THESE ARE SOLEY MY OPINIONS AND NOT FROM THE THOMAS & FRIENDS FAN BASE
65TH ANNIVERSARY OF
THOMAS THE TANK ENGINE
Episodes
Written by
The Rev.W.Awdry (original)
Britt Allcroft and David Mitton (Adaptation)
Directed by
David Mitton
Produced by
Britt Allcroft, David Mitton and Robert D.Cardona
Distributed by
Sony Creative Products Inc.
Release Date
29/10/10
In 2010, the world celebrated the 65th Anniversary of the Railway Series, or in the eyes of HIT Entertainment, Thomas the Tank Engine. While the UK, Australia and America witness the second CGI special 'Misty Island Rescue', despite it being a rhyming flop, with the wonderful and stunning animation from Nitrogen Studios, Japan celebrated the 65th anniversary with this DVD.
Looking back at the 65th anniversary, it was better then what the 60th anniversary had offered in 2005, especially in the UK with the infamous 60th anniversary celebrations at the Hatfield House. 'Calling All Engines', despite it being good with a fantastic moral about being different, was more of an extended Thomas episode with a waste of learning segments and the Railway Series books were lesser known at the time, without them being republished for the anniversary and the Awdry's battling on with Egmont and HIT, minus the 60th annivesary edition of 'Thomas the Tank Engine', albeit being published in 1946 and not 1945. Five years later, the 65th Anniversary actually showed a lot more marketing and merchandising for the show, a second republished Railway Series book of the second RWS book of the famous blue engine, an attempt at Hamleys toy shop in the UK for the longest cake train and the RWS books being slowly getting to be recognised to the world again through the promotional items.
In Japan, a special DVD came out in October that year, 2010. It contains four episodes from the first and second season of the series with some RWS stories in it to compare the differences between the RWS story and the TV episode, albeit in Japanese. There is a little snippet on the engines that didn't make it to the TV series such as the Culdee fell mountain engines and the Arelsdale Miniature Railway engines. The DVD is recommendable to older fans of the series who love both the books and TV series and to people who understand Japanese. It's also good for younger fans too to show them the original Thomas. Tis a shame that HIT Entertainment hadn't come up with a DVD like this three years ago instead of releasing 'The Best of Thomas', which was just a DVD containing every episode that's not focus to Thomas. Though you never know, maybe they might make a DVD like this in time for the 70th anniversary of the Railway Series.
Rating: 4/5
