ITV continues progress on reboot of 1960s classic, THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO!
People of a certain age will almost certainly have formative memories of the late, great Gerry Anderson‘s wonderfully innovative Supermarionation (I.E.: puppet) sci-fi/adventure programme Thunderbirds when it was first aired on British television screens in the 1960s. If you’re not quite that old, then odds are you’ll have formative memories of Thunderbirds from when it was repeated on CBBC during the 1990s or of it being repeated again by the BBC in the early-to-mid 2000s, particularly over the Summer holiday period.
If all of that has passed you by, you’re probably aware of the somewhat less-than-stellar 2004 film adaptation directed by Jonathan Frakes (#DontBringInRikerForThisOne). And if absolutely none of that is ringing any bells, then you almost certainly are aware of the 2004 comedy film Team America: World Police, which playfully pastiches the style of the programme with an equal measure of deference and irreverence. What I’m driving at is that Thunderbirds, in some way shape or form, seems to be a genuinely timeless piece of television, and a universal source of nostalgic affection for pretty much every generation of British children since it began in 1965.
The premise is simple enough. Astronaut turned billionaire, Jeff Tracey is the head of International Rescue; a secret organisation staffed by his five sons Scott, Virgil, Allan, Gordon and John, established to save lives in disaster areas where it would prove impossible for the authorities to deal with the situation. To this end, they are equipped with a panoply of sophisticated vehicles – chief among which being the five titular Thunderbird craft – created by their live-in boffin Brains, which enable them to carry out complex rescue missions.
As with pretty much all of Anderson’s output, from Supercar (1961-1962) to Stingray (1964-1965), Thunderbirds is a testament to the unsurpassed quality of well executed practical model work and practical special effects, and the amount of emotion that can be invested into a marionette performer. Married to this, however, is an increased sophistication of storytelling and characterisation, that elevated Thunderbirds above its predecessors.
It is the enduring nature of Thunderbirds that is almost certainly why – after 50 years –  ITV, in collaboration with New Zealand animation studios Pukeko Pictures and Weta Workshops (of Lord of the Rings fame), have commissioned a CGI reboot of the series to be aired on CITV ins Spring of this year under the title Thunderbirds Are Go! This project has been in the news for a fair while now and has garnered much interest both in the UK and overseas, with small details about the Series’ production surfacing in small, tantalising pieces.
In June of 2014, the first official image of one of the redesigned Thunderbird craft (Thunderbird 1) was released.
More recently – on Boxing Day – the Series’ official website went live, accompanied by a teaser trailer featuring the redesigned Thunderbird 5 space station, and now we have the most recent development in the shape of ITV unveiling how the programme’s main protagonists, the five Tracy brothers, will look in the upcoming series (which can be seen above).
Of course, with a property as beloved as Thunderbirds, it is only to be expected that for some fans, there is as much (if not more) trepidation about any reimagining of the Series as there is excitement. Indeed, some have already opined that the new designs for the CGI characters look rather generically like members of a boy band, stating a preference for the practical puppets of old. Whilst one cannot outright deny this, there are also positive aspects to the redesign. It is obvious, for example, that the animators at Pukeko and Weta have made an effort to replicate the facial features of the original puppets, which is a nice touch.
Also praiseworthy is the update to the uniforms, which retain the essence of the original costumes, but give them a sense of utility and functionality.
Further misgivings might be allayed when one considers that this is not the first such reboot ITV have executed. Ten years ago, the classic Anderson puppet series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons (1967-1968) was also very successfully resurrected in CGI form as Gerry Anderson’s New Captain Scarlet; providing a refreshingly dark children’s programme amongst a milieu of rather safe Saturday morning kid’s television.
Of course, it would be wholly inappropriate for Thunderbirds to take the ‘darker and edgier’ route, but with the look of the series fast falling into place, and stellar voice cast including Gone Girl star Rosamund Pike as the International Rescue agent Lady Penelope, and Thunderbirds veteran David Graham reprising his role as her chauffeur Parker, I’d say that Thunderbirds Are Go! will certainly be viewing more than worth looking in on for both the old guard of fans and curious newcomers alike.
Series 1 of THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO! will air on CITV in the Spring of 2015, with a second already confirmed in 2016, and so far, things look FAB.
