ok but I am in desperate need for a head cannon for that tiny Arc de Triomphe they’ve got on their top shelf. Did it belong to Jeff? One of the boys? A present from a family friend on holiday? Penelope in Paris? Who was in Paris and why did they pick up such a thing? Tourist tat or hand crafted, sculpted and expensive? John with hot french coffee and a morning pastry on his way to a lecture (because of course he speaks perfect fluent french and some top Paris Uni wants him to give space nerd talks) spotting it in a window? Gordon, swimming pre-Olympic gold heats thinking it’s be a good present to send back home? Scott buying it as a reminder of courage, of bravery, in his USAF days? Virgil, as a reminder of the city’s art and architecture? It’s a thing I need to know.
Also all the books; on shelves and Jeff’s desk and the piano and the little pyramid (reference to “The Uninvited”??) and the pool table and dljgklsjflskjfklsdjflsjflskjfs I JUST… WETA MODELS MAN i cant
thunderbirds
that thunderbirds fic, part two
Hey! I did go back to it! And it’s nearly done now! (Here’s part one. It hasn’t got a title anymore though.)
Anyway, this continues to be a look at how IR would function in the ‘real world’, with some hopefully-satire thrown in. All the trigger warnings from Part One apply here too, I think.
PS: All the newspaper headlines mentioned in this fic are real.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The 2004 Thunderbirds is an okay kids movie, a terrible adaptation and a vast wealth of untapped potential, because I’m positive that there’s actually a quite good Thunderbirds film in there somewhere. I mean, it has the basics (family, brothers, cool machines, technology…)
I’ve heard a lot about what a mess the production was and that’s probably why it went so wrong, and *winces* the fact that it was so Americanized probably didn’t help. Despite most of the original characters being American the show always had this sort of stiff-upper-lip Britishness to it that the movie completely failed to catch. Plus, too much focus on the younger/aged-down characters. I heard that the film was only greenlit after the success of Spy Kids, which is very obvious. And completely the wrong direction to go in!
Argggh, you could make such a good live-action Thunderbirds if you went in a MCU-style family-friendly-sometimes-perilous-but-still-optimistic route. But I bet due to the failure of this one, no-one’s ever going to try it again. Humph.
Anyway, 5* has now stopped showing Thunderbirds and is now back to shows about how awful poor people are, so that’s my cue to leave.
And now, we’ve reached the end!
-What the heck was the deal with TinTin’s magic crystal necklace that is apparently the source of her powers, did the movie actually get around to explaining that
-Happy Mildly Objectified Men In Swimshorts Sunday!
-I appreciate the inclusion of a female US President
-OH MY GOD NOW IT’S TIME FOR THE BUSTED/MCFLY/MCBUSTED/WHOEVER THEME SONG, OH DEAR
Nearly at the end:
-London doesn’t have a monorail! (You know, just in case anyone wondered)
-I love London but I also love seeing it destroyed in movies
-Jeff 4/5 of your kids nearly died, maybe take them to a hospital or something first
-Vanessa Hudgens is wearing flares, now that dates this movie like nothing else
-Penelope had time to change, wash and flawlessly arrange her hair before confronting the Big Bad! Well done!
-The Dead Mom conversation! Man I wish at least one of the other Thunderbirds adaptations would make even a fleeting reference to Lucille
-At last, Bill Paxton gets to do some Acting
And moooore:
-I strongly suspect that the older Tracys were cast more on their ability to look good shirtless than their ability to act (at least back then; I know at least a couple of them went onto other things)
-”He’s a kid!” “He’s a Tracy!” is arguably the only good line in this movie, or at least the only good one that remotely relates to the original show
-Hey, all this time and they’ve avoided making any sort of reference to Penelope’s/Sophia Myles’s breasts…oh, wait, never mind.
-Sophia Myles, Ron Cook and Bill Paxton continue to be the only actors who look like they’re actually having any fun whatsoever in this movie
-That one in-joke with the puppet strings is quite good
-HEY IT’S THE LONDON EYE AREA I HAVE BEEN THERE HI AREA
And yet more:
-Lady P’s wardrobe in this film is great. That’s one thing I really miss in the 2015 series actually
-Ugh the bits where Black Books lady is trying to make out with tied-up Brains are really gross and unnecessary
-HEY LOOK IT’S A CLOSEUP OF THE FORD LOGO JUST IN CASE YOU FORGOT WHO’S SPONSORING THIS MOVIE
-Buried in this movie, and related via Brains’s kid, is actually a good message for kids who stutter! So it’s nice that that’s in there
-You know for a movie called Thunderbirds the Thunderbirds (as in, the machines) really aren’t in it much at all
And more:
-The first scene between Alan and the Hood is actually quite good, not least because finally it involves actual acting
-I forgot to mention that the musical score is rather good too
-The gunge and the sliding about and stuff makes the first half of this film pretty much just Thunderbirds: The Theme Park Ride! Which, er….might have even been what they were going for. (Hey, I’d love a Thunderbirds theme park ride)
-Henchperson #2 (I can’t remember his name, if he even has one) is really such a racist stereotype it disconcerts me hugely
-Is the Hood-Jeff backstory from the Thunderbirds comics? I can’t remember, but I think at least some variation of it is
-Dear god they really went all out with the Ford product placement, it’s so distracting
More:
-Hey, it’s Bernard’s Summer Girl from Black Books, sporting a massive pair of false teeth because sadly the only reason she’s there is to be a running joke about unattractive women
-The Hood’s other henchman also appears to be somewhat of a stereotype, this time a racist one
-Between this and the new series, John is definitely the most bashed-around Tracy
-Ben Kingsley still thinks he’s in Thunderbirds: The Gritty Reboot
–According to my parents-in-law who are also watching, the guy who played Kyrano is now in Emmerdale
So far:
-Everything involving the child actors is mostly terrible (more the dialogue than the acting)
-Bill Paxton and Sophia Myles are still perfect spot-on casting
-Hey, this is the only version of Thunderbirds to feature Kyrano’s wife and TinTin/Kayo/Tanusha’s mother! Who appears to be the cook
-(I’m so glad the modern reboot managed to erase the Sixties racism that had every single POC as a servant or a villain.)
-Did I mention the dialogue was terrible?
-Ben Kingsley seems to think he’s in a different film altogether