Patrick Stewart was on Mark&Brian this morning -- mostly to push Nemesis (and X2), but he mentioned something interesting...

Apparently somebody (possibly Jonathan Frakes) is working on a live-action Thunderbirds movie!

The IMDB info is here.

It is Jonathan Frakes, however the synopsis of the film looks awful - basically involving a young Alan and young Brains / Brains' son (can't remember which) protecting Tracy Island from camp bad guys when everyone else runs away to TB5.

Of course, when JF said that he hadn't seen Thunderbirds before, but saw it as a 'Spy Kids kind of thing', alarm bells should have been ringing!

The movie is going ahead but Frakes needs to be killed: he's doing away with the pink Rolls Royce!! It's going to be replaced by a US-designed custom-made Ford - though it'll still be pink.

Frakes has also apparently instructed the actors playing both Lady Penelope and Parker to "tone down" their accents. Admittedly, as one person put it, "not even the Queen speaks like Lady Penelope any more" but even so ...

I was expecting to read that Brains' stutter had been done away with too, but apparently that's still in - at the moment.

It seems that the movie is already getting bad publicity. Apparently the script was leaked on the internet and the general opinion is that it's too childish and too politically correct.

I think I heard somewhere that the company who do the Rolls Royce vehicle wouldn't let them use the car in the film, so I think Frakes was a bit stuck in that department.

Although everything points at this film being a disasterous failure, I've still got a bit of optimism - sadly one of my other concerns is that this film is so unlike the series as we know it that people will pick up the DVDs to watch this series, and find it's nothing like what they expected!

Perhaps Rolls Royce is refusing permission because they do not want to be associated with what is sounding like a total travesty.

I only started watching Thunderbirds on Feb 14, 2003, yet reading the rumors of this live-action piece makes my blood run cold. I wish that they could make it a rule that anyone producing or directing a remake of anything should be tolerably familiar with it. Why would anyone WANT to make a movie of something they know nothing about? Stephen King calls it the most expensive bit of ego-gratification in the world: to acquire the rights to something, and then say, "Now this is the way you fools SHOULD have done it...."
Look at the hundred and one ways they've hashed up the book DRACULA. No one has ever gotten it right.

On the other hand, look at the Harry Potter movies and The Lord of the Rings. The people working on those movies loved the books, and it shows. Most of the changes were due to the difficulties of translating book to movie; otherwise they did excellent jobs. Look at the late, lamented T.V. series "Nero Wolfe" on A & E. Timothy Hutten loved the Nero Wolfe books, his writers loved the books, his directors loved the books. They suceeded in producing what was probably the most perfect translation of book to screen ever seen. They even kept to the proper dialogue of Nero himself, who talks like no one else on Earth. No politically correct alterations for HIM!

Has Frakes even gotten around to watching this show yet?

Thunderbirds unveils Penelope's car
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/film/2912751.stm

Thunderbirds film reveals lead actor
..plans to turn the live-action version into an action-adventure aimed at adult audiences were recently scrapped, and the project has been rewritten as a family film aimed at the under-10s.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/film/2712369.stm

Hmmmm...the CAR doesn't look too bad....

I understand that the reason that they've changed Alan's age back to twelve or thereabouts is that they wanted to be certain that the movie would appeal to children.

Have you noticed that these movie people tend to be really condescending to their audiences? Not to mention really, really dim? It seems not to have occurred to them that children have been delighting in "Thunderbirds" for nearly forty years now. It has never bothered any of them that the heros are all in their third decades.

My two nephews (age seven and eight now) play "Thunderbirds" all the time. My sister tells me that they mainly play at being Scott and John, the two oldest. (We subscribe to the theory that the boys are introduced in the opening credits in descending order of age.) They don't pretend that Scott and John are younger than they are--my nephews pretend to be older!

Imagination is a wonderful thing. Too bad that it tends to petrify when it comes in contact with Hollywood, political correctedness, and "the bottom line."

You know, I was like 7 or 8 years old when I first saw Thunderbirds on TV... my brother and I were absolutely captivated by the show. We didn't need a character our own age in the show for it to appeal to us. In fact, we were obsessed with the show for what it was-- lots of action, cool flying machines and gizmos and a group of very cool guys, LOL. I can't believe children have changed THAT much in the intervening years!

I know I've only repeated DK's observations on it-- but it does irritate me that "Hollywood" thinks that casting children are a must to sell to film to kids. Ugh.

Anthony Edwards (ER, Top Gun, Revenge of the Nerds) is slated to play Brains.

I would hope that, as the film is out in a few months, he was more than 'slated' to play Brains...

I meant "is playing".

The official site for the Thunderbirds movie is at this location. I've seen it twice, and I'm thinking about seeing it in the theater again - work schedule permitting, IF it's in the theater that long!

OK, they almost had to do some 'artistic license' tinkering with it. I mean, back when "Thunderbirds" was still new, they did TWO motion pictures that were each "JUST LIKE AN EPISODE OF THE SERIES", and both, I read somewhere, were commercial flops. In this live-action film, Jeff Tracy goes along on missions, and Alan is attending a private school, and is considered too young to participate - at least, at the beginning
of the film; this has changed by the time the film ends. Also, in this version, Brains has a son. But all in all, the film makes me feel good, and I sincerely hope that it does well enough that they do more films based on Gerry Anderson's other shows, especially "Fireball XL5" and "UFO".

By the way, they DID watch the original series! In one scene, it becomes necessary for Parker to pick a lock and mention is made of his "checkered past", which I think was only mentioned once in the original series. Also, someone addresses Brains as "Prof. Hackenbacker", which I think was also mentioned only once in the original series. They HAD TO have done a LOT of research into the original series. Lady Penelope's pink limo still has 4 front tires, and she still uses her teapot to send an emergency signal. Thunderbird 3 still takes off through the bunkhouse, Thunderbird 2 still comes out of the base of the cliff between 2 rows of hinged palm trees (which still swing out of the way before the ramp comes up), Thunderbird 1 is still kept under the swimming pool, which still slides out of the way like a colossal desk drawer. I can't see how they could possibly have made this film without understanding the original series.

By the way, there are a lot of ways that they COULD have screwed this up - but didn't. They didn't "re-imagine" any of the male main characters as women. They didn't try to turn it into "Top Gun" or "Star Wars" (both of which I like, but they're not "Thunderbirds"). They didn't reduce the number of Tracy brothers, or portray any of them as gay and in lust with each other. They didn't talk about politics. (Hint: Both this film, AND the original series, are predicated on the notion that Jeff Tracy is paying for everything out of his own pocket. Which of our 2 main political parties would insist that his taxes aren't high enough and would try to tax International Rescue out of existence?)

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I can't see how they could possibly have made this film without understanding the original series.
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There's a massive difference between the scriptwriters and visual effects guys watching the episodes so the fans don't crucify them for not having done so and the entire crew understanding the series.

The worst thing they did with that movie was not get Gerry Anderson on board. Apparently, he wasn't even approached. So I didn't approach it either. I might watch it when it comes on TV eventually, depends what's on opposite it.

As for Jeff Tracy's tax situation, it's likely that if he's rich enough to fund IR, he owns the island (which is why it's called Tracy Island), which is presumably in international waters, so owes no loyalty to any government and he is therefore basically a tax exile.