Five! Four! Three! Two! One! The Thunderbirds motion picture is set for blast off
Does the world really need a live-action Thunderbirds movie? Are there legions of Gerry Anderson fans holding their breath waiting for the Supermarionation stars to be made flesh and blood? Well, Working Title thinks there is a demand for Anderson's brand of colourful, camp sci-fi. Indeed, the British company is confident to the tune of $70 million.
Producers Eric Fellner and Tim Bevan aren't the only ones who think they have a hot property on their hands. The Tracy family's patriarch Jeff, aka Aliens star Bill Paxton, believes the picture could be about to do great things for the UK. "I think this is ultimately going to become this kind of great, quintessential British export to the world," Paxton enthused at a recent press conference. "It's going to celebrate the style, the charm of England in the 1960s." However, the actor was keen to point out that the differences between the movie and the hit TV series would amount to more than just an absence of string - "this is not your parents' 'Thunderbirds'."
However, from a distance, Thunderbirds the film looks very much like 'Thunderbirds' the TV series. Not only does the movie retain the series' favourite characters and its bracing colour palate, the plot charmingly resembles that of a standard episode, pitting the Tracys against their arch-foe, sinister slaphead The Hood (Sir Ben Kingsley, who must be wondering when someone's going to remember he's won an Oscar and been nominated on three other occasions).
Paxton, though, is speaking like a man who believes the forthcoming film won't just entertain - it will change people and the way they see the world! "When I grew up in the 1960s, it was about vocation. It wasn't about making money. It was about doing things for other people, finding something you wanted to do. There's a message of integrity and ethics all through this thing. It celebrates technology as benefiting mankind, using these machines to try to actually help people, instead of decimating them."
If only Gerry Anderson were as enthusiastic. Actually enthusiasm is the very reason the series' creator has turned on the big screen adaptation. "I was really quite prepared to support the picture in my own way," explains Anderson, "but they wanted me to enthuse over it. And then I saw Lady Penelope's new car. I thought it was a monstrosity! I thought, if that's the kind of thing they're doing, how can I possibly support the picture? Could I lean against the car and have my picture taken and say, 'Isn't it terrific?' I couldn't do that."
Anderson's anger aside, it's not hard to see how Thunderbirds might misfire. The decision to hire writer Michael McCullers - who penned the last two Austin Powers pictures and the underrated Undercover Brother - was inspired, but why then pair him with Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot scribe William Osborne? And while Jonathan Frakes may have scored a few hits with his Star Trek films, his CV away from the franchise comprises little more than the weak Clockstoppers and a couple of episodes of 'Roswell'.
Still a large part of Thunderbirds' appeal was the wonky model work and the puppetry. While modern audiences demand smooth special FX, the Thunderbirds diehards will expect a healthy dose of incompetence. Maybe Jonathan Frakes wasn't such a bad choice as director after all.
Richard Luck
