Remake of the hit 1960's "Supermarionation" television show. In the 21st century, Jeff Tracy, a former astronaut, amasses a colossal fortune and decides that he must use it to benefit others. His answer to this desire is to create International Rescue, a unique private emergency response service equipped with customized designed vehicles and equipment that enable the organization to react to any crisis whether it be in sea, air, land, or space. Jeff's five sons volunteer to operate as the pilots and field agents, as well as "Brains" (real name unknown) who acts as the teams' technical developer and engineer. In addition, Jeff's friend, Kyrano and his daughter Tanusha aka Kayo (based on the original series Tin-Tin character) agree to be the support staff. In addition to the field team, IR also maintains an intelligence network with Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward and her ex-con chauffeur, Parker as the chief agents in this arm. The series depicts this team as they answer various calls for help around and beyond the world while they prevent enemies like the Hood, Uncle to Kayo, from learning and exploiting their secrets. We join the story when Jeff (and probably Kyrano) is missing - presumed dead - and his family are having to continue with his legacy still hoping he might be found safe. Kayo is now head of security and Grandma (who is a poor cook) is in charge of mealtimes! In the future, the Tracy family run a private mechanized emergency response service. If I hadn't watched the original marionette version of this series as a kid, I probably wouldn't be watching it now ;-) They've done an excellent job of meshing the look of the original series with modern animation. About the only thing that could be improved on in that regard would be the characters walking – they all look like they have a big stick in an awkward bodily location that is inhibiting a more natural stride.<br/><br/>Story-wise, I'd have preferred it if the plots could have matured along with the animation, while still keeping it kid-friendly. A nice change would have been a season-long story arc, maybe 8-10 episodes as opposed to quick little 20-minute vignettes. Though if you're looking for something to set a small toddler in front of for 20 minutes to yourself, the search is over. Mom and dad can pretend to watch while they check Facebook on their smartphones.<br/><br/>After all these years, there are a couple areas in which this story could definitely use some improvement: racial and opposite sex inclusion. An all-caucasian international rescue team, and all-male. There's one tech-support guy from India, but he's always in-the-office and for some odd reason they've handicapped him with a cartoonish speech impediment. There's a sister who'd appears as an infrequent afterthought, and grandma with terrible cooking skills. Lady Penelope is still around, and still communicating with the white-male rescue force with her mirrored clamshell makeup compact, with a chauffeur – another character from India, but without a stutter.<br/><br/>White men rescuing black people is an oddly common theme of the series, ideally the international rescue force would have been truly international. Seems like even though the characters are no longer controlled with wires, white people are still pulling the strings.<br/><br/>Regardless of the lackluster storytelling, the animation is unique, imaginative and obviously includes a well planned effort to include inspiration from the original series. Fantastic aircrafts of the future save lives.<br/><br/>Another middle aged guy posting. Firstly, I should explain that I grew up with 1970s re-runs of Thunderbirds and more re-runs were watched in my more adult years. Always liked the show but it never made my top ten TV show list. At first, I was uncomfortable with the news that the show would be rebooted in 2015 as reboots generally don't do it for me.<br/><br/>However, I was surprised and impressed with how it stayed true to the old series. Even the updated music cues play in my head as I type this review. However, it has a big flaw…26 episodes a season is just too much of something this repetitive, loud and fast paced!<br/><br/>I find the series goes over better when I watch it just once every month or two. If I watch every week the wham-bam-slam fast pace of it becomes a turn off. But the fact that I can watch it every month or two means just one thing to me: Thunderbirds Are Go!
Iridchr replied
293 weeks ago