Journey Beyond Sodor: Guest Review (by BigEngines87)

As funny as he was, didn't like how Merlin was just thrown into the final 30 minutes of the movie, but the other characters hold up really well. You have my second favorite newbie, Lexi. Who's this bouncy, energetic cab forward engine. I love characters that are full of energy and Lexi is no  exception. Theo was a cute character, nothing much to him though. 

Hurricane and Frankie were great, and I love how neither of them are a villain... at least with Hurricane. Frankie is just.. creepy. When i first saw images of Hurricane and Frankie, I always thought Hurricane was going to be the aggressive one and Frankie was the more friendlier and caring one. But its the other way around here. For example, there's a scene where Thomas tries to escape the steelworks and ends up derailing. When the two engines find him, Hurricane is more concerned than angry when he tells Thomas he could have damaged himself badly. While Frankie immediately scolds him for trying to leave... huh...

Oh.. and theres a crane as well.. Beresford. I honestly don't see the problem with this character. Everyone treats him like he's another Ferdinand. Yes, he's pointless to the story but.. thats really all that's wrong with him. He did get a nice chuckle out of me once in a while. And give him credit, Merrick and Reg never had a song. I just wish he was involved in the story more though. Maybe instead of the steelworks, you could have Hurricane and Frankie chase Thomas James and the experimentals into the canal, and Beresford drops a boat in front of Hurricane and Frankie trapping them. But then, since he has to nearly be killed every special ever, Thomas accident gets knocked over and nearly falls into the water and Beresford saves him. 

I don't know, something. The ending was really the biggest problem with this movie. It was really rushed, and taught us that, yeah, if someone tries to trap you or someone else, then you can totally trust them to work with you, as long as they say they're sorry! 

Whats interesting about this movie is that everything it has is a one up from The Great Race. Better writing, better story, better newbies, better score, better reason for having to shoehorn Thomas as the main character. Everything... except the songs. I can't tell which film has better songs. TGR had more catchy and upbeat songs. This film has songs you'd hear in a Disney movie. Which... I guess is a one up? 

Some of the songs are really memorable, Hottest Place in Town, both The Favorite songs, I Want To Go Home, and so on. 

So i guess that just leaves me with just one more thing to talk about. 

t h e         b o u n c i n g

Honestly.. I COULDN'T CARE LESS. As long as the engines don't jump all over the friggin' place, hopping from track to track, I don't care. It came off as really odd at first, but I quickly got used to it, maybe because i watch a lot of cartoons but... i don't have a problem with it. In fact, i think the bouncing really improved the energy from this film. Without the bouncing, especially with the songs, you'd just be seeing static engines with moving mouths, but since thats more.. *ahem*.. r e a l i s t i c.. then I guess a boring movie is fine. But I DO have a problem with the continuity with the bouncing, some scenes have it, some scenes have a lot of it, and some scenes have none of it at all. It came off as distracting because every time i expected an engine to bounce, it didn't bounce, like the James pulling Annie and Clarabel scene, theres no bouncing in that scene at ALL.. then when I expect an engine not to bounce, like the scene with James in the steamworks, every moment in that scene, James leans and bounces and... yeah. You get the picture.

Also there is ONE thing that struck me as... odd about this movie:

For the dub that always beats the other, the US dub is SURPRISINGLY better than the UK dub. Everyone in the US dub sounds really intrigued in the script and have fun saying the lines they were given, Rob Rackshaw especially. In the UK dub, most of the time, everything seems rushed, unfocused and boring. Rob voices James in the UK now instead of the overused Keith Wickham who needed less characters. But Rob sounds really  bored half of the time. Its like in the US, he was full of energy. In the UK, most of his energy was taken out and it sounded like he was just there to voice a character and then the day is over. John Hassler on the other hand, while unfocused at times, he was the best part about the UK dub. He's just a great singer for Thomas, and brings a high pitched cheerful voice to the character. And judging by the lip syncing when a character says, "trucks" or "the fat controller" you can tell that the film was animated for the US dub because it still looks like the character is saying "cars" and "sir Topham Hatt". So I guess the UK dub was recorded at the last second with barely any time to do retakes.

In conclusion. Journey Beyond Sodor is a solid film. I say "film", instead of "Thomas film", because this didn't really seem like a natural film for Thomas. It didn't really focus on Sodor much even though theres a huge opening introducing Sodor. And thats another thing. Every special, Mark Moraghan becomes more and more pointless. He has like SEVEN LINES past the opening. 

Anyway, this film had a good story, great new characters, good songs, AMAZING score, and... okay animation. Yeah the animation isn't too impressive here. It seems unfinished and choppy at parts like the scene with Thomas puffing to the yard before he meets Beresford. I think with another 6-12 months of production, not only could you improve the animation, but some of the script as well, like the ending.

Overall, this was a pretty film, I enjoyed it, I've seen it quite a number of times and i will keep coming back to it.

And that concludes ThomasNATION's last post for the time being. Its been a helluva journey, a rollercoaster - most of it fun, all of it amazing. Thanks for being here.



And with that, we bid you a goodnight, a thank you and a goodbye. Perhaps forever. Maybe not.

...and whaddya know, we're back. Isn't that just a doozy.