Thunderbirds: The Lost Episodes

Updated
thunderbirdslost_front
Faneditor Name:
Fanedit Type:
Original Release Date:
1966
Original Running Time:
93 / 89
Fanedit Release Date:
Fanedit Running Time:
108
Time Cut:
74
Available in HD?
Brief Synopsis:
Both Thunderbirds movies suffer from pacing issues (quite slow), very light on scoring (due to budget constraints) and just generally not as good as any of the 32 episodes. These edits turn them into full blown TV episodes as they would have been in 60's but in HD and widescreen, with score enhancements and ad bumpers. WARNING: This may be puppets and "childrens TV", but the dialogue is no t patronizing, dialogue is mature idiom (not childish) and "people" get shot in cold blood or die !!!! 60s childrens TV was full on gruesome, thank heavens.
Intention:
I Found both movies to plod frankly. As much as I love Thunderbirds are Go, it feels bland and the dream sequence (now removed) is frankly padding. Thunderbird 6 feels just empty and it it ends up being a great TV episode much to my own surprise. I hope you will agree.
Additional Notes:
The episodes ran 52 -55 minutes. These both come in at 54min. In order to turn them into episodes, I used newly made opening and closing titles from the TV series 16:9 version, and slightly cropped the movies which were filmed in 1:2.35 to match. The editing removed a few side shoots from TAG like the nightclub in the sky, but T6 just needed compressing overall. That level of compression of material without losing virtually any scene is a huge challenge. It meant removing sentences, and even individual words, relaying dialogue over different shots and a whole load more to make it flow seamlessly. The final most enjoyable part was expanding the score to densely cover the episodes just like the TV series. The problem was that the Films were made by a different production companies so new scoring needed to be used and the budget would only stretch to about 25/30 mins of new/re-recorded music. That's fairly thin for a 90 min movie compared to the TV episodes and they suffer as a result. Matters are made worse by a plodding pace in many sections, with scenes being overwritten in many cases. For the TV series, the makers had a huge bank of music to draw from which meant that many episodes had more music that the films. The TV recordings couldnt be used for the feature films. Using the CD scores of the TV series, I have significant enriched the resulting material. Of course, the best part was making the teaser openings for both. I should add, virtually every shot had to be re-framed for ideal content given the aspect ratio changes. And there you have it.
Other Sources:
Thunderbirds CD Scores
Release Information:
Digital
Special Features
The authored Blu Ray contains extras including an unused opening,
Editing Details:
The objective was to keep the pace going, trim superfluous dialogue, remove all padding, tighten up everything to feel like an episode and boost the scoring density to match the episode structure. In addition, completely new add bumpers were made (since the surviving ones are in black and white) and newly made from scratch end titles. The eagle eye may notice the opening titles have been tweaked and also re-made.
Cuts and Additions:
The editing in both of these contain too many tiny trims to document or to be interesting so here is a summary instead.

The episodes are thus
Ep 33 ZERO X 1 contains 392 cuts and 25 mins of additional music in 54 minutes, 10 sec, that's a cut every 8.26 seconds. Virtually every scenes, has multiple edits.
Ep 34, Operation Ambush contains 407 cuts and 32 mins of additional music in 54 minutes, that's a cut every 7.96 seconds. Virtually every scenes, has multiple edits.

They are structured IDENTICALLY to the TV series, including that Ad bumbpers which no longer exist in color and which were remade from scratch. The only dif is the aspect ratio which is about 1:1.8 ish.
Cover art by Wraith (DOWNLOAD HERE)
image

tb trailer x 2 Copy


tb ad comparison copy

User reviews

3 reviews
Overall rating
 
9.7
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0(3)
Audio Editing
 
10.0(3)
Visual Editing
 
10.0(3)
Narrative
 
9.0(3)
Enjoyment
 
9.3(3)
(Updated: June 28, 2023)
Overall rating
 
9.6
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0
Audio Editing
 
10.0
Visual Editing
 
10.0
Narrative
 
9.0
Enjoyment
 
9.0
Such a great idea to solve the slow pacing of both Thunderbirds theatrical releases by cutting them down to tv episodes! Let’s discuss these ‘lost episodes’.

The tv-version of ‘Thunderbirds are go’ puts a lot of the official tv episodes to shame with it’s fast pacing and a story that’s really strong once releaved of it’s excess luggage (like the overlong dream sequence). I would probably have enjoyed it even more without any references to Penelope’s invitation to the Swinging Star halfway through the episode (including Alan waking up beside his bed, which -without the dream sequence - is rather superfluous.)

‘Thunderbird 6’ always had the most beautiful imagery but the weakest plot. The tv-version (aptly titled ‘Operation Ambush’) makes the most of it and is certainly an improvement. The way the opening scenes are shortened and flash-backed (is that a word?) is great, and despite it’s shortcomings storywise I enjoyed it a great deal.

My advice to every Thunderbirds-fan: forget the theatrical releases and get these lost episodes :)

User Review

Do you recommend this edit?
Yes
Format Watched?
Digital
Report this review Comments (0) | Was this review helpful? 1 0
Overall rating
 
9.4
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0
Audio Editing
 
10.0
Visual Editing
 
10.0
Narrative
 
8.0
Enjoyment
 
9.0
Fantastic fanedit! Fixes every pacing and score issue with the original thetrical edit.

I would have loved to see a little slice of the Swinging Star soundtrack montage dressed up as a fever dream (more than it already is!)

User Review

Do you recommend this edit?
Yes
Format Watched?
Digital
M
Top 1000 Reviewer 2 reviews
Report this review Comments (0) | Was this review helpful? 1 0
Overall rating
 
10.0
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0
Audio Editing
 
10.0
Visual Editing
 
10.0
Narrative
 
10.0
Enjoyment
 
10.0
This was a really good edit! The main problem with the cinema cuts of the films, were that they were way too slow, and this edit fixes that so now that they are much faster and more enjoyable as a result.

User Review

Do you recommend this edit?
Yes
Format Watched?
Digital
W
Top 100 Reviewer 54 reviews
Report this review Comments (0) | Was this review helpful? 1 0