A New Thunderbirds series on TV?
Moderator: Spectrum Strike Force
http://www.dwscifi.com/articles/928-full-steam-ahead that ITV have decided to remake Thunderbirds but without Gerry Anderson at the helm.
Quote from Gerry (taken from the site) :
“I have been trying to get the rights to remake Thunderbirds for three years,” he says irately, “and finally a few weeks ago I was told that they had decided to give the remake of Thunderbirds to another producer. "
"I think it is an appalling decision: the Japanese made a Thunderbirds cartoon, Thunderbirds 2068, which failed; Polygram made a load of nonsense called Turbo Charged Thunderbirds and spent £650,000 on a pilot for Thunderbirds which was thrown in the trashcan. And of course the feature film, which I had nothing to do with at all, was one of the biggest turkeys of all time!”
I wonder what this one will be like? they'd have to work VERY hard to be worse than the live-action film - although that had its moments, mostly supplied by Lady P and Parker.
It doesn't say HOW this is to be made - CGI, live-action or even cartoon/puppets (although I suppose those technologies are old hat these days...)
What do people here think?
Should we care if Gerry isn't involved - so long as it IS done and done well?
OR
Is Thunderbirds without Gerry unthinkable?
BTW, the article also talks about Gerry's latest project - and there's no mention of 'Lightspeed'...
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Marion
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I'm still not fully recovered from the movie, so not getting my hopes up.
Brendan Behan
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Sage
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Sage wrote:That's stupid, he created it in the first place, why wouldn't he get the rights? It's a point of principle, and that the track record of other people get involved has been so poor.
I'm still not fully recovered from the movie, so not getting my hopes up.
Neither am I, it wouldn't be the same without Gerry & Sylvia!!
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DartBrat701
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Considering that ITV has already butchered CS, that one wouldn't put it past Gerry to delete the character of John Tracy, and the unlikelihood of recreating the 50-minute running time, I think this could be a disaster.
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Gun-wielding Lombax
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I only ask that the characters be more or less just like the ones from the original series, and that the plots revolve around rescues, with a side of character development.
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TRK
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Sage said: That's stupid, he created it in the first place, why wouldn't he get the rights?
Gerry Anderson sold the rights to his programmes to ITV (I think) and now he has to ask - or more likely bid - to use them, just like everyone else.
I don't think television companies consider the principle of the thing when it comes to making money.
Oh, Rabid Kookaburra, you make my heart sink! You don't think they could really make a series based on that dreadful film, do you? Surely they must've learned from that mistake?
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Marion
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ITV have stopped commissioning new childrens' TV shows, even CITV is on only a few hours a day now on Digital. Just lots of cookery programmes. If a new series is ever produced it just might get a Saturday tea time slot, but with the poor scheduling of new Scarlet I have little hope.
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yorkie
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Gun-wielding Lombax wrote:I doubt Gerry and Sylvia are on the best of terms, they'd never team up on a tv series again. Mind you, I've heard that Sylvia gave the thumbs-up for that terrible, terrible film (God knows why, they ruined HER characters!) so I've really lost respect for her.
More like HE (Gerry) ruined her character(s)!
The movie wouldn't have been half-bad if it weren't for Frakes' ineptibility to appreciate originality.....it was HE, so to speak, that really wrecked the movie for me from the get-go!!
Considering that ITV has already butchered CS, that one wouldn't put it past Gerry to delete the character of John Tracy, and the unlikelihood of recreating the 50-minute running time, I think this could be a disaster.
To NOT have John just simply wouldn't do!! It is certain that all the other John fans out there (too numerous to mention) share the same sentiments as I!!
(The general majority believe the reason Gerry hated John was because Sylvia had him modelled after British rock idol Adam Faith.....which suffice to say, Gerry didn't like either!!)
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DartBrat701
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With all that said, it is as if Gerry's name is his worse enemy right now. He is probably seen as being washed up and not being involved in anything good since the 60's. His latest projects failed big time and so putting his name on anything may not really help the cause. Creating a new TB series with fresh blood and ideas may get the project off the ground quicker without him.
I know this is a bad thing to think, but it may be true. I would rather see Anderson become a consultant and perhaps write for the series.
KP
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shadokp
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The biggest mistake was to hand over the rights to his work to ITV. That might have been OK when it was Carlton, but I get the the feeling that present day ITV is not his friend and has no respect for his work, or legacy. To try to get back what shouldn't perhaps have been handed over in the first place, is a sad thing to have to do at his age. Gerry Anderson has been betrayed by ITV and that's unforgiveable.
Having said that, it is unthinkable that there could be a successful Thunderbirds made by ITV. Not only because it wouldn't have Gerry's input, but because the people that seem to do these things are, at best, unable to appreciate the spirit of the subject they're working on, and at worst, couldn't care less as long as it makes money.
They might ask him to be a consultant - if I was him, I'd politely ( or not so politely) point out exactly which lake they could jump in. Trouble is, if they go ahead anyway, and it is a disaster, it will just taint the reputation of the original series, which would be tragic.
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Skybase Girl
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On the other hand, the remake of Galactica is much better!!
KP
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shadokp
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gojohnniegogo
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Consider the revamped Doctor Who. I suspect that most people, if presented with the challenge of re-launching it, would have clung to their fond memories of the Tom Baker heyday and tried to recreate that era, simply spending more money on the monsters - and it would have been a mistake. Instead, the BBC took a leap of faith - and it paid off. Out went Gallifrey and the Time Lords; in came an ongoing soap opera based in a council estate in South London with a girlfriend and her mum. But if somebody had told me in advance of the relaunch how they were going to play it, I'd have been appalled. As it is, it's now one of the very few TV shows I bother to turn the set on for these days. Getting it right needs vision, nerve, and somebody with enough money and clout to back you when all the finance allocation committees tell you that it can't be done.
Okay - so how would "Thunderbirds" need to be revamped to make it a success? Here's my pennysworth:
1. No puppets: they'd be laughed at. It would have to be live action with spectacular CGI for the cliffhangers - which in turn means that the amount of disbelief the audience would be prepared to suspend would be dramatically less. And real people mean real emotional crises to contend with, so I think we can assume that (i) Lady Penelope and Tintin would be less chaste and more chased than previously; (ii) the five brothers would have a touch more of the Bruce Willis and Arnie Schwartzenegger about them than when we last saw them, and (iii) a lot more people would end up dead. Stories where everyone survives every single week belong in comic books.
2. Technology for the 22nd century, not the 21st. Who needs a satellite to monitor Earth's communications when you've potentially got access to every radio station, text and email on the planet via the internet? (I take it for granted that a revamped International Rescue could hack into absolutely anything in seconds.) And can we really believe that you can launch a rocket without it being (i) spotted by every spy satellite in the sky before it's half a mile off the ground and (ii) zapped two seconds later with a ten gigawatt laser beam? No way. The equipment would need to be land-based but spectacularly well concealed, sort-of the same way that the SPVs were: a mole here, a firefly there etc etc. Radios in teapots and wristwatch videophones - pah! Neural communications networks, weather-modification technology to create, direct or dispel hurricanes, tsunamis and earthquakes, perception filters to conceal secret equipment from prying eyes (oops - that one's been done already), DNA analysers to predict within seconds any individual's propensity to endanger human life... now you're talking!
3. No privately-funded family of heroes. Creating that sort of technology requires billions - and only governments control money on that scale. The Tracys would need to become operatives within some kind of undercover operation like "Torchwood" - outside the law, beyond the police - perhaps controlled by some mysterious entity whose true identity is never revealed, and whose benevolence quite possibly isn't totally guaranteed. A little internal dissent in critical situations never hurts.
How does that sound? But then.... it wouldn't really be Thunderbirds, would it? So why bother with the Tracys at all? Which is why I don't think it would work. Thunderbirds has had its day: I'll stick with my DVDs of the original series, I think.
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Clya Brown
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