#and this is one of the most elaborate and creative and insane and delightful stories ive ever been able to experience

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Thomas and Friends Season 1 Review: Gorgeous Uniquely British Rail Based Insanity  (Comission for lachievpoststhings)

Hello all you happy good engines! I”m Jake I review stuff and today we got another comission and for the first time in a while someone liked my work enough to comission me out of the blue.. and when I say a while I mean in the three years i’ve been doing comissions this is the first to not come from Kev or Emma so i’m pleased as punch it happened. 

This one is out of my element as this is both a show meant for preschoolers (something i’ve only covered once thus far for my three cabs retrospective) and a franchise i knew nothing about going in: Thomas the Tank Engine, though Lachiev, the nice guy comissoining this was happy to give me some background info and the rest I dug up was fascenating. Add in the fact the show , which I knew as CGI in the present was STOP MOTION, an artform I always love, and narrated by ringo star, who took time out of personally responding to all his fan mail to work on this show, and I was intrigued enough to agree.

And what I got was a mix of delightful model work.. and a rollercoaster of fairly standard, if often charming, episdoes for a show like this.. and insane ones that involve train crashes, attempted murder and bricking a sentient being inside a tunnel “forever and ever” for being naughty and only letting him out when you’ve succesfully broken his spirit. 

Nope! Join me under the cut as we take a vacay to the isle of Sodor to visit some silly little engines. 

                                              Background

Thomas the Tank Engine started life as a series of books, the Railway series, by Reverend Wilbert Awdry, which is one of the most delightfully british names i’ve ever heard. He was by all accounts a lovely man and, given the series adherence to how railways really worked despite the trains being sentient beings with faces who when angry can bore deep into my soul making holes that willl never heel, it’s not a big suprise he was huge into trains and railways and in retirment still championed for railway preservation. 

And some evidence of this is how the books came about. In 1942, yes the stories are that old, Wilbert and his wife were trying to keep their 2 1/2 year old son christopher intertained as he was laid up with measles. Most of their stories failed to help the child.. but he was drawn to the silly rhymes his dad made up about trains, leading to wilbur telling him more stories and elaborating on the ones he had. His wife thought they were good enough she urged him to publish them and after adding a happier ending to one of their stories because without that sequel the execs were rightfulyl worried it’d send every child who read int into depressive crying fits, more on that story later, it was a huge hit. Chris still enjoyed the stories and wanted a mockup of Gordon, the biggest of the train, but since that was impossible for wilbur he instead made a tank engine the boy crhistned thomas.. and the rest as they way was history. The second book was a huge hit and while Wilbur intended to stop after that he continued for the reasons you’d expect

I can’t blame him: He had a family to think of, he clearly loved trains and judging by this series, which is as far as I can tell as straight as they could adapt them, the quality didn’t remotely dip. He continued this into the 70′s before retiring and the series sat dormant. There were attempts to adapt it.. but the timing just wasn’t right: animation was the only way it could go but by the time it had gotten to being on tv the series had been dead for years. 

But then lightning struck when tv exec Britt Alcroft saw a reading of the stories and after reading the books herself, saw gold and bought the rights, workign with the reverened and his now grown son to make the show. Chris had not only shared his dad’s love of engines but of thomas, but had wanted to continue the stories, something his dad happily agreed to. Sadly it woudln’t end great iwth rights issues nad creative diffrences sinking it despite his attempts to continue, but it was succesful enough at the time that many of chris’ stories got adapted alongside his fathers. 

The series used models, which were made with a combination of actual train models nad resent, carefully put together and used on real tracks. This lead to the series very unique animation style: it is somewhat limited with only the characters faces moving and when they do move it’s clearly like any other model train, and the human characters are just well carved mintiures. Yet.. it works. The faces are incredibly expressive,w ith diffrent ones built, the model train sets are gorgeous, especailly the snow ones to the point I coudln’t tell it was just powdered sugar for most of the first time they used it, and while the characters are only narrated by Ringo, he does so with enough gusto and whismy it comes off charming. Despite a small budget the series FEELS magical and feels like  a story book brought to life, with the limited animation feeding into that, the still bits feeling like the imageso n a page. It’s truly awe inspiring they made something so wholesome and fun to watch with just a few simple tricks and a lot of still images. But that’s all the techincals and stuff, what’s the show like in motion?

                                              Stupid Train Children

Thomas and Friends takes place on the british isle of Sodor, based on the isle of man. The reason for picking an island was simple: it allowed the good reverened to still use UK trains, but have an area where he could world build with. Granted this mostly amounts here to just a diffrent assortment of train lines in the series, but it still shows: Sodor feels like it has a specific geography to it and thus feels more alive.

The show follows Thomas and a number of other sentient trains, to the point thomas is often absent from episodes, as they go about their days and usual fuck up and learn some sort of lesson. Their essentially, as lachiev himself brilliantly called them “Stupid Train Children”, with their dad being the Fat Controller. And that’s not me being an ass , that’ what they really call him. As a fat reviewer, I can sympathize.. but I will also call him that over tottinghat because it amuses me. 

The show follows a number of basic setups

1) One of the trains gets full of themselves and in their arrogance fucks up horribly and gets humilated for their hubris. 

2) One of the trains gets into a silly situation (rarer)  3) One of the trains is a dick to another train or people and general and gets punished for their hubris, with the train or other object with a horrifying flesh face they mocked getting some form of victory, wether it be saving their ass or just showing their useful. 

It’s standard kids show stuff, especially for the time. This was the same time period where we got the get along gang, aka OBEY THE MAJORITY CHILDREN OR GOD WILL PUNISH YOU FOR THINE AROGANCE. Or for my fellow 90′s kids, what the buddy bears was making fun of.  But it does avoid the pitfalls of shows like said get along conformist half hour. Which is the rare show I will cricize sight unseen because it’s entire purpose is laughably horrible, so there. Here the problem isn’t conformity or anything: it’s just “be kind, don’t get cocky kid, and hang in there even if people are an ass to you, you’ll shine”. There lessons for everyone and even if i’m about 10 times the age of the target demo, there’s still a charm to it. I can see WHY this series has a massive fanbase to this day: it’s simple, but it works perfectly. And frankly that’s the best way to do a preschool show. 

As for characters... while there are a lot of them their really pretty one note outside of thomas, who while hot headed and cheeky is a good sort deep down , cares for his carriages annie and clarabel, and will do the right thing and the Fat Controller who while.. very questionable early on, evolves into a loving father figure, to the point he adopts a train he met on vacation. Otherwise the characters are mostly one note or no notes whatsoever, but given the series both moves fast and the purpose of said characters is more to teach specific lessons or show off diffrent types of trains and sometimes other vehicles, I can let it slide. The show is great for what it is and I look forward to seeing more of it. Now I COULD end the review there but that’d be underselling this show. So instead i’m going to go over the season 1 episodes one at a time like I do for venture bros, though instead of in depth analysis i’m going to give a quick review. Some quicker than others. I’ll also be doing only one entry for stories that are two parter. 

Here we go!

                                                  Episode Guide

                                       Thomas and Gordon

This story was moved up as given the title, they wanted to spotlight the main character and all. This one has Thomas be a bit cheeky to Gordon, the biggest train on the line and also a massive egotistical prick.... and thunder clashed the second I heard that so clearly gordon heard me so if this review is published posthumously, you’ll know why. Thomas chides Gordon saying he wants to pull trains and stuff and Gordon teaches him a lesson as you would.. by doing the train equilvent of tying him to the bumper of a car and letting him fly in the road like a bob stoolie. I mean Thomas stays attached to the train but the principal is the same and he learns the valuable lesson that gordon is to both be hated and feared. I”m also going to be keeping some counts. Sadly not one for accidnetal inneundos though for the record there’s about 127 this season, so it’d be a bit exausting, but for when Gordon’s an Egotisticla prick, and That Seems A Bit Unresonable for when the punishment outweighs what the train did

Gordon is An Egotistical Prick: 1 That Seems a Bit Unreasonable: 1

Gordon and Edward:

Gordon is a big ole bully boy to a little train named edward who ends up saving his ass. None of this is a shock to anyone

Gordon is an Egotistical Prick: 2

The Sad Story of Henry/Edward Gordon and Henry

And now we’ve come to the big one. While the first story caught me off guard for how insane it was, this one REALLY uped the ante. This one is easily both the most cruel and the most insane at once and is thus infamous. And rightfully so, even if it’s direct sequel helps with the sting a bit the sad story of henry is still PROFUNDLY fucked up and is indeed the story Is aid had to have a sequel just to get published and for good damn reason. 

So the SSOH starts simple enough: Henry is a train whose being a small bit of a wanker (and yes I know what that actually means, it was intetional) and refuses to leave his tunnel as to not get wet, refusing to listen to his goddadboss fat controller and attempts to push him fail. So the fat Controller’s response? Take away the track in front of said tunnel and brick him up in there, “For always and always”. 

Yes this does happen and in the version I watched those are the exact terms. The US version, naturally changed the narration to that. It also left out the part where the narrator says “I think he deserved it don’t you”

Yeah. And while apparently it’s a sore spot to imply henry never got out, and he does next episode and once again punishes gordon for his hubris.. it dosen’t take away the fact the Fat Contorller’s response to an issue was to imprison a train and only let him out because the experimnce of being trapped for DAYS mentally broke him into obedience. I’m not even being cheeky myself, that’s entirely what happens from context: Henry feels bad and is unsuaully helpful after. I can chock this up to early instalment weirdness and the good reverend having been not used to writing on his end, but how EVERYONE working on the show thought this was okay to translate 1:1 is beyond me. 

Gordon Is An Egotistical Prick: 2 That Seems A Bit Unresonable: 101 

Thomas’ Train

  Thomas gets to pull freight but accidently leaves his cars behind. Gordon isn’t a dick for once and this episode isn’t that intresting. Concidence?

Thomas and the Trucks

This one was the title for the first tape I watched, as Lacheiv had me watch some old VHS Rips, which was charming, including the fact that between segments they just had this weird bit showing off the entire cast... including several characters who don’t debut till the second or last tapes. 

Fun fact asides this is a decent one enough: Thomas gets to haul trucks, who decide to shove him around and nearly cause an accident because every sentient being in this franchise has to be an asshole for at least one segment. And yes EVERY car or truck on a train is sentient

Not bad, pretty standard stuff. 

Thomas and the Breakdown Train

We meet henry, a shiny new train whose basically, at least for now, thomas but red. Another fairly standard ep, Thomas feels bad about himself, but is able to prove himself by saving henry, but it’s still INCREDIBLY important in the grand scheme of things, as this is where Thomas gets his own train line i.e. going from just pushing things around to carrying passengers and his story begins in earnest. 

James and the Coaches/Troublesome Trucks

A two parter, this one spotlights james more and again James comes off a lot like thomas, likely because at this stage which train was which only mattered for the bigger trains. The first has james fuck up again first accidently destroying the fat controller’s hat, then angry over that taking it out on his coaches and thus going super fast, annoying and endgagering his guests.. and then literally brekaing down. This also leads to his condcutor needing a guy’s shoe lace to repair james.. and this guy leads to another count I feel i’m going to need especially for the future: Side Character Idociy Count as the guy REFUSES. For no real reason other than to be obscrutive and obnoxious.. which tracks with real life. Thankfully the res to fthe passngers rage is enough to get him to reconsider lest they tie him to a diffrent set of train tracks and wait for nature to take it’s course.

As a result James is confined to a shed though the resulting story is awesome: James admits he was wrong, gets freed to push trucks and works his ass off despite said trucks not wanting to work with a “big red monster”, succesfully winning back the fat controller’s trust. It honestly got me hooked into it, wanting to see james succeed and this two parter feels like a far better version of the henry story: a train screws up thanks to his own ego and has to work his way back, just without the horrifying tourture. 

Seems Unresonable: 102 Side Character Idiocy: 1

James and the Express

One more james story, with James getting mocked by Gordon.. only for the egotistical prick to get lost himself, leading to a great comeback by james. 

Gordon is an Egotistical Prick: 3

Thomas and the Guard

Thomas accidently forgets his guard, i.e. the guy looking after the train on the inside. Thomas’ coaches annie and clarabell get flehsed out some more. So.. yeah not a lot in this one. LIke I said some are shorter than other so er.. have this.

Yeah that’ll do. 

Thomas Goes Fishing

As you can tell by the image of a bunch of grown men fishing inside a horrified looking train car with danger, keep away signs all around him, this is a weird one. Thomas wants to try going fishing.. and is punished for his.. hubris? Is it even hubris to want to try fishing? I mean he is a sapient being and he could probably hold a fishing pole in there? Like.. the story treats this like some moral failing but... he did nothing but want to fish. And as a result he gets a fish in his tank that his conductor and guard have to fish out and utterly humilated? What?

And it gets even weirder: They EAT the fish, having a meal of fish and chips. Yes really. I’m no fish expert but i’m pretty sure a fish you fished out of a train’s boiler should be endeible at best and stomach imploding at worse. 

Seems Unresonable: 103

Thomas, Terrance and the Snow

We meet Terrance, a tractor who Thomas insults because Thomas is also a bit of a prick sometimes, if not as much as Gordon. Thomas also has to have a snowplow installed and looks like he wants to murder everyone, but learns his lesson as not having him leaves him snowbound and gives him a new respect of terrance for saving his ass from his own stupidity and stuborness. 

This one’s also notable because like I said the set is REALLY fucking goregous. I don’t know how they covered the set in snow so well, as it’s clearly the same sets they used meaning they either made a double, not an easy feat i’m sure, or had to clean all that up. THey get two stories out of it too, so it’s not like it was for a ton or they coudln’t of just skipped this one to avoid the expense, but they did it anywya nad i’m glad they did. This is easily the best looking the series has been up to this point and will be for the rest of the season. Truly top notch work and a fun time. 

Thomas and Bertie

Easily my faviorite of season one and for once not a morality tale or anything. This one just has Thomas form a rivarly with a bus who mocks him, and the two and their drivers agree to a race, which kept my attention the whole time. I figured, correctly, thomas would probably win, but it was still fun to watch each twist and turn as both’s natural disadvantages (thomas’ long refuling, bertie having to take longer routes and stop for traffic, thomas picking up more speed as time went on) made for a nailbiting race and the two becoming friends at the end was adorable. 

Tenders and Turntables/Trouble in The Shed/ Percy Runs Away

So this one is just... hilaroius. So gordon, henry, his conditiong having worn off and james go on strike as their pissed smaller trains are doing coach jobs while they have to do some of the pushign cars and stuff work. Like a commmener. The fat controller naturally has none of this and grounds them, and just busy a new train, Percy, to show them their not replaceable. Which would be dickish if he were say doing it due to low wages (do these trains even get paid? is this slavery? how ethical is this operation?.. that that’ sgoing to keep me up to night) and not just being egotistical pricks. 

They learn their lesson, and Percy later gets into shenanginas because he was too eager to work and nearly runs into gordon.. who for once shows some humiltiya nd is impressed Percy manages to RUN BACKWARDS AWYA FROM HIM. I am too holy shit percy. As you can tell percy became an instant faviorite of mine. All in all a truly fun and hilarious set of episodes. 

Gordon is an egotistical Prick: 4

                                  Coal/The Flying Kipper

Oh you thought the series was DONE torturing poor henry? 

Nope! This two parter.. ish... is here to pile more suffering on the poor engine. In the first Henry is sick, with his box just not burning as well these days and spends most of the short either exausted or being mocked or harassed by the other trains for “not working hard enough”, and once again is threatned by the fat controller. .though this time it’s with replacement as since the conditioning from the tourture wore off he deemed it ineffective. IT’s honestly the meanest he’s been since that ep. 

That being said he does quickly redeem himself as once he realizes it really is a tehcnical issue, he not only apologizes but when needing expensive welsh coal to fix it, he gladly foots the bill. Granted it’s because it’s more practical than getting a replacement train but still, compared to the guy who at the start of the season walled him up forever as a punishment for “can’t make me don’t wanna” it’s progress. 

The second part is mostly unrelated but does solve the welsh coal thing: Henry goes on a winter run to deliver the flying kipper, the island’s fish truck... but dosne’t get signaled about danger ahead because the signal’s frozen over. So he HORIFICALLY CRASHES because god regretted the day he made henry and aims to correct his mistake. That said while I assumed there’d be more abuse heaped on the poor engine, instead the Fat Controller shows how much he’s grown again by understanding and having henry rebuilt with a new frame and a better engine. It really makes The Sad Tale of Henry episode more baffling as the character is hardly recognizable by this point in the stories, so why’d they keep him so cruel for that one?

                                                Whistles and Sneezes

What a suprise, Gordon is an egotistical prick, this time getting on henry for whistling now he gets to pull the express. Gordon, like god apparently hates it when Henry has any joy in his life. So are the local kids who break Henry’s windows when he whistles at them, but he gets back at them by sneezing on them, covering them in soot and causing them to die of colera as they brought on themselves. Also Gordon gets his compuance when his own whistle breaks. 

Gordon is an Egotistical Prick: 5

       Toby and the Stout Gentleman/Thomas in Trouble

This is a nice one where, while a two part story, you don’t get how their connected till halfway through. 

The first half spotlights toby and his carriage henrietta (she has no face.. yet but apparently their a couple later. That’s lovely), an outdated train whose sadly being put out of work as the line he’s on in essex no longer needs him. Thankfully he finds a new dad in the form of the Fat Controller whose on vacatoin as the Stout Tentleman and admires toby’s gentle nature and work ethic and since he can always use more stupid train children, he plans to buy him.

And just in time too since Thomas runs afoul of the police. The old kind officer on one of thomas’ routes is replaced with your typical police officer: i.e. a regulation and violation loving asshole woh penalizes thomas for minor things like not having a cowcatcher, even though they’ve never seen any cattle on the route. 

Thankfully toby meets the requirements and blows his whistle at the prick so justice is had and Toby gets a new home. All in all a really lovely story. Toby is really likeable even if the non round faces on vehicles creep me th efuck out, he’s the exceptoin. He’s just so sweet and it’s so nice of the fat controller to basically adopt hima nd his wife. Just wholesome and heartwarming all around. 

                                                Dirty Objects

James mocks god’s faviorite son Toby for his apperance and is judged by getting covered in muck and humilaited. 

                                               Off the Rails

Gordon is an egotistical prick.. again

First teasing James who you THINK would deserve some teasing given how he acted last ep... and yo’ud be wrong as gordon does so whiile saying nothing bad EVER happens to him... with James pointing out his own stupid mishaps to no avail. Then Gordon takes it up another notch by being a picky dickhead , refusing to pull special trucks because i’ts “beneath him”.. and getting stuck in a bog as a result. The fat controller leaves him there to be laughed at till evening as he brought it on himself. I laugh, You laugh, we all laugh. As we should.

                                                         Down the Mine

The last vhs title. This time Thomas mocks gordon as he should then gets stuck in a mine due to his own stupidity. This sure was an episode that happened. 

                                             Thomas’ Christmas Party

This one is just sweet and a high note to end on. It’s christmas time and Thomas and co are feeling the spirit, and Thomas wants to invite Miss Kyndly to a christmas party. If you don’t remember her don’t be blue, this is her first apperance. And I checked the incident where she helped thomas mentoined hadn’t happened. But she helped him so when she gets snowed in the trains and co all pull together to get her to christmas. It’s a simple, heartwarming christmas tale and seeing the set decked out for chrismtas, as wlel as the image above with all the trains in little santa hats really warms my heart. I may look this one up next christmas, a true treat .

So that finishes season 1. Will I be back for season 2?

Lachiev has already told me be plans to do it in a few months and frankly this was fun. It was good modelwork combined with easily mockable insanity. Just the perfect mix for the work I do. So i’ll see you next time you silly little engines and if you like you can join my patreon bellow and follow me for more content. See ya real soon

Patreon

[canmom]

not-Toku Tuesday 20: Speed Racer!

so this one's been a popular request for a while among my (very small) audience: that time that the two most famous trans girl weebs on the planet made an adaptation of a classic anime, Speed Racer. which may form something of a bridge from purely focusing on Japanese media to like, checking out the rest of the world as well. even if America isn't the best place to start on 'international' film :p

A little context: the original Speed Racer anime, originally titled Mach GoGoGo (マッハGoGoGo), was a project of Tatsuo Yoshida at Tatsunoko Productions in the era of limited TV animation following in the footsteps of Osamu Tezuka.

Although we haven't covered Yoshida on Animation Night at any point, I've definitely run into his legacy: one of our inaugural Toku Tuesday films was the incredible post apocalpytic, music video-esque update of Neo-Human Casshern (1973-4) as Casshern (2004). I also notice he was involved in creating the Gatchaman (1972-4) franchise which later gave rise to the delightful anime Gatchaman Crowds (2013).

But we're here to talk about Speed Racer! So Mach GoGoGo began life as a manga by Yoshida, but he would very soon take it to animation. It tells the story of Gō Mifune, his name a tribute to movie star Toshiro Mifune, and his high-tech 'Mach-Go' (マッハ号) car in 52 episodes of escapades.

The American localisation as Speed Racer would have been among the first anime to find a large audience abroad, and the rights to a movie adaptation of the series ended up with Warner Bros. The Wachowskis were not actually the first choice to direct; an early version of the film had Julien Temple directing and Johnny Depp as the star, but both ended up leaving the project. When their turn came, the Wachowskis brought on the special effects designer John Gaeta who'd worked with them on the matrix, and the film is largely notable because of the novel approach to special effects they came up with...

The years 2005–2008 marked a deepening of the pursuit of sample cinema with new ground covered in the feature Speed Racer. The advent of a new genre type, dubbed "Photo Anime", was the centerpiece of a retro-modern universe in which optimistic pop art design ("Poptimisitic") threaded through dramatic collage based editing and motion graphic heavy kung fu car action. Inspired in part by the production attitude of Sin City, the expressive animated cinema of Hayao Miyazaki and Andy Warhol, the Wachowskis focused Gaeta's sensibilities once more toward new forms of post cinematography, deploying end to end high definition pipelines, comprehensive greenscreen/virtual set processes, fully computer generated race worlds, "2 and 1/2 D" layering methodologies, "faux lensing" as applied to VR location photography (360 degree spherical capture) and "techno color" in pursuit of a different movie experience. In addition to visual effects design for the film, Gaeta was additionally enlisted to creatively produce the Wii game counterpart.[6]

So what's all that jargon supposed to mean? In practice what it means is a really colourful vivid overwhelming approach to the film's CGI-composited race sequences that aims to overwhelm in a kind of abstraction of racing cars along twisting, videogame-like tracks. In terms of anime inspirations, it calls to mind more the Running Man segment of Neo Tokyo (if that were a lot faster paced!) and especially of course especially Koike's Redline. And it does this with some absolutely insane camerawork, deliberately flouting a lot of 'established' conventions of how film should be shot, shooting smoothly between closeups and elaborate long shots of cars. It's really something, and I honestly don't know what you could compare it with.

It landed at the time and... pretty much nobody got it, and the film lost $30 million dollars and got a lot of negative reviews. Yet in the years since it accumulated a bit of a cult following and opinions are starting to shift it a bit. My recommendation comes from @lyravelocity who was way ahead of the curve on appreciating this movie, and I've been meaning to watch it for another!

Since we're really late starting, I think we only have time for the one movie tonight, so I'm afraid @grubhonker's ardent desire for us to watch Cloud Atlas together is going to have to wait for another week further down the line. Hope you can join me; we'll be starting at about 10pm UK time at twitch.tv/canmom - around 20 minutes from this post! v much looking forward to seeing what the fuss is all about from the two American filmmakers who most want to make tokusatsu...