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Tracy brothers are back: Thunderbirds Are Go! again in 5... 4... 3...

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Brit television outfit ITV has announced the return of the Tracy family in Thunderbirds Are Go! - a fresh take on Gerry Anderson's classic puppet series promising "a whole new level of action-adventure animation for today's audience".

Out goes Supermarionation and in comes "CGI animation", although we're promised "live-action model sets", which will pay tribute to "the legacy of model locations from the classic series".

That's according to NZ-based Weta Workshop, which with sister company Pukeko Pictures, will collaborate with ITV Studios to bring 26 half-hour episodes to the small screen in 2015.

Richard Taylor, co-owner of Pukeko Pictures and Weta Workshop, enthused: "Thunderbirds was a hugely influential television series in my childhood. Having watched it originally in black and white, it was only years later that I discovered the full and rich world that Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, Derek Meddings, Mike Trimm* and their team created. It is thrilling therefore to think we have the opportunity to work with ITV on this new series inspired by this most wonderful of British shows."

ITV Studios UK supremo Denise O'Donoghue joined the love in with: "This cult series is often credited as changing the history of animation and action-adventure, and we look forward to taking the show to another level while retaining the much-loved heritage that has endured over the past fifty years."

Gerry Anderson died last year at 83, so he sadly won't be around to pass judgement on the stringless, computer-generated Tracy clan. He deliciously described the 2004 live-action movie adaptation of Thunderbirds as "the biggest load of crap I have ever seen in my entire life". ®

Bootnote

* Derek Meddings was special effect head honcho on Thunderbirds, while Mike Trimm worked as a modelmaker and designer on the series.

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Re: I'm worried...

I don't know if it's attention span... I think the new Doctor Who format suffers from lack of story development because of the time constraints. The old 4x30 minute story is, IMHO, better than the 1x55 minutes story. Do you remember Jon Pertwee sitting around in a lab trying a dozen revisions of gadgets and potions? Much more real-world than "oh, let's wave the sonic and resurrect 1/3 of the population" we've seen of late.

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Anonymous Coward

Re: The Captain Scarlet effort on CITV was good

Nevr did get to see that remake, neither did my 7 year old son (at time of first broadcast). I remember the idiots running ITV scheduling took what ought to have been a popular series and inserted it into the middle of some Saturday morning moronic studio crap; guaranteed to minimise audience.

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Re: I'm worried...

Back in the 60s we only got to watch half hour Dr Who episodes

Except a single story was told over several episodes so you had to be able to follow a storyline for several weeks .... and each episode started off where the last ended - you didn't get 5 mins of "previously on ..." intro to remind you what had happened. Whereas now you get 45-60mins self contained episodes (occasionally you get some 2-part stories but in current Dr Who series think they've said that they have abandoned this).

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