Thunderbirds Are Go Ring of Fire review

Since the series is on it's mid series break, I think I should keep my weekly reviews going, so let's review all the episodes individually.

Here's what you need to know, a normal day for International Recue gets out of hand when an old enemy starts setting off earthquake machines deep in the pacific, causing global chaos that international rescue has to deal with. and for a first episode, this one does a pretty good job.

First thing I liked was seeing Thunderbirds on TV again, it brought back memories of seeing re-runs of the old series on TV when I was a kid, and the intro was very alike with the classic, as is the music, which for the most part is very faithful and high quality. Other critics have criticised the animation, but I think it's fine. The Thunderbird machines look stunning, it's clear that a lot of love went into their new looks and the special effects that create them, they are vastly superior to the 2004 redesigns, even given that I didn't have a problem with those redesigns. while the CG varies from decent to perfect, the models are consistently perfect, when used, they also show an evident love. This episode is also very in keeping with the original's spirit, something the 2004 film failed at. with of course a new spin on the classic intro, and new spins on the classic take offs, which are really nice to watch, Thunderbird 1 still comes out of the pool and the trees on Thunderbird 2's take off strip still fall to make way for take off. But this episode is a much faster pace than any of the old episodes, something I was worried would be the case when I learned that the new series would only have a 20 minute runtime each episode.

Story wise this episode is decent too. the story does a passable job of giving all 5 Thunderbird machines relevancy, which for a pilot is probably important, and I suppose it's a good excuse to get loads of thunderbirds action. and it does a good job of introducing the characters, 1 in particular from this episode really stood out, but really disappointed me in later episodes. The Hood, I thought the Hood had real potential to be a genuinely menacing villain, and from this first episode I thought that was going to be the case, instead he became an even more cartoony version of the same cartoon villain he was in the old series, I need to bring this up because this is a impression I got that turned out to be false, still, not a bad start, even if it fell flat.

Overall this was a very good pilot, setting the mood very nicely, and re introducing Thunderbirds to a younger audience in a way that is respectful to the original, but it's not clouded by that faithfulness, It still knows what it is, and that is very worthy of mention.