[Okay so what if the plot of Gerry Anderson and the one who Mr. Franks came up isn't the same ? I mean, it is a good movie. It could be better when they stick with the plot that Gerry Anderson made, but still it's good.]
Yes, it IS a good, fun and enjoyable film on its own merits; I very much agree with you there. However, the "plot" becomes of issue when you look at the fact that the rest of the Tracys---the real heroes---never get to do anything they are supposed to do, outside of the oil rig rescue during the first 15 minutes of the movie. THAT'S the problem. Alan is a brat in the series, so yeah, he's depicted as a brat in this film as well. I don't think that anyone has a problem with that, other than the fact that fans of the series didn't appreciate their heroes being de-aged to a point where it became ridiculous to believe that they could actually function as International Rescue. The original script written for the film back in the mid-1990s (the Karey Kirkpatrick script) also had a plot which featured a bratty, spoiled Alan causing problems for poor ol' Jeff, but he was 19 or 20 in that story and IR is basically the same as featured in the series, with adult Tracy brothers making the conscious decision to put their lives on the line. That's not what we get in this film, and if you sit and analyze it too much, what we've got here is a Jeff Tracy who should have been arrested for child endangerment years ago. (The mining rescue alluded to indicates that he took his mid-teen sons into a fiery mining disaster to perform rescue work, which makes absolutely no sense). It's this sort of nonsense with which fans of the original series take issue.
[What do you think that authors do ? I use the tv show TinTin in my fics that she haves teh same powers. And want about the Thunderbirds RPG ? There are some sites where they play that Alan isn't a brath and everything is difrent.]
What fan fiction authors choose to do is hardly relevent, though. I've read a few things out there which are so far removed from "Thunderbirds" that I've wondered why they bothered to even use the characters' names! Vampire Tracy boys? Alien Tracy boys? Werewolf Tracy boys?! And nary a rescue in sight in the vast majority of them! That's not "Thunderbirds"---it's "Dark Shadows" or the "Twilight Zone!"
[But back to the movie. Does it matter that the tv show and the movie aren't the same ? If i was a kid that was 5 year old, i never knew about the old thunderbirds show and i would be in wonderworld if i knew that there are heroes out there with those crafts. Kids have wild imagenation so let them have it.]
Yes, it DOES matter to a lot of fans that key elements of the film are a major departure from the series, and for good reason. It's a common phenomenon that when films are adapted from other sources, some "suit" along the way figures that he/she can tweak it to "make it better" or to appeal to a broader audience, and, inevitably, it raises the ire of those who followed the original work. "Suits" are almost always WRONG and they are too stupid to know it until they get a box office flop on their hands. And, thanks to their stupidity, they ruined what could have been a brilliant and lengthy film franchise.
The real question is: Does the above make "Thunderbirds" a bad film? NO. It's actually quite a lot of fun---IF you can divorce it from all of the things that the fans of the series had dreamed that it could be. The trouble here is that the first 20-25 minutes or so proves what a great "Thunderbirds" film franchise it could have been. The oil rig rescue is FANTASTIC, with realistic-looking Thunderbirds 1 and 2, exciting rescue action and believable portrayals of the Tracy family. The only thing that spoils it for me is knowing that we were robbed of the footage of Virgil piloting Thunderbird 2, which the idiots at Universal could have had the decency to add to the bonus material, since they stupidly opted to edit it out! (Who wouldn't want more of Dominic? What were they thinking)?!!!
I know it's annoying to see the clueless knock this film again and again, believe me. I'm a long-time fan of the series and I wasn't very pleased with most of the film the first time I saw it. However, I was willing to give it a chance to grow on me, and the second time I saw it, it was with an audience filled with small children. The absolute joy with which they accepted these heroes and their great ships was infectious, as was their cheering and excited gasps during the screening. That's when I accepted that this is THEIR "Thunderbirds," just as the original series fascinated me and my friends as kids. So it's OK that they love it and, hopefully, it will inspire them in the same ways that the series has inspired generations of fans before them.
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