THESE ARE SOLEY MY OPINIONS AND NOT FROM THE THOMAS & FRIENDS FAN BASE
CALLING ALL ENGINES!
Written by
Paul Larson
Abi Grant
Produced by
Simon Spencer
Directed by
Steve Asquith
Release Date
September 6th, 2005 (US)
October 3rd, 2005 (UK)
PLOT
Summer arrived and the engines are busy taking holidaymakers, vacationers in the US, around the Island of Sodor. A new airport is to be built but the steam engines and diesel engines were having a conflict with each other on who is better. However a hurricane came to Sodor and had damaged many things, will the airport be ready in time?
MY VIEWS
The DVD special was…OK. It's not the best of Thomas specials but it was decent and in my opinion it has been well over looked by the other specials that it's almost forgettable. This is where, I think the whole steam vs. diesel plot was starting to be overused to make the story go.
The special though feels like it would've been worked as a Thomas episode, and it feels like an extension of one. Probably the pointless thing in the special was the interval actives, of course it's for children to learn as the show is focused towards a pre-school audience but it just drags the story on and on and they were completely obvious that a child would know which is the right answer as soon as they see the correct hill.
There has been character returns such as Daisy, Diesel 10 and Lady. Though I wonder why they brought back Daisy just so they could use her to be a rival against the steam engines. That's very out of her character, she's very boastful about how modern she looks but in the end respects the steam engines and has been good friends with them ever since. Do the people behind the scenes have ever research this stuff, Steve Asquith had worked on the show for 21 years at the time this was in production and he was the director, you think maybe he had known about Daisy's character? This in no way of taking the mickey out of Asquith, he is a good director after David Mitton.
There has been many fans complaining that Diesel 10's character trait has been messed up making him all nice and kind and helpful by the third act of the film. However I do see him more as a 'tough guy' of the railway rather then an evil diesel but he wants to be useful like the others, yeah it's out of character but I think the new persona is much more better then his Hollywood persona.
However when it comes to Lady, her presence in the special was just pointless, it could've been any engine with a nice persona. However I like that they've retcon Lady rather then making her living in a mountain somewhere in America they said that she's a special engine working in the mountains but it is still pointless. However I was surprised that Rusty's season four model was used rather his S5-12 face, I don't mind the big face though but in my opinion I hate it when some fans have a fury over the size of his face, yes it's nothing like how the Rev.W.Awdry made it but they've blamed HIT for it rather then Britt Allcroft, not that I have anything against her nor I'm saying that they should hate Britt Allcroft, as the face was made during her time in the series.
In the end it's an OK special, not fantastic and it was simple, good enough for the kids to understand, it has a good moral about everyone being different but being the same at one thing and that is being really useful. However compare it to TATMRR, it's ten times more better.
RATING:
5/10
