All Engines Go! Review - The Great Bubbly Build

 So we come to the latest 'All Engines Go!' project which is the half hour special of the show called 'The Great Bubbly Build' which made its world premiere on YouTube, both the UK and US dub, in October 2023 and then made its TV debut later that same month in both those countries. But is this special good? Or would it be another boring, bland, forgettable extended episode that would be forgotten about in the next hour? Let's find out, but first:

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

THE GREAT BUBBLY BUILD

Written by

Nikki Lytton

Directed by

Campbell Bryer

Produced by

Suzie Gallo

Release Date

12/10/23 - YouTube

20/10/23 - ID YouTube

28/10/23 - CAN (TV)

29/10/23 - UK (TV)

TBA - AUS (TV)

TBA - USA (TV)

Plot

When Sandy and Carly set out to make an art project together, Sandy focuses on its form and Carly focuses on its function. But when their ideas clash and the project fails, they learn that it needs the right mix of both of their ideas to succeed.

MY VIEWS

The special opens up with Sandy finishing her work and finding Carly. One of the places was the mine that was seen in 'Salty's Seashanty'. Sandy called out Carly's and heard a rumble which turned out to be Thomas and Diesel covered in mud. It all turned out that Thomas led the both of them into a wrong tunnel and into a mud pit, Thomas then explained that he thought he saw pirate treasure. 

Sandy then told them that she was looking for Carly, with her stating for the umpteenth time that she and her are best friends, as if we've don't know that already. As I was watching the US dub, I began to notice Thomas and Diesel's voices were a bit deep and I know that happened to their previous child voice actors before as they were reaching puberty and I have seen some US dubbed episodes with Thomas' recent VA while reviewing S2 and his voice was a bit higher previously, perhaps the same is happening to him.

Meanwhile Sandy was passing by the farm looking for her friend until she noticed movement in a hay stack. She thought it was but it was actually Nia, who was looking for a screw of her's which Sandy had found after Nia burst out of the hay stack with her face being covered as facial hair which led to another uncreative pun from Sandy as she sets off in search for Carly. 

Next she came to the docks and saw Percy and asked if he had seen Carly. Percy replied he hadn't and not in the crates that were being moved nearby from Cranky. Carly was suspiscous and Percy explained but one of the crates was dropped in the sea soaking Percy. Salty came up towards him and told him that his paint work will be covered in rust when his steel is contacted with salt water. Salty replied he had been rusted all the time and that it didn't hurt him, which shows his back end covered in rust with a mouse poking his head out from the back, personally I find it a bit uncomfortable. 

It's like we are seeing a engine's skin withering away, which was the point to scare Percy but it can still be effective since we do see other bits of rust surrounding Salty anyway. Anyway, Percy puffed away to the train wash while Salty told Sandy that Carly was looking for bugs. 

So it turns out Carly likes things bugs related, so we at least got some character from her and is a shame we never had that stated elsewhere in the show since Carly barely had much character to begin with. So we see her looking for bugs but there are no, despite a centipede crawling up her crane arm. She was so focused on looking for bugs that she'd accidently thrown Sandy up. But in the end she was caught safely. Meanwhile the centipede managed to get inside her and this is where Carly thought of making something for it, which interest Sandy. 

At the maintenance yard, we see the two looking for things that would be useful for their project. In the end, Carly made a box. Sandy wasn't that impressed by it since she thought they were going to make something creative. Carly's box was a bug box. It crawls inside and the magnifying glass showcases the bug at a larger scale, to be honest I like that idea even though I'm no fan of bugs. 

But Sandy thought it needs a bit more 'oofhm' like her's which was called the litter bug and we have to have her explaining her joke because this AEG, jokes need to be explained! However Carly was confused by it and asked Sandy what it does but Sandy mentioned that 'it arts'. Carly then explained that ideas that are creative seems different. But Sandy thinks there is some miscommunications on the idea of being creative, to her it's about making something fun, something big or weird. 

But to Carly making something useful is creative to her but Sandy told her to think of something artistic and so Carly did by making a bench, which didn't impress Sandy and so Carly made a water tank and then a lamp. Carly doesn't seem to understand Sandy's way of being creative and Sandy explained that being creative is to have style and showed a sand sculpture as an example, although I'm not a fan of the show's music, it just feels pretty forgettable, I do like the jazz music in the secne with Sandy making that sculpture, it kinda reminds me of the music from 'Trouble on the Tracks' PC game from 1999. 

Just then Thomas, still covered in mud from earlier, came into the yards telling the two they are having a big problem for which Carly replied that they do because her and Sandy have creative differences and with that being said I'm glad to see that after two years of this show's inception they'd finally given Carly some personality to make her interesting. But the actual problem Thomas was having was that the train wash was broken.

Despite their differences, Sandy and Carly went to fix it at once and the reason it was broken was because Thomas, Diesel, Percy and Nia were all trying to use it at once. Nia then showcased the problem. It did get the hay off but now she had a bubble beard, bit of a meh joke and could've been her not having her haybeard washed off or if she was covered with mud instead and that hadn't washed off properly. But then the train wash building collapsed. 

While Percy woes about his green paint being turned to rust, Thomas then came up with the idea of Carly and Sandy building a new train wash as they were trying to come up with something creative together. To which they agree. Thomas offered to help, despite having mud stuck in his funnel, even though he went to the yards without much fault from earlier.

At the maintenance yard, Thomas gave out his steam drawings of Carly's idea of a trainwash but Sandy got bored and went to sleep because Carly's idea wasn't fun. Sandy told her that bigger is better and fun and so we got our first song 'Focus on the FUNction'. I'm not a fan of the song, as I said many times before, I'll give credit that this song is at least broken up into parts, I think it would still work with just dialouge. But despite the outcome of Sandy's idea for a trainwash, she agreed and so they made a plan for the material. 

Thomas mentioned that Tess has some crates from a recent shipment and wondered if they could ask her to use them. Though she was rather stingy of them and after being told of their idea, she said no but Percy came and showed his rust and is in desperate need of a wash, though we had an episode that rust can be avoided by paint. Percy was worried that if they don't make the trainwash soon he could be rust to scrap and with that being mentioned, Sandy thinks Whiff might have some stuff lying around. 

So both her and Percy made their way to Whiff while Tess was having some doubts about it, nice to see she wasn't being terrible about it and Carly agreed despite her optomistic side thinking it's going to work with the third part of the FUNction song, Sandy sang the same verse earlier to Tess. Which made Tess give her some crates to spare after being told through song, again it would still work with dialouge. Though I do kinda like the small moment of Tess enjoying the song with Carly but saying she has a troublesome reputation to hold up because of the trucks puts me off, perhaps there might be an episode in regards to that? 

As Carly sets off Thomas made it to Tess despite Sandy and Carly made their way elsewhere. At Whiff's recycling plant, Carly arrived with her crates and was surprised by the truckload of rubber ducks that were found by Bulstrode around the bay, according to Whiff. But Carly was still doubtful about Carly's idea but Sandy found parts for the wash part of the trainwash. Which were bells, whistles, grease and a rollercoaster ramp with Carly wondering how would any of those things wash? To which Sandy agreed. But she then added rainbow soap dust which was recycled by Whiff using soap. 

Thomas arrived, feeling very tired and knocked over an old fan which was just the part Carly needs for the trainwash. They'd returned to the maintenance yard to get ready for the construction with a reprise of the FUNction song. After the trainwash was done, it was not going the way that Sandy had hoped off and everything was going haywire, typical AEG fashion with the engines rolling around in a cartoony fashion as Sandy realises that Carly was right and so they were to put it right with another repetitive reprise of the Function song when really it could just work as a montage, no one needs to hear the damn song over and over and over again. 

So Carly made her trainwash and it worked but the engines liked the stuff from Sandy's trainwash as well which led to the next song 'Put the Fun in Function', I skiped it because I really don't want to go through another song that could easily work as a montage and it led to a combination of both fun and function, which was a pretty obvivous outcome. 

Carly and Sandy were the first ones in and we were told our moral despite difference creative outcomes, you can also work together. Basically another working together moral.

THE END.

OVERALL

This special was OK and I think it would be a much better approach if all future AEG specials should be in a half hour timeframe instead of 60mins like the last two specials. The story at least had some focus instead of just setting up one thing and then going forth a different direction later on like that Percy balloon episode. Plus it was nice that Carly finally had some character instead of just being this bland, nothing character that she was in the last two seasons. When it comes to her and Sandy having a creative difference it shows just how different Carly is to Sandy. The former sees usefulness in her creative ideas and of course she has an interest in bugs like how Nia has an interest in music. 

The songs weren't needed in my opinion as I said earlier the scenes that the songs were in can work fine with just dialouge and we had episodes where the songs aren't needed in some, despite their own problems. I also think despite the conflict it would've been good if Carly and Sandy's creative difference caused some friction to the point they'd ended their friendship and started to make their own trainwashes as a challenge and see who has the best one. It would at least make the whole special more engaging. Like there was some conflict but it just feels tame and a bit drab. 

And now we come to Mattel's marketing towards this movie because it was POOR! This was announced by Nelvana's parent company Corus Entertainment back in June 2023 as part of there announcement of their 2023/24 line up and between June and its YouTube premeiere in October 2023, there was radio silence. No hype, no trailer, no toy tie-ins or anything to know the general public that this is a new Thomas special! Looking at their Instagram it was promoting Thomas but with no regards about this special's existence and it was basically just corporate made Tik Tok style videos as memes or Day Out With Thomas events in the US and some dumb comedy videos using the Thomas toys. We didn't get any trailer until a week before its YouTube premiere and a hype post after that as well as a countdown through Instagram stories. 

The viewing numbers are good and are roughly around the 1,000's but I think more could've been done with its promotion from Mattel. What toy could tie-in with this special, of course the trainwash. There had been Thomas toys such as the Engine Wash building from 1999-2006 for Wooden Railway, there had been one for Take Along and even for the Fisher Price range of the die-cast toys. You could at least add a wash and reveal toy that Mattel had been releasing with and add real water with starwberry scented soap as a feature like the special, depending if it works. It would give more exposure to the special amongst parents and children like what past Thomas toys had done. 

OVERALL RATING

5/10

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And with that that is all the All Engine Go! reviews for its second season and the specials that came along with it. See you next time! 

NWR1991.