You guys may remember back in 2022 when I did a four part essay on the history of Thomas the Tank Engine. Since then, I've not really talked about the franchise again. Well...time to remedy that.
I thought it'd be nice to review something Thomas related, and what better thing to start off with than a review on one of the movies the franchise has spawned? This one is a notable footmark in Thomas's history for this was the moment where the franchise made the jump from models to CGI. Released in 2009, Hero of the Rails marked a change in the TV series that would last all the way until its end when the franchise would be rebranded in 2021 with All Engines Go. This was when the series became fully animated and fans nowadays either like the CGI animated look for the series or they despise it and wish they'd kept the models.
When it comes to me, I was a major Thomas the Tank Engine fan growing up. I was always watching the show on VHS and DVD, collecting some of the toys and I even went to see Thomas and the Magic Railroad back when it was released in cinemas. I have many fond memories of the franchise and quite a nostalgic connection to it. As is, I did fall out of the franchise sometime during the late 2000's. I was in my teen years at the time, so I was probably in that mindset of "I'm too old for Thomas" or something, I don't know. So, I wasn't there when the shift to CGI occurred, so if you're curious on my thoughts about it, all I can say was just "This was a thing that happened?" and be surprised about it. This year is even the first time I've actually seen Hero of the Rails in its entirety.
So how is this as a Thomas movie? Does it make one feel like a hero when watching it? Or will we need an actual hero to save us from this movie? We'll find out shortly. But first, I'd like to welcome my special guest star for this review. Why not welcome my awesome brother, Captain Conroy, to participate? He's a big Thomas fan too. Welcome aboard Captain Conroy!
CC: Thank you very much indeed Media Man, as always it's a pleasure to be here. In my case Thomas of course was a franchise that never really left me although I was slow to be introduced to this change too, however I can give my thoughts both past and present on the CGI later as we talk about this movie. Is it a decent start to a new era of Thomas or was it a sloppy start to a new era? Without any further ado, let's go into it.
Section 1: The Story
CC: I'll kickstart things here, the story of this movie, well you might be able to see where it goes as I describe it. But hey, nothing is ever truly 100% original anymore as the more new films and TV Shows that keep getting made, the harder it will be to come up with some purely original material.
But still the story is that following a busy summer season, Spencer comes back to the Island Of Sodor to help his owners the Duke and Duchess of Boxford have a new summer house built for their holiday. After personally insulting each and every one of the engines in the Fat Controller's fleet, things go a little pear shaped as Thomas takes Spencer on in a challenge but this later turns into a happy accident as during the shenanigans that unfold during said challenge, Thomas uncovers an old engine called Hiro and wants to help restore him to former glory.
However he must do it under the noses of the Fat Controller as the prospect of scrap threatens Hiro's life and later Spencer as Spencer starts to suspect that Thomas is up to no good and he must enlist his friends to help him along the way.
Like I said, a story like that is not exactly original, but it's the way this story is told which is one area my praise for this movie comes from. The pieces of the story fit wonderfully together and thus everything in the story plays out well and nothing seems out of place or out of order - apart from one glaring exception but I'll cover that more when we talk about the characters. As much as I unironically love Magic Railroad, as the story actually centres around Thomas and his friends and there's none of the Shining Time cast to take a lot of the screen time, this honestly feels like it could have just passed as a cinematic debut for Thomas - say imagine a crazy AU where this was Thomas' cinematic outing instead of Magic Railroad - things might have looked a little better for the franchise there - who knows but it's what I think anyways.
And this area kickstarted a new era for Thomas - you may also be wondering on the off chance someone is completely new to the franchise, could they possibly watch it without any prior exposure or feeling lost? I'm going to say for the most part, yes. Although I still personally recommend watching any of the classic series before going into any of the movies.
MM: I do agree that for the most part, this movie is very accessible to newcomers. There's not a lot of continuity to take onboard here, and there's not a lot of time devoted to just explaining the settings and characters. Someone could easily just start with this movie and not really miss a whole lot. Of course, there's a lot of context missing behind who most of these characters are, but it doesn't hurt the movie too much, especially as it's mostly all about Thomas and Hiro. They're the ones who matter most to the story, so they get most of the story and character work.
Plot-wise, the story is as expected from a Thomas and Friends story, especially from the HiT era of the franchise: it's simple and easy to follow. There's nothing complex about the plot whatsoever, and that's perfectly fine. It's a simple movie about Thomas and friends, and that's what we get. Unlike Magic Railroad where that movie seemed confused on what it wanted to be, this movie doesn't have that problem. It knows it's a Thomas movie and focuses on just being a Thomas movie. That said, we do have a bit of that classic Thomas charm to the story with the simplistic dialogue, simplistic characters who have a lot of personality and we also have a bit of that dark edge that originated from the original Rev W. Awdry's books. Hiro is constantly worrying about being scrapped and the movie doesn't sugarcoat it whatsoever. To an engine, being scrapped is the equivalent of DEATH to these engines, so whenever the topic comes up, it's always treated as a serious matter. These later seasons of Thomas and Friends are rather infamous for making the tone more kid-friendly and somewhat infantizing the stories, so it's always welcome to see that Awdry-esque dark edge to a story like this one.
Also, fans will be happy to know that the characters are pretty in-character in this movie. Nobody really feels out of character or flanderized or anything. Some like Gordon and Henry might feel a bit milder than their old selves and Thomas isn't quite as cheeky as he usually is either, but I chalk that up to character development in prior seasons more than anything. I just appreciate that we got something from the HiT era that actually got Edward's personality right for starters. XD Spencer is the one exception to this, but we'll cover that later. Thomas and friends feel like Thomas and friends here and it's nice to see them well-written and as they should be.
There's lots of good points as we've covered, but sadly we must cover the bad here. As the story is as standard as you'd expect from Thomas and Friends, this does make for a very predictable movie with no real surprises to be found. And as is the case with movies based on TV shows, the plot doesn't really feel like it warrants the movie treatment. This could've easily been an episode of the show and you wouldn't really lose all that much if it was trimmed down to episode length. It just feels like we're watching a really long episode rather than a movie. Also, some of the dialogue gets a bit annoying sometimes. Nearly every line of dialogue has the engines shouting some kind of catchphrase, and it's not necessary. The engines don't always say stuff like "Bust my buffers" or "Fizzling Fireboxes" or stuff like that. They do have variety to the things they say and how they talk, you know.
Also, Hiro's backstory is...sketchy at best. Don't get me wrong, it's a great backstory for him. It's just the timeline is what makes it a little head-scratching. Like, are we seriously meant to believe he's been there since what, the early 20th century or something and he's just been left in a siding this whole time? Why was he just left there, and nobody did anything about him? The Fat Controller also clearly knows who Hiro is, so why hasn't he done anything about him? Did his predecessor in the role seriously not tell him about the big whopping Japanese engine that's just rotting away in a siding? How did he end up forgotten about to the point he ended up like this and nobody did anything about him, nor tell any of the current staff on Sodor about him?! AND HOW LONG HAS HE BEEN LEFT THERE EXACTLY WITHOUT ANYONE DOING ANYTHING ABOUT HIS SITUATION FOR DECADES AND DECADES?!?!?!
You're telling me!
CC: Definitely years and that is the extent of our knowledge. Those areas stop the story from being perfect - I know nothing truly is perfect, but this might have benefitted from a little more thought before going through to the production phase.
Section 2: The Characters
CC: The film has a big cast of characters but thankfully nothing too big to stop the film from feeling over-crowded. We have the steam team that consists of Thomas, Percy, Gordon, James, Emily (and at the time) Edward, Toby and Henry.
There are other side characters as well as some just make cameos (like Diesel for instance) and naturally the film has to introduce some new characters - with of course the main new character being Hiro. Hiro is a character I really like. We can tell he is clearly an old engine with a lot of experience under his wheels and because of how friendly he is it makes us the audience feel all the more sorry for him for his situation and can root for Thomas and his Friends to help repair him. He also has a pretty pleasant voice to listen to as provided wonderfully by Togo Igawa - which adds a level of authenticity as Hiro is a Japanese engine so to have a Japanese actor voiced him really works.
This film even features a whole new cast despite Michael Angelis still providing the UK narrations and Michael Brandon providing the US narrations - however I can only go by the U.K dub as it's the only one I've seen. The cast has even led to some of my definitive voices for the characters such as Kieth Wickham as Gordon, Henry, James, Edward and even Sir Topham Hatt. But some of them where other voices were better such as my own preference of John Hasler over Ben Small as Thomas.
But on that note - of course Thomas is our central character so he sees a lot of the action as does Percy. Most of the others though are side characters for this outing - even Toby having only one line of "Gosh!" as Spencer speeds past him but most of the characters at least have something to do. They even gave Mavis something to do which was to stall Spencer so Thomas and Percy could get away for a while.
Most of the characters are in character with Thomas being his usual friendly self with a cheeky side, Edward is closer to his roots and James being vain yet fun. But the only real problem with the characters is not how small some of them serve is that Spencer himself was a weird choice to play the antagonistic role.
Spencer is a very vain and pompous engine - no doubt about that - but he never struck me as someone who would outright want to see another engine scrapped and to have him be the antagonist is just such a weird decision to make in my opinion. I mean, yes Spencer does say he's sorry at the end, but this is still incredibly hard to overlook. If it had been my call to write the film I would have chosen Diesel 10 to play this role instead and have it so he's helping with the summerhouse and as Diesel 10 is not one even Spencer would want to hang out with - have Spencer join forces with the North Western fleet and help with Hiro - this to me would have been a hell of a lot better - having a straight up villain be the villain rather than a rival of Sodor. There is a fine line between rival and villain after all.
MM: I'm inclined to agree that the villainization of Spencer made zero sense here. Why have him in that role when Diesel, Arry and Bert or as Jake suggested, Diesel 10, would've made more sense?
Spencer aside, the cast are otherwise true to their usual selves and are perfectly fine for the most part. Hiro especially made this movie what it is for me thanks to his interesting past, friendly and humble personality and how he's an ethnic character done right. Unlike the BWBA era of the show where they'd introduce characters who's personalities begin and end with "I'm from another country", Hiro is just presented as a Japanese engine and that's it. He's an engine that just happens to be from Japan and they don't make that his only characteristic or even his defining one. It just happens to be a part of his backstory and an explanation for where he came from. They could've made him a Japanese stereotype, but they avoided that in my eyes and made him an authentic and sympathetic character. It's no wonder he became a fan-favourite after this movie was over.
As characters for a movie, they're pretty simple and one-dimensional. But as characters for a THOMAS movie, they're perfectly fine and there's not much to complain about. We just want Thomas and friends being themselves and that's what we got here...
Section 3: The Animation
Now we address the big elephant in the room with this movie: the fact this was the first ever fully CGI animated Thomas and Friends property. It was around Series 12 when CGI was incorporated into the show with the trains having animated faces while the bodies were still models and the humans would be computer animated. It just made the whole thing look awkward, so it was a smart idea to go fully CGI instead of that weird middle ground that just didn't work.
As is, was this a good first impression for a fully CGI Thomas and Friends movie? Honestly...yes. I'm not saying it's amazing animation, far from it, but it is pretty good for a movie like this and it managed not to be an eyesore to look at. The lighting and textures aren't that convincing and some of the effects like splattering mud and puffing smoke look a bit fake, but the backgrounds are nicely detailed and look close to the original background designs we would see in the original model era, the trains themselves look very impressive and true to their model counterparts and the CGI allows the filmmakers to pull off things that couldn't be done in the model era. We get more dynamic camera angles that you couldn't do with the models for instance and the speed of the engines is greater than in the model era so you really do feel like they're proper going fast (even if it does look very exaggerated). But my favourite little detail in the animation is how occasionally, an engine will zoom by the camera and it shudders a little. This proper sells the illusion that these are real moving, colossal machines that make the ground shudder as they rush by you and you can feel the weight of these trains as a result. The CGI makes them feel bigger and more powerful than the models ever did and it's pretty cool.
What isn't cool is the character animation on them. Call me nitpicky if you will, but I HATE how the trains are more "animated" than they were in the model era. They move about a bit more than usual, making them seem more "alive" as a result, but it also goes against the point of Thomas and Friends themselves. Rev W. Awdry wrote the characters as real working trains that just happen to have faces and could talk. What made the show so appealing was that despite taking place in a fictional world, it still was somewhat grounded in reality and had an edge of realism that made the world more convincing and believable. Here, the trains are just depicted and animated like they're generic cartoon characters, something that would get even worse when All Engines Go became the new face of the franchise. The point of Thomas and Friends is that they're NOT cartoon characters, they're real trains that have faces and can talk, and that's how they should be depicted, not like how they are in the movie. Say what you will about Magic Railroad, but at least that movie understood how the trains actually operate in the original books and show.
CC: Yeah, the CGI has benefits and disadvantages. I'll never forget I was pretty livid when I first saw that Thomas had transitioned into CGI as I may or may not have mentioned in my blogpost talking about my experience with the franchise but overtime I really did get used to it and later on the CGI really was beginning to look really good but we all know what happened after that.
Anyway I would say the characters move fluently and they certainly know how to animate speed the way they make the wheels and siderods look during fast scenes and the way the backgrounds blur as they go. I too love how we get camera shudders as well as they go by. Because of how well they animate speed - one of my favourite scenes revolves around Spencer finding Percy's mail trucks and James and Toby chase him away from Hiro. They utilise the speed well in this scene but it always makes me laugh because since when could Toby go so fast? XD
I mean just watch this: I mean according to the Thomas Wiki, Toby is capable of top speeds up to 45mph - not even a fraction of what Spencer's basis was capable of achieving. But while more inconsistancies with speed come in - the animation really pays off for the climax as let's be real, if you're going to have a climax for a Thomas movie - it has to be a chase scene and this chase scene was done rather well - even if it is hard to overlook the fact that Thomas' top speed is 70mph and here he is going up against a Gresley A4 :D
So in conclusion while there was definitely benefits of the CGI such as achieving camera angles which may not have been possible to do with models - there were definitely disadvantages as well but I suppose that there are advantages and disadvantages to everything.
Overall
CC: So, all in all what do I think to this movie? Well, I personally think it is a very decent Thomas movie. It's not perfect, but hey none of the Thomas movies are - it's just a case of that some are better than others. And this one is definitely one of the better ones out there. Like I said earlier this could have genuinely passed as a cinematic Thomas movie back in the 2000's - but there's no telling what might have happened if this was what we got instead of Magic Railroad but things might have been a little better for the franchise probably.
But of course, the only real areas for improvement would be to change their choice of antagonist and the animation could have been a little better in some areas. But if anyone was to ask me what rating I would give it out of 10 - I would honestly say a 7 out of 10, but I don't mean that badly - I mean it quite solidly as 7 out of 10 is a respectable score and what the movie did right, it definitely did right, but the areas for improvement stop it from going all the way.
MM: Yeah, I'd agree on that. As a movie, it's pretty generic and simplistic, but as a Thomas movie, it hits all the right notes by being about the engines themselves and telling a solid story that fits well within the Thomas universe. If you're a fan of Thomas and Friends, I'd definitely recommend watching it. If you're a newcomer to the franchise, then I'd say this is a decent place to start. If you don't like Thomas and Friends, then don't bother with this movie. It definitely won't change your mind any.
As is, Hero of the Rails certainly proved to be the hero fans needed to give us a good Thomas movie...
That's it for this review. I hope you enjoyed it, and I invite you all to share your comments down below. Do you like this movie? Do you not like it? Do tell. And special thanks goes to Captain Conroy for joining me for this review.
CC: And as always it's great to have been here, I hope you enjoyed this collab and until the next time, cheery-bye!
MM: See you later bro.
Next time, I'll be counting down my Top 8 Favourite Freedom Planet Characters. See you then media fans!
I thought the US dub of Hero of the Rails was decent at least. Not to hate on the UK version, not by a long shot, but I think Ben Small while doing Thomas...fine, could use some improvements, like when Thomas sighs, didn't feel like a legit sigh to me.