NWR Editorial: More Info of 'S25'

 THESE ARE SOLEY MY OPINIONS AND ARE NOT INFLUENCED FROM THE THOMAS & FRIENDS FANDOM

MORE INFO OF 'S25'

Back in Sep/Oct 2020, Mattel announced that Thomas is going to have a new show which will be focused on him along with new animation from Nelvana Studios, famous for its Rupert Bear cartoon from 1991-1997 as well as other shows too. As of  November 23rd, here in Australia, SiF were part of a conference about the new show and while there hadn't been information about the visuals, voice actors etc. There had been some new information in regards about the new show, so I'll embed the tweets here: 

I'm in the conference call now - it's definitely a reboot.

— SiForums and Fansite! (@SiFansite) November 22, 2020

Stretching, squashing, JUMPING!!! no Drivers or Firemen, humans to be relegated to background, Sir Topham Hatt to be comedic foil and only human to interact with the engines...

No storyteller either. 😬

— SiForums and Fansite! (@SiFansite) November 22, 2020

 Since we now know this is going to be an entierly new show, I find it odd that Mattel are calling this S25. Heck I'm susprised that the media who'd picked up on the story about the new changes a month ago didn't say 'reboot' and the word had become a dead meaning nowadays by them. I'm a bit heartbroken because after 36 years, then again we had S8-16 which is considered a reboot but more of a soft one, the stories of the past are meaningless now, to the eyes of Mattel of course. With the stretching, squashing and jumping of it all, I guess now we can say Thomas had indeed stooped towards Chuggington level here, the movement from S21-24 look alot more realistic now compare to the idea of it all for 'S25'.

I'm not surprised that we won't see Thomas with his crew since they were hardly relevant since S8 and honestly I can live without that since nowadays the engines do things by themselves. I'm surprised that humans are going to be relegated to the background but then again they were like that for a few years with an odd interaction here and there for story purposes. 

But my biggest complaint is that the Fat Controller is going to be a prop for comedy once again. We saw that in S21 and it was grating! The Fat Controller is suppose to be an authority figure, he suppose to be looking out for his engines like a father would to his children. I know that his character gets criticised for being a 'dictator' for some strange reason, but many people, including Christopher Awdry, the son of the Rev.W.Awdry, says that children do like having authority around them and I believe that too because it helps us to know our rights and wrongs. It's such a big shame that Mattel thinks he would be good for comedy, but what would happen if kids would find boring and annoying in 104 episodes! 

While I'm writing this post mainly as an older fan, I do understand that Mattel are gearing this show towards its target audience to try and get toy sales back up and running for Thomas. But I don't know how kids would be able to respond to this? I believe there are some who will enjoy it and I say that's great but I don't think Mattel would get the numbers they would hope for, especially from the autitisc audience after nearly 20 years of associating with Thomas because kids with autisum understood the emotion expressions and the colour of the engines. The only show that I know is fast paced is 'Paw Patrol', the show that Thomas is competing among other shows, and there are some autistic fans of the said show. I'm no expert in this field so I'm not going to make any guesses on why it appeals to them but I know they like the show. Maybe there might be some who will enjoy it but I know this is going to be something big for them to digest.

They have ended the conference early, no new images nor visuals of the new show. I have audio recording and a friend has taken notes, which I'll use to relay the details.

Details of characters, actors, stories etc have not been divulged, but expect a very different Sodor in 2021

— SiForums and Fansite! (@SiFansite) November 22, 2020

In this last tweet, we know we're going to expect a different Sodor but I'll be fine with that since the Island of Sodor had gone through some many different iterations in the past 75 years. The true one will always be the Railway Series and over the years we had seen different looks of Sodor while also trying to hold true to what was shown in the books. But the show had taken some liberties over the years, like Elsbridge being the junction instead of Knapford Junction, the branch line sheds for Thomas, Toby and Percy is located at Tidmouth instead of Ffarquhar. Tidmouth being a smaller clone to Knapford since the latter was the big station instead of Tidmouth and the terminus for the Skarloey Railway is not a wharf like in the books. So I'm fine with a different Island of Sodor. 

Whatever the new show will bring is what it will bring. I'm not going to signing any petition nor am I going to be linking one here because they honestly just don't work for a TV show, name me one that had worked. I will probably watch some episode to give it some chance but I honestly don't see this to be a major success, if it is I'll be surprised. On the plus side, at least for my series I don't have to think what decade the new season will fit into for continuity purposes and that the new series and its stories will be non-canon and would only exisit as a TV show like I did with Smudger, yes I know he's somewhat beloved but he'll never be part of my series so end of! 

I don't know if I'll be reviewing 'S25' or 'S26' since I don't feel like reviewing it after all of this and I'll probably won't buy any of the DVDs of the new show if it doesn't turn out to be good, maybe for a family member of mine if they enjoy the show but I still won't be reviewing them. I'll review upcoming S24 DVDs still but after that, maybe my blog would enter a hiatus until the Marc Forster movie comes out, after all I do need a bit of a break from all of this sometimes, lol.

If all of this fails, then Mattel should sell Thomas to another company since they had too many chances with it. Reason why I gave 'S25' the quotation marks, because why call it 'S25' when its entierly new?

DVD Review: Marvellous Machinery

I know I said once that I was waiting for Australia's release but since ABC went with 'A Colourful World' instead this year, I bought the UK copy back in September 2020. But here is my DVD review, but first: 

THESE ARE SOLEY MY OPINIONS AND ARE NOT INFLUENCED FROM THE THOMAS & FRIENDS FANBASE

MARVELLOUS MACHINERY

Written by

Paul Larson & Laura Beaumont

Episodes

A New Arrival

World of Tomorrow

Sonny's Second Chance

Kenji On The Rails

Directed by

Joey So:

A New Arrival

World of Tomorrow

Directed by

Ian Cherry:

Sonny's Second Chance

Kenji On The Rails

Produced by

Ian McCue (HIT/Mattel)

Tracy Blagdon (Jam Filled)

Special Features

Meet the Characters - Sonny

Song - How Does It Work

Release Date

28/09/20 - UK

Distributed by

HIT/Mattel Creations - UK

HIT/Mattel Creations/ABC Kids - AUS

EPISODES

One thing different about the DVD is that they had merged the episodes together to make it as a movie, and I seem to remember on a Village Cinema website in Australia earlier this year in March that there was going to be a screening of this special, this was before the COVID-19 epidemic was turned into a global pandemic. So maybe this is what we were going to get if there weren't any pandemic. I can tell that the editing felt a little awkward in some transitions, perhaps they could've extend some of the scenes to give it some better flow. The only transition that I find smooth was from the end of 'Sonny's Second Chance' and then onto 'Kenji on The Rails Again'. I also think it was a little odd to have Thomas say the title of the first part of the two parter special, they could've deleted that like they did with the other ones, perhaps maybe they forgot to edit it out but those are just nitpicks. However the way it was set kinda reminds me of the day of the movies from 2005-2018 where they had a full story and a song at the end.

Looking back at the two part special, I still liked it despite its over the topness. It was far more entertaining and a tad more memorable than 'Digs and Discoveries' & 'Steam Team to the Rescue', despite the use of the fear of replacement story, but it never really felt hammered down unlike some episodes. The stories were entertaining as well as its message that just because something better was made doesn't mean that the things in the past aren't useful. Plus I liked the retrofuturistic style they went with and it was a pretty common thing in the 60's, which is visually implied in the show. I understand that not many people like it because it wasn't what Awdry had envisioned but neither was S5, Magic Railroad etc. even if people have the nostalgia goggles for those things. I will say this in regards to the upcoming 25th season next year, I hope they do take Thomas to Japan, as implied by Hiro in Kenji's episode, but I find it to be a long shot. But the information about the new season is a bit scarce. To read more of my views, please click the links provided above. 

SPECIAL FEATURES

Honestly, the special features have become bare bones in the last few years. All we got were a song and a video about Sonny and that's it. You think with this being Ruth's first apperance in the special they added her video too along with Kenji? Heck Kenji had one episode to himself and it was apart of this special! Perhaps they'll be in a future release next year. I wish the special features have more variety like they were between 2013-2016. 

OVERALL

I think the DVD is worth it for kids who enjoy the fast pace nature and over the top actions, however I don't think it would be suitable for children on the autistic spectrum and I don't how they feel of the new changes to the show from 2018. Sadly I don't think Mattel would know either because they'd donated money to the infamous 'Autistic Speak' organisation where they treat autisum as a disease rather than spreading awareness, and to think they had a character from the show who had autistic traits. But I digress. We know now that this would be the last DVD for 2020 and it's strange that we hadn't got the S21 collection this year whereas the last few years we had them on DVD. I have a feeling that more people would rather stream them than buy a physical copy since kids would have the episodes already from the other releases, hence why they were released on Amazon Prime in the UK and US and Stan here in Australia this year instead. But I could be wrong and maybe we might get a release next year instead. We know certaintly that it isn't COVID delaying it since we had other DVDs released in this past year. 

OVERALL RATING

7/10

With 2020 finally coming to an end and with no new DVDs coming out until early next year, look out for my yearly retrospective post of the DVDs that were released in 2020 on December 31st. In the mean time, my S18 reviews are still in the works and I would bring more reviews between S19-21 soon after that.