Thunderbirds Are Go - Reception

Reception

were watching a film that exuded the same inventive spark, witty flair and oddball scenarios as the series itself. Multiple plotting, a sprinkling of monsters and a pop fantasy sequence including Cliff Richard and The Shadows ... were bolted on to the basic story of Zero-X, which would propel man to Mars for the very first time.

John Marriott (1993)

The release of Thunderbirds Are Go in December 1966 was one element of that year's "Thunderbirds Christmas" which witnessed a merchandising scramble to market tie-in media such as toys, games and novels. An initial review in Kine Weekly praised the film as a "colourful extension of Gerry Anderson's very popular television series", while the News of the World described it as "breath-taking entertainment". On 18 December, the Sunday Express published a similarly glowing review, in which the concept of the Zero-X mission to Mars was described as "awesome" and visuals commended: "Of course, the cast are all puppets, the sets, models, and the story unabashed nonsense. But it's great all the same. Your kids will take you, of course." In the Daily Mail, the transfer of the puppets from television to film was well received: "So who needs people? These handsome, stiff-necked, shiny-faced Thunderbirds puppets have broken spectacularly out of black-and-white TV and on to the cinema screen."

Everything about Thunderbirds Are Go is visibly a technological progression from the TV programmes; the whole production looks more polished. The visual effects became more impressive ... The puppetry also developed. It became markedly more restrained ... now movement was more subtle and realistic, less puppet-like ... The set design had also matured ... all sets were now comparable with the slickest designs in live-action.

Stephen La Rivière (2009)

However, after the splendour of the premiere and the praise of some reviewers, when the Andersons departed on a tour of Britain to promote the film it was revealed that public interest was mediocre and box office revenue poor, as Gerry Anderson explains: "When we got off the plane at the first destination we were told that the film was in trouble. Cinemas were apparently half-full. When we got to the next big city we got more news that made us even more depressed—box office figures were inexplicably low wherever we went." Anderson proposes that the presence of Thunderbirds on television damaged the chances of its big-screen transfer, asserting, "The only thing we could think was that at that time the audience was not used to seeing a feature film version of a television show. So people would see Thunderbirds and think, 'We've seen it on television.'" Sylvia Anderson offers a similar explanation: "Although we still had our loyal television fans, they remained just that—firmly seated in front of their television screens and not in the cinema."

Supermarionation historian Stephen La Rivière suggests that the film also faced competition on its release in 1966 from other new family films such as Leslie H. Martinson's Batman and James Hill's Born Free. Reviews were, in general, turning less positive: although the Slough Observer described the film as "basically a Technicolor large-screen extension" of its television original, The Times was critical, asserting that the plotting and characterisation handed down from the television episodes were too thin to sustain a film and that the various air- and spacecraft launch sequences were intended less for visual appeal than padding to maintain feature length. In his 1993 programme guide to the Anderson productions, John Peel comments that Thunderbirds Are Go is "well-made" and that it fulfils its promise to deliver visual spectacle, coming off as the more favourable of the two Thunderbirds films, although the plot is partly recycled from the television episodes, and the dream sequence is "painfully silly" and "embarrassingly awful". La Rivière agrees with Peel's view that the Thunderbird machines are underused, and that the extended model shots and infrequent appearances from the Tracy family may have been a disappointment to the intended audience of children.

Alan's subplot lends the film psychedelic colour and a welcome dose of human drama, but mostly, Thunderbirds Are Go is about the hardware ... Anderson and SFX designer Derek Meddings make the most of this cinema version's extra scope, filling the screen with bigger, shinier craft, while director Lane has more time to linger on the intricate detailing of the phallic models before they're blown to smithereens in the film's explosive action sequences. For the techno-fetishist, it's positively hardcore.

Film4 review

With the start of the War on Terror, Thunderbirds Are Go has been interpreted differently: Jeff Stafford of Turner Classic Movies compares the sabotage of Zero-X in the opening act to the 11 September attacks of 2001, but nevertheless regards the film in its entirety as a "pop culture novelty as fascinating and endearing as a toy from one's childhood." He agrees, however, that the model sequences are protracted: "You'll feel yourself growing older as cranes and hydraulic lifts slowly—very slowly—prepare for a missile launch." Meanwhile, William Gallagher of BBC Online offers a positive review, asserting that Thunderbirds Are Go is "every bit as good" as the television series. However, he also suggests that its status as a film adaptation faithful to its original is an inherent weakness, and that Thunderbirds functions better as a television series, writing of the film's content: "Certainly there's no greater profundity or universal theme to the film, it is just an extended episode." Gallagher rates Thunderbirds Are Go three stars out of five, as does a review on the Film4 website.