thunderbirds are go

Is that the Konami model? They are beautiful, aren't they? Skydiver and Sky1 are just a perfect semi-metallic Olive Green... Konami make some astounding models, the Aliens ones are even better.

Wulf

That's quite true, it was aimed primarily at the US and the characters were American for that reason. As I recall TB's was also shot in colour when there were no colour TV's in the UK but there were in the US (I think Stingray followed TB's, TB's was the first to be filmed in colour) but it still did not help it sell in the US, even in b/w it was still a much bigger hit here than in colour there.

Excellent point, the models WERE real, so when you watch it you know what you're seeing actually existed, it was a testament to the model makers art that they could produce varying sizes of model for whatever effect they were after. I know they had all sorts of problems with the pyros until they called in a fireworks expert who got them to look realistic, and actually work without setting the set on fire! It always tickled me that when TB2 took off the clouds were parallel with the a/c and as the a/c levelled off so did the clouds! I have a sneaky feeling the a/c was horizontal and it was the camera that "levelled off" :-) With today's CGI when you watch it you know it's clever but, ultimately, not real.

Steve

In article , "Steve H" > targeted at the US market, especially the Thunderbirds. The UK was not

It was the other way around - Stingray came before Thrunderbirds and was the first British TV series to be filmed in colour. Thunderbirds on the other hand was the first GA series to be an hour long. The Thunderbirds pilot was shot as a half hour show but then Lew Grade and ITC decided they should add extra scenes and elongate it to an hour. Unfortunatley, that kind of killed it as a kids TV show in the USA as an hour was a long time to expect kids to stay tuned.

I can also remember an article in FSM around 1992 where a guy scratch-built a beautiful TB-1 and FSM's editorial caption said something about a Thunderbirds being a "short lived, long forgotton TV show" - which always amused me because (A) it was anything but short lived (it ran for two seasons and two popular feature films) and (B) it had remained the most popular of GA's show for decades (especially in the UK and Japan) and was currently (in 92) going through a massive ressaissance with a whole new generation thanks to the BBC buying the rights and screening the shows on a Friday tea-time slot.

Quite!

My mistake, it was one or the other! FWIW, I still have the 7" vinyl single of the theme from Fireball XL5, probably worth something these days. IIRC, the "XL" part came from Castrol XL engine oil, GA liked the "XL" designation and used it for Fireball.

I can recall watching TB when it was transmitted originally, Sunday afternoons as I recall. Even as a 10 yr old I had no problem maintaining interest for an hour (inc the adverts!), what, exactly, was it that made the US think their children couldn't manage to maintain interest for an hour?

Steve

I remember that too, the modeller was from IPMS Barnet IIRC (Greek sounding name)and he's still building large scale SF stuff. I could be wrong of course, it may have been an American modeller being, as it was, FSM. I still have Comet Miniatures TB1 sitting up in the loft, I guess now would be as good a time as any to dig it out and finish it!

As you say Jon, it was anything BUT short lived and certainly not forgotton, as this thread well proves.

Steve

In view of some previous threads, there is a couple of new resin kits available :

KORA

In article , "Steve H"

From what I can remember (and I may be wrong here) some of the US TV networks thought that an hour-long puppet show aimed at kids was stretching things a bit and ITC had a hard time trying to sell it thus.

"UFO" on the other hands presented even more problems back home. ITV just assumed that because it was Gerry Anderson and sci-fi that it was a kids show and tried to schedule it thus - the show was anything but. The episode "Mindbender" in partiuculat had strong drugs references that, even when the BBC bought the series in the mid 90s, they scheduled that episode for a late night slot!

And that was the sad thing with "UFO". It was a great drama series that, back in the 1970s, should have gone out at a prime time slot, more so with the high production values and grim storylines it sometimes had, but sci-fi was seen as kids stuff so it got scheduled as such.

Anderson had a similar problem with "Space: 1999" (originally conceieved as "UFO 2"). Season one of 1999 was very bleak and did not go down well with some of the US backers, so for season two they bought in Fred Freiburger - a man who is blamed for wrecking later seasons of "Star Trek"

- who quickly turned 1999 from an adult drama into a camp monster-of-the-week pantomine. A great shame that as season one of 1999 was of feature film qaulity (the pilot episode "Breakaway" is excellent stuff) and had some very notable British actors guesting, not to mention the excellent Martin Landau (an underated actor who justly won an Oscar for "Ed Wood").

Season two? Bluegh!

and that's why there wasn't a season four. I don't remember if there was a season three, I lost interest.

Bill Shuey

AFAIK there were only two seasons of "Space: 1999" - the good one and the bad one. At least that's one show they can't remake now, unless they change the date!

Yeah, there was only 2 season... the first with the professor style dude as well as Martin Landau and Barbara Baine. The second tried to spice it up a bit by enlisting the alien chick (Myra?) and the Tony guy. There was an Aussie guy as well.. his name has slipped my mind.

The Eagle transporters were a masterpeice of beauty and practicality especially with the detail of the tube type structure.

Mitch

"Whatever possessed her to make a full-frontal appearance as "Randi from Denmark" in Au Pair Girls (1972, with Norman Chappell, Ferdy Mayne and John Le Mesurier), an atrocious soft-core romp, goodness knows! "

I guess that's the movie to get! Beers,

The Keeper (of too much crap!)

I saw the movie Sat and enjoyed it. It was a prequil to the TV series as Gordon was still in school. How they'll deal with his joining the World Aquanaut Patrol (ala Stingray) for a tour of duty would be interesting.

Here is my breakdown on the Thunderbirds, again my opinion:

TB-1 Like it, the canopy to show forward vision was always something missing from the TV show. Would have liked to see the wings sweep in the movie.

TB-2: Also nice. Liked the lower fuselage control center area.

TB-3 - Also faithful to the originaliked thew way they handled the landing legs.

TB-4: Also faithful to the original.

TB-5: Always wanted to see morte of the space station.

Penny's limo: Also faithful to the series.

Let's face it it is a kids movie and a movie for TB junkies. It was faithful to the original series. wish it could be a series.

Stqan Parker

I have one of the UFO trading models from Japan that would be a pretty good likeness of her in the siliver mini-skirt with purple wig on top of my computer hutch. And the rest of the mini-models would be pretty good too....

It *can't* be a prequel to the TV series. In the first episode, the airport people had never heard of International Rescue, and it was stated several times that it was IR's first mission: "International Rescue is ready to begin operating", "This is our first mission", etc.

The new movie can only be considered a remake, an alternate universe.

Yes, an alternate universe that has nothing to with with Gerry Anderson's Thunderbirds!

I've always found it oddly optimistic (pessimistic?) that science fiction writers always place their story in the near future (1984, 1999,

2001, etc.) when the story lines always center around technological advances that given the current scientific knowledge of the writer's time would, if possible at all, seemingly take centuries to develop, perfect and absorb into mainstream society - non-chemical propulsion systems traveling faster than light, virtually infinite power sources, humanoid alien life forms, time travel, self sufficient space colonies, etc.

I assume temporal proximity to our own time is what draws sufficient dramatic tension to interest the contemporary reader/viewer. Still, to me it is an unnecessary wrinkle to the suspension of belief needed to enjoy the story.

I agree but...

I've recently finished 3001 (the book) - Arthur C Clarke always liked to underpin his stories with some sort of technolgical possibility, therefore making the story a little more valid.

Mitch

Two seasons, does not *really* illustrate "long-lived" though...lol.

Perhaps, that is the British series average (even considering Dr. Who). But, that does remind me of a *great* Simpson's line. The family was watching PBS...and the PBS "pledge drive" dude came on to say that the network would soon air a marathon of Britain's longest-running comedy series....and that they would be showing *all* *four* *episodes* !!

:o)