As always, whenever I review a season of AEG I will also be looking at its special that is released alongside. In 2021 we had the Sodor cup, in 2022 we had a mystery in Lookout Mountain, in 2023 we had a bubbly build and now in 2024 we have a Christmas special, which is a first for the franchise when it comes to the specials. This special was announced by Mattel through a press release way back in February of this year and if you have seen my other posts, you might know that I wasn't looking very forward to this special and if you read any of my past reviews on the two 60min AEG specials, you might know why. This special was also written by Rick Suvalle, who hadn't written anything 'All Engines Go!' related since its debut in 2021.
So could this be any better or just another bland, forgettable extended episode that is called a special? But first:
THESE ARE SOLEY MY OPINIONS AND ARE NOT INFLUENCED FROM THE THOMAS & FRIENDS FANDOM
THIS POST MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS,
THAT IS IF ANYONE CARES.
THE CHRISTMAS LETTER EXPRESS
Written by
Rick Suvalle
Directed by
Campbell Bryer
Produced by
Suzie Gallo
Release Date
16/11/24 - CAN
21/11/24 - US
1/12/24 - AUS
8/12/24 - UK
Plot
Percy discovers a child's letter to Santa Claus forgotten at the bottom of his mail truck on Christmas Eve, but he is determined to make things right, even if that means tracking down Mr. Claus himself! With help from Thomas and his friends, Percy travels through dazzling parades, sweet-smelling gingerbread bakes, and snowflake flurries on a quest to deliver the letter to Santa and make a child’s Christmas Wish come true.
MY VIEWS
So after the song, the child's letter was blown away from Percy's mail van and landed in his cab and as Percy puffs on with his deliveries, Thomas got the news from Sir Topham Hatt, the Fat Controller, that Santa Claus is coming to attend their Christmas parade and told Thomas to take ingredients to Reginald's bakery to make Christmas cookies as Santa loves them. As Thomas sets off with his delivery and the Fat Controller getting things ready for the parade, James arrives with Annie and Clarabel with the annual Sodor Christmas tour and after being vain about sharing the same colour as Santa's sleigh, his coupling broke.
The two coaches were shocked but James was waiting for Sandy to pop up to fix him up. But Sandy hadn't showed up. But it turns out that Sandy was decorating Christmas mountain for the parade. However, Kana came to his help to pull Annie and Clarabel while James leads the way.
Meanwhile, Percy carried on delivering the Christmas mail but still didn't know about the loose envelope in his cab as he carries on with his mail song as his job was nearly complete. Thomas met up with him and told him the news about Santa coming to the parade and the Christmas cookies which made Percy excited who just happens to be making his way to Reginald's bakery to deliver his last of the Christmas mail.
After Percy gave him his Christmas mail, Thomas was shunting the baking supplies but a mound of snow blocked the line making him stuck and Percy had to pull him out which resulted into some of the supplies landing on them giving them a gingerbread makeover. This feels more like it was trying to promote them as a toy commercial as the whole gingerbread makeover feels like something Mattel would've made to sell in shops for Christmas. But being typical Mattel, they never made much merchandise of the special to promote it. So the whole Thomas and Percy being painted like a gingerbread houses just feels redundant.
After they were done with deliveries for the years, Thomas and Percy made their way to Lookout Mountain where Sandy, Bruno, Diesel and Sandy carried on decorating, Carly was hanging lights around the mountain and wishes she would have an extension for her crane arm, meanwhile the whole tradition thing was brought up again, this time with Sandy's snow machine which was running haywire thanks to the cold, you know to bring up all that pointless cartoony to eat up the runtime. It turns out it ran out of grease, which was offered by Carly. However, Sandy wishes that she has grease to last out forever which gave Carly an idea.
Thomas and Percy decided to look out for him on Lookout Mountain where we once again see the lights all hung up but they forgot to put up Bruno's special star on the Christmas tree, much to his annoyance because it's not the same as last year and told Sandy to turn off the lights but they ended up being broken and are in need of spares.
Then, Harold arrived and Carly asked him if he could help finding spare lights to which Harold agreed. While Sandy decided to find some at the maintenance yard and so the friends made their way. They passed Thomas, Percy and Nia as they're making their way to the mountain who then stopped and told each other what happened. I'd rolled my eyes at this scene. While we should be watching it through the eyes of the characters, as Diesel, Carly, Sandy and Bruno weren't there with Thomas and the others, it just feels like they were eating up time to fill in the 60min space. Why not keep it until later? Perhaps at the end? We, the audience, didn't need the same recap of what we'd just seen about 22 minutes ago.
And after they explained everything, James, Kana, Annie and Clarabel met up with them, they too had a tiny subplot but I didn't mention it because it didn't offer that much importance to the story, the snow machine went haywire because we need more cartoony filler until Sandy decided to drop the whole thing but James got his coupling hook fixed, ending the most useless subplot.
As Thomas, Percy and Nia make their way to Lookout Mountain, Thomas decided to make their way through the old mines as it's the quickest way to the mountain, a nice continuation from the 2022 special but it was done to fill in time. Kana came along too and helped with the lights, which worked, but she was draining battery and had to turn them off just as Harold came along with some spare lights and told them that he'll be looking for more lights.
Realising about the lights, all the engines think Santa will definitely see them. So they waited in all direction but it only lasted a few seconds with Percy crying that it might too late which gives us the second song 'A Christmas Wish' and I will say, it's a song that did add some relevance to the story and it was a nice and heartfelt one. After the song, Santa can be seeing passing the moon as he makes his way to Vicarstown.
So they went on their way. Back at the maintenance yard, Sandy placed away her snow machine while her and Carly were looking for lights but really the two were looking for presents to give, as mentioned earlier in the special. Sandy was looking for something to make as an extension to Carly's arm while Carly was looking for more grease for Sandy.
However, quite by accident, Sandy founded some spare lights within her junk, really they could've used the lights that were decorated around the yard? But whatever. Meanwhile, Thomas, Percy, Nia and Kana were trying to catch up with Santa but lost him. But then they heard some bells but it turns out to be a bell from a shop, a cow's bell and Percy's lucky bell, thinking it was Santa's reindeer, more filler.
And while they were trying to find ways to find the man in red, he was seen passing over them and then Kana suggested to listen for him saying 'Ho, Ho, Ho' though I will say Kana saying 'Maybe we should have to listen for the Hoes instead!' give me a chuckle in the most unintentional way. So they listened but to no avail but Nia smelt something instead which was Reginald's cookies or gingerbread station. He did make the cookies but for some reason a station as well, anyway the latter was not that important nor necessary as Thomas and the other raced to Vicarstown and saw that Santa had passed through, much to Percy's disappointment but Thomas, Nia and Kana were pleased to see that Santa was still on Sodor and chased on after him while at Lookout Mountain, Carly and the others were to place up the new Christmas lights.
They passed through Crumble Canyon, once again with the boulder chasing them as usual as redundant filler. They saw Santa going over the ridge but it later turned out to be Harold with more lights and asked him if he had seen Santa, which he hadn't. As Harold zoomed past, the letter that Percy was holding began to blow away and the engines were chasing after it, adding more useless filler. They soon came to the express tunnel and Percy nearly collided with a snowdrift but luckily Thomas ploughed through the snow, which I bet Percy would've done the same since realism is non-existence in this era of the show but that's just another nitpick.
But the letter was still floating around adding in more useless filler. Meanwhile, the spare lights are all up and ready to be lit with Bruno finally hanging his special star like last year, ending that subplot with nothing of value to learn from, as Thomas and the others were chasing after the letter as they climb up the mountain with Sandy catching it with her later shaking it ending up with the letter being opened, Bruno saving it and Thomas ended up reading, what a nice message for kids that it's OK to read other people's personal letters, hell they never stated it through dialogue. It turns out the letter was from a girl named Ryan, yes it's a gender neutral name, who wanted a pink polka-dotted skateboard.
Nia and Kana awed at the idea that a person wants a skateboard, for some odd reason, and the engines decided to give the girl a pink polka-dotted skateboard of their own. So the engines decided to go and find one because now they don't know if they would ever find Santa and we'd spent 40 damn minutes of them trying to catch him, useless! Yes Percy brought it up after they decided their idea but it feels so annoying that we'd spent a good chunk of the special seeing them running around trying to get Santa's attention and then they said, 'Nah, let's go forth with the most useless subplot instead.'
So the engines looked all around for skateboard but nothing. However, Sandy managed to get some pink wheels for skateboard at Whiff's recycling plant, after Thomas decided to make Ryan a skateboard. Sandy made one but it turns out not to be anything like one with Sandy showing a demonstration just for the sake of more cartoony antics because, you know, they have 60 minutes to fill, but it all ended in failure and so they went back to the idea of getting Santa's attention after spending about 10 minutes over something that didn't need to be there.
But the parade was going to be starting soon and Santa could've been done with his deliveries. But then Diesel heard some bells but Percy thinks it was another door opening or a cow wandering by. But Diesel saw the star shooting by but Thomas thought it was Harold until he'd arrived after seeing it and so the engines went on their way to catch him with the final song 'Ho-Ho-Hold On Santa Claus'. Another song that has relevance to the story. All of the engines made to the mountain with Sandy blinking the lights to signal him.
However, the star flashed away from the mountain and Percy was disappointed but it turns out Santa did. Who then told everyone the message because I'm sure after watching nearly 60mins of this special, no one thought of the message and they need to be told about it instead of letting it digest it for themselves, seriously why does every AEG episode and special have to state the message of the story? It feels like they're just belittling the audience's intelligence here.
It turns out that Santa does have the skateboard that Ryan wishes for and had specially asked Percy to deliver it to her for him, which was a nice reward but maybe Percy could've at least apologised for reading her letter? Yes I'm still a bit miffed that they just let that slide. Talking of Santa, the reason his face wasn't shown is because with Thomas being a global brand, they don't want to show Santa with a specific race or ethnicity, which is something good on the production team's part.
So Percy delivered Ryan's present and they made it to the parade in time and Sandy giving Carly an arm extension that she made herself after her snow machine broke earlier in the special when making the skateboard. With Carly giving her more grease for her snow machine, with a dash of 'Gift of Magi' added in with Sandy telling Carly she used a piece from her snow machine and that the grease was from Carly's extra grease ending their subplot and probably the only good one.
And so the special ends with a reprise of the opening song that could've been left for this ending but whatever as they looked around the island all lit up as they reached Lookout Mountain once again with the engines talking about their Christmas wishes while also feeling tired and in the end we got a nice little montage of the engines getting their Christmas wishes from Santa with Thomas wishing everyone 'Merry Christmas'.
THE END!
OVERALL
You know at this time of year, Christmas specials, no matter how bad or good they are, often put effort in them to at least make them special and worthy to sit through every year as a tradition. This was the first Thomas special to be Christmas themed in the franchise and is it worth sitting through again? It's a massive NO from me. This was probably the most boring Christmas special that I've seen from the show and probably the worst special from this era of the show overall.
The main story which is about Percy trying to send the missing letter could've just worked as an 11 minute episode instead of a long hour special. All it just feels like is that they dragged it out and have to fill in the plot with useless filler such as the engines rolling through the old mine or running around like idiots chasing a letter when really you can decrease that for a typical AEG episode.
One point I'll give to the special is that unlike 'The Mystery of Lookout Mountain', this special had subplots to give some breathing room but unfortunately, the subplots were also pointless. One interesting subplot was Bruno's idea that everything has to stay the same like last year but nothing really came out from that as everything was the same instead changing some things up despite not staying with tradition and how it can be a good thing. It would've been great to at least give Bruno some character growth of his own during this special.
And the other subplot is James and Kana taking the tour group but it felt so small and useless and with things ending half way through the special, it could easily be cut out and it won't make such a major difference. The only thing to change is Kana's purpose to help her friends since she was helping James out.
The only subplot that I think was good out of all was Sandy and Carly's 'Gift of Magi' subplot it was kind of on and off with its focus but it didn't feel redundant and it at least have an ending. These subplots could've also been 11 minute episodes as well maybe with more effort put into it to make them actually good.
But despite the use of subplots I felt they'd slowed the pacing down for the main story and that they needed something to fill in space because the main story can't be stretched out at 60mins which makes me believe that they should've stayed with the 30min time frame like they did with Bubbly Build last year. That special at least made the story feel cohesive and didn't need to pad out to fill in the run time.
It's sad to see something that is suppose to be a Christmas special being bad and the only other Christmas movie that I've seen that was bad was 'Jingle All The Way 2' with Larry the Cable Guy on Disney Plus. That whole movie was nothing more but a rehash of the first movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger from the 90's, I despise that movie hard. If you want something Christmas related and something better coming from the Thomas & Friends brand, I recommend the episode 'Letters to Santa' from S20. It's not too similar to this special but it is an episode that has some elements a tad bit similar in a short running time. Personally it's one of my favourite episodes from the show's original run.
Now I know, at the time of writing this, this is number two on Netflix on Nov.23rd from this twitter post though I don't know what position its in now over in the US. But numbers are just numbers. Sure it was or is in second place but that doesn't define that it's good or not. People can watch it and make their own decision over whether they had seen the whole thing or half of it whatever. It's same with box office numbers. The amount of money that movie makes doesn't define the quality of it all and one example that I have is the first Aquaman movie from DC in 2018. It was making big money at the box office and even some people were praising it too, critics really, but when I went to see it due to the hype, it was a mess when they'd crammed in two different plots with one being finished abruptly just so they can leave for a sequel. Did they really need to do that? No they could just focus on the one plot that was the major focus of the movie.
Another example is the 2019 Lion King remake from Disney. That made big money at the box office but it's just the same story beat by beat of the 1994 classic but the difference it's photorealistic with dead inside faces when really people could've watched the original on whatever streaming service had it at the time prior to Disney Plus or they could've watched it for free on DVD or Bluray.
Numbers don't mean anything except to a bigwig CEO because it makes them money. For the average joe, it means nothing. But despite this special being placed number 2 on Netflix, I doubt Mattel cares about that as their primary concern are the toy sales since that's how Mattel sees something as successful and we know that because when Thomas toy sales were going down in 2017, the show had to change which is what gave us BWBA, despite that being in production in 2015 when toy sales were actually good.
With Big World being a failure, they canned the original show and went with this iteration that we're seeing today in hopes of successful toy sales and seeing as how their is a lack of demand of AEG Thomas toys, based on the small amount on the shelves, in stores three years since its inception and how Thomas is not even mentioned in Mattel's 2024 Q3 reports in terms of sales, apart from their personal bio and amongst the vast amount of other brands in their presentation, I doubt AEG is proving much success anyway.
This is such a boring looking train set that I feel sorry for the younger
generation.
After Race for the Sodor Cup's release, Mattel's promotion of the specials and the series, the way that I've seen it have been sinking lower and lower. For the Lookout Mountain special we only have the character toy pack coming from them, their was nothing toy related for Bubbly Build and for this special we only have a boring circular train set that offers no relevance to the special, a typical mandated digital music album and a set of puzzles from Ravensburger which offers no signage of the special itself. In the past, there had always been special packaging to tell the consumer of an upcoming Thomas special or episode and I believe that helped with its success because it was informing people about its existence.
Is this for a special? Or did they just decorate generic promos to make it look Christmassy?
Even during Mattel's early years of ownership they had done that up until 2020. Do they want to inform people that a special was coming or do they want the show to fail despite putting all the money towards it to make it successful? I personally feel there should've been at least more toys to base off from this special such as the gingerbread Thomas and Percy with them being scented, a Diesel and Bruno set with the special star, perhaps a Lookout Mountain set decorated for Christmas with LED lights for show? Anything better than some boring circular trainset that offers no variety and featuring characters that some kids had already bought previously.
They had uploaded clips of the songs from the special on the official YouTube channel as well as the trailer for the special too but in the context of Mattel's bigwigs loving numbers, videos showcasing the original looking Thomas have been getting more numbers than some of the videos that are AEG related and they are nothing more but content farming style videos filled with clips from various shorts, episodes etc. but I think it shows that despite AEG, the original Thomas series still has some major preference from the general public.
When I see the toys of the brand being sold today, I often think back to the time when HIT Entertainment had control of the Thomas brand before being bought out by Mattel in 2012 and remembered just how much effort they'd put in towards the show's toy line which had offered a wide variety of characters, rolling stock, extra track and sets and when it comes to sets it was mostly destinations to add to your train set which gave you the opportunity to build how it looks and the same applies to Wooden Railway and Tomy. Whereas the AEG sets, as I said earlier, are such boring circular train sets with reused assets and billboard signage that feel all samey and with no destinations to add on. It makes me feel sorry for the young generation who have to endure all of this which is why I think it's one of the reasons why there isn't much demand for Thomas toys today and I hope, even though I'm not counting on it, someone from Mattel would read this and consider this.
Now with that out of the way, there will be another 60min special coming next year and already I'm betting on for sure it won't be any better. I personally think they should just make the specials 30mins long like Bubbly Build as its more compact for AEG special. There's not much info on what the special will be all about but maybe it might be related to the 80th anniversary but that's just only a guess.
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See how the logo is the original Thomas and not the AEG Thomas?
What gives? Not that I find that as a problem.
Speaking of the 80th anniversary, I've noticed that while I was writing this blog post I saw a 2025 Day Out With Thomas poster with the updated version of the 80th anniversary logo that Japan had revealed back in October 2024 when they'd launched their 80th anniversary campaign. The first version used the AEG Thomas for some books that was revealed in the early months of 2024 but now they're starting to use the original Thomas instead as seen on the 75th anniversary logo in 2020. Could this mean something? I don't know and I don't think it means that we might see the return of original, and better, Thomas but only time will tell so don't get your hopes up please.
Here is the AEG 80th logo
As I said, the special was boring and it didn't need to be 60mins long as the story could work in a 11min time frame. It's good that it has subplots but they weren't really good either except for Sandy and Carly's one, despite its focal problem.
This will be my last post for 2024. Pity it has to end with something that is a dud but then again it is All Engines Go! an iteration that would have some gems here and there but overall a massive hit and miss. But despite that I hope everyone who had read this blog have a Merry Christmas and a happy and safe New Year.