Thunderbirds (2004)

When The Hood finds and invades International Rescue's secret base and traps most of the Tracy family, only young Alan Tracy and his friends can save the day.

Director:

Jonathan Frakes

Writers:

Gerry Anderson (television series), Sylvia Anderson (television series),

Stars:

Brady Corbet, Bill Paxton, Ben Kingsley

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Brady Corbet	...	Alan Tracy
Debora Weston	...	Teacher
Soren Fulton	...	Fermat
Lou Hirsch	...	Headmaster
Alex Barringer	...	Excited Kid
Demetri Goritsas	...	News Anchor
Genie Francis	...	Lisa Lowe
Philip Winchester	...	Scott Tracy
Deobia Oparei	...	Mullion
Bill Paxton	...	Jeff Tracy
Kyle Herbert	...	Know It All Kid
Dominic Colenso	...	Virgil Tracy
Ben Torgersen	...	Gordon Tracy
Sophia Myles	...	Lady Penelope
Ron Cook	...	Parker

Storyline

The year is 2010. Teenager Alan Tracy, sent off to a distant boarding school, is the youngest of the sons of Jeff Tracy, a retired American astronaut. Jeff, a widower, has formed International Rescue, and raised his sons to act as a secret, volunteer organization which uses highly advanced technology to save lives worldwide. Jeff and his older sons John, Virgil, Scott, and Gordon, who like Alan were named after the Mercury Seven astronauts are joined in this effort by Lady Penelope and her butler/chauffeur Parker. Their futuristic hardware is largely developed by a genius scientist known as Brains, who lives at the International Rescue base on Tracy Island, somewhere in the Pacific.

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Plot Keywords:

island | rescue | astronaut | scientist | teenager | 

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Taglines:

Coming to the rescue

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Genres:

Action | Adventure | Comedy | Family | Sci-Fi

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG for intense action sequences and language

Details

Official Sites:

Universal Universal [uk]

Country:

UK France

Language:

English

Release Date:

30 July 2004 (USA)

Also Known As:

The Thunderbirds

Filming Locations:

Cliveden House, Taplow, Buckinghamshire, England, UK

Box Office

Budget:

$57,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$283,551 (Australia) (10 September 2004)

Gross:

$310,277 (Australia) (10 September 2004)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Working Title Films, StudioCanal, Tracy Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

95 min

Sound Mix:

SDDS Dolby Digital EX DTS-ES

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

As the young Thunderbirds prepare to launch towards The Bank of London with Lady Penelope, an insert shot shows a hand grabbing a lever. This hand is held up by strings, a quick reference to the style of animation used in the Thunderbirds television series. Also, this is in a complete reversal to the series, as all shots in the TV show were of marionettes, except when there was an extreme closeup of a hand or foot, at which point was replaced with a person's hand or foot doing the required action (pulling a switch, stepping on the gas pedal of a car, etc.)

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Goofs

Fermat's name is continually mispronounced as "Fur-mat". The correct pronunciation is "Fair-mah"

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Quotes

[first lines]
News Anchor: From a secret island in the South Pacific, the courageous Tracy family run an organization called International Rescue. When disaster strikes anywhere in the world, they are always first on the scene. They go by the name they gave they're incredible machines. The Thunderbirds. 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 - Thunderbirds are GO!

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Crazy Credits

The opening credits are animated (cartoon style) with the 4 Thunderbird Rescue Craft "saving"/manipulating the text which is in danger of being destroyed by disasters (Volcano Lava, Meteors, etc.). For those who have never seen the original TV Shows, it offers a peek at the design of the Craft and how they function at the disaster sites. A jazzed-up/updated version of the TV Theme Music is used for this sequence.

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Connections

Referenced in Bad Movie Beatdown: Fat Slags (2011)

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Soundtracks

"Thunderbirds are Go!"
(Original TV Series Theme)
(Barry Gray)
Arrangement by Ramin Djawadi & Hans Zimmer
Courtesy of Universal Pictures Music

User Reviews

Felt like I'd been slapped in the face

OK..this movie could have been soooo good! All generations have been exposed to Thunderbirds and have come to love it and this film had some of the features one would look for in a good thunderbirds movie. The craft themselves and Tracey Island were realistically transferred to the big screen, whilst still keeping to the designs we fell in love with. Sophia Miles was, simply, fantastic, as Lady P and Bill Paxton, whilst not exactly who I envisaged Jeff Tracey being, was solid enough...but then the adults were taken out of the equation and we were asked to believe 8 year olds could fly 200 tonne machines.

It's not so much the fact that the movie was centred around the children that made me feel like Jonathon Frakes was slapping me with a wet fish and laughing at my hard earned money spent on the film, it was the fact that Alan Tracey was so obnoxious in the film and that he seemed to be as able to fly the machines as well as his brothers...who were at least 19/20. Seriously, these are some pretty damn simple machines to use if this is the case.

The film didn't seem to know whether it wanted to be serious or farcical. It tried to pay homage whilst satirising and it just generally fell flat on its face. 3/10 (2 for the machines, 1 for Lady P)