Gerry Anderson hates the Thunderbirds movie

(Yes, I know most of you don't have the attention span to read an article so long that it requires several screens worth of scrolling, so just read as much as you're able)...


http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/entertainmentstorydisplay.cfm?storyID=3578326

Thunderbirds creator is nobody's puppet

15.07.2004 By MATTHEW SWEET
Thunderbirds are go, don't you know. Blasting out all over the big screen in a £46m movie co-produced by the British outfit Working Title and the US giant Universal.

Transformed from clacketty-clacketty marionettes with hydrocephalic heads and a problem with lintels, to living, breathing actors with opposable digits and real hair (well, all of them except for Sir Ben Kingsley, anyway).

Don't ask Gerry Anderson about it, though.

"It is no exaggeration to say," he announces, with Sisyphean weariness, "that wherever I go, every day of the week, people are saying to me, 'How's the Thunderbirds film going, Gerry?', and I have to say that I'm not involved with it. I'm not involved with it."

Got that? When I last spoke to Anderson, he believed himself to be on the point of being engaged by Working Title as a creative consultant on the movie.

Unfortunately, things didn't quite work out that way.

Now, the relationship between the inventor of Thunderbirds and its new custodians has deteriorated beyond remedy.

Even the boys from International Rescue couldn't douse the flames of their mutual hostility.

It began with umbrage over the bread rolls. In the early stages of the movie's pre-production, a dinner meeting was arranged between Anderson and Tim Bevan, co-founder and co-chairman of Working Title.

According to Anderson, when he sat down at the table, Bevan announced that he had another commitment and left his guest to talk with two colleagues.

"I should have walked out there and then," Anderson reflects. "But I didn't want to be rude. And then, about three days later, I got a very short letter from Tim telling me that they had enough creative people on board and that they couldn't offer me anything. And I thought 'right, that's the biggest insult I've ever had in my life'. I didn't read the script. I just cut myself off from the whole thing."

That was easier said than done, when the film began shooting at Pinewood Studios, where Anderson's production company is also based.

While Anderson and colleagues mulled over ideas for their big new project - a CGI remake of Captain Scarlet - Pinewood staff trolled past his windows lugging Tracy Island palm trees.

The film's director, Star Trek alumnus Jonathan Frakes, and its star Bill Paxton, made apologetic noises. And the people at Working Title resumed their overtures.

"I guess that they began to realise that this was going to be very sticky for them," Anderson muses. "So they offered me money to say how nice the picture was. And to impress me, they emailed me the picture of the new 'Rolls-Royce'."

He handles the word gingerly. As BMW Rolls-Royce refused permission for its car to be used, Working Title was obliged to trade in FAB 1, Lady Penelope's famous pink Roller, for a substitute runabout supplied by Ford.

Anderson was appalled by the image on his computer screen.

"I took one look and thought, if that's the kind of movie they're making, I'm out."

A few months later, he says, Working Title offered him $750,000 to reconsider his position.

"I'm not so wealthy that I can afford to turn that kind of money down. But I knew damn well that if I stood in front of that car saying, 'Isn't it wonderful!', there'd be people like you asking, 'How much did they pay you, Gerry?'. So I turned it down. A lot of money, but it's quite important to have morals."

And Working Title loves Gerry Anderson just as much as he loves them.

"The reality with Gerry is that he's upset with everything," declares the firm's president of marketing David Livingstone, who clearly renounced diplomacy on this subject some time ago.

"It's the nature of the man. If you ask him about his

 

It looks awful, so it really would shock me if anybody didn't hate it.

 

Thats too long to read and what the hell are the Thunderbirds?

 

I found this bit interesting;

When Peter Jackson was in London last year to oversee post-production on The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, the Oscar-encumbered director spent several evenings telling him how he wished that he'd got his hairy hands on the property.

"If he had directed the film," says Anderson, "of course I would have been a consultant, and of course he would have listened, and of course he would have treated me decently, and of course I would have been proud for him to have chosen my creation for a movie."

 

> and what the hell are the Thunderbirds

Kids thesedays.

Humph.

 

IIRC, it was a British show from the 70's that was huge in England but never really reached anything beyond cult status here in the States.


In related news, the movie looks positively awful.

 

Hey, if they took something I had worked on and ripped it to pieces, I'd be pretty ticked off, too.

 

Meh, he's probably still bitter about Space Precinct.

 

The only thing that made The Thunderbirds cool was the fact that they were just puppets. If you replace that with live actors it's not The Thunderbirds anymore and it's just pointless wanna-be James Bond crap.

 

James Bond? More like Spy Kids from the look of it.

 

Thats too long to read and what the hell are the Thunderbirds?

Heh, I'm 17 and I know what Thunderbirds is. They just had to butcher a great show with what looks like lame a movie.

 

The only thing that made The Thunderbirds cool was the fact that they were just puppets. If you replace that with live actors it's not The Thunderbirds anymore and it's just pointless wanna-be James Bond crap.

James Bond? Spy Kids? Nah, the Thunderbirds are just hi-tech fire fighters.

 

It indeed does look lame.


I'll be forced to see it with my cousin.

 

Just from reading that article,he has a right to be angry. You don't do this kind of stuff to established characters,and their creators. It'd be like if Stan Lee had no involvement in the Spider-man movies.

 

Give me puppets over Bill Paxton anyday.

 

...i'll watch anything with Ben Kingsley in it...

ANYTHING...

(Heck, i sat thru "Species")

 

I got really excited when I saw that they were making a thunderbirds movie when the preview started in the theater, but by the end of the trailer, I was completely disgusted

 

I saw Thunderbirds Are GO today on Channel 5.

1966, Supermarionation movie, it kicked the utter snot out of the utter abhorrent abonimation that Universal came up with.

Gerry Anderson has every right to be as mad as he is. Probably more so. If I was him, when I saw what they did to FAB 1, I'd have tried to pull the plug on the entire thing.

What's with the CG toy and kids forumla today anyway? Children do not need to see other children on the screen to give a damn about the story, nor do they need to see flashy, cartoony, way too smooth and poorly superimposed "space ships". The original Thunderbird models didn't move that great, but they looked amazing. Today, why can't they use them? Models worked fine for the Star Wars OT, and parts of TPM. There were models and miniatures in LotR for goodness sakes. Why did they have to go all CG?

 

Thunderbirds were the business - I loved them when I was a kid. Making a live action movie was such a bad idea - I'm not surprised the king of puppet animation (sorry Jim) doesn't like it.

 

Do you really expect anything less of him to think? This movie looks horrible; and I pity anyone who sees it.

 

All the geeks loved it - the fans of the original who have stayed with it for 40 years.

Sums up their attitude, I think. Malkie, can I swear at these people?

 

Friend and I saw a poster or cardboard-cutout-thingy of it a month or two ago and almost puked our guts out. I sympathize with Gerry, even if it's for different reasons.

 

If Frakes wasn't Captain Riker in real life I'd ...hunt ...him ...down...

It's an abomination.

 

I used to watch Thunderbirds all the time when I was younger (it was cooler than Stingray and Captain Scarlet by the way ) and was looking forward to this film until I realised it was a Spy Kids wannabe film, I don't care to see it at all now.

 

(Yes, I know most of you don't have the attention span to read an article so long that it requires several screens worth of scrolling, so just read as much as you're able)...

It took me three paragraphs to realize this wasn't about the Thundercats, and then it was right to the Post Reply screen...

¤Night