In previous Saturday Night Showcases we’ve seen the original Thunderbirds “Supermarionation” series and the anime semi-sequel Thunderbirds 2086. Well, a new one just became available for us to look at, so let’s check out Thunderbirds Are Go, the 2015 CG animated series not to be confused with the 1960s movie based on the original show alongside Thunderbird 6. We’ll ignore the live-action movie.
I called 2086 a semi-sequel because I’m not really sure it was a continuation since outside of the group being called International Rescue there weren’t a lot of references to the old show. This new show however appears to be a remake rather than a continuation. Given that the character models and animation style, though updated, takes a lot of cues from the old puppets and sets (kind of like how SSSS Gridman looks like it could have been done in live-action even though it moved the battles outside of the computer world) I find it odd that they wouldn’t just continue the series, or even just use the base designs and not try to be the old show visually. It’s an odd choice but it does admittedly look darn cool.
Sadly, Shout Factory TV still only posts the first episode so this is ends on a cliffhanger, but I’ll be linking to the full series afterwards, or at least the first two seasons as of this writing. Until then, enjoy.
