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Lemonchest wrote:

They don't need to change the Space 1999 title. After all, it's still 1999 on the moon even though hundreds of years have past on Earth since it was knocked from orbit, because science.

Or, just do a re-make called "Space 2099":

http://tggeeks.com/blog/2015/12/31/space-1999-to-be-reimagined-called-space-2099/

Would really like to see a proper remaster of Star Fleet along with the theme tune getting a spruce up as well.

Sad when things fall apart for something beloved as it is with the Thunderbirds.

I actually was more into Thunderbirds 2086 myself. I agree, i wish the series was revived. To bad Japan could have kept the T-bird name instead of changing it to Technowhatever it was call voyagers.

I didn't even know what Star Fleet was before I watched that YouTube video Mike linked to, but if Brian May's floating head in space says it's awesome, then it must be true.

I've been rewatching Thunderbirds on Blu-ray and it's amazing; the physical sets from the 60s had so much love and care lavished on them that they look more realistic than the ones in the new CGI Thunderbirds Are Go (which does actually use physical sets that the animation is then layered upon).

But for Thunderbirds fans, there is still one more classic part of the franchise coming out; Thunderbirds 1965, adapting three audio releases into the style of the TV series. Based on the previews of the three episodes, they've done an amazing job.

I had no idea that "Thunderbirds" was as popular in Japan. The main cast of characters were American. This and a number of other of their shows leads to the speculation that the Andersons' might have been Americaphiles. A lot of their shows had American lead characters and one, "Stingray" I believe was set in America. At a certain age,you'd have thought that they were American-made. That the show was British would certainly have been a big surprise at that time.

Last edited by Melicans on Mon Mar 21, 2016 12:37 am; edited 2 times in total

Snomaster1 wrote:

I had no idea that "Thunderbirds" was as popular in Japan. The main cast of characters were American. This and a number of other of their shows leads to the speculation that the Andersons' might have been Americaphiles. A lot of their shows had American lead characters and one, "Stingray" I believe was set in America. At a certain age,you'd have thought that they were American-made. That the show was British would certainly have been a big surprise at that time.

As I understand, it was largely due to a desire to crack the American market; something that they struggled with throughout the existence of Supermarionation. They made the Tracy family American specifically because they thought the networks would have no interest if the characters were of another nationality. And the American exposure and commercial deals would mean a greater budget, and not just for Thunderbirds. They even went as far as writing the scripts in US English and on American quarto paper.

To an extent it worked; three major networks were in a bidding war, but they gambled and pushed the price too high. Then one network lost interest and the other two backed out almost immediately afterwards. That is why the second season had only six episodes. Even though it was immensely popular overseas, the people above the Andersons thought that without the American sales the second season wouldn't recoup the production costs. And so the plug was pulled.

I never watched Thunderbirds as a kid since the puppets they used kinda creeped me out of course now they don't so I might just give it a try. Smile

Bamble wrote:

However, it's even more impressive to see Thunderbirds 2086 get some decent space on any article these days, and as a much more obscure series, I'd like to add a few (well, maybe not quite a few!) more words on the series.

I probably saw Thunderbirds 2086 before ever laying eyes on the original. Very informative post you have there.

AnimeFan188 wrote:

Lemonchest wrote:

They don't need to change the Space 1999 title. After all, it's still 1999 on the moon even though hundreds of years have past on Earth since it was knocked from orbit, because science.

Or, just do a re-make called "Space 2099":

http://tggeeks.com/blog/2015/12/31/space-1999-to-be-reimagined-called-space-2099/

I think Marvel Comics still has a trademark on the year 2099. Could be a problem.

One of the other neat things about TechnoBoyagers was the music, from Macross composer Kentaro Haneda.

Anyone who is a fan of Haneda's work will recognize his very disticntive sound immediately and they will definitely want to check out the TB soundtrack. Originally released only on relatively rare LP, the music was finally re-released on CD a few years ago. It can be found in the places one normally finds anime music these days.

Noting, though, that the anime's theme songs were always sold as a separate product as a 45 record and they were not on the old LP record and are not on the CD either. I am lucky to have the 45, the LP and the CD, an accomplishment that took me over two decades to complete.

Anyway my understanding was that the concept story behind Terrahawks was originally a much darker story about alien invasion causing havoc on the earth. Attempts were made to lighten it up a bit and the end result was the Terrahawks show as we know it, but some of the same ideas and some other concepts were also combined to make the Mospeada anime. So I have been told, anyway, that Terrahawks and Mospeada sprang from the same origin and in any case do share some very loose high-level similarity.

And of course, the Terrahawks anime open title is an amazing thing to see and that song kicks major butt. It's a shame it is virtually unknown even among anime OP title collectors or among Dezaki fans, all of whom should be freaking out over the awesomeness.

The original Thunderbirds had a version of its familiar theme with Japanese vocals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xpGEQWs0lI

and there was a great exhibition of original Thunderbirds puppets, sets and photos and videos at the Miraikan in 2013:

http://www.miraikan.jst.go.jp/en/spexhibition/thunderbirds/

One odd footnote that came out of Japan's Thunderbirdmania: X-Bomber features the first pieces by Susumu Hirasawa for a movie or series. The other guys who made music for the JP version (Akiro Kamio, Kazutaka Tazaki & Takahashi Kokubo) all worked on the same music school that Hirasawa did. The OST credits him with 2 songs, however, only the back half of one (Lamia's Theme) was actually used in the series. 1980 was also when he began making music for commercials & pro wrestlers (that is, no joke, his most popular song in Japan) as well.

Anyway, about Anderson: My dad grew up with Thunderbirds so I've known about it for a while. Never watched much of it but the look of it has always stricken me (the dearth of mimicrys outside of Japan is sad, really hoping that the new FireStorm picks up Steam after it comes out).

It's kind of a bummer that FireStorm (the original) seems to be bleh. It has a not-quite-here-nor-there design sensibility that you used to see in weird western & Korean productions that doesn't really exist anymore (being associated with overall unimpressive releases doesn't help there).

Thunderbirds 2086 has an odd place in my memory (patchy as it is).
What I do remember is some sort of magazine I had (I think it was connected in some fashion to Kellog's Frosties?) asked children to write in with ideas for a Thunderbirds cartoon, while I was thinking that I was sure I'd already seen one, and that it had been similar to Battle of the Planets. It wasn't until I found a Thunderbirds 2086 VHS lingering among the tapes you got in corner newsagents for a few quid that it clicked into place.

Jonathan Clements, who is friends with Steve Kyte (he illustrated his Schoogirl Milky Crisis book in fact) has written about Firestorm a couple of times - the unobfuscated account of the story was in his obituary to Gerry Anderson for Manga UK: http://www.mangauk.com/post.php?p=gerry-anderson-1929-2012
There is a very similar story in an older article that goes into a lot more details, albeit under the veil of anonymity. It is in the SMC book if you want to try and find it (as a hint, it actually mentions Thunderbirds by name, but as a seemingly unrelated metaphor).

Other than that, an extra little factoid he includes there is that Terrahawks was originally going to be an anime, and the initial work on that ended up resurfacing as Mospeada.

The anime version having an English dub is interesting because it' a dub of an anime loosely based off of something was that British. This reminds me of how Japan has dubbed the original Power Rangers, itself a derivative of a Super Sentai show, back into Japanese. It's this case, it was the Japanese dub of an English dub of a Japanese show.