Thunderbirds Are GO
Encyclopedia
Thunderbirds Are Go is a 1966 British
science-fiction film based on Thunderbirds
, a 1960s television series starring marionette
puppets and featuring scale model
effects in a filming process dubbed "Supermarionation
". Written by Thunderbirds creators Gerry
and Sylvia Anderson
, directed by David Lane
and produced by AP Films
, Thunderbirds Are Go develops the franchise with a plot focusing on the futuristic spacecraft Zero-X
and its manned mission to Mars
. When Zero-X suffers a mechanical failure during re-entry
, it is up to International Rescue, with the aid of the Thunderbird machines
, to save the astronauts on board before the spacecraft is obliterated in a crash landing.
Filmed from March to June 1966 and premiering in December, Thunderbirds Are Go includes, in a first for an AP Films production, cameo appearance
s from puppets of real-life celebrities Cliff Richard
and The Shadows
, who also contributed to the musical score. It is also the first motion picture to have been filmed with an early form of video assist
technology known as "Add-a-Vision", and incorporated landscape footage that was shot on location in Portugal. Special effects pieces, produced under the supervision of Derek Meddings
and including rocket launch sequences, space shots and a miniature representation of the Martian surface
, required six months to complete.
Despite positive initial reviews, which praised the film as a well-made cinematic transfer of the Thunderbirds television series, Thunderbirds Are Go soon proved to be a box office failure
for the Andersons. The disappointment of this outcome was intensified by the knowledge that Series Two of Thunderbirds would be cut down to six episodes and that AP Films' upcoming television project would be a brand-new series, which would later be titled Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons
and screened from 1967. To add to the lukewarm public response, negative critical reception of Thunderbirds Are Go has targeted, besides other aspects, the characterisation
of the puppet cast, the running time dedicated to model and effects shots, and the fantasy dream sequence
starring Cliff Richard and The Shadows, which has been described as a poor scriptwriting idea on the part of the Andersons.
Surprised by the underperformance of Thunderbirds Are Go, the United Artists
distributors authorised the production of a sequel. However, Thunderbird 6
received a similarly unenthusiastic response on its release in 1968, and the Thunderbirds franchise was abandoned until the appearance of a reboot
, starring live actors, in 2004. Meanwhile, the Zero-X astronauts featured in their own strip
in the Anderson-related TV Century 21
comic until 1969.
spacecraft launches from Glenn Field as the first attempt at a manned mission to Mars
. Unknown to Captain Paul Travers and his crew of two astronauts and two scientists, criminal mastermind The Hood
has infiltrated the ship to photograph Zero-X' s wing mechanism. When his foot becomes trapped in the hydraulics
, The Hood causes a systems failure and Zero-X loses control. While the villain manages to extract his bloodied foot and parachute from the undercarriage
, Travers and his crew eject in an escape pod
and Zero-X crashes into the ocean before leaving Earth's atmosphere
.
In 2067, at the conclusion of an investigation into the loss of Zero-X, the Inquiry Board of the Space Exploration Center reaches a verdict of sabotage. In the meantime, a second Mars
mission has been planned. Days before the launch of the new Zero-X, International Rescue agrees to a request to organise security in view of the possibility of another sabotage threat. Jeff Tracy
dispatches Scott
to Glenn Field in Thunderbird 1, while Virgil
in Thunderbird 2 and Alan
in Thunderbird 3 are assigned to escort Zero-X as it leaves the atmosphere. Posing as a reporter at the pre-launch press conference, Lady Penelope ensures that Travers and the other four crewmembers are delivered St. Christopher brooches. Ostensibly for luck, these are in fact homing devices (a plot device previously used in the episode "The Duchess Assignment"). The next day, a search for Dr Grant's brooch checks negative. Scott unmasks the man waiting for lift-off on board Zero-X as The Hood in another of his disguises. The saboteur flees Glenn Field in a car, which Penelope and Parker
pursue in FAB1
. Transferring to a speedboat, and then a helicopter
piloted by an accomplice, The Hood is apparently killed when Parker shoots the aircraft down with the Rolls-Royce
's built-in machine gun
.Surviving the explosion, The Hood
returns in the sequel film, Thunderbird 6
, under the alias of "Black Phantom" (Bentley: Thunderbirds, 98). However, in the DVD audio commentary for Thunderbird 6, Sylvia Anderson
states that this is a different character. Meanwhile, the real Grant is returned to Zero-X and the spacecraft launches without further incident.
Mission accomplished, Penelope invites Scott and Virgil to join her at "The Swinging Star", a fashionable nightclub. Landing back on Tracy Island
after escorting Zero-X, Alan feels unappreciated when Jeff insists that he remain on standby at base while his brothers spend the night partying. In bed, Alan experiences a surreal
dream in which Parker "flies" him and Penelope in FAB1 to a version of The Swinging Star located in space. Present at the interstellar nightclub are Cliff Richard
Jr and The Shadows
, who perform a song titled "Shooting Star" and an instrumental
, "Lady Penelope". The dream sequence
ends abruptly when Alan plummets from The Swinging Star back to Earth
and awakes to discover he has fallen out of bed.
After a six-week flight, the Zero-X Martian Exploration Vehicle lands
on Mars on 22 July. While investigating the barren surface
, the crew are puzzled to encounter strange rock formations arranged into coils. Space Captain Greg Martin blasts one of the structures with the MEV gun and Dr Pierce prepares to leave the vehicle
to collect samples. However, the other formations stir into motion and reveal themselves to be one-eyed "Rock Snakes". Under attack from the extraterrestrials, which are able to shoot fireballs from their "mouths", the Zero-X explorers are forced to effect a premature departure from the Martian surface. Docking with the orbiting command module piloted by Space Navigator Brad Newman, the astronauts start the flight back to Earth.
As Zero-X re-enters
Earth's atmosphere on 2 September, a lifting body
launched to assist the controlled descent fails to interface, damaging the escape unit circuit (EUC). With Zero-X locked in descent and set to impact Craigsville, Florida,Craigsville is located in Florida (Archer and Nicholls, 116; Archer and Hearn, 140) and landscape scenes shot in Portugal for the climax of Thunderbirds Are Go are intended to represent that area. Jeff sends out Scott and Brains
in Thunderbird 1 and Virgil, Alan and Gordon
in Thunderbird 2. Winched into Zero-X' s undercarriage, Alan must risk being trapped on board the spacecraft as Brains advises him on re-routing the damaged escape circuit. With Craigsville evacuated, Alan is left seconds to detach his cable, and Travers and the others eject just in time, before Zero-X crashes spectacularly into Craigsville. Collected by Penelope and Parker in FAB1, Alan is driven to the real Swinging Star and Penelope, joined by the Tracy family, Brains and Tin-Tin
, all disguised to conceal their identities, propose a toast to Alan as the "hero of the day".
wrapped in late 1965, Gerry Anderson
and his ITC
financier, Lew Grade
, agreed that a feature film adaptation, to be shot at the same time as the prospective Series Two, would be the next logical step in the expansion of the AP Films
Thunderbirds franchise. With United Artists
contracted to distribute the film and the Rank Organisation
to exhibit, a budget of £250,000 was set and Anderson and his wife, Sylvia
, commenced work on the script at a Portuguese villa rented to them by Grade. The couple decided to base the plot on the American-Soviet "Space Race
", in particular the 1960s contest to land astronauts on the Moon
, but adapt this story for the futuristic Thunderbirds universe by changing the destination of the mission to Mars. In the pre-production
stages of their next puppet series, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons
, the Andersons would opt to script a second appearance of the Zero-X spacecraft to link the continuities
of Thunderbirds and its sequel, which is supposed to be set in the same fictional universe
. Captain Scarlet would also prove to be a progression from Thunderbirds Are Go in terms of its depiction of extraterrestrial life on Mars
, although the Mysteron
antagonists of this series would be more ambitious than the Rock Snakes of the film by actively seeking to attack Earth
. The final rescue of the crippled Zero-X emulates that of the airliner Fireflash in the Thunderbirds episode "Operation Crash-Dive".
The role of director fell to David Lane
, who had filled this position for several of the Series One episodes and also had editing
and special effects experience at AP Films. Aged 24, with this appointment Lane became the youngest film director in Britain at the time. Frustrated with the creative limitations of puppets and concerned that the television series would not adapt well to a film, Alan Pattillo, the Andersons' initial choice, declined the role.
The insertion of Alan
's dream sequence
set at interstellar nightclub The Swinging Star was spearheaded by Sylvia, who expanded these scenes with a proposed musical interlude to be performed by puppet versions of Cliff Richard
and The Shadows
, Richard's backup band
in the 1960s. Richard and Bruce Welch
owned homes in Portugal near to the Andersons, and it was there that the two agreed to "appear" in the film as Supermarionation
puppets. Also signed on to contribute to the film's score
, Richard and the band recorded a song titled "Shooting Star", with Richard providing the vocals, and an instrumental
piece, "Lady Penelope". Anderson concedes that the sequence does not progress the plot, stating in her autobiography that it was "sheer indulgence that would not have been possible on our television budget." Stephen La Rivière, documenting the making of Thunderbirds Are Go in his book Supermarionation: A History of the Future, considers the sequence the strangest ever created by AP Films.
, Lady Penelope, Parker
and The Hood
are voiced, with one exception, by the Series One cast of Thunderbirds. Voice actors introduced in Thunderbirds Are Go are:
for Thunderbirds Are Go lasted three months, and a shooting schedule
of sixteen weeks was allotted to coincide with the filming of episodes for Series Two. Principal photography
commenced on 3 March 1966 and ended nearly four months later in late June. The AP Films
staff were split into an "A" and a "B" Unit, "A" to concentrate on the film and "B" the television episodes. As a result of the division, henceforth the television shooting would be completed at the rate of one episode per month, whereas Series One had been filmed at a faster rate with the completion of two episodes in the same time. While director of photography Paddy Seale and special effects supervisor Derek Meddings
handled Thunderbirds Are Go, camera and effects roles for Series Two were delegated to their assistants, Julien Lugrin and Jimmy Elliott. Two unused buildings on the Slough Trading Estate
were purchased to address the increased demands on the production team, combining with the pre-existing puppet workshop and art department
and publicity centres to form an AP Films production base of five buildings. Converted by January 1966, one of these former factory units contained new puppet stages, while the other was dedicated to one large sound stage
on which all model and effects work would be completed.
, a subset of Technicolor
, with an aspect ratio
of 2.35:1. This represented a significant departure from the 4:3 picture used for the television episodes. The anamorphic lenses of Panavision
, a popular system for Hollywood productions during the 1960s, proved to be unsuitable for special effects shots due to the depth of field
of the cameras. Techniscope, on the other hand, could be used in conjunction with spherical lenses while attaining the "letterbox" image of mainstream films that were shot on 35 mm film
. All AP Films productions had up to this point been filmed on Arriflex Cameras, but for the film these were replaced with the Mitchell
brand.
Thunderbirds Are Go is also the first film to have been shot with the "Livingston Electronic Viewfinder Unit". Also known as "Add-a-Vision", this system consisted of a viewfinder
, connected to video monitors, that was used to capture an image directly from the shooting camera. This enabled production personnel to inspect filmed footage on the set with a higher definition than had been possible with a more basic system used for AP Films television series. Add-a-Vision also benefited the puppeteers, who were stationed several metres above the set on gantries and had until this point not been permitted a useful view of the marionette movements below them. Based on German video assist
devices, Add-A-Vision was developed by John Read
, director of photography for Thunderbirds, in collaboration with Prowest Electronics, and also incorporated a form of playback
function to aid staff while viewing rushes
.
To enhance the illusion of the puppets, David Lane
ensured that camera shots frequently omitted the tops of the heads and the visible control wires, and also incorporated low-angle shot
s for dramatic effect. Location shooting
in Portugal was arranged for Lane, Derek Meddings and camera operator
Alan Perry to film overhead landscape shots for the climax in which Alan rescues the Zero-X astronauts during re-entry. However, when the footage was deemed unsatisfactory, it was replaced with a painted backdrop made by associate producer Reg Hill
. Shots were also recorded for the end of Alan
's dream, when the character tumbles from The Swinging Star back to Earth to discover that he has only fallen out of bed. To achieve this "spiralling shot", the team was carried by helicopter to an altitude of approximately 5,000 feet above an island off the coast of Portugal. The aircraft was then left to "autogyro
" downwards as Perry recorded the view of the island looming up from below. Once again, however, the shot was declared inadequate and a model version was made at the AP Films Studios in Slough
.
' latest venture would be "bigger and better than anything we have ever done before", Gerry Anderson realised that design defects would not be as quickly forgiven in a film adaptation as on the smaller screen. Puppets from the Thunderbirds television series were therefore expertly revamped, with new paint, wigs and costumes, while models and sets such as the Thunderbird machines
were re-built from scratch with greater attention to detail. During production, the AP Films puppet wardrobe had a stock of over 700 costumes, with 150 extra costumes made mainly as spares in case of damage or loss.
Some of the main puppet cast to feature in the film, such as Scott Tracy
, were re-made from the original marionettes, while previously unseen characters such as the Zero-X astronauts, Cliff Richard and the bandmembers of The Shadows were sculpted especially. Whereas guest star puppets for Series One had been recycled for each appearance and moulded in Plasticine
, since this was the first occasion when puppets in an AP Films production were intended to represent real-life celebrities, most of the supporting puppets were made from fibreglass to the same standards of workmanship as the main puppets. From facial measurements and still photographs of the human templates, sculpting supervisor John Brown constructed Cliff Richard, while Brian Bennett was entrusted to Christine Glanville
, Hank Marvin
to Terry Curtis, John Rostill
to Mary Turner and Bruce Welch
to Tim Cooksey. Curtis went on to sculpt Zero-X crewmembers Captain Paul Travers and Co-Pilot Greg Martin, modelling the first on 1960s James Bond
actor, Sean Connery
and the latter partly on himself, in addition to the Glenn Field Controller, Commander Casey.
The puppets of Thunderbirds Are Go are of identical proportions to the television puppets. However, while production of the film continued, AP Films developed a prototype with a latex
mouth to result in more realistic movement of the lips and jaws. However, this animatronic technology proved to be insufficiently advanced and the idea was abandoned. For the later television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, a brand-new puppet design of realistic anatomical proportions made its debut appearance when the solenoid
of the lip-synch mechanism was relocated from the puppet head to the torso area. Thunderbird 6
, a sequel film shot simultaneously with Captain Scarlet, stars puppets intended to compromise between the first and second generations. Although the heads and hands remained large in relation to the torso and legs, the sculptors reduced the explicit caricature
evident in the Thunderbirds television episodes and Thunderbirds Are Go to leave puppets sized in intermediate proportions.
, divided their efforts so that Bell contributed mostly to the film and Wilson to the Series Two episodes. Sets constructed by Bell especially for Thunderbirds Are Go included the Glenn Field Control Tower and Press Conference Room, the interiors of The Swinging Star, and re-designed versions of various locations on Tracy Island
. The appearance of the Space Exploration Center's Inquiry Room was influenced by Sylvia Anderson
, who in her role as producer supervised design aspects and wanted the light-blue uniforms of the SEC officials to be vividly contrasted with a tangerine and black duotone
backdrop. Director David Lane recalls that the Inquiry Room scene depicted a panel made up of 20 puppets, an achievement which would not have been possible in one of the Thunderbirds television episodes due to the smaller budget.
Of his approach to directing the film, Lane explains, "Thunderbirds Are Go was done like an episode but on a bigger scale. Whereas we would think that it might be nice to do a particular shot on the series but couldn't afford to, with Thunderbirds Are Go we just did it because we had the money." For the Swinging Star hall sequence, all the visual elements except Alan
and Lady Penelope are displayed in black and white, with background characters appearing in the form of enlarged still photographs. On the surrealism
of the Swinging Star scenes, aspects of which include pink space clouds made of dry ice
and a giant guitar on which Cliff Richard
and The Shadows
perform part of "Shooting Star", Anderson explains that the production team "recreated a Busby Berkeley
sequence", and that the appearance of puppet versions of real-life celebrities boosted the publicity value of the film.
and a team of 28 technicians completed the special effects shots for the film in six months. Their main assignments included the Zero-X launches, re-shot, widescreen launch sequences for the Thunderbird machines
, the car chase between Lady Penelope and Parker
in FAB1
and The Hood
, scenes at The Swinging Star, the Mars shots involving the MEV and the mysterious Rock Snakes, and the ultimate destruction of Zero-X in the climax. Over 300 effects shot were completed with scale model
s. The team made use of the extra space afforded to them by the new special effects building to experiment with floor-level shots
and other more creative camera angle
s.
The requirement to re-create the various Thunderbird machines was particularly problematic in the case of Thunderbird 2, as Meddings explains: "Unfortunately, its replacement was not only the wrong colour, it was a completely different shape. Although we had several more built in different scales, I never felt our model makers managed to re-capture the look of the original." Meddings was also responsible for the design of the Zero-X spacecraft, for the representation of which a fibreglass model, 7 ft (2.1 m) long, weighing 50 lb (23 kg) and costing £2,500, was built. The appearance of the Zero-X interior was based on then unfinished aircraft Concorde
, a prototype of which was under construction at Filton Airfield in Bristol
.
A long shot
of a Zero-X lifting body
falling through the atmosphere and exploding was the only special effects sequence filmed outside the building. Instead, it was mounted on a gantry at a nearby power station
against a real sky backdrop and the team used Cordtex
explosive strips, gunpowder
, naphtha
, magnesium
and petroleum gel to create a "fireball" effect. Although it took months to construct, the studio's destruction of the Zero-X model was complete in two days. The effects shots for Thunderbirds Are Go later became so well-known in the film industry that the work of Meddings and his team was consulted during pre-production
on the 1986 James Cameron
film, Aliens
.
in the autumn to be finished in time for a Christmas release. Len Walter, who had edited episodes for Series One, reprised his role for Thunderbirds Are Go. The workprint
of the film ran more than 15 minutes over the maximum runtime permitted by United Artists
, forcing Walter to cut several minor scenes that were not essential to the plot. One set of deleted scene
s charted the Space Exploration Center's attempts to enlist International Rescue to escort the second Zero-X. Meanwhile, The Hood
telepathically contacts his half-brother Kyrano
, coercing him to relay the Tracy family's actions. With the removal of the one scene in which he appears, Kyrano, another character voiced by David Graham
, was completely cut from the film. A second deleted scene featured Lady Penelope and Parker
en route to Glenn Field via New York, flying on board the aircraft Fireflash which made its first appearance in the pilot episode
of Thunderbirds
.
recorded the score
in six sessions between 9 and 11 October at Anvil Studios
near Denham
in Buckinghamshire
. To achieve proper symphonic sound, an orchestra of 70 musicians, aided by Gray's own electronic
effects, was organised. The Band of the Royal Marines
' rendition of the "Thunderbirds March" which accompanies the end credits of the film was recorded in one morning under the supervision of Gray and conductor Lieutenant Colonel Vivian Dunn
at the Royal Marines School of Music in Deal, Kent
. Three weeks were then allotted for visual wrap-up work, the insertion of the opening titles and minor animation, sound editing and dubbing
. On its submission to the British Board of Film Classification
in November, the film was awarded a U certificate
.
An animated introduction to the film presents the main puppet cast, and is accompanied by the re-recorded version of the "Thunderbirds March". The end credits
note the musical contributions of "Shooting Star" and "Lady Penelope" by Cliff Richard and The Shadows and the "Thunderbirds March" performed by the Band of the Royal Marines. Other credits are self-referential
"acknowledgements" to individuals and companies who apparently assisted in the production of the film: these include the characters of Space Colonel Harris (the chairman of the Space Exploration Center committee) and Commander Casey, and the Century 21 "Space Location Unit". A humorous disclaimer then reads: "None of the characters appearing in this photoplay intentionally resemble any persons living or dead ... since they do not yet exist!"
had failed to sell the TV series to American broadcasters, recommending to Gerry Anderson that AP Films
cancel production on Thunderbirds after the completion of six episodes for Series Two and start preparation for a new series, which would become Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons
. For the development of this series, the staff of AP Films, on the advice of Merchandising Executive Keith Shackleton
, agreed to change the name of the company to "Century 21 Productions", a name first carried by Thunderbirds Are Go to associate the film more closely with the related Anderson comic TV Century 21
. Thunderbirds Are Go became the first Anderson project to be publicised, in full, as "A Gerry Anderson Century 21 Production".
Thunderbirds Are Go was screened for United Artists
executives to a positive response before receiving its premiere
at the London Pavilion
in Piccadilly
on 12 December 1966. Opening at a gala for the Barnardo's
Charity, several crew and actors were in attendance, including Gerry and Sylvia Anderson
, Grade, Cliff Richard and his sister Donella and The Shadows. The exterior of the Pavilion, adorned with neon
and representations of the Thunderbird machines
, led into the foyer in which puppets and models from the film had been put on display, with publicity posters promising audiences "The Most Advanced Spacecraft Ever Created" and stipulating that "Adults Should Be Accompanied By Children". The Band of the Royal Marines
provided a rendition of the "Thunderbirds March" both before and after the screening.
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."
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.
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.
, and then an appointment as an Honorary Fellow of the British Kinematograph, Sound and Television Society
. Dismissing the box office failure of Thunderbirds Are Go as a one-off misfortune, United Artists
advised Anderson to produce a second film, which would be titled Thunderbird 6
. Anderson remembers the period of transition: "None of us ... could understand why the film hadn't succeeded, so it was decided we would make another one." Budgeted at £300,000 — an increase of one fifth over Thunderbirds Are Go — in their approach to writing the sequel the Andersons decided to script a more light-hearted adventure to counter the seriousness of the original. However, Thunderbird 6 would also receive a less-than-enthusiastic public reception, spelling the end of Thunderbirds as a film and television franchise until the arrival of the live-action adaptation, Thunderbirds
, almost four decades later in 2004.
mission were also adapted for a four-part "photographic picturisation" in the comic TV Century 21
(launched in 1965 and renamed TV21 in 1968). After this re-telling of the events of Thunderbirds Are Go, comic strip
s published until 1969 charted the continuing adventures of the astronauts, led as ever by Captain Paul Travers, in missions to the other planets in the Solar System
, and then beyond, on board the "Mark III" model of Zero-X.
No copies of the deleted scenes are known to survive. However, some still images remain. One photograph, in which Brains and Alan are seen standing behind a camera, is from the scene in which Jeff prepares for the broadcast of his speech, and appeared as the cover of issue 35 of FAB magazine. Another photograph, this one of the Hood in his temple with a film clapperboard in the foreground, has also survived. The only remaining film footage was edited into the 1968 Joe 90
episode "International Concerto
", which includes a few seconds of video from the Trans American TV Network sequence.
The connection between Thunderbirds and its successor series, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons
, also featured prominently in issues published between June and September 1967, leading up to the television debut of Captain Scarlet. In these issues, Captain Black
of the Spectrum Organisation commands another Mars mission in Zero-X and (as depicted in the pilot of Captain Scarlet) falls under the manipulation of another native extraterrestrial race besides the Rock Snakes, "The Mysteron
s". The involvement of Zero-X reaches a climax when the spacecraft, occupied by the possessed Black, lands back at Glenn Field and the Mysteron agent escapes capture by the authorities.
's score
received vinyl
releases from United Artists
in 1967 and Silva Screen Records in 1987. The collection was later converted for CD in 1990 and re-released by EMI
in 1992. Also comprising four tracks of incidental music
from the Thunderbirds
television episodes, the 1992 release consists of items titled "Alan's Dream", "Martian Mystery", "Astronauts in Trouble" and "Swinging Star" (composed by Gray), "Shooting Star" (performed by Cliff Richard
and The Shadows
) and "Lady Penelope" (performed by The Shadows), and two versions of both the "Thunderbirds Theme" and "Zero-X Theme" (as composed by Gray or performed by The Shadows).
In Regions
2 and 4, Thunderbirds Are Go was first released on DVD by MGM in 2001, with special features including an audio commentary with director David Lane
and producer Sylvia Anderson
, the theatrical trailer
, stills and production galleries. A 2004 "International Rescue Edition", including Region 1 and marketed both separately and as part of a box set with the sequel film, Thunderbird 6
, boasts remixed Dolby Digital
5.1 surround sound
and expands on the original extra material with three documentaries detailing the production of the film.
Cinema of the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom has had a major influence on modern cinema. The first moving pictures developed on celluloid film were made in Hyde Park, London in 1889 by William Friese Greene, a British inventor, who patented the process in 1890. It is generally regarded that the British film industry...
science-fiction film based on Thunderbirds
Thunderbirds (TV series)
Thunderbirds is a British mid-1960s science fiction television show devised by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and made by AP Films using a form of marionette puppetry dubbed "Supermarionation"...
, a 1960s television series starring marionette
Marionette
A marionette is a puppet controlled from above using wires or strings depending on regional variations. A marionette's puppeteer is called a manipulator. Marionettes are operated with the puppeteer hidden or revealed to an audience by using a vertical or horizontal control bar in different forms...
puppets and featuring scale model
Scale model
A scale model is a physical model, a representation or copy of an object that is larger or smaller than the actual size of the object, which seeks to maintain the relative proportions of the physical size of the original object. Very often the scale model is used as a guide to making the object in...
effects in a filming process dubbed "Supermarionation
Supermarionation
Supermarionation is a puppetry technique devised in the 1960s by British production company AP Films. It was used extensively in the company's numerous Gerry and Sylvia Anderson-produced action-adventure series, the most famous of which was Thunderbirds...
". Written by Thunderbirds creators Gerry
Gerry Anderson
Gerry Anderson MBE is a British publisher, producer, director and writer, famous for his futuristic television programmes, particularly those involving specially modified marionettes, a process called "Supermarionation"....
and Sylvia Anderson
Sylvia Anderson
Sylvia Anderson , born 25 March 1937, is a British voice artist and film producer, most notable for collaborations with Gerry Anderson, to whom she was married from 1962 to 1975....
, directed by David Lane
David Lane (director)
David Lane is a British television and film director, best known for his association with series produced by Gerry Anderson's AP Films.Lane directed several episodes of the Thunderbirds television series, including "Attack of the Alligators!", as well as the two cinema films Thunderbirds are GO and...
and produced by AP Films
AP Films
AP Films or APF, later becoming Century 21 Productions, was a British independent film production company of the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s...
, Thunderbirds Are Go develops the franchise with a plot focusing on the futuristic spacecraft Zero-X
Zero-X
The Zero-X is a fictitious Earth spacecraft that appeared in two of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's Supermarionation productions...
and its manned mission to Mars
Manned mission to Mars
A manned mission to Mars has been the subject of science fiction, engineering, and scientific proposals throughout the 20th century and into the 21st century...
. When Zero-X suffers a mechanical failure during re-entry
Atmospheric reentry
Atmospheric entry is the movement of human-made or natural objects as they enter the atmosphere of a celestial body from outer space—in the case of Earth from an altitude above the Kármán Line,...
, it is up to International Rescue, with the aid of the Thunderbird machines
Thunderbirds machines
The Gerry Anderson Supermarionation television series Thunderbirds and the subsequent feature films Thunderbirds Are Go and Thunderbird 6 featured a large variety of futuristic air, land and sea vehicles and machines, the majority of which were designed by special effects director Derek...
, to save the astronauts on board before the spacecraft is obliterated in a crash landing.
Filmed from March to June 1966 and premiering in December, Thunderbirds Are Go includes, in a first for an AP Films production, cameo appearance
Cameo appearance
A cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television...
s from puppets of real-life celebrities Cliff Richard
Cliff Richard
Sir Cliff Richard, OBE is a British pop singer, musician, performer, actor, and philanthropist who has sold over an estimated 250 million records worldwide....
and The Shadows
The Shadows
The Shadows are a British pop group with a total of 69 UK hit-charted singles: 35 as 'The Shadows' and 34 as 'Cliff Richard and the Shadows', from the 1950s to the 2000s. Cliff Richard in casual conversation with the British rock press frequently refers to the Shadows by their nickname: 'The Shads'...
, who also contributed to the musical score. It is also the first motion picture to have been filmed with an early form of video assist
Video assist
Video assist is a system used in filmmaking which allows filmmakers to view a video version of a take immediately after it is filmed.Originally a small device, called the video tap, was installed inside a movie camera that allows the director to see approximately the same view as the camera...
technology known as "Add-a-Vision", and incorporated landscape footage that was shot on location in Portugal. Special effects pieces, produced under the supervision of Derek Meddings
Derek Meddings
Derek Meddings was a British television and cinema special effects expert, initially noted for his work on the "Supermarionation" television puppet series produced by Gerry Anderson, and later for the 1970s James Bond films and the Superman film series.-Early years:Both Meddings' parents had...
and including rocket launch sequences, space shots and a miniature representation of the Martian surface
Geology of Mars
The geology of Mars is the scientific study of the surface, crust, and interior of the planet Mars. It emphasizes the composition, structure, history, and physical processes that shape the planet. It is fully analogous to the field of terrestrial geology. In planetary science, the term geology is...
, required six months to complete.
Despite positive initial reviews, which praised the film as a well-made cinematic transfer of the Thunderbirds television series, Thunderbirds Are Go soon proved to be a box office failure
Box office bomb
The phrase box office bomb refers to a film for which the production and marketing costs greatly exceeded the revenue regained by the movie studio. This should not be confused with Hollywood accounting when official figures show large losses, yet the movie is a financial success.A film's financial...
for the Andersons. The disappointment of this outcome was intensified by the knowledge that Series Two of Thunderbirds would be cut down to six episodes and that AP Films' upcoming television project would be a brand-new series, which would later be titled Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons
Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons
Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, often referred to as Captain Scarlet, is a 1960s British science-fiction television series produced by the Century 21 Productions company of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, John Read and Reg Hill...
and screened from 1967. To add to the lukewarm public response, negative critical reception of Thunderbirds Are Go has targeted, besides other aspects, the characterisation
Characterisation
Characterization or characterisation is the art of creating characters for a narrative, including the process of conveying information about them. It may be employed in dramatic works of art or everyday conversation...
of the puppet cast, the running time dedicated to model and effects shots, and the fantasy dream sequence
Dream sequence
A dream sequence is a technique used in storytelling, particularly in television and film, to set apart a brief interlude from the main story. The interlude may consist of a flashback, a flashforward, a fantasy, a vision, a dream, or some other element. Commonly, dream sequences appear in many...
starring Cliff Richard and The Shadows, which has been described as a poor scriptwriting idea on the part of the Andersons.
Surprised by the underperformance of Thunderbirds Are Go, the United Artists
United Artists
United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....
distributors authorised the production of a sequel. However, Thunderbird 6
Thunderbird 6
Thunderbird 6 is a 1968 British science-fiction and adventure film written by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, directed by David Lane and produced by Century 21 Cinema...
received a similarly unenthusiastic response on its release in 1968, and the Thunderbirds franchise was abandoned until the appearance of a reboot
Thunderbirds (film)
Thunderbirds is a 2004 science-fiction adventure film loosely based upon the television series of the same name of the 1960s, directed by Jonathan Frakes....
, starring live actors, in 2004. Meanwhile, the Zero-X astronauts featured in their own strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
in the Anderson-related TV Century 21
TV Century 21
TV Century 21, also known as TV 21, was a weekly British children's comic of the 1960s and early 1970s. It promoted the many television science-fiction puppet series created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's Century 21 Productions...
comic until 1969.
Plot
In 2065,Dates as confirmed in The Complete Book of Thunderbirds (Bentley, 96). The final Series Two episode of Thunderbirds, "Give or Take a Million", appears to be set in December 2026 (Bentley: Thunderbirds, 95) but this should be viewed as December 2067 (Bentley: Thunderbirds, 95), placing the events of this Series Two episode after the finale of Thunderbirds Are Go. the Zero-XZero-X
The Zero-X is a fictitious Earth spacecraft that appeared in two of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's Supermarionation productions...
spacecraft launches from Glenn Field as the first attempt at a manned mission to Mars
Manned mission to Mars
A manned mission to Mars has been the subject of science fiction, engineering, and scientific proposals throughout the 20th century and into the 21st century...
. Unknown to Captain Paul Travers and his crew of two astronauts and two scientists, criminal mastermind The Hood
The Hood (Thunderbirds)
The Hood is the main villain and adversary of International Rescue in the Thunderbirds TV series.-TV series:The Hood's precise origins are unknown but it is thought to have been based loosely on Wayne Pembridge...
has infiltrated the ship to photograph Zero-X
Hydraulics
Hydraulics is a topic in applied science and engineering dealing with the mechanical properties of liquids. Fluid mechanics provides the theoretical foundation for hydraulics, which focuses on the engineering uses of fluid properties. In fluid power, hydraulics is used for the generation, control,...
, The Hood causes a systems failure and Zero-X loses control. While the villain manages to extract his bloodied foot and parachute from the undercarriage
Undercarriage
The undercarriage or landing gear in aviation, is the structure that supports an aircraft on the ground and allows it to taxi, takeoff and land...
, Travers and his crew eject in an escape pod
Escape pod
An escape pod is a capsule or craft used to escape a vessel in an emergency, usually only big enough for one person. An escape ship is a larger, more complete craft also used for the same purpose...
and Zero-X crashes into the ocean before leaving Earth's atmosphere
Earth's atmosphere
The atmosphere of Earth is a layer of gases surrounding the planet Earth that is retained by Earth's gravity. The atmosphere protects life on Earth by absorbing ultraviolet solar radiation, warming the surface through heat retention , and reducing temperature extremes between day and night...
.
In 2067, at the conclusion of an investigation into the loss of Zero-X, the Inquiry Board of the Space Exploration Center reaches a verdict of sabotage. In the meantime, a second Mars
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
mission has been planned. Days before the launch of the new Zero-X, International Rescue agrees to a request to organise security in view of the possibility of another sabotage threat. Jeff Tracy
Jeff Tracy
Jeff Tracy is a fictional character from Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's Supermarionation television show Thunderbirds and the subsequent films Thunderbirds Are GO and Thunderbird 6. The voice for the character in these shows was supplied by Peter Dyneley. The character also appeared in the live...
dispatches Scott
Scott Tracy
Scott Tracy is a fictional character from Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation television show Thunderbirds and the subsequent films Thunderbirds Are GO and Thunderbird 6. The character also appeared in the live action movie Thunderbirds....
to Glenn Field in Thunderbird 1, while Virgil
Virgil Tracy
Virgil Tracy is a fictional character from Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation television show Thunderbirds and the subsequent films Thunderbirds Are GO and Thunderbird 6. The character also appeared in the live action movie Thunderbirds....
in Thunderbird 2 and Alan
Alan Tracy
Alan Tracy is a fictional character from Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation television show Thunderbirds and the subsequent films Thunderbirds Are GO and Thunderbird 6. The character also appeared in the 2004 live action movie Thunderbirds....
in Thunderbird 3 are assigned to escort Zero-X as it leaves the atmosphere. Posing as a reporter at the pre-launch press conference, Lady Penelope ensures that Travers and the other four crewmembers are delivered St. Christopher brooches. Ostensibly for luck, these are in fact homing devices (a plot device previously used in the episode "The Duchess Assignment"). The next day, a search for Dr Grant's brooch checks negative. Scott unmasks the man waiting for lift-off on board Zero-X as The Hood in another of his disguises. The saboteur flees Glenn Field in a car, which Penelope and Parker
Aloysius "Nosey" Parker
Aloysius "Nosey" Parker is a fictional character in the television series Thunderbirds, the feature films Thunderbirds Are GO and Thunderbird 6 and the 2004 live action film Thunderbirds....
pursue in FAB1
FAB1
FAB1 is the name given to the pink six-wheeled car in the Thunderbirds franchise.-The original series and films:In the original Supermarionation TV series Thunderbirds , as well as the films Thunderbirds Are GO and Thunderbird 6 , FAB1 is a modified Rolls-Royce...
. Transferring to a speedboat, and then a helicopter
Helicopter
A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by one or more engine-driven rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forwards, backwards, and laterally...
piloted by an accomplice, The Hood is apparently killed when Parker shoots the aircraft down with the Rolls-Royce
Rolls-Royce (car)
This a list of Rolls-Royce motor cars and includes vehicles produced by:*Rolls-Royce Limited *Rolls-Royce Motors , which was owned by Vickers between 1980 and 1998, and after that by Volkswagen...
's built-in machine gun
Machine gun
A machine gun is a fully automatic mounted or portable firearm, usually designed to fire rounds in quick succession from an ammunition belt or large-capacity magazine, typically at a rate of several hundred rounds per minute....
.Surviving the explosion, The Hood
The Hood (Thunderbirds)
The Hood is the main villain and adversary of International Rescue in the Thunderbirds TV series.-TV series:The Hood's precise origins are unknown but it is thought to have been based loosely on Wayne Pembridge...
returns in the sequel film, Thunderbird 6
Thunderbird 6
Thunderbird 6 is a 1968 British science-fiction and adventure film written by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, directed by David Lane and produced by Century 21 Cinema...
, under the alias of "Black Phantom" (Bentley: Thunderbirds, 98). However, in the DVD audio commentary for Thunderbird 6, Sylvia Anderson
Sylvia Anderson
Sylvia Anderson , born 25 March 1937, is a British voice artist and film producer, most notable for collaborations with Gerry Anderson, to whom she was married from 1962 to 1975....
states that this is a different character. Meanwhile, the real Grant is returned to Zero-X and the spacecraft launches without further incident.
Mission accomplished, Penelope invites Scott and Virgil to join her at "The Swinging Star", a fashionable nightclub. Landing back on Tracy Island
Tracy Island
Tracy Island is the home of the Tracy family in the Gerry and Sylvia Anderson 1960s television series Thunderbirds. Located in the South Pacific Ocean, the island's true function as the secret base of the International Rescue organisation is heavily camouflaged.Thunderbird 1 launches from a hangar...
after escorting Zero-X, Alan feels unappreciated when Jeff insists that he remain on standby at base while his brothers spend the night partying. In bed, Alan experiences a surreal
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
dream in which Parker "flies" him and Penelope in FAB1 to a version of The Swinging Star located in space. Present at the interstellar nightclub are Cliff Richard
Cliff Richard
Sir Cliff Richard, OBE is a British pop singer, musician, performer, actor, and philanthropist who has sold over an estimated 250 million records worldwide....
Jr and The Shadows
The Shadows
The Shadows are a British pop group with a total of 69 UK hit-charted singles: 35 as 'The Shadows' and 34 as 'Cliff Richard and the Shadows', from the 1950s to the 2000s. Cliff Richard in casual conversation with the British rock press frequently refers to the Shadows by their nickname: 'The Shads'...
, who perform a song titled "Shooting Star" and an instrumental
Instrumental
An instrumental is a musical composition or recording without lyrics or singing, although it might include some non-articulate vocal input; the music is primarily or exclusively produced by musical instruments....
, "Lady Penelope". The dream sequence
Dream sequence
A dream sequence is a technique used in storytelling, particularly in television and film, to set apart a brief interlude from the main story. The interlude may consist of a flashback, a flashforward, a fantasy, a vision, a dream, or some other element. Commonly, dream sequences appear in many...
ends abruptly when Alan plummets from The Swinging Star back to Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
and awakes to discover he has fallen out of bed.
After a six-week flight, the Zero-X Martian Exploration Vehicle lands
Lander (spacecraft)
A lander is a spacecraft which descends toward and comes to rest on the surface of an astronomical body. For bodies with atmospheres, the landing is called atmospheric reentry and the lander descends as a re-entry vehicle...
on Mars on 22 July. While investigating the barren surface
Geology of Mars
The geology of Mars is the scientific study of the surface, crust, and interior of the planet Mars. It emphasizes the composition, structure, history, and physical processes that shape the planet. It is fully analogous to the field of terrestrial geology. In planetary science, the term geology is...
, the crew are puzzled to encounter strange rock formations arranged into coils. Space Captain Greg Martin blasts one of the structures with the MEV gun and Dr Pierce prepares to leave the vehicle
Extra-vehicular activity
Extra-vehicular activity is work done by an astronaut away from the Earth, and outside of a spacecraft. The term most commonly applies to an EVA made outside a craft orbiting Earth , but also applies to an EVA made on the surface of the Moon...
to collect samples. However, the other formations stir into motion and reveal themselves to be one-eyed "Rock Snakes". Under attack from the extraterrestrials, which are able to shoot fireballs from their "mouths", the Zero-X explorers are forced to effect a premature departure from the Martian surface. Docking with the orbiting command module piloted by Space Navigator Brad Newman, the astronauts start the flight back to Earth.
As Zero-X re-enters
Atmospheric reentry
Atmospheric entry is the movement of human-made or natural objects as they enter the atmosphere of a celestial body from outer space—in the case of Earth from an altitude above the Kármán Line,...
Earth's atmosphere on 2 September, a lifting body
Lifting body
A lifting body is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration in which the body itself produces lift. In contrast to a flying wing, which is a wing with minimal or no conventional fuselage, a lifting body can be thought of as a fuselage with little or no conventional wing...
launched to assist the controlled descent fails to interface, damaging the escape unit circuit (EUC). With Zero-X locked in descent and set to impact Craigsville, Florida,Craigsville is located in Florida (Archer and Nicholls, 116; Archer and Hearn, 140) and landscape scenes shot in Portugal for the climax of Thunderbirds Are Go are intended to represent that area. Jeff sends out Scott and Brains
Brains (Thunderbirds)
Brains is a fictional character in the 1960s British Supermarionation television series Thunderbirds, its sequel films Thunderbirds Are Go and Thunderbird 6 , and the 2004 live-action remake film Thunderbirds. Brains was born 14 November 2040 and was orphaned when a hurricane struck his family's...
in Thunderbird 1 and Virgil, Alan and Gordon
Gordon Tracy
Gordon Tracy is a fictional character from Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation television show Thunderbirds and the subsequent films Thunderbirds Are GO and Thunderbird 6. The character also appeared in the live action movie Thunderbirds....
in Thunderbird 2. Winched into Zero-X
Tin-Tin Kyrano
Tin-Tin Kyrano is a character in the mid-1960s British television show Thunderbirds. In the original TV series and its original movie adaptations, Tin-Tin, like the other characters, is portrayed using a marionette, and Christine Finn provided her voice....
, all disguised to conceal their identities, propose a toast to Alan as the "hero of the day".
Production
When shooting on Series One of ThunderbirdsThunderbirds (TV series)
Thunderbirds is a British mid-1960s science fiction television show devised by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and made by AP Films using a form of marionette puppetry dubbed "Supermarionation"...
wrapped in late 1965, Gerry Anderson
Gerry Anderson
Gerry Anderson MBE is a British publisher, producer, director and writer, famous for his futuristic television programmes, particularly those involving specially modified marionettes, a process called "Supermarionation"....
and his ITC
ITC Entertainment
The Incorporated Television Company was a British television company largely involved in production and distribution. It was founded by Lew Grade.-History:...
financier, Lew Grade
Lew Grade
Lew Grade, Baron Grade , born Lev Winogradsky, was an influential Russian-born English impresario and media mogul.-Early years:...
, agreed that a feature film adaptation, to be shot at the same time as the prospective Series Two, would be the next logical step in the expansion of the AP Films
AP Films
AP Films or APF, later becoming Century 21 Productions, was a British independent film production company of the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s...
Thunderbirds franchise. With United Artists
United Artists
United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....
contracted to distribute the film and the Rank Organisation
Rank Organisation
The Rank Organisation was a British entertainment company formed during 1937 and absorbed in 1996 by The Rank Group Plc. It was the largest and most vertically-integrated film company in Britain, owning production, distribution and exhibition facilities....
to exhibit, a budget of £250,000 was set and Anderson and his wife, Sylvia
Sylvia Anderson
Sylvia Anderson , born 25 March 1937, is a British voice artist and film producer, most notable for collaborations with Gerry Anderson, to whom she was married from 1962 to 1975....
, commenced work on the script at a Portuguese villa rented to them by Grade. The couple decided to base the plot on the American-Soviet "Space Race
Space Race
The Space Race was a mid-to-late 20th century competition between the Soviet Union and the United States for supremacy in space exploration. Between 1957 and 1975, Cold War rivalry between the two nations focused on attaining firsts in space exploration, which were seen as necessary for national...
", in particular the 1960s contest to land astronauts on the Moon
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...
, but adapt this story for the futuristic Thunderbirds universe by changing the destination of the mission to Mars. In the pre-production
Pre-production
Pre-production or In Production is the process of preparing all the elements involved in a film, play, or other performance.- In film :...
stages of their next puppet series, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons
Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons
Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, often referred to as Captain Scarlet, is a 1960s British science-fiction television series produced by the Century 21 Productions company of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, John Read and Reg Hill...
, the Andersons would opt to script a second appearance of the Zero-X spacecraft to link the continuities
Continuity (fiction)
In fiction, continuity is consistency of the characteristics of persons, plot, objects, places and events seen by the reader or viewer over some period of time...
of Thunderbirds and its sequel, which is supposed to be set in the same fictional universe
Fictional universe
A fictional universe is a self-consistent fictional setting with elements that differ from the real world. It may also be called an imagined, constructed or fictional realm ....
. Captain Scarlet would also prove to be a progression from Thunderbirds Are Go in terms of its depiction of extraterrestrial life on Mars
Life on Mars
Scientists have long speculated about the possibility of life on Mars owing to the planet's proximity and similarity to Earth. Fictional Martians have been a recurring feature of popular entertainment of the 20th and 21st centuries, but it remains an open question whether life currently exists on...
, although the Mysteron
Mysteron
The Mysterons are a fictional race of extraterrestrials, native to the planet Mars, which appear in the British science fiction Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet, symbolised by ubiquitous projected green rings and the deep...
antagonists of this series would be more ambitious than the Rock Snakes of the film by actively seeking to attack Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
. The final rescue of the crippled Zero-X emulates that of the airliner Fireflash in the Thunderbirds episode "Operation Crash-Dive".
The role of director fell to David Lane
David Lane (director)
David Lane is a British television and film director, best known for his association with series produced by Gerry Anderson's AP Films.Lane directed several episodes of the Thunderbirds television series, including "Attack of the Alligators!", as well as the two cinema films Thunderbirds are GO and...
, who had filled this position for several of the Series One episodes and also had editing
Film editing
Film editing is part of the creative post-production process of filmmaking. It involves the selection and combining of shots into sequences, and ultimately creating a finished motion picture. It is an art of storytelling...
and special effects experience at AP Films. Aged 24, with this appointment Lane became the youngest film director in Britain at the time. Frustrated with the creative limitations of puppets and concerned that the television series would not adapt well to a film, Alan Pattillo, the Andersons' initial choice, declined the role.
The insertion of Alan
Alan Tracy
Alan Tracy is a fictional character from Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation television show Thunderbirds and the subsequent films Thunderbirds Are GO and Thunderbird 6. The character also appeared in the 2004 live action movie Thunderbirds....
's dream sequence
Dream sequence
A dream sequence is a technique used in storytelling, particularly in television and film, to set apart a brief interlude from the main story. The interlude may consist of a flashback, a flashforward, a fantasy, a vision, a dream, or some other element. Commonly, dream sequences appear in many...
set at interstellar nightclub The Swinging Star was spearheaded by Sylvia, who expanded these scenes with a proposed musical interlude to be performed by puppet versions of Cliff Richard
Cliff Richard
Sir Cliff Richard, OBE is a British pop singer, musician, performer, actor, and philanthropist who has sold over an estimated 250 million records worldwide....
and The Shadows
The Shadows
The Shadows are a British pop group with a total of 69 UK hit-charted singles: 35 as 'The Shadows' and 34 as 'Cliff Richard and the Shadows', from the 1950s to the 2000s. Cliff Richard in casual conversation with the British rock press frequently refers to the Shadows by their nickname: 'The Shads'...
, Richard's backup band
Backup band
A backing band or backup band is a musical ensemble that accompanies an artist at a live performance or on a recording. This can either be an established, long-standing group that has little or no change in membership, or it may be an ad hoc group assembled for a single show or a single recording...
in the 1960s. Richard and Bruce Welch
Bruce Welch
Bruce Welch OBE, is an English guitarist, songwriter, producer and singer, best known as a member of The Shadows.-Biography:...
owned homes in Portugal near to the Andersons, and it was there that the two agreed to "appear" in the film as Supermarionation
Supermarionation
Supermarionation is a puppetry technique devised in the 1960s by British production company AP Films. It was used extensively in the company's numerous Gerry and Sylvia Anderson-produced action-adventure series, the most famous of which was Thunderbirds...
puppets. Also signed on to contribute to the film's score
Sheet music
Sheet music is a hand-written or printed form of music notation that uses modern musical symbols; like its analogs—books, pamphlets, etc.—the medium of sheet music typically is paper , although the access to musical notation in recent years includes also presentation on computer screens...
, Richard and the band recorded a song titled "Shooting Star", with Richard providing the vocals, and an instrumental
Instrumental
An instrumental is a musical composition or recording without lyrics or singing, although it might include some non-articulate vocal input; the music is primarily or exclusively produced by musical instruments....
piece, "Lady Penelope". Anderson concedes that the sequence does not progress the plot, stating in her autobiography that it was "sheer indulgence that would not have been possible on our television budget." Stephen La Rivière, documenting the making of Thunderbirds Are Go in his book Supermarionation: A History of the Future, considers the sequence the strangest ever created by AP Films.
Casting
The returning characters of the Tracy family, the other inhabitants of Tracy IslandTracy Island
Tracy Island is the home of the Tracy family in the Gerry and Sylvia Anderson 1960s television series Thunderbirds. Located in the South Pacific Ocean, the island's true function as the secret base of the International Rescue organisation is heavily camouflaged.Thunderbird 1 launches from a hangar...
, Lady Penelope, Parker
Aloysius "Nosey" Parker
Aloysius "Nosey" Parker is a fictional character in the television series Thunderbirds, the feature films Thunderbirds Are GO and Thunderbird 6 and the 2004 live action film Thunderbirds....
and The Hood
The Hood (Thunderbirds)
The Hood is the main villain and adversary of International Rescue in the Thunderbirds TV series.-TV series:The Hood's precise origins are unknown but it is thought to have been based loosely on Wayne Pembridge...
are voiced, with one exception, by the Series One cast of Thunderbirds. Voice actors introduced in Thunderbirds Are Go are:
| Cast list | |
| Actor | Voices |
|---|---|
| Peter Dyneley Peter Dyneley Peter Dyneley was a British actor, born in Hastings, East Sussex, England.Although appearing in many smaller roles in both film and television, he is best remembered for his performance as the voice of Jeff Tracy in the Gerry Anderson 1960s TV series Thunderbirds and the subsequent movies... |
Jeff Tracy Jeff Tracy Jeff Tracy is a fictional character from Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's Supermarionation television show Thunderbirds and the subsequent films Thunderbirds Are GO and Thunderbird 6. The voice for the character in these shows was supplied by Peter Dyneley. The character also appeared in the live... |
| Shane Rimmer Shane Rimmer Shane Rimmer is a Canadian actor and voice actor, probably best known as the voice of Scott Tracy in Thunderbirds.He has mostly performed in supporting roles, frequently in films and television series filmed in the United Kingdom, having relocated to England in the late 1950s, initially performing... |
Scott Tracy Scott Tracy Scott Tracy is a fictional character from Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation television show Thunderbirds and the subsequent films Thunderbirds Are GO and Thunderbird 6. The character also appeared in the live action movie Thunderbirds.... |
| Sylvia Anderson Sylvia Anderson Sylvia Anderson , born 25 March 1937, is a British voice artist and film producer, most notable for collaborations with Gerry Anderson, to whom she was married from 1962 to 1975.... |
Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward is the London Agent for the secret organisation International Rescue in the hit television series Thunderbirds... , Goldstone Tracking Station |
| Jeremy Wilkin Jeremy Wilkin Jeremy Wilkin is a British actor, possibly best known for his contributions to the television productions of Gerry Anderson.... |
Virgil Tracy Virgil Tracy Virgil Tracy is a fictional character from Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation television show Thunderbirds and the subsequent films Thunderbirds Are GO and Thunderbird 6. The character also appeared in the live action movie Thunderbirds.... , Space Colonel Harris, Washington Control |
| Matt Zimmerman | Alan Tracy Alan Tracy Alan Tracy is a fictional character from Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation television show Thunderbirds and the subsequent films Thunderbirds Are GO and Thunderbird 6. The character also appeared in the 2004 live action movie Thunderbirds.... , Messenger |
| David Graham David Graham (actor) David Graham is a British character actor and voice artist. Born in London, after a period in the R.A.F as a Radar Mechanic he trained as an actor in New York but has worked mainly on British television series.... |
Gordon Tracy Gordon Tracy Gordon Tracy is a fictional character from Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation television show Thunderbirds and the subsequent films Thunderbirds Are GO and Thunderbird 6. The character also appeared in the live action movie Thunderbirds.... , Brains Brains (Thunderbirds) Brains is a fictional character in the 1960s British Supermarionation television series Thunderbirds, its sequel films Thunderbirds Are Go and Thunderbird 6 , and the 2004 live-action remake film Thunderbirds. Brains was born 14 November 2040 and was orphaned when a hurricane struck his family's... , Aloysius "Nosey" Parker Aloysius "Nosey" Parker Aloysius "Nosey" Parker is a fictional character in the television series Thunderbirds, the feature films Thunderbirds Are GO and Thunderbird 6 and the 2004 live action film Thunderbirds.... |
| Ray Barrett Ray Barrett Raymond Charles "Ray" Barrett was an Australian actor. He was one of the more popular leading men on British television in the 1960s, where he was best known for his appearances in The Troubleshooters . Back in Australia he was a leading man in many TV series over the years.-Biography:Barrett was... |
John Tracy John Tracy (Thunderbirds) John Tracy is a fictional character from Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation television show Thunderbirds and the subsequent films Thunderbirds Are GO and Thunderbird 6... , The Hood The Hood (Thunderbirds) The Hood is the main villain and adversary of International Rescue in the Thunderbirds TV series.-TV series:The Hood's precise origins are unknown but it is thought to have been based loosely on Wayne Pembridge... , Commander Casey |
| Christine Finn Christine Finn Christine Finn was a British actress, known primarily for her work for the Thunderbirds television series of the 1960s, and the 1958–59 television serial Quatermass and the Pit... |
Tin-Tin Kyrano Tin-Tin Kyrano Tin-Tin Kyrano is a character in the mid-1960s British television show Thunderbirds. In the original TV series and its original movie adaptations, Tin-Tin, like the other characters, is portrayed using a marionette, and Christine Finn provided her voice.... |
| Paul Maxwell Paul Maxwell Paul Maxwell was a Canadian actor who worked mostly in British television and films, in which he was usually cast as an American... |
Captain Paul Travers |
| Alexander Davion | Space Captain Greg Martin |
| Bob Monkhouse Bob Monkhouse Robert Alan "Bob" Monkhouse, OBE was an English entertainer. He was a successful comedy writer, comedian and actor and was also well known on British television as a presenter and game show host... |
Space Navigator Brad Newman, Swinging Star Announcer |
| Neil McCallum Neil McCallum (actor) Neil McCallum was a British Canadian actor, trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. His first major appearance on stage was with Sam Wanamaker in The Rainmaker in the mid-1950s. He appeared in many British TV series in the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s. He also appeared in several films... |
Dr Ray Pierce |
| Charles Tingwell Charles Tingwell In 1941, aged 18, he volunteered for war service overseas with the Royal Australian Air Force. Under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, personnel from Commonwealth air forces were part of a joint training and assignment system. Consequently, Tingwell trained as a pilot in Canada during 1942... |
Dr Tony Grant, PR Officer, SEC Board Member, Woomera Tracking Station |
| Cliff Richard Cliff Richard Sir Cliff Richard, OBE is a British pop singer, musician, performer, actor, and philanthropist who has sold over an estimated 250 million records worldwide.... |
Cliff Richard Jr |
| The Shadows The Shadows The Shadows are a British pop group with a total of 69 UK hit-charted singles: 35 as 'The Shadows' and 34 as 'Cliff Richard and the Shadows', from the 1950s to the 2000s. Cliff Richard in casual conversation with the British rock press frequently refers to the Shadows by their nickname: 'The Shads'... |
Themselves |
- Jeremy WilkinJeremy WilkinJeremy Wilkin is a British actor, possibly best known for his contributions to the television productions of Gerry Anderson....
as Virgil TracyVirgil TracyVirgil Tracy is a fictional character from Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation television show Thunderbirds and the subsequent films Thunderbirds Are GO and Thunderbird 6. The character also appeared in the live action movie Thunderbirds....
. The only character whose voice actor was changed between Series One and Thunderbirds Are Go, since David HollidayDavid HollidayDavid Holliday was an American broadway actor and voice actor.Holliday's longest-running role on Broadway was that of Richard Kiley's alternate as Don Quixote in Man of La Mancha, being Don Quixote in matinees and Dr Carrasco in the evening performances, from 1965 to 1971...
had returned to the United States in the interim, the film and Series Two version of Virgil was voiced by Wilkin, an English-born Canadian actor who emigrated back to London in the 1960s. Wilkin would maintain a professional relationship with the Andersons for seven years after the film, voicing the character of Captain Ochre in Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, supporting roles in Joe 90Joe 90Joe 90 is a late-1960s British science-fiction television series documenting the exploits of a nine-year-old boy, Joe McClaine, who embarks on a double life as a schoolboy turned spy when his scientist father invents a pioneering machine capable of duplicating and transferring expert knowledge and...
and also the character of The Bishop for The Secret ServiceThe Secret ServiceThe Secret Service is a British children's espionage television series, made as a Century 21 production for ITC Entertainment and broadcast in 1969...
, before minor appearances in two of the live-action Anderson productions of the 1970s, UFOUFO (TV series)UFO is a 1970-1971 British television science fiction series about an alien invasion of Earth, created by Gerry Anderson and Sylvia Anderson with Reg Hill, and produced by the Andersons and Lew Grade's Century 21 Productions for Grade's ITC Entertainment company.UFO first aired in the UK and Canada...
and The ProtectorsThe ProtectorsThe Protectors is a British television series, an action thriller created by Gerry Anderson. It is Anderson's second TV series using live actors as opposed to electronic marionettes, and also his second to be firmly set in the present day...
. - Paul MaxwellPaul MaxwellPaul Maxwell was a Canadian actor who worked mostly in British television and films, in which he was usually cast as an American...
as Zero-XZero-XThe Zero-X is a fictitious Earth spacecraft that appeared in two of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's Supermarionation productions...
Captain Paul Travers. Maxwell, a Canadian actor who often played American characters in 1960s British television, also provided voices for Thunderbirds Series Two and voiced the character of Captain GreyCaptain GreyCaptain Grey is a characters in the 1960s Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. He is a senior officer of the Spectrum organisation, but seldom leaves Cloudbase....
for several episodes of Captain Scarlet. His previous acting for the Andersons had come in 1963 with Fireball XL5Fireball XL5Fireball XL5 is a science fiction-themed children's television show following the missions of spaceship Fireball XL5, commanded by Colonel Steve Zodiac of the World Space Patrol...
, as the star character Colonel Steve Zodiac. - Alexander Davion as Space Captain Greg Martin. A French-born actor with experience on The SaintThe Saint (TV series)The Saint was an ITC mystery spy thriller television series that aired in the UK on ITV between 1962 and 1969. It centred on the Leslie Charteris literary character, Simon Templar, a Robin Hood-like adventurer with a penchant for disguise. The character may be nicknamed The Saint because the...
and Gideon's WayGideon's WayGideon's Way is a British television crime series made by ITC Entertainment in 1964/65, based on the novels by John Creasey . The series was made at Elstree in twin production with The Saint TV series...
(in the role of Chief Inspector David Keen), Davion made one guest appearance on UFO in the 1970s. - Bob MonkhouseBob MonkhouseRobert Alan "Bob" Monkhouse, OBE was an English entertainer. He was a successful comedy writer, comedian and actor and was also well known on British television as a presenter and game show host...
as Space Navigator Brad Newman. Monkhouse, an actor in such films as Carry On SergeantCarry On SergeantCarry On Sergeant is the first Carry On film. Its first public screening was on 1 August 1958 at Screen One, London. Actors in this film who went on to be part of the regular team in the series were Kenneth Williams, Charles Hawtrey, Hattie Jacques, Kenneth Connor and Terry Scott...
(1958), would later host the British game show The Golden ShotThe Golden ShotThe Golden Shot is a British television game show produced by ATV for ITV between 1 July 1967 and 13 April 1975, based on the German TV show Der goldene Schuss. It is most commonly associated with host Bob Monkhouse, though, three other presenters also hosted the show during its lifetime...
between 1967 and 1972. He first approached Gerry Anderson for permission to film a comedy sketch based on StingrayStingray (TV series)Stingray is a children's marionette television show, created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and produced by AP Films for ATV and ITC Entertainment from 1964–65. Its 39 half-hour episodes were originally screened on ITV in the UK and in syndication in the USA. The scriptwriters included Gerry and...
, but ended up agreeing to replace Alfred MarksAlfred MarksAlfred Edward Marks OBE was a comic actor and comedian.-Biography:Marks was born as Ruchel Kutchinsky in Holborn, London. He left Bell Lane School at 14 and started in entertainment at the Windmill Theatre. He then served in the RAF as a Flight Sergeant in the Middle East where he arranged...
, who had withdrawn from the film due to a fee dispute, as Newman. Monkhouse recalled the conversation: "[Anderson] said, 'How much would you charge for the job?' I said, 'Gerry, I'd do it for nothing.' And that was the first time I ever heard the phrase, 'The price is rightThe Price Is Right (UK game show)The Price Is Right in the UK was hosted by Leslie Crowther, Bob Warman, Bruce Forsyth, and Joe Pasquale. It ran from 24 March 1984 to 12 January 2007.-Crowther era :...
'." He affected an American accent for his parts in the film. - Neil McCallumNeil McCallum (actor)Neil McCallum was a British Canadian actor, trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. His first major appearance on stage was with Sam Wanamaker in The Rainmaker in the mid-1950s. He appeared in many British TV series in the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s. He also appeared in several films...
as Dr Ray Pierce. With a role in the 1956 children's series Space School, after Thunderbirds Are Go Canadian actor McCallum made contributions to Captain Scarlet, UFO, The Protectors and (beyond the Anderson productions) Department SDepartment SDepartment S is a United Kingdom spy-fi adventure series produced by ITC Entertainment. The series consists of 28 episodes which originally aired in 1969–1970. It starred Peter Wyngarde as author Jason King , Joel Fabiani as Stewart Sullivan, and Rosemary Nicols as computer expert Annabelle Hurst...
and Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)Randall and Hopkirk , first transmitted during 1969-70, is a British private detective television series starring Mike Pratt and Kenneth Cope as the private detectives Jeff Randall and Marty Hopkirk, respectively. The series was originally created by Dennis Spooner and produced by Monty Berman...
. - Charles TingwellCharles TingwellIn 1941, aged 18, he volunteered for war service overseas with the Royal Australian Air Force. Under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, personnel from Commonwealth air forces were part of a joint training and assignment system. Consequently, Tingwell trained as a pilot in Canada during 1942...
as Dr Tony Grant. Appearing in the medical drama Emergency – Ward 10 in the 1960s, Tingwell's work for the Andersons included Thunderbirds Series Two, Captain Scarlet (for which he was the voice of Dr Fawn) and one episode of UFO, after which he returned to his native Australia. - Cliff RichardCliff RichardSir Cliff Richard, OBE is a British pop singer, musician, performer, actor, and philanthropist who has sold over an estimated 250 million records worldwide....
as Cliff Richard Jr. Contracted in Portugal, where he owned a house "next-door-but-one" to Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, after negotiations with his agent, Peter GormleyPeter GormleyPeter Gormley was an Australian born artist manager who guided the early careers of many recording artists, including Frank Ifield, Cliff Richard, The Shadows, Marvin Welch & Farrar, Labi Siffre and Olivia Newton-John....
, singer Richard says of his casting that he was "thrilled" to be part of the well-known and popular Thunderbirds franchise. Richard has fond memories of the making of his Supermarionation lookalike puppet: "It was quite a hoot ... I was never really sure if I looked like my puppet or it looked like me." - The ShadowsThe ShadowsThe Shadows are a British pop group with a total of 69 UK hit-charted singles: 35 as 'The Shadows' and 34 as 'Cliff Richard and the Shadows', from the 1950s to the 2000s. Cliff Richard in casual conversation with the British rock press frequently refers to the Shadows by their nickname: 'The Shads'...
(consisting of band members Brian Bennett, Hank MarvinHank MarvinHank Brian Marvin is an English guitarist, best known as the lead guitarist for The Shadows. The group, which primarily performed instrumentals, was formed as a backing band for vocalist Cliff Richard...
, John RostillJohn RostillJohn Henry Rostill was an English bassist and composer, recruited by The Shadows to replace Brian Locking.-Biography:...
and Bruce WelchBruce WelchBruce Welch OBE, is an English guitarist, songwriter, producer and singer, best known as a member of The Shadows.-Biography:...
) as Themselves, complementing Cliff Richard Jr in Alan TracyAlan TracyAlan Tracy is a fictional character from Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation television show Thunderbirds and the subsequent films Thunderbirds Are GO and Thunderbird 6. The character also appeared in the 2004 live action movie Thunderbirds....
's dream sequenceDream sequenceA dream sequence is a technique used in storytelling, particularly in television and film, to set apart a brief interlude from the main story. The interlude may consist of a flashback, a flashforward, a fantasy, a vision, a dream, or some other element. Commonly, dream sequences appear in many...
set at The Swinging Star. Bennett remembers the puppet that was based on his likeness: "The first thing I did was to ask if I could keep him when filming was finished, but apparently he was to be turned into another character after the film had been finished."
Filming
Pre-productionPre-production
Pre-production or In Production is the process of preparing all the elements involved in a film, play, or other performance.- In film :...
for Thunderbirds Are Go lasted three months, and a shooting schedule
Shooting schedule
A shooting schedule is a project plan of each day's shooting for a film production. It is normally created and managed by the assistant director, who reports to the production manager managing the production schedule...
of sixteen weeks was allotted to coincide with the filming of episodes for Series Two. Principal photography
Principal photography
thumb|300px|Film production on location in [[Newark, New Jersey]].Principal photography is the phase of film production in which the movie is filmed, with actors on set and cameras rolling, as distinct from pre-production and post-production....
commenced on 3 March 1966 and ended nearly four months later in late June. The AP Films
AP Films
AP Films or APF, later becoming Century 21 Productions, was a British independent film production company of the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s...
staff were split into an "A" and a "B" Unit, "A" to concentrate on the film and "B" the television episodes. As a result of the division, henceforth the television shooting would be completed at the rate of one episode per month, whereas Series One had been filmed at a faster rate with the completion of two episodes in the same time. While director of photography Paddy Seale and special effects supervisor Derek Meddings
Derek Meddings
Derek Meddings was a British television and cinema special effects expert, initially noted for his work on the "Supermarionation" television puppet series produced by Gerry Anderson, and later for the 1970s James Bond films and the Superman film series.-Early years:Both Meddings' parents had...
handled Thunderbirds Are Go, camera and effects roles for Series Two were delegated to their assistants, Julien Lugrin and Jimmy Elliott. Two unused buildings on the Slough Trading Estate
Slough Trading Estate
The Slough Trading Estate founded in Slough, Berkshire in 1920, was an early business park in the United Kingdom. According to the estate's owners and operators, SEGRO , Slough Trading Estate consists of of commercial property in Slough and provides of accommodation to 500 businesses and has...
were purchased to address the increased demands on the production team, combining with the pre-existing puppet workshop and art department
Art department
Art department in movie terms means the section of a production's crew concerned with visual artistry. Working under the supervision of the production designer and/or art director, the art department is responsible for arranging the overall look of the film as desired by the film director...
and publicity centres to form an AP Films production base of five buildings. Converted by January 1966, one of these former factory units contained new puppet stages, while the other was dedicated to one large sound stage
Sound stage
In common usage, a sound stage is a soundproof, hangar-like structure, building, or room, used for the production of theatrical filmmaking and television production, usually located on a secure movie studio property.-Overview:...
on which all model and effects work would be completed.
Cinematography
Thunderbirds Are Go was filmed in widescreen TechniscopeTechniscope
Techniscope or 2-Perf is a 35mm motion picture camera film format introduced by Technicolor Italia in 1963. The Techniscope format uses a two film-perforation negative pulldown per frame, instead of the standard four-perforation frame usually exposed in 35mm film photography...
, a subset of Technicolor
Technicolor
Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...
, with an aspect ratio
Aspect ratio
The aspect ratio of a shape is the ratio of its longer dimension to its shorter dimension. It may be applied to two characteristic dimensions of a three-dimensional shape, such as the ratio of the longest and shortest axis, or for symmetrical objects that are described by just two measurements,...
of 2.35:1. This represented a significant departure from the 4:3 picture used for the television episodes. The anamorphic lenses of Panavision
Panavision
Panavision is an American motion picture equipment company specializing in cameras and lenses, based in Woodland Hills, California. Formed by Robert Gottschalk as a small partnership to create anamorphic projection lenses during the widescreen boom in the 1950s, Panavision expanded its product...
, a popular system for Hollywood productions during the 1960s, proved to be unsuitable for special effects shots due to the depth of field
Depth of field
In optics, particularly as it relates to film and photography, depth of field is the distance between the nearest and farthest objects in a scene that appear acceptably sharp in an image...
of the cameras. Techniscope, on the other hand, could be used in conjunction with spherical lenses while attaining the "letterbox" image of mainstream films that were shot on 35 mm film
35 mm film
35 mm film is the film gauge most commonly used for chemical still photography and motion pictures. The name of the gauge refers to the width of the photographic film, which consists of strips 35 millimeters in width...
. All AP Films productions had up to this point been filmed on Arriflex Cameras, but for the film these were replaced with the Mitchell
Mitchell Camera
Mitchell Camera Corporation was founded in 1919 by Henry Boger and George Alfred Mitchell. Their first camera was designed and patented by John E. Leonard in 1917, from 1920 on known as the Mitchell Standard...
brand.
Thunderbirds Are Go is also the first film to have been shot with the "Livingston Electronic Viewfinder Unit". Also known as "Add-a-Vision", this system consisted of a viewfinder
Viewfinder
In photography, a viewfinder is what the photographer looks through to compose, and in many cases to focus, the picture. Most viewfinders are separate, and suffer parallax, while the single-lens reflex camera lets the viewfinder use the main optical system. Viewfinders are used in many cameras of...
, connected to video monitors, that was used to capture an image directly from the shooting camera. This enabled production personnel to inspect filmed footage on the set with a higher definition than had been possible with a more basic system used for AP Films television series. Add-a-Vision also benefited the puppeteers, who were stationed several metres above the set on gantries and had until this point not been permitted a useful view of the marionette movements below them. Based on German video assist
Video assist
Video assist is a system used in filmmaking which allows filmmakers to view a video version of a take immediately after it is filmed.Originally a small device, called the video tap, was installed inside a movie camera that allows the director to see approximately the same view as the camera...
devices, Add-A-Vision was developed by John Read
John Read (producer)
John Read is a British television producer, cinematographer and director.He is widely associated with the productions of Gerry Anderson. Having served as director of photography on Four Feather Falls , Crossroads to Crime , Supercar , Stingray and Thunderbirds , Read worked on the latter series'...
, director of photography for Thunderbirds, in collaboration with Prowest Electronics, and also incorporated a form of playback
Recording
Recording is the process of capturing data or translating information to a recording format stored on some storage medium, which is often referred to as a record or, if an auditory medium, a recording....
function to aid staff while viewing rushes
Dailies
Dailies, in filmmaking, are the raw, unedited footage shot during the making of a motion picture. They are so called because usually at the end of each day, that day's footage is developed, synched to sound, and printed on film in a batch for viewing the next day by the director and some members...
.
To enhance the illusion of the puppets, David Lane
David Lane (director)
David Lane is a British television and film director, best known for his association with series produced by Gerry Anderson's AP Films.Lane directed several episodes of the Thunderbirds television series, including "Attack of the Alligators!", as well as the two cinema films Thunderbirds are GO and...
ensured that camera shots frequently omitted the tops of the heads and the visible control wires, and also incorporated low-angle shot
Low-angle shot
In cinematography, a low-angle shot, is a shot from a camera positioned low on the vertical axis, anywhere below the eyeline, looking up.-Famous examples:...
s for dramatic effect. Location shooting
Location shooting
Location shooting is the practice of filming in an actual setting rather than on a sound stage or back lot. In filmmaking a location is any place where a film crew will be filming actors and recording their dialog. A location where dialog is not recorded may be considered as a second unit...
in Portugal was arranged for Lane, Derek Meddings and camera operator
Camera operator
A camera operator or cameraman is a professional operator of a film or video camera. In filmmaking, the leading cameraman is usually called a cinematographer, while a cameraman in a video production may be known as a television camera operator, video camera operator, or videographer, depending on...
Alan Perry to film overhead landscape shots for the climax in which Alan rescues the Zero-X astronauts during re-entry. However, when the footage was deemed unsatisfactory, it was replaced with a painted backdrop made by associate producer Reg Hill
Reg Hill
Reginald E. Hill was a British television producer and was most prominently associated with the work of puppet animator Gerry Anderson.-Professional life:...
. Shots were also recorded for the end of Alan
Alan Tracy
Alan Tracy is a fictional character from Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation television show Thunderbirds and the subsequent films Thunderbirds Are GO and Thunderbird 6. The character also appeared in the 2004 live action movie Thunderbirds....
's dream, when the character tumbles from The Swinging Star back to Earth to discover that he has only fallen out of bed. To achieve this "spiralling shot", the team was carried by helicopter to an altitude of approximately 5,000 feet above an island off the coast of Portugal. The aircraft was then left to "autogyro
Autogyro
An autogyro , also known as gyroplane, gyrocopter, or rotaplane, is a type of rotorcraft which uses an unpowered rotor in autorotation to develop lift, and an engine-powered propeller, similar to that of a fixed-wing aircraft, to provide thrust...
" downwards as Perry recorded the view of the island looming up from below. Once again, however, the shot was declared inadequate and a model version was made at the AP Films Studios in Slough
Slough
Slough is a borough and unitary authority within the ceremonial county of Royal Berkshire, England. The town straddles the A4 Bath Road and the Great Western Main Line, west of central London...
.
Puppets
Promising Television Mail that AP FilmsAP Films
AP Films or APF, later becoming Century 21 Productions, was a British independent film production company of the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s...
' latest venture would be "bigger and better than anything we have ever done before", Gerry Anderson realised that design defects would not be as quickly forgiven in a film adaptation as on the smaller screen. Puppets from the Thunderbirds television series were therefore expertly revamped, with new paint, wigs and costumes, while models and sets such as the Thunderbird machines
Thunderbirds machines
The Gerry Anderson Supermarionation television series Thunderbirds and the subsequent feature films Thunderbirds Are Go and Thunderbird 6 featured a large variety of futuristic air, land and sea vehicles and machines, the majority of which were designed by special effects director Derek...
were re-built from scratch with greater attention to detail. During production, the AP Films puppet wardrobe had a stock of over 700 costumes, with 150 extra costumes made mainly as spares in case of damage or loss.
Some of the main puppet cast to feature in the film, such as Scott Tracy
Scott Tracy
Scott Tracy is a fictional character from Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation television show Thunderbirds and the subsequent films Thunderbirds Are GO and Thunderbird 6. The character also appeared in the live action movie Thunderbirds....
, were re-made from the original marionettes, while previously unseen characters such as the Zero-X astronauts, Cliff Richard and the bandmembers of The Shadows were sculpted especially. Whereas guest star puppets for Series One had been recycled for each appearance and moulded in Plasticine
Plasticine
Plasticine, a brand of modelling clay, is a putty-like modelling material made from calcium salts, petroleum jelly and aliphatic acids. The name is a registered trademark of Flair Leisure Products plc...
, since this was the first occasion when puppets in an AP Films production were intended to represent real-life celebrities, most of the supporting puppets were made from fibreglass to the same standards of workmanship as the main puppets. From facial measurements and still photographs of the human templates, sculpting supervisor John Brown constructed Cliff Richard, while Brian Bennett was entrusted to Christine Glanville
Christine Glanville
Christine Glanville was a British professional puppeteer and spent most of her working life on television programs produced by Gerry Anderson....
, Hank Marvin
Hank Marvin
Hank Brian Marvin is an English guitarist, best known as the lead guitarist for The Shadows. The group, which primarily performed instrumentals, was formed as a backing band for vocalist Cliff Richard...
to Terry Curtis, John Rostill
John Rostill
John Henry Rostill was an English bassist and composer, recruited by The Shadows to replace Brian Locking.-Biography:...
to Mary Turner and Bruce Welch
Bruce Welch
Bruce Welch OBE, is an English guitarist, songwriter, producer and singer, best known as a member of The Shadows.-Biography:...
to Tim Cooksey. Curtis went on to sculpt Zero-X crewmembers Captain Paul Travers and Co-Pilot Greg Martin, modelling the first on 1960s James Bond
James Bond (film series)
The James Bond film series is a British series of motion pictures based on the fictional character of MI6 agent James Bond , who originally appeared in a series of books by Ian Fleming. Earlier films were based on Fleming's novels and short stories, followed later by films with original storylines...
actor, Sean Connery
Sean Connery
Sir Thomas Sean Connery , better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards and three Golden Globes Sir Thomas Sean Connery (born 25 August 1930), better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy...
and the latter partly on himself, in addition to the Glenn Field Controller, Commander Casey.
The puppets of Thunderbirds Are Go are of identical proportions to the television puppets. However, while production of the film continued, AP Films developed a prototype with a latex
Latex
Latex is the stable dispersion of polymer microparticles in an aqueous medium. Latexes may be natural or synthetic.Latex as found in nature is a milky fluid found in 10% of all flowering plants . It is a complex emulsion consisting of proteins, alkaloids, starches, sugars, oils, tannins, resins,...
mouth to result in more realistic movement of the lips and jaws. However, this animatronic technology proved to be insufficiently advanced and the idea was abandoned. For the later television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, a brand-new puppet design of realistic anatomical proportions made its debut appearance when the solenoid
Solenoid
A solenoid is a coil wound into a tightly packed helix. In physics, the term solenoid refers to a long, thin loop of wire, often wrapped around a metallic core, which produces a magnetic field when an electric current is passed through it. Solenoids are important because they can create...
of the lip-synch mechanism was relocated from the puppet head to the torso area. Thunderbird 6
Thunderbird 6
Thunderbird 6 is a 1968 British science-fiction and adventure film written by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, directed by David Lane and produced by Century 21 Cinema...
, a sequel film shot simultaneously with Captain Scarlet, stars puppets intended to compromise between the first and second generations. Although the heads and hands remained large in relation to the torso and legs, the sculptors reduced the explicit caricature
Caricature
A caricature is a portrait that exaggerates or distorts the essence of a person or thing to create an easily identifiable visual likeness. In literature, a caricature is a description of a person using exaggeration of some characteristics and oversimplification of others.Caricatures can be...
evident in the Thunderbirds television episodes and Thunderbirds Are Go to leave puppets sized in intermediate proportions.
Design
The heads of the art department, Bob Bell and Keith WilsonKeith Wilson (production designer)
Keith George Wilson was an award-winning production designer who began work at AP Films, working as art assistant on Fireball XL5 and many other Gerry Anderson productions to follow. As a production designer he created all the futuristic sets for Space: 1999 and Star Maidens...
, divided their efforts so that Bell contributed mostly to the film and Wilson to the Series Two episodes. Sets constructed by Bell especially for Thunderbirds Are Go included the Glenn Field Control Tower and Press Conference Room, the interiors of The Swinging Star, and re-designed versions of various locations on Tracy Island
Tracy Island
Tracy Island is the home of the Tracy family in the Gerry and Sylvia Anderson 1960s television series Thunderbirds. Located in the South Pacific Ocean, the island's true function as the secret base of the International Rescue organisation is heavily camouflaged.Thunderbird 1 launches from a hangar...
. The appearance of the Space Exploration Center's Inquiry Room was influenced by Sylvia Anderson
Sylvia Anderson
Sylvia Anderson , born 25 March 1937, is a British voice artist and film producer, most notable for collaborations with Gerry Anderson, to whom she was married from 1962 to 1975....
, who in her role as producer supervised design aspects and wanted the light-blue uniforms of the SEC officials to be vividly contrasted with a tangerine and black duotone
Duotone
Duotone is a halftone reproduction of an image using the superimposition of one contrasting color halftone over another color halftone. This is most often used to bring out middle tones and highlights of an image...
backdrop. Director David Lane recalls that the Inquiry Room scene depicted a panel made up of 20 puppets, an achievement which would not have been possible in one of the Thunderbirds television episodes due to the smaller budget.
Of his approach to directing the film, Lane explains, "Thunderbirds Are Go was done like an episode but on a bigger scale. Whereas we would think that it might be nice to do a particular shot on the series but couldn't afford to, with Thunderbirds Are Go we just did it because we had the money." For the Swinging Star hall sequence, all the visual elements except Alan
Alan Tracy
Alan Tracy is a fictional character from Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation television show Thunderbirds and the subsequent films Thunderbirds Are GO and Thunderbird 6. The character also appeared in the 2004 live action movie Thunderbirds....
and Lady Penelope are displayed in black and white, with background characters appearing in the form of enlarged still photographs. On the surrealism
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
of the Swinging Star scenes, aspects of which include pink space clouds made of dry ice
Dry ice
Dry ice, sometimes referred to as "Cardice" or as "card ice" , is the solid form of carbon dioxide. It is used primarily as a cooling agent. Its advantages include lower temperature than that of water ice and not leaving any residue...
and a giant guitar on which Cliff Richard
Cliff Richard
Sir Cliff Richard, OBE is a British pop singer, musician, performer, actor, and philanthropist who has sold over an estimated 250 million records worldwide....
and The Shadows
The Shadows
The Shadows are a British pop group with a total of 69 UK hit-charted singles: 35 as 'The Shadows' and 34 as 'Cliff Richard and the Shadows', from the 1950s to the 2000s. Cliff Richard in casual conversation with the British rock press frequently refers to the Shadows by their nickname: 'The Shads'...
perform part of "Shooting Star", Anderson explains that the production team "recreated a Busby Berkeley
Busby Berkeley
Busby Berkeley was a highly influential Hollywood movie director and musical choreographer. Berkeley was famous for his elaborate musical production numbers that often involved complex geometric patterns...
sequence", and that the appearance of puppet versions of real-life celebrities boosted the publicity value of the film.
Effects
Derek MeddingsDerek Meddings
Derek Meddings was a British television and cinema special effects expert, initially noted for his work on the "Supermarionation" television puppet series produced by Gerry Anderson, and later for the 1970s James Bond films and the Superman film series.-Early years:Both Meddings' parents had...
and a team of 28 technicians completed the special effects shots for the film in six months. Their main assignments included the Zero-X launches, re-shot, widescreen launch sequences for the Thunderbird machines
Thunderbirds machines
The Gerry Anderson Supermarionation television series Thunderbirds and the subsequent feature films Thunderbirds Are Go and Thunderbird 6 featured a large variety of futuristic air, land and sea vehicles and machines, the majority of which were designed by special effects director Derek...
, the car chase between Lady Penelope and Parker
Aloysius "Nosey" Parker
Aloysius "Nosey" Parker is a fictional character in the television series Thunderbirds, the feature films Thunderbirds Are GO and Thunderbird 6 and the 2004 live action film Thunderbirds....
in FAB1
FAB1
FAB1 is the name given to the pink six-wheeled car in the Thunderbirds franchise.-The original series and films:In the original Supermarionation TV series Thunderbirds , as well as the films Thunderbirds Are GO and Thunderbird 6 , FAB1 is a modified Rolls-Royce...
and The Hood
The Hood (Thunderbirds)
The Hood is the main villain and adversary of International Rescue in the Thunderbirds TV series.-TV series:The Hood's precise origins are unknown but it is thought to have been based loosely on Wayne Pembridge...
, scenes at The Swinging Star, the Mars shots involving the MEV and the mysterious Rock Snakes, and the ultimate destruction of Zero-X in the climax. Over 300 effects shot were completed with scale model
Scale model
A scale model is a physical model, a representation or copy of an object that is larger or smaller than the actual size of the object, which seeks to maintain the relative proportions of the physical size of the original object. Very often the scale model is used as a guide to making the object in...
s. The team made use of the extra space afforded to them by the new special effects building to experiment with floor-level shots
Low-angle shot
In cinematography, a low-angle shot, is a shot from a camera positioned low on the vertical axis, anywhere below the eyeline, looking up.-Famous examples:...
and other more creative camera angle
Camera angle
The camera angle marks the specific location at which a camera is placed to take a shot. A scene may be shot from several camera angles. This will give different experience and sometimes emotion. the different camera angles will have different effects on the viewer and how they perceive the scene...
s.
The requirement to re-create the various Thunderbird machines was particularly problematic in the case of Thunderbird 2, as Meddings explains: "Unfortunately, its replacement was not only the wrong colour, it was a completely different shape. Although we had several more built in different scales, I never felt our model makers managed to re-capture the look of the original." Meddings was also responsible for the design of the Zero-X spacecraft, for the representation of which a fibreglass model, 7 ft (2.1 m) long, weighing 50 lb (23 kg) and costing £2,500, was built. The appearance of the Zero-X interior was based on then unfinished aircraft Concorde
Concorde
Aérospatiale-BAC Concorde was a turbojet-powered supersonic passenger airliner, a supersonic transport . It was a product of an Anglo-French government treaty, combining the manufacturing efforts of Aérospatiale and the British Aircraft Corporation...
, a prototype of which was under construction at Filton Airfield in Bristol
Bristol
Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...
.
A long shot
Long shot
In photography, filmmaking and video production, a long shot typically shows the entire object or human figure and is usually intended to place it in some relation to its surroundings...
of a Zero-X lifting body
Lifting body
A lifting body is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration in which the body itself produces lift. In contrast to a flying wing, which is a wing with minimal or no conventional fuselage, a lifting body can be thought of as a fuselage with little or no conventional wing...
falling through the atmosphere and exploding was the only special effects sequence filmed outside the building. Instead, it was mounted on a gantry at a nearby power station
Power station
A power station is an industrial facility for the generation of electric energy....
against a real sky backdrop and the team used Cordtex
Cordtex
Cordtex is a type of detonating cord generally used in mining. It uses an explosive core of pentaerythritol tetranitrate which is inside its plastic coating.It is commonly the thickness of electrical extension cord and "burns" at 2 km per second...
explosive strips, gunpowder
Gunpowder
Gunpowder, also known since in the late 19th century as black powder, was the first chemical explosive and the only one known until the mid 1800s. It is a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate - with the sulfur and charcoal acting as fuels, while the saltpeter works as an oxidizer...
, naphtha
Naphtha
Naphtha normally refers to a number of different flammable liquid mixtures of hydrocarbons, i.e., a component of natural gas condensate or a distillation product from petroleum, coal tar or peat boiling in a certain range and containing certain hydrocarbons. It is a broad term covering among the...
, magnesium
Magnesium
Magnesium is a chemical element with the symbol Mg, atomic number 12, and common oxidation number +2. It is an alkaline earth metal and the eighth most abundant element in the Earth's crust and ninth in the known universe as a whole...
and petroleum gel to create a "fireball" effect. Although it took months to construct, the studio's destruction of the Zero-X model was complete in two days. The effects shots for Thunderbirds Are Go later became so well-known in the film industry that the work of Meddings and his team was consulted during pre-production
Pre-production
Pre-production or In Production is the process of preparing all the elements involved in a film, play, or other performance.- In film :...
on the 1986 James Cameron
James Cameron
James Francis Cameron is a Canadian-American film director, film producer, screenwriter, editor, environmentalist and inventor...
film, Aliens
Aliens (film)
Aliens is a 1986 science fiction action film directed by James Cameron and starring Sigourney Weaver, Carrie Henn, Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen, William Hope, and Bill Paxton...
.
Editing
The film went through post-productionPost-production
Post-production is part of filmmaking and the video production process. It occurs in the making of motion pictures, television programs, radio programs, advertising, audio recordings, photography, and digital art...
in the autumn to be finished in time for a Christmas release. Len Walter, who had edited episodes for Series One, reprised his role for Thunderbirds Are Go. The workprint
Workprint
A workprint is a rough version of a motion picture, used by the film editor during the editing process. Such copies generally contain original recorded sound that will later be re-dubbed, stock footage as placeholders for missing shots or special effects, and animation tests for in-production...
of the film ran more than 15 minutes over the maximum runtime permitted by United Artists
United Artists
United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....
, forcing Walter to cut several minor scenes that were not essential to the plot. One set of deleted scene
Deleted scene
In Entertainment, especially the film and television industry, Deleted scenes are parts of a film removed or censored from or replaced by another scene in the final "cut", or version, of a film...
s charted the Space Exploration Center's attempts to enlist International Rescue to escort the second Zero-X. Meanwhile, The Hood
The Hood (Thunderbirds)
The Hood is the main villain and adversary of International Rescue in the Thunderbirds TV series.-TV series:The Hood's precise origins are unknown but it is thought to have been based loosely on Wayne Pembridge...
telepathically contacts his half-brother Kyrano
Kyrano
Kyrano is a fictional character from the television series Thunderbirds and the 2004 feature film based on it.Kyrano is the father of Tin-Tin and the half brother of The Hood and acts as a manservant in the Tracy household, sharing domestic duties with Grandma Tracy...
, coercing him to relay the Tracy family's actions. With the removal of the one scene in which he appears, Kyrano, another character voiced by David Graham
David Graham (actor)
David Graham is a British character actor and voice artist. Born in London, after a period in the R.A.F as a Radar Mechanic he trained as an actor in New York but has worked mainly on British television series....
, was completely cut from the film. A second deleted scene featured Lady Penelope and Parker
Aloysius "Nosey" Parker
Aloysius "Nosey" Parker is a fictional character in the television series Thunderbirds, the feature films Thunderbirds Are GO and Thunderbird 6 and the 2004 live action film Thunderbirds....
en route to Glenn Field via New York, flying on board the aircraft Fireflash which made its first appearance in the pilot episode
Trapped in the Sky
"Trapped in the Sky" is the first episode of Thunderbirds, a British 1960s Supermarionation television series co-created by Gerry Anderson, which originally aired on ATV Midlands on 30 September 1965. The plot revolves around master criminal the Hood, who sabotages the brand-new Fireflash prior to...
of Thunderbirds
Thunderbirds (TV series)
Thunderbirds is a British mid-1960s science fiction television show devised by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and made by AP Films using a form of marionette puppetry dubbed "Supermarionation"...
.
Post-production
With Walter's editing complete, composer Barry GrayBarry Gray
Barry Gray was a British musician and composer who is best known for his work for Gerry Anderson.-Life:...
recorded the score
Sheet music
Sheet music is a hand-written or printed form of music notation that uses modern musical symbols; like its analogs—books, pamphlets, etc.—the medium of sheet music typically is paper , although the access to musical notation in recent years includes also presentation on computer screens...
in six sessions between 9 and 11 October at Anvil Studios
Denham Film Studios
Denham Film Studios were a British film production studio operating from 1936 to 1952.The studios were founded by Alexander Korda, on a 165 acre site near the village of Denham, Buckinghamshire. At the time it was the largest facility of its kind in the UK, but it was merged with Rank's Pinewood...
near Denham
Denham, Buckinghamshire
Denham is a village and civil parish in the South Buckinghamshire district of Buckinghamshire, England. It is north west of Uxbridge and north of junction 1 of the M40 motorway. Denham contains the Buckinghamshire Golf Club.-Origin:...
in Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury, the largest town in the ceremonial county is Milton Keynes and largest town in the non-metropolitan county is High Wycombe....
. To achieve proper symphonic sound, an orchestra of 70 musicians, aided by Gray's own electronic
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
effects, was organised. The Band of the Royal Marines
Royal Marines
The Corps of Her Majesty's Royal Marines, commonly just referred to as the Royal Marines , are the marine corps and amphibious infantry of the United Kingdom and, along with the Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary, form the Naval Service...
' rendition of the "Thunderbirds March" which accompanies the end credits of the film was recorded in one morning under the supervision of Gray and conductor Lieutenant Colonel Vivian Dunn
Vivian Dunn
Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Vivian Dunn KCVO OBE FRSA was the Director of Music, Portsmouth Division, Royal Marines1931-53 and Principal Director of Music, Royal Marines, from 1953 to 1968. He was the first military musician to be knighted.Francis Vivian Dunn was born in Jabalpur, India...
at the Royal Marines School of Music in Deal, Kent
Deal, Kent
Deal is a town in Kent England. It lies on the English Channel eight miles north-east of Dover and eight miles south of Ramsgate. It is a former fishing, mining and garrison town...
. Three weeks were then allotted for visual wrap-up work, the insertion of the opening titles and minor animation, sound editing and dubbing
Dubbing (filmmaking)
Dubbing is the post-production process of recording and replacing voices on a motion picture or television soundtrack subsequent to the original shooting. The term most commonly refers to the substitution of the voices of the actors shown on the screen by those of different performers, who may be...
. On its submission to the British Board of Film Classification
British Board of Film Classification
The British Board of Film Classification , originally British Board of Film Censors, is a non-governmental organisation, funded by the film industry and responsible for the national classification of films within the United Kingdom...
in November, the film was awarded a U certificate
History of British film certificates
-Overview:The UK's film ratings are decided by the British Board of Film Classification and have been since 1912. Previously, there were no agreed rating standards, and local councils imposed their own - often differing - conditions or restrictions...
.
An animated introduction to the film presents the main puppet cast, and is accompanied by the re-recorded version of the "Thunderbirds March". The end credits
End Credits
"End Credits" is the first single from Drum and Bass duo Chase & Status' second studio album No More Idols. The single was co-written, co-produced and features vocals from Plan B and was released on 29 October 2009, reaching a peak position of No. 9 in the UK Singles Chart...
note the musical contributions of "Shooting Star" and "Lady Penelope" by Cliff Richard and The Shadows and the "Thunderbirds March" performed by the Band of the Royal Marines. Other credits are self-referential
Self-referential humor
Self-referential humor or self-reflexive humor is a type of comedic expression that—either directed toward some other subject, or openly directed toward itself—intentionally alludes to the very person who is expressing the humor in a comedic fashion, or to some specific aspect of that...
"acknowledgements" to individuals and companies who apparently assisted in the production of the film: these include the characters of Space Colonel Harris (the chairman of the Space Exploration Center committee) and Commander Casey, and the Century 21 "Space Location Unit". A humorous disclaimer then reads: "None of the characters appearing in this photoplay intentionally resemble any persons living or dead ... since they do not yet exist!"
Release
When filming for Thunderbirds Are Go concluded in June 1966, four episodes of Series Two had been completed on the monthly shooting schedule. Two additional episodes of Series Two, "Ricochet" and "Give or Take a Million", were filmed by "A" and "B" Units respectively. By December, Lew GradeLew Grade
Lew Grade, Baron Grade , born Lev Winogradsky, was an influential Russian-born English impresario and media mogul.-Early years:...
had failed to sell the TV series to American broadcasters, recommending to Gerry Anderson that AP Films
AP Films
AP Films or APF, later becoming Century 21 Productions, was a British independent film production company of the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s...
cancel production on Thunderbirds after the completion of six episodes for Series Two and start preparation for a new series, which would become Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons
Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons
Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, often referred to as Captain Scarlet, is a 1960s British science-fiction television series produced by the Century 21 Productions company of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, John Read and Reg Hill...
. For the development of this series, the staff of AP Films, on the advice of Merchandising Executive Keith Shackleton
Keith Shackleton
Keith Shackleton is a British painter who has concentrated on landscape views and animals. He has also produced limited edition prints. He was a friend of the conservationist and fellow painter Peter Scott and they visited Antarctica together...
, agreed to change the name of the company to "Century 21 Productions", a name first carried by Thunderbirds Are Go to associate the film more closely with the related Anderson comic TV Century 21
TV Century 21
TV Century 21, also known as TV 21, was a weekly British children's comic of the 1960s and early 1970s. It promoted the many television science-fiction puppet series created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's Century 21 Productions...
. Thunderbirds Are Go became the first Anderson project to be publicised, in full, as "A Gerry Anderson Century 21 Production".
Thunderbirds Are Go was screened for United Artists
United Artists
United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....
executives to a positive response before receiving its premiere
Premiere
A premiere is generally "a first performance". This can refer to plays, films, television programs, operas, symphonies, ballets and so on. Premieres for theatrical, musical and other cultural presentations can become extravagant affairs, attracting large numbers of socialites and much media...
at the London Pavilion
London Pavilion
The London Pavilion is a building located on the corner of Shaftesbury Avenue and Coventry Street on the north-east side of, and facing, Piccadilly Circus in London...
in Piccadilly
Piccadilly
Piccadilly is a major street in central London, running from Hyde Park Corner in the west to Piccadilly Circus in the east. It is completely within the city of Westminster. The street is part of the A4 road, London's second most important western artery. St...
on 12 December 1966. Opening at a gala for the Barnardo's
Barnardo's
Barnardo's is a British charity founded by Thomas John Barnardo in 1866, to care for vulnerable children and young people. As of 2010, it spends over £190 million each year on more than 400 local services aimed at helping these same groups...
Charity, several crew and actors were in attendance, including Gerry and Sylvia Anderson
Sylvia Anderson
Sylvia Anderson , born 25 March 1937, is a British voice artist and film producer, most notable for collaborations with Gerry Anderson, to whom she was married from 1962 to 1975....
, Grade, Cliff Richard and his sister Donella and The Shadows. The exterior of the Pavilion, adorned with neon
Neon
Neon is the chemical element that has the symbol Ne and an atomic number of 10. Although a very common element in the universe, it is rare on Earth. A colorless, inert noble gas under standard conditions, neon gives a distinct reddish-orange glow when used in either low-voltage neon glow lamps or...
and representations of the Thunderbird machines
Thunderbirds machines
The Gerry Anderson Supermarionation television series Thunderbirds and the subsequent feature films Thunderbirds Are Go and Thunderbird 6 featured a large variety of futuristic air, land and sea vehicles and machines, the majority of which were designed by special effects director Derek...
, led into the foyer in which puppets and models from the film had been put on display, with publicity posters promising audiences "The Most Advanced Spacecraft Ever Created" and stipulating that "Adults Should Be Accompanied By Children". The Band of the Royal Marines
Royal Marines
The Corps of Her Majesty's Royal Marines, commonly just referred to as the Royal Marines , are the marine corps and amphibious infantry of the United Kingdom and, along with the Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary, form the Naval Service...
provided a rendition of the "Thunderbirds March" both before and after the screening.
Reception
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 WeeklyKine Weekly
The Kinematograph Weekly, popularly known as Kine Weekly, was a trade newspaper catering to the British film industry. It was published in Britain between 1889 and 1971.-Publication history:...
praised the film as a "colourful extension of Gerry Anderson's very popular television series", while the News of the World
News of the World
The News of the World was a national red top newspaper published in the United Kingdom from 1843 to 2011. It was at one time the biggest selling English language newspaper in the world, and at closure still had one of the highest English language circulations...
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
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
, 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
Black-and-white
Black-and-white, often abbreviated B/W or B&W, is a term referring to a number of monochrome forms in visual arts.Black-and-white as a description is also something of a misnomer, for in addition to black and white, most of these media included varying shades of gray...
TV and on to the cinema screen."
However, after the splendour of the premiere
Premiere
A premiere is generally "a first performance". This can refer to plays, films, television programs, operas, symphonies, ballets and so on. Premieres for theatrical, musical and other cultural presentations can become extravagant affairs, attracting large numbers of socialites and much media...
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
Supermarionation
Supermarionation is a puppetry technique devised in the 1960s by British production company AP Films. It was used extensively in the company's numerous Gerry and Sylvia Anderson-produced action-adventure series, the most famous of which was Thunderbirds...
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
Leslie H. Martinson
Leslie "Les" H. Martinson is an American television and film director. He is married to television host and writer Connie Martinson.-Career:...
's Batman
Batman (1966 film)
Batman, often promoted as Batman: The Movie, is a 1966 film based on the Batman television series, and the first full-length theatrical adaptation of the DC Comics character of the same name. Released by 20th Century Fox, the film starred Adam West as Batman and Burt Ward as Robin. The film was...
and James Hill
James Hill (British director)
James Hill was a British film and television director, screenwriter and producer whose career spanned 52 years between 1937–1989, best remembered for his documentaries and short subjects such as Giuseppina and The Home Made Car, and as director of the internationally acclaimed Born Free.Hill...
's Born Free
Born Free
Born Free is a 1966 British drama film starring Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers as Joy and George Adamson, a real-life couple who raised Elsa the Lioness, an orphaned lion cub, to adulthood, and released her into the wilds of Kenya. The movie was produced by Open Road Films Ltd. and Columbia...
. Reviews were, in general, turning less positive: although the Slough Observer described the film as "basically a Technicolor
Technicolor
Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...
large-screen extension" of its television original, The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
was critical, asserting that the plotting and characterisation
Characterisation
Characterization or characterisation is the art of creating characters for a narrative, including the process of conveying information about them. It may be employed in dramatic works of art or everyday conversation...
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
Filler (media)
In media, filler is material that is combined with material of greater relevance or quality to "fill out" a certain volume.-Early television:...
to maintain feature length. In his 1993 programme guide to the Anderson productions, John Peel
John Peel (writer)
John Peel is a British writer, best known for his books connected to several television series. He has written under several pseudonyms, including John Vincent and Nicholas Adams. He lives in Long Island, New York and his wife is a U.S...
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
Dream sequence
A dream sequence is a technique used in storytelling, particularly in television and film, to set apart a brief interlude from the main story. The interlude may consist of a flashback, a flashforward, a fantasy, a vision, a dream, or some other element. Commonly, dream sequences appear in many...
is "painfully silly" and "embarrassingly awful". La Rivière agrees with Peel's view that the Thunderbird machines
Thunderbirds machines
The Gerry Anderson Supermarionation television series Thunderbirds and the subsequent feature films Thunderbirds Are Go and Thunderbird 6 featured a large variety of futuristic air, land and sea vehicles and machines, the majority of which were designed by special effects director Derek...
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.
With the start of the War on Terror
War on Terror
The War on Terror is a term commonly applied to an international military campaign led by the United States and the United Kingdom with the support of other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as well as non-NATO countries...
, Thunderbirds Are Go has been interpreted differently: Jeff Stafford of Turner Classic Movies
Turner Classic Movies
Turner Classic Movies is a movie-oriented cable television channel, owned by the Turner Broadcasting System subsidiary of Time Warner, featuring commercial-free classic movies, mostly from the Turner Entertainment and MGM, United Artists, RKO and Warner Bros. film libraries...
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
Film4
Film4 is a free digital television channel available in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, owned and operated by Channel 4, that screens films.-Programming:...
website.
Sequel
Despite the underperformance of Thunderbirds Are Go, Gerry Anderson received two awards for Thunderbirds in 1966, first with the presentation of a Silver Medal for Outstanding Artistic Achievement by the Royal Television SocietyRoyal Television Society
The Royal Television Society is a British-based educational charity for the discussion, and analysis of television in all its forms, past, present and future. It is the oldest television society in the world...
, and then an appointment as an Honorary Fellow of the British Kinematograph, Sound and Television Society
British Kinematograph, Sound and Television Society
The British Kinematograph, Sound and Television Society was formed in 1931, originally as just the British Kinematograph Society. It exists to serve the technical and craft skills of the film, sound and television industries....
. Dismissing the box office failure of Thunderbirds Are Go as a one-off misfortune, United Artists
United Artists
United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....
advised Anderson to produce a second film, which would be titled Thunderbird 6
Thunderbird 6
Thunderbird 6 is a 1968 British science-fiction and adventure film written by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, directed by David Lane and produced by Century 21 Cinema...
. Anderson remembers the period of transition: "None of us ... could understand why the film hadn't succeeded, so it was decided we would make another one." Budgeted at £300,000 — an increase of one fifth over Thunderbirds Are Go — in their approach to writing the sequel the Andersons decided to script a more light-hearted adventure to counter the seriousness of the original. However, Thunderbird 6 would also receive a less-than-enthusiastic public reception, spelling the end of Thunderbirds as a film and television franchise until the arrival of the live-action adaptation, Thunderbirds
Thunderbirds (film)
Thunderbirds is a 2004 science-fiction adventure film loosely based upon the television series of the same name of the 1960s, directed by Jonathan Frakes....
, almost four decades later in 2004.
In print
Thunderbirds Are Go was novelised by writer Angus P. Allan and published by Armada Books in 1966. The events of the film from the perspective of the Zero-XZero-X
The Zero-X is a fictitious Earth spacecraft that appeared in two of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's Supermarionation productions...
mission were also adapted for a four-part "photographic picturisation" in the comic TV Century 21
TV Century 21
TV Century 21, also known as TV 21, was a weekly British children's comic of the 1960s and early 1970s. It promoted the many television science-fiction puppet series created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's Century 21 Productions...
(launched in 1965 and renamed TV21 in 1968). After this re-telling of the events of Thunderbirds Are Go, comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
s published until 1969 charted the continuing adventures of the astronauts, led as ever by Captain Paul Travers, in missions to the other planets in the Solar System
Solar System
The Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun...
, and then beyond, on board the "Mark III" model of Zero-X.
No copies of the deleted scenes are known to survive. However, some still images remain. One photograph, in which Brains and Alan are seen standing behind a camera, is from the scene in which Jeff prepares for the broadcast of his speech, and appeared as the cover of issue 35 of FAB magazine. Another photograph, this one of the Hood in his temple with a film clapperboard in the foreground, has also survived. The only remaining film footage was edited into the 1968 Joe 90
Joe 90
Joe 90 is a late-1960s British science-fiction television series documenting the exploits of a nine-year-old boy, Joe McClaine, who embarks on a double life as a schoolboy turned spy when his scientist father invents a pioneering machine capable of duplicating and transferring expert knowledge and...
episode "International Concerto
International Concerto
"International Concerto" is the eighth episode of the Supermarionation television series Joe 90. It was the sixth episode to be produced. Its original UK air date was 17 November 1968 on ATV Midlands. It was written by Tony Barwick and directed by Alan Perry.- Synopsis :Igor Sladek, a famous...
", which includes a few seconds of video from the Trans American TV Network sequence.
The connection between Thunderbirds and its successor series, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons
Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons
Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, often referred to as Captain Scarlet, is a 1960s British science-fiction television series produced by the Century 21 Productions company of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, John Read and Reg Hill...
, also featured prominently in issues published between June and September 1967, leading up to the television debut of Captain Scarlet. In these issues, Captain Black
Captain Black (Captain Scarlet)
Captain Black is the fictional nemesis of Captain Scarlet and recurring Mysteron agent in the 1960s British supermarionation science fiction television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and its CGI remake Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet...
of the Spectrum Organisation commands another Mars mission in Zero-X and (as depicted in the pilot of Captain Scarlet) falls under the manipulation of another native extraterrestrial race besides the Rock Snakes, "The Mysteron
Mysteron
The Mysterons are a fictional race of extraterrestrials, native to the planet Mars, which appear in the British science fiction Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet, symbolised by ubiquitous projected green rings and the deep...
s". The involvement of Zero-X reaches a climax when the spacecraft, occupied by the possessed Black, lands back at Glenn Field and the Mysteron agent escapes capture by the authorities.
Home releases
Barry GrayBarry Gray
Barry Gray was a British musician and composer who is best known for his work for Gerry Anderson.-Life:...
's score
Sheet music
Sheet music is a hand-written or printed form of music notation that uses modern musical symbols; like its analogs—books, pamphlets, etc.—the medium of sheet music typically is paper , although the access to musical notation in recent years includes also presentation on computer screens...
received vinyl
Gramophone record
A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...
releases from United Artists
United Artists
United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....
in 1967 and Silva Screen Records in 1987. The collection was later converted for CD in 1990 and re-released by EMI
EMI
The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
in 1992. Also comprising four tracks of incidental music
Incidental music
Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, film or some other form not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as the "film score" or "soundtrack"....
from the Thunderbirds
Thunderbirds (TV series)
Thunderbirds is a British mid-1960s science fiction television show devised by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and made by AP Films using a form of marionette puppetry dubbed "Supermarionation"...
television episodes, the 1992 release consists of items titled "Alan's Dream", "Martian Mystery", "Astronauts in Trouble" and "Swinging Star" (composed by Gray), "Shooting Star" (performed by Cliff Richard
Cliff Richard
Sir Cliff Richard, OBE is a British pop singer, musician, performer, actor, and philanthropist who has sold over an estimated 250 million records worldwide....
and The Shadows
The Shadows
The Shadows are a British pop group with a total of 69 UK hit-charted singles: 35 as 'The Shadows' and 34 as 'Cliff Richard and the Shadows', from the 1950s to the 2000s. Cliff Richard in casual conversation with the British rock press frequently refers to the Shadows by their nickname: 'The Shads'...
) and "Lady Penelope" (performed by The Shadows), and two versions of both the "Thunderbirds Theme" and "Zero-X Theme" (as composed by Gray or performed by The Shadows).
In Regions
DVD region code
DVD region codes are a digital-rights management technique designed to allow film distributors to control aspects of a release, including content, release date, and price, according to the region...
2 and 4, Thunderbirds Are Go was first released on DVD by MGM in 2001, with special features including an audio commentary with director David Lane
David Lane (director)
David Lane is a British television and film director, best known for his association with series produced by Gerry Anderson's AP Films.Lane directed several episodes of the Thunderbirds television series, including "Attack of the Alligators!", as well as the two cinema films Thunderbirds are GO and...
and producer Sylvia Anderson
Sylvia Anderson
Sylvia Anderson , born 25 March 1937, is a British voice artist and film producer, most notable for collaborations with Gerry Anderson, to whom she was married from 1962 to 1975....
, the theatrical trailer
Trailer (film)
A trailer or preview is an advertisement or a commercial for a feature film that will be exhibited in the future at a cinema. The term "trailer" comes from their having originally been shown at the end of a feature film screening. That practice did not last long, because patrons tended to leave the...
, stills and production galleries. A 2004 "International Rescue Edition", including Region 1 and marketed both separately and as part of a box set with the sequel film, Thunderbird 6
Thunderbird 6
Thunderbird 6 is a 1968 British science-fiction and adventure film written by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, directed by David Lane and produced by Century 21 Cinema...
, boasts remixed Dolby Digital
Dolby Digital
Dolby Digital is the name for audio compression technologies developed by Dolby Laboratories. It was originally called Dolby Stereo Digital until 1994. Except for Dolby TrueHD, the audio compression is lossy. The first use of Dolby Digital was to provide digital sound in cinemas from 35mm film prints...
5.1 surround sound
Surround sound
Surround sound encompasses a range of techniques such as for enriching the sound reproduction quality of an audio source with audio channels reproduced via additional, discrete speakers. Surround sound is characterized by a listener location or sweet spot where the audio effects work best, and...
and expands on the original extra material with three documentaries detailing the production of the film.
External links
- Trailer and Stills at MGM.comMetro-Goldwyn-MayerMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...