TV: 'Thunderbirds Are Go' - 'Fireflash'

It perhaps says something when you have to start crediting the creators of the original series for the basis of your script.  The episode - the best so far - mashes up original pilot Trapped In The Sky and its sequel Operation Crash Dive, with reference to Alias Mr Hackenbacker (that episode only hinted they were going to land in the desert) and the 1966 Thunderbirds Are Go feature film (someone whom the Hood is disguised as is found in storage).  Speaking of the Hood, this brings his disguising up-to-date by replacing masks with holographic technology.  There is also an interesting twist on the Elevator Car climax to Trapped In The Sky (played out in a near Star Trek Into Darkness-ish homage with the score taking its cue from Barry Gray) in that the rescue attempt fails and it looks as though the new Tin Tin is willing to basically end up killing everyone in order to... save the day.  Despite the miniaturisation problems and the set design still looking like a cheap parody as opposed to the real thing, this is the most mature this remake has been yet.

TV: Thunderbirds Are Go - 'Space Race'

Putting this turbocharged rebranding of 'Thunderbirds' on a Saturday morning at 8am seems like a sensible idea, but ITV showed how much they actually cared by starting it on two minutes early.  Anyone coming late might well have missed the pre-title sequence but those fortunate enough to tune in beforehand would have found Alan Tracy piloting Thunderbird 3 - the once seemingly massive rocket of uncertain colour (was it red or was it orange? Now it's definitively red) now reduced to the aesthetic and maneuverability of a Micro Machine - in space, where he happens upon a space mine left over from the "global conflict" of 2040 (yeah, because 6-11 year olds aren't allowed to know about World Wars 1 and 2).  The mine activates and chases TB3 around with a countdown to detonation and Alan has to wait while Lady Penelope and Parker (along with Lady P's pet pug, Sherbert) have to infiltrate an underground facility to retrieve the deactivation code.  Sounds like several redrafts from Move And You're Dead.  Oh, and Alan now has a space-surf board - might as well give him an oxygen pill instead of a space suit and be done with it.

More digestible than the double-length debut, this shows little sign of improvement (John Tracy - ironically - is the least annoying thing in it) but one can only complain that it's less mature than the 2005 remake of Captain Scarlet as that show's original was darker and took itself more seriously than the original Thunderbirds.  The CGI characters here though does look cheaper but while it's not entirely awful, the fact that the cast can now walk - and Parker can now perform some videogame stunts - is not something to be proud of.  The idea that "fast = good" and "retroactively old = old" is a baffling one and the plot described earlier is pretty much all that happens and it's over before you know it.  What is also curious is the idea that this reboot be aimed at a specific age group, whereas - correct me if I'm wrong here - Anderson aimed for a family audience and not just children.  It's fairly innocuous stuff.

TV: 'Thunderbirds Are Go': "Ring Of Fire"

 

 

In an era in which popular children's programmes from the last century are now being recreated for the digital age courtesy of CGI - Noddy, Thomas The Tank Engine & Friends, and soon The Wombles - Thunderbirds Are Go is the latest reboot of a cult Science Fiction franchise to have been revived and in the process potentially leaving a bad taste in the mouths of certain sections of the originals' fans.  Whovians and Trekkies can complain that the Doctor Who continuation and JJ Abrams' Star Trek rewrite is too fast paced and the Star Wars prequels might well have reduced the apparently sacred SF saga to a "jumped-up fireworks display of a toy advert".  These claims can be made against this latest do-over.  Arriving ten years after Gerry Anderson's own CGI remake of Captain Scarlet was shafted by ITV scheduling and put in Saturday morning's Ministry Of Mayhem (which, as one forum user at the time said, would be like the BBC putting Doctor Who in Dick n' Dom inda Bungalow), this Thunderbirds has been given near the same attention given Who's return in 2005 but denied to Scarlet.

The highest praise that Gerry Anderson's indestructible 1965-1966 original could possibly received came when Lew Grade interrupted a screening of the half-hour pilot Trapped In The Sky and declared "Gerry, this isn't a television series! This is a feature film!" and subsequently, the serial running time was bumped up to fifty minutes.  The absolute worst thing that can be said about Thunderbirds Are Go is that it wouldn't look out of place on Ministry Of Mayhem.  It's next episode has also been scheduled for 8am on a Saturday.  Rather than resembling a feature film and being plotted with something that might resemble a story (besides a partial remake of the original's Lord Parker's 'Oliday), this shows' editing suggested that some snorting of sugary substances and injecting of Red Bull had been taking place behind the scenes, tailoring the programme for kids that apparently can't sit still.  Things happen very, very fast and you don't remember nor indeed really care most of the time what was just said (a lot of it is technobabble now).  Besides the use of the iconic march in what passes for a title sequence (they might as well have used the Busted song instead), the score is less Barry Gray and more Murray Gold, except that Gold's work at least has its fans.  The model work barely registers and in some cases resembles both a model railway (insert tabloidy "more Island of Sodor than Tracy Island" gag here though the actual island was okay-ish) and a Playmobil set.  The CGI Thunderbird 2 appears - ironically - light-weight.  Gone also from the narrative is, somewhat depressingly, Jeff Tracy, thanks to an apparent act of the Hood (seemingly now fused with his Thunderbird 6 doppleganger, the Black Phantom) but Peter Dyneley's voice-over countdown is brought back from beyond the grave for both the titles and the launch sequences.  All of them.  Never would any fan have thought that one day they'd be asking Jeff Tracy to STFU.  Plus, Thunderbirds 1 and 2's launch sequences are shown twice in this double-length episode.

That is not to say that there isn't any innovation or vague interest.  The tele-video screens with which the characters used to communicate are now replaced by holograms (the date is now firmly stated out loud as being in 2060) and John Tracy now floats around the orbital Thunderbird 5 looking at a great big holographic globe rather than stand around waiting for the tape reels to start recording.  A couple of elements lifted from the ill-fated 2004 live-action movie (please Hollywood, it's not too late for a cinematic reboot) are FAB1 taking off into the air (originally it only happened in a dream sequence) and the subject being brought up of Tin Tin's (now Kayo's) family tie to arch villain the Hood who, Capaldian eyebrows aside, is now not the least bit scary and is now more clearly known to International Rescue than he had been previously.  The idea of "Kayo's" [mother?] coming in to save her with a small army also raises some interest, as do the references to "Global Defence" and the connections the Tracys have with it and the "World Council".  In the end, "Kayo" is awarded her own "Thunderbird S", the "S" standing for "shadow".  Why couldn't it have stood for "six"? 

The potential "Kayo subplot" might bring this series some merit but what it really needs is the Anderson touch.  There is no sense of authorship here and thankfully, the work of the next generation in the form of Jamie Anderson and his efforts show there might be hope for future yet.  Early on in the episode there is an amusing Stingray joke where John muses that he going to miss his favourite show.  One sympathises.

Film: The SpongeBob Movie - Sponge Out Of Water (2015)

DIRECTOR: Paul Tibbitt (also Story)
WRITERS: Glen Berger, Jonathan Aibel, Stephen Hillenburg (Story)

On paper, the plot sounds like many a draft after the finished screenplay for the 2004 feature length spinoff of the now nearly sixteen-year-old Nickelodeon cartoon.  In the former picture, Mr. Krabs was framed for the theft of King Neptune's crown and SpongeBob and starfish Patrick set off on a quest to retrieve it while arch villain and rival fast-food restaurateur Plankton took over Bikini Bottom via mind control and had an idol made in his image.  In this new film, Plankton is accused of stealing Krabs' secret formula for the popular Krabby Patty burger and while civilisation undergoes an apocalyptic makeover, SpongeBob sets off to proves Plankton's innocence and takes him along with him.  What really happened was that the formula mysteriously vanished, stolen by live-action character, pirate Burger Beard (Antonio Banderas), who is in possession of a book that helps him write out the film's narrative and thus control the diegesis.  He retrieves this book in the film's opening sequence in a kind-of Indiana Jones pastiche which sees him confront a Harryhausen-esque skeleton that out-creeps the undead crew in Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl (2003).

The laughs come as soon as the BBFC card preceding the film warns the audience that the U-rated feature contains "toilet humour" (cue a scared seagull farting and then crapping itself).  Reining in the Redbull-infused kinetics of the previous feature (here all channelled into a surrealist sequence in which Plankton physically climbs into SpongeBob's psyche which draws a comparisons with Magic Roundabout spin-off Dougal And The Bluecat) , this is something of a refreshing change from the usual slew of CG animations albeit enhanced in 3D, which gives the "hand-drawn" sequences a ViewMaster effect, if only to make up for the lack of the novelty CGI employed when the principal characters end up on human shores in the film's climax.  Here, they use magic to make themselves into Avengers-style superheroes for a team-up against Burger Beard in a beach town. 

Any accompanying adults who might at times find their patience tested by the 92 minute running time will find just about enough gags (verbal and visual) to keep them as entertained as the principal audience (perhaps even more so) in the latest family film that really can be not just for the very young, joining the likes of The Lego Movie, Muppets Most Wanted (2014) and Wreck-It-Ralph (2012) to some extent.  As with Lego and (at least a couple of times) Wreck-It, the humour is nearly at Aardman level (pun ahoy!) and makes reference to both Stanley Kubrick and Douglas Adams.

Along with the customary (but otherwise televisual) "hand-drawn" segments and CG "live-action" takes on the SpongeBob cast, the film also features very good photo-realistic digital animal work, namely with Beard's "crew" of card-playing seagulls as well as Sandy Cheeks' (a talking squirrel) "live-action" form, who gets to spit nuts like a machine gun. 

Film: 'The Divergent Series: Insurgent' (2015)

Director: Robert Schwentke
Writers: Brian Duffield, Akiva Goldsman, Mark Bomback (based on the novel by Veronica Noth)

Whereas The Hunger Games film series took two sequels to get to its own Empire Strikes Back, this technically "middle chapter" of the dystopian* YA fiction with an oh-so subtle allegory about not fitting in is both darker and danker than the predecessor, opening with its own "Battle of Hoth" (or rather, Amity) which sees our heroes-in-hiding.  Meanwhile, arch-villainess Jeanine (Kate Winslet, one of whose earliest roles was as an SF heroine in the BBC serial Dark Season) is on a Vader-like hunt that sees Divergent experiment subjects (or at least one onscreen) die like force-throttled Imperial officers while occasionally, the score audibly honks with portent.  The film's climax event even takes places within shiny white corridors and there is a game-changing (but not particularly earth-shattering in this instance) revelation.  But while the honking might be comparable to an ocean liner (cf. Mark Kermode's review of Shutter Island), it's not an disaster that awaits our heroes (there is neither an iceberg nor any loss of limbs or parental plot twists), but rather the audience as the film's ethics walk off a ledge.  This is a film in which our "heroine" wants to kill the villain (wow, great role model) but then later says the killing has to stop - all the while fisticuffs are traded, noses are bloodied, people are shot, and bodies are thrown off trains (remember the gag on Family Guy about Brian supporting the death penalty to show that killing is wrong?).  There are two occasions in which those whose side we are supposedly on shoot unarmed enemy prisoners at point-blank range.  The end credits trade in Ellie Goulding for a song entitled "Blood Hands" - at least ending on "Starry Eyed" would have been funny.

*a dystopia where fugitives can still apply eyeliner and hair bleach.  Plus, Tris' haircut doesn't help any digs that this is essentially Hunger Games-lite by evoking Jennifer Lawrence's pixie do.

There is some visually interesting images, aided by the 90% useless "converted 3D", in which simulated buildings crumble apart but the panning shots are a blur (and it fails to bring any dimension whatsoever to Theo James' Four).  The virtual reality dreams from the first instalment play a bigger role here, with post-Matrix (you die in the game, you die for real), post-Inception (crumbling buildings and a surreal-twist on a realistic environment with a flying building replacing Inception's folding Paris) video game sequences that Tris has to play through (foreshadowed by real dreams).  There is even a Trial Of A Time Lord-ish concept on going into a virtual reality to combat the incarnation of your dark side, mixed with other Doctor Who "dream" story in which his self-hatred is made manifest in Amy Choice.  At least the games Katniss faced took place in the "real" world.  About two set pieces are undermined by a retro-spoilerific trailer and viewers can play a game of "guess if it's a dream or not" and score points in almost all cases.  This is also a film which seems to champion brains over brawn - the erudite (i.e. learned) Caleb is useless in the battlefield, comic relief and ultimately a [spoiler removed].  He's also one of the best-dressed characters.  Whereas Empire taught its protagonist that violence isn't fun and ended on a cliffhanger and its protagonist mutilated, this film is seemingly optimistic in its conclusion and quite a right place to end the story, despite our heroes having blood on their hands and the film having arsewipe on its morals.  Still, at least after an innocent person is mind-controlled into suicide, our very sad protagonist gets to shag her bland boyfriend.  Every cloud, eh?

Film: 'Frozen Fever'/'Cinderella' (2015)

'Frozen Fever' (2015)

Director: Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee
Story: Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee, Mark E. Smith

Perhaps the most anticipated Disney short of the 21st century, this seemingly inconsequential addition to the extremely well-legged "Classic" (besides Kristoff letting slip his love for Anna) concerns Anna's birthday celebration and Elsa having a cold which manages to magically create miniature snowmen every time she sneezes.  These are eventually taken under the wind of Olaf, who gets to have some of Anna's ice cream birthday cake.  Despite the animation not seeming quite as well done as the premiere feature seemed (maybe a 3D viewing would have proved beneficial) and the vaguely depressing notion that Olaf's overhanging snow cloud that keeps him from melting is essentially life-support machine, this is a charmingly illustrated product.

'Cinderella' (2015)

Director: Kenneth Branagh
Writer: Chris Weitz (based on Disney's Cinderella properties and the fairy tale by Charles Perrault)

*Possible spoilers*

"Product" being the word that is easy to label this new instalment in Disney's cash-in phase - not only does it credit the source being Charles Perrault's fairy tale but also the 1949 film's "properties".  Wow.  Having seemingly done with the run of straight-to-video sequels, the company now visits their Vault with a new method to making money off of the more sacred entries in their animated canon and anyone disappointed by the revisionism of Maleficent (2014) can understandably approach this remake with low expectations.  This time though, the reinventing route of screenwriter Linda Wolverton (Maleficent and 2010's Alice In Wonderland) is put aside in favour of a much more straight-up re-enactment, courtesy of Chris Weitz (and unlike 2007's fantasy flop The Golden Compass, this actually retains the source material's ending).  Here, it is neither a sequel (Alice In Wonderland), nor a revision (Maleficent) but something more akin to a Shakespeare play being performed by the same company via pantomime (and it doesn't get much more pantomime than new fairy godmother Helena Bonham Carter).

The remake largely discarding the original's songs, relegating "Bippity Boppity Boo" (performed by Bonham Carter) and "A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes" (Lily James) to the end credits, much in the manner of "Once Upon a Dream" in Maleficent (after all, Disney does have a soundtrack album to sell).  It also tones down the anthropomorphism of the mice, reducing their sped-up voices to incoherent babbling and taking away their clothes.  The digital work on the mice isn't perfect but it's better than whatever was done to depict Bonham Carter's fairy godmother as a decrepit (it's AWFUL).  Gone also are the Tom & Jerry antics between the mice and pet cat Lucifer.  What we do have is more of a backstory (given in the original as narrated exposition) in which we meet Cinderella's parents prior to her mother's U-rated illness and death.  The creation of Cinderella's original dress (aided by the mice) is now reduced to being part of a montage and the motivation behind it's humiliating tearing is now snobbery rather than because the step sisters recognised elements of their own property being seemingly misappropriated. 

The love story is also much closer to the "meeting of two people in the right circumstances" that was digged at in the original, sixty-four years before Frozen (2013) questioned the marital pairing of people who had only met that night.  Here, our heroine meets her future bae after she runs away from home on a real-life horse and he is out hunting a poorly-rendered stag.  They circle each other on horseback and it's quite obvious she desires congress.

As a singular self-contained entity, it is quite an efficient entertainment with beautiful scenery (a glimpse of what the inevitable live-action Frozen might look like) and an extremely well-detailed palace.  It's a grottier portrayal of the time and place than the original, but not quite as darkly designed as the Cinderella segments of Disney's recent musical fairy tale assembling Into The Woods (2014).  The morbid humour in that film cannot be found here - the step-sisters don't hack off parts of their feet in order to make the glass slipper fit and neither are they blinded by birds.  Also, in this remake, the sisters are "fairer" on the outside than perhaps usually expected of an adaptation while their "ugliness" is internal.  The stepmother is now re-MILFed by Cate Blanchett who - in an interesting tinkering with the third act - tries to use Cinderella's one slipper as a key to gaining power in the kingdom.

The film also takes advantage of the physically three-dimensional characters by making them more human than their hand-drawn predecessors.  Lily James's (Fast Girls, 2012) Cinderella breaking down (breaking some crockery in the process) elicits genuine sympathy while the stepmother is allowed a tear for the passing of her husband - although whether it's from grief or from fear of financial ruin is unclear.  The stepfamily's poverty is a key point and they are permitted redemption at the end - the sisters seemingly repent while the mother is shown grace.

Digital mice aside (and Bonham Carter's appearance may be sniffed by some as stock casting), it's a fine companion piece and essentially enjoyable by itself (it might have been fruitful to filter out the original's references).  2017's Beauty And The Beast will have some of its own original's fans to convince though.

My Picks of "New" Who Stories (2005-2014)

On 26th March 2005, Doctor Who returned to television as a regular series after a near-absence of nearly sixteen years, barring the 1996 TV movie (a significant point in the show's history as a franchise) and the odd sketch.  Show-run by Russell T. Davies, it starred Christopher Eccleston in the role of the Ninth Doctor for one series before he regenerated into David Tennant and a legend was reborn.  The series has carried on the tradition of occasionally renewing itself and its various features, be they Doctors, companions, theme arrangement, TARDIS control room, Daleks and Cybermen.

Tomorrow, I shall blog on some highlights from across the revival up to the end of 2014 but in the meantime, here are some of my picks of the stories from 2005 onwards.

THE DAY OF THE DOCTOR (2013)

Recently voted the favourite all-time story by readers of Doctor Who Magazine - even beating The Caves Of Androzani (1984) - this is pretty much "New Who"'s own The Five Doctors (1983).  The 1995 Special Edition of 20th anniversary special was my full-on introduction to the series.  It works pretty well as a stand-alone (well enough to convince someone in their pre-teens of the series' value) although the original cut is slightly clunky when watched as part of a broadcast-ordered marathon.

The Day Of The Doctor was a 3D 75-minuter which garnered a theatrical release (winning a place in the UK Box Office Top 10) and pays off an arc that tailed off with the departure of David Tennant (the Time War) and paid off a mystery teased in the Series 7 finale, The Name Of The Doctor (2013) - that of a previously unseen Doctor (John Hurt).  Had there not been a surprise cameo by impending Doctor Peter Capaldi, this would have served as a satisfactory finale to the series as a whole and a good point to end it indefinitely again.  If one watches this at the end of a run through everything since 1963, it might seem like everything had been building up to the scene in which every Doctor returns (albeit thanks to stock-footage and someone impersonating the voice of William Hartnell) to save the day.  It ends on a positive note with an optimistic reversal of the original premise of the Doctor being an intergalactic exile.

Besides the perhaps obvious use of the Daleks (courtesy of the Time War), the special also amusingly revived the Zygons (did Moffat have a hat with some pieces of paper in it?) for a long-non-awaited sequel to Terror Of The Zygons (1976) which seemingly ended in an apparent path to peace with the human race. 

A Doctor-team up had previously occurred in the Children-in-Need skit Time Crash (2007) and, sort-of-but-not-quite in the festive special The Next Doctor (2008) but this is the first instance of "New Who" (a division which I hope to drop this week) has carried on in the tradition of teaming up Doctors during the anniversary year with particular resemblance to The Three Doctors (1972-1973).  It perhaps suggests the best team-ups are at least two at once - Tennant and Smith work well together (it also serves as a bonus David Tennant story) while Hurt is more of a supporting role.  It's a bit of a pity that Eccleston could not join the line-up and than McGann could not have been an alternative fill-in to make the link between "old and new" but Hurt's Doctor works in bringing back some mystery and brought some new mythology not only to the show, but to the Doctor.


THE ANGELS TAKE MANHATTAN (2012)

Some of those who know me probably know about my thing for Karen Gillan and this was the official final episode with Amy Pond (barring a hallucinogenic cameo in Matt Smith's send-off).  The "mid-season" finale ending a set of stand-alone episodes (which had no relation to the Silence arc of Series 6 and set-up the future mystery of Clara Oswald), this is arguably the bleakest episode since The Caves Of Androzani, both in tone and (at one or two points) in the score and has two beloved characters making the ultimate sacrifice in order to defeat New Classic monsters, the Weeping Angels.  Reminiscent of Rose Tyler's departure in Army Of Ghosts/Doomsday (2006), it sends the characters off to an apparent point of no-return, thanks to the power of wibbly-wobbly-timey-whimey (which fans have tried to work their way around).

BLINK (2007)

A fan favourite, this is basically the "Gospel tract" of Doctor Who.  A "Doctor-lite" episode with more supportive appearances from David Tennant and Freema Agyeman as companion Martha Jones, this is very much from the point-of-view of one of the best-companions-never, Sally Sparrow (Cary Mulligan).  Watched again as part of a marathon, it also comes across as a prototype Matt Smith episode (thanks to some music that would be used in an Eleventh Doctor computer game and only recognised on a subsequent viewing).  It has a hint of the future "dark fairy tale" tone that Moffat would use for Smith's first series.  It begins with our heroine breaking into an abandoned house, has her battling against living stone angels and concludes with the implication that the monsters can be found around us in our everyday surroundings.  The go-to episode for winning a convert to the series (at least from the "revived" lot).

LISTEN (2014)

Steven Moffat's second Blink.  It sets up a mystery that turns out to what might be nothing at all, this is one of the best directed episodes of the revival.  Going from a child's bedroom in the past to a lonely time-travelling astronaut at the end of the universe (before concluding in the childhood bedroom of a lonely time-traveller), it has the kind-of "domestic horror" (i.e. bringing it into the home) that I'd like to see more of in the future and can be seen in earlier serials such as Terror Of The Autons (1971) and Survival (1989), whilst also returning to the "dark fairy tale" not seen for about four years.  If Blink has a monster at the end of the garden, this has the monster under the bed.