Reboot First Reactions

So if you weren't aware, Mattel greenlit two seasons of a 2D-animated reboot of Thomas and Friends, and the general consensus was...less than stellar, to be blunt about it. But me and the crew at TN decided to be a little more fair towards it. But then came January 27th, when a trailer was leaked by Twitter user @steam_attack. I'll leave the link to it at the end of the article if you're curious. But for now...

Are you guys sure that this was greenlit by Mattel and not Cocomelon?

First, I'll start off with a little bit of a positive note, and that is the animation. And for what it's worth, it's fine. It's lively and fluid enough, and the designs of the individual engines, particularly Gordon, are decent. But alas, that's where the positives end.

First off, I get that the show wants to push a main quintet of Thomas and his friends, and the inclusion of Percy and Nia make sense, plus Kana does hold a little bit of potential. But of the wide catalogue of Thomas' friends both in and out of the show, why Diesel?! Isn't Diesel, like, the bona-fide villain of the Thomas and Friends franchise? If you really wanna push a fifth friend for Thomas, Percy, Nia and Kana to interact with...

...there ya go. James was consistently pushed as one of the core members of the Steam Team. Heck, in most of the promotions prior to BWBA, you could almost always find three engines: Thomas, Percy and James. Here, he doesn't seem to even exist for some strange reason.

Next, let me just say this. If you thought Season 15 and BWBA were unfaithful to the Awdry books, then trust me, y'all ain't seen nothin' yet. This reboot seems to entirely throw the logic and core setting of the Railway Series and throws them out the window entirely. Now the engines are free to hop around freely, move their heads as if their smokeboxes were their necks, do several flips and tricks, all that jazz. There have even been rumors claiming that not only will the drivers and firemen be eliminated, but also that even the mainland will be erased entirely. What made the series work in the first place is that even with all the planes, trains and automobiles having faces and sentience, the franchise was still set in a believable reality. Here, reality is practically forgotten about, and as such it makes the show look like practically every other generic YouTube kids video for infants, which is why I made the reference to Cocomelon earlier. In fact, ya wanna know one fact about the series that proves my point about reality being forgotten about?

This is Sandy, who we see bolting around and playing with Carly in the trailer. But according to producer Rick Suvalle, this is apparently Carly's daughter, which just raises a ton of questions. Is she adopted? How can a crane be a parent? Is Cranky the dad? Or is he the uncle? Can the vehicles reproduce now? Why? And more importantly, how? Does Carly have a reproductive system? Does she have a womb? What's going on?

And lastly, the biggest problem of them all is that a 2D Thomas project could actually work if done right. The best way I could see it working is if it were a spin-off of three minute shorts rather than a full reboot. I get that this is made to appeal to a new generation of fans, but they're doing it without a single iota of regard to the older fans who follow the show now.

But overall, I am not at all excited for this reboot. It's the perfect example of the phrase "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." And the irony of that is, the series was a little broken with BWBA, but this is just pouring salt on an open wound. And unfortunately, it does look like we may have to review it in the future...help us.