Flatten the trees, Thunderbirds are back
WHEN the Thunderbirds blasted off on their first rescue mission in 1965, there were severe limitations on what the polyester resin puppets could do.
‘‘We used to avoid walking like the plague,’’ creator Gerry Anderson recalled in 2000. And their stoical expressions had less to do with innate heroism than with the fact that the only parts of their faces that could move were their eyelids and mouths.
Now the much-loved cast of characters from the secretive International Res- cue are to be reinvented using computergenerated imagery, with the help of Weta Workshop.
Weta, along with Wellington-based Pukeko Pictures, is pairing with one of Britain’s biggest production companies, ITV Studios, to make 26 half-hour episodes of Thunderbirds Are Go! featuring characters who are considerably more athletic and have a full range of facial motion.
It’s a venture that would have appealed to Anderson, who died on Boxing Day last year at the age of 83. In 2008 he spoke of his wish to revive the series, making use of CGI: ‘‘They would be able to do everything a human being can do, so the action would be much more exciting.’’
The series is expected to screen in Britain in 2015, using live sets for the background. Weta Workshop and Pukeko Pictures founder Sir Richard Taylor was thrilled to be involved in bringing of one of his favourite childhood shows back to the small screen.
‘‘ Thunderbirds was a hugely influential television series in my childhood. I ... look forward to designing and creating an inspirational world that will engage the imagination of a whole new generation, as it did for us nearly half a century ago.’’
ITV said no storylines had been created yet, but the series would ‘‘affectionately pay tribute to the legacy of model locations from the classic series’’.
Rob Hoegee, who worked on Transformers: Animated and League of Super Evil, has been confirmed as chief story writer, and is working on the ‘‘series bible’’, determining each character’s biography and rough ideas about how the shows will develop.