THESE ARE SOLEY MY OPINIONS AND ARE NOT INFLUENCED FROM THE THOMAS & FRIENDS FANDOM
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...
— SiForums and Fansite! (@SiFansite) November 22, 2020
No storyteller either. 😬
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.
— SiForums and Fansite! (@SiFansite) November 22, 2020
Details of characters, actors, stories etc have not been divulged, but expect a very different Sodor in 2021
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?
