Was thinking about the new Thomas merch thatâs dropping this year⌠pretty underwhelmed, weird and bad decisions being made left and right. I think one of the big reasons for why Toby in particular looks so bad in the new toyline is because all his colors are so wrong. Made a rough photoshop to show what I mean. Left is OG, right is my edit.
Still not good but wow, itâs SUCH a difference. I have no friggin idea why they thought making the footplate plastic red was a good idea since Toby barely has any red on him, really only on the bufferbeams.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
â Live Streamingâ Interactive Chatâ Private Showsâ HD Qualityâ Free Actions
Free to watch ⢠No registration required ⢠HD streaming
20 thoughts about the reboot trailer (aside from the obvious) (in no particular order)
Iâm putting these under the cut to spare you all.Â
TDLR: Itâs all a mess. Some areas may be less of a mess than others, but itâs all a mess.
1. Why is there a turntable? Canât the engines just jump around in circles? If youâre going with that, thereâs no reason to have a turntable
2. If those solar panels on Tidmouth Sheds are only there so that Kana engine can charge at night, I swear...
3. Did they really think they could turn Gordon into a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT ENGINE without anyone noticing?! Gordonâs an A1, which has a wheel configuration of 4-6-0. This mess shows him as a 2-6-2!Â
4. Why the heck is Diesel being grouped in with everyone like theyâre friends? The whole point of Dieselâs character and role is that he hates steam engines!
5. The wheels extending from the engines like that is making me even more queasy than what they were doing the last couple of seasons
6. Gordonâs face when Thomas is covered in mud is literally the only good part about these characters from what Iâve seen
7. I will admit, some of the backgrounds arenât half bad
8. WHERE THE HECK ARE ALL THE SIDE RODS ON THE WHEELS?!
9. Did anyone else think for a second that the tank engines got tenders with the colored trucks? Or was that just me?
10. Thomas shaking mud off his face will probably haunt me for days
11. Why is there a fridge and a lawnmower in those trucks?
12. Kana admittedly looks like she could have some potential, though she probably wonât get a chance
13. Nia looks even more obvious as a token diversity character in this style
14. I find it both relieving and concerning that we havenât seen hide nor hair or James, whoâs a pretty popular character in his own right and has recently been put into a trio with Thomas and Percy.
15. A loop-de-loop track.
A LOOP-DE-LOOP TRACK?!
Have those people up at Mattel LOST THEIR EVER-LOVING MINDS?!
16. Apparently things like gravity and metal rigidity donât apply to these characters in any way, shape or form
17. Why is Gordon so much bigger than the others?! Theyâre all the same gauge!
18. Annie and Clarabel are missing. While Iâm glad that it looks like they escaped, itâs far too odd to have Thomas without his coaches.
19. I find myself slightly less upset at Edward and Henry leaving. If Henry had to get adapted into this, I may have given up on the whole fandom.
20. October 2021. I canât believe this monstrosity will be put out in my own lifetime. Iâd best prepare for the funeral...
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
â Live Streamingâ Interactive Chatâ Private Showsâ HD Qualityâ Free Actions
Free to watch ⢠No registration required ⢠HD streaming
Or, my thoughts on a franchise shooting itself in the foot
- The show was soothing, settings had extreme levels of realism and the characters had unique personalities given life by impeccable narrators and VAs
- Now it's literally just another zany bright wacky reboot that probably won't even have a narrator amd annoying voices
- The narrator was important as it gave the impression of a parent reading bedtime stories to their child, which was exactly how the franchise even began
- Thomas is literally a kid now so is Percy and Diesel like??? Why y'all made them so infantile like that đŁ
- Kana seems to have no interesting personality traits and very likely a stolen fancharacter
- Diesel now wants to be the number one tank engine when 1) he's not a tank engine & 2) his original plans was to render steam obsolete; might as well change his name to Wannabe Steam
- They regressed Thomas back to a spotlight stealer the last thing Thomas needs is shoved into every single episode
- Gordon's the only one with a braincell yet now reduced to the mentor/father figure/OLD MAN role which was edward and toby's thing
- Apparently they can reproduce now?!?!?! Carly has a daughter? What Pooh's Adventures nonsemse is that?
- This makes me wonder how they'll handle the Narrow Gauge who'd probably be the size of toy cars XD
- Not a single soul on Sodor, at least Tatmr had humans granted most of them were just characters from Shining Time Station & bland newcomers but still now Sodor is just empty
- Going by how Thomas addressed Gordon as "Father Gordon" I wonder if Percy will be Henry's kid
- Continuing the trend of erasing classic characters from their own story James is no long a main character despite being really popular and fangirl magnet
- I saw Emily for a split second; wonder if she'll still be #12 or Percy's mom lmao
- The law of physics simply do not exists and y'all thought simple wiggling and shaking was bad Thomas is freaking Sonic the Hedgehog in this one XD
This is a press release from Mattel about Season 25. We now have more information on some of the charactersâ personalities, as well as the general plot of the very first episode. Thereâs also a part at the very end that is insanely important.
I will, however, put my rant under the cut so it doesnât take up your whole dashboard. PLEASE get the word out about this!
TDLR: Apparently, the Awdrys, Britt Allcroft, Davit Mitton, and Andrew Brenner wanted this reboot to happen, according to Mattel...
Okay! So, letâs start from the beginning, shall we?
I do want to point out that this has been written by Christopher Keenan, the Executive Producer of the reboot. In the very second paragraph, he mentions that he has been working in the Thomas franchise for the better part of a decade. Keep this in mind while reading the rest of this.
We then go into a list of âcreative elementsâ that will be involved, such as Stories Told from Thomas' Point of View, A Penchant for Physical Comedy, and More Music Than Ever Before. And itâs under Purposeful, Playful Stories that we get the first glance at a typical episode.
âFor example, our first episode has young Thomas keeping a promise to Gordon, even if it means forfeiting a race with competitive Diesel. For Thomas, the 'high road' isn't always the easy choice, but it's making that choice that positions him as a role model for our young viewers.â
Now, I think this general storyline, while on the preachy side, isnât uncommon for Thomas in general. (I think back to Whoâs Geoffrey in S19, to give an example.) But we really see the Thomas and Gordon parent/child relationship that will be prevalent throughout this reboot. And, if theyâre pushing that relationship this hard in the first episode, itâs unlikely that it will be going away in any future episodes.
Then, we get into a look at the returning charactersâs personalities. Giving them a quick look over, Percy doesnât seem too far off and Nia hasnât seemed to stray too far from S24â˛s view of her. But itâs Diesel and Kana that are interesting.
âDiesel is Thomas' competitive friend, always trying to one-up Thomas and inadvertently causes trouble for everyone in his quest to be 'the real Number One Tank Engine.'â
It seems like Mattel is trying to make Diesel both a good guy and a bad guy at the exact same time, instead of making him a bad guy with the occasional good moment. Iâve seen a lot of people thinking Diesel was part of the friend group when the footage leaked and weâve got official confirmation of that. What really throws me is that Diesel is trying to be a tank engine... Last I checked, I thought âtank enginesâ were exclusively steam? (Please correct me if Iâm wrong)
âKana is an all-new electric high-speed rail train from Japan. She crackles with electric speed, lets out a sonic whistle and often causes the trees and telephone poles to bend in her wake.â
Iâm not sure where to even begin with this one. Kana almost sounds like someone wanted to make some kind of Sonic the Hedgehog engine. Japan is known to have very fast trains, including the famed Bullet Trains, but this seems even faster than possible. And what is up with the sonic whistle?! Iâm pretty sure that electric engines donât use whistles.
And now, we get to the most infuriating, most offensive, most appalling statement that Mattel has ever made in the past few months.
ââThomas & Friends: All Engines Goâ is a series 75 years in the making. We canât wait for everyone to join us on this journey when we launch this fall.â
....
EXCUSE ME?!?!
This has been 75 years in the making? The TV series hasnât even been around for 75 years! 75 years ago is when The Three Railway Engines came out...
...Oh, they didnât.
This is the equivalent of Disney turning Mickey Mouse into a murdering lunatic, then claiming this is really what Walt Disney wanted. And Iâm sure Iâm exaggerating a bit, but this is just NOT something that is done. When you have a franchise that has lasted this long and has this large of a fanbase, youâd better have a damn good reason to disrespect the creator like that.
And theyâre not just saying this about Wilbert Awdry! This is implying that everyone who has worked on the series has been working towards making this reboot. This includes Christopher Awdry, Britt Allcroft, David Mitton, and Andrew Brenner, all people who, even if it wasnât perfect, tried their best to live up to Wilbertâs legacy.
This is possibly one of the WORSTÂ things Mattel could say after everyoneâs fury when that footage dropped. What is going on at their headquarters?! Have they blocked anyone who has any sort of interest in this show? Does anyone on the current production staff know anything about why people like Thomas so much? What is going on?!
In conclusion, if Mattel had any sliver of hope of saving this, itâs gone now.
