dart need each other? And why when one went off with Thomas, the other half of the Dieselworks duo couldn’t chase after them? Not to mention the fact that it was the engine drivers who were trying to fix Ol’ Wheezy, I think one fan put it best for me today, for he said the engine crews are just the engines’ hands now, they only come into the story when the engine wants something doing that they can’t do themselves, one of the many things that makes the CGI Thomas series an eco of Awdry’s original stories.
But as normal the CGI itself as brilliant, to think the dedicated team at Nitrogen always try to make their work on the show the standard Thomas deserves, it’s such a shame that this series is their last, why couldn’t HiT start a new contract with them instead of giving it to another animation company? For they work much harder than the writing team, and yes, Sharon Miller is leaving to, thank goodness, but it will probably never be the case that we see their wonderful animation with a good story.

Over all, this episode was a 3 striker, but with a few little differences from normal, it’s like a naughty engine with his whistle painted in a different yellow, but anyway, let’s just wait now for Express Coming Through, though something tells me it will once again be Sharon Miller’s famous (for the wrong reasons) formula.


But still, take care of yourselves fellow Thomas fans, and your trains, good night!  

Thursday 16 February 2012

Season 16, Episode 1 Review: Race to the Rescue


I’m sure I’m not going to be the only Thomas fan whose going to be reviewing series 16 as a series of reviews on every episode, after SIF doing so last year, but I thought I might as well cast my views on it to, and realised that it could go towards a project I’m doing, and if out of all the ones there are, you’ve chose this one,   thank you very much, and happy reading!
In today’s episode, Flynn the recently introduced fire engine on the island of Sodor, has been fixed so he can travel on both on roads and rails, and see what action he takes when the Fat Controller’s shed is on fire. In an honest opinion, compared to most of HiT’s episodes , this one was ok, it had a great selection of characters that have been in  the CGI series so far, for we saw Thomas, James, Gordon, Bertie, Mavis, Butch, Rocky, Rosie, Victor, Kevin, Hiro, Charlie and Scruff, all in the episode. We finally saw Flynn where many thing he should be, on the road. The story itself was different from the usual three strike storyline, and no rhyming!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think Flynn is presented in a lot more better way in this episode than he was in the episode given to him in the last series, that that made all those who love Thomas go insane (I still hear the line; "his firebox was on fire," before waking up screaming), throw he did disobey Rocky’s orders by going on the rails instead of the road, but many would have seen it as more logical going by railway, for the speed limit on an average railway line in Britain is more likely to be higher than on any type of road, but I think Flynn seems to be caring just as much about being called a big red wobble on wheels as the Fat Controller’s shed, and I think within the fact the Fat Controller tells him off for using the rails is the big difference between this episode and Fiery Flynn.

Thoughts on Flynn on the road, well, as many have asked since Flynn’s arrival in the series, what happened to the fire engines introduced back in series 5? I mean, it’s actually better having Flynn on the railway and the Sodor fire engines of old on the roads, for they could get to fires that the other couldn’t. But why did Flynn have go away after getting to the Fat Controller’s shed to come back again on the road? He was already there, and Belle could put out a fire from the rails when the same thing happened to the same shed in Day Of The Diesels, and in that, why couldn’t something different be on fire, as long as it’s not an engine’s firebox!!!!!!!!!!!!
 

But I must admit it was nice to have an episode focusing equally on both the rail and road characters on Sodor, something that’s not normal of HiT to do, it’s good to remember that there is more than just the railway on Sodor, as us who grew up with the classic Thomas remember all too well, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one of them to be reminded of Better Late Than Never when seeing Bertie at a level crossing, with his radiator steaming. It was great seeing Butch being given a speaking role in this episode, after getting his first ever speaking roll in the last series, after 15 years of being on the show, I hope there’s more coming for him, and yes, I found it ironic that Butch, being Sodor’s breakdown vehicle, needed a tow!

But anyway, it was better than the usual lazy writing we expect from Ms. Miller, let’s hope tomorrow’s is of the same standard, but my advice is don’t have you’re hopes up.