ThomasNATION Movie Reviews - The Great Race
July 24, 2021
Hey all, JF here, and for our review, we’re gonna need to go back into the olden days of ThomasNATION.
Back when The Great Race first released, TN founder ThomasFan3000 had coined the hashtag “TGRules”, which was used to praise the special to the ends of the earth. But that was all in the before times, back when we were still new to the reviewing field, so I’m here to see if that statement still holds up. So now that we’re headed to the Great Railway Show, will the special be taking home the gold, or will it just crash and fumble onto itself? Let’s begin.
After an encounter with the Flying Scotsman, we learn that the Mainland is hosting the Great Railway Show, a show in which a ton of engines from across the globe go to compete to test their strength, speed and agility, and as per the course for the little engine, Thomas is understandably jazzed about it…as are a lot of engines. But Thomas’ attempts to get into the show only land him further from the show. He tries to get streamlined, but that idea soon goes to Gordon. He tries to be decorated in fancy decor, but that backfires. He tries to show off his shunting, but that results in a crash. But when it’s revealed that Gordon hasn’t had his safety valve installed, it’s up to Thomas to go out and come to the rescue.
On first glance, the storyline sounds extremely repetitive. It just seems to be “Thomas has an idea, screws up, and he tries a new one, rinse and repeat.” But on further inspection, that’s when a few more problems arise. The first is that Diesel’s subplot serves very little purpose to the story.. At first, it raises a couple decent ideas, where Diesel tries to cheat his way into the Strength Competition. But that plan quickly falls apart, since if the plan does work, he’d just fail immediately. It’d make much more sense just to enrol in the Shunting Competition. And as I previously stated, it’s pointless. This subplot only really affects the story once Thomas has his crash, but even then that could have easily been the result of Thomas overestimating his abilities. Heck, once we get to the Railway Show we don’t see Diesel at all until the very end during the credits.
Another problem with the story…well, the story itself. While it’s full of the traditional Thomas and Friends special tropes and cliches, like Thomas not liking the new character at first, there is one problem I noticed on rewatch. I know with a show like Thomas, ideas are going to be reused, but I feel like another name for this film is “Dream On: The Movie”. I mean, think about it. The story beats feel very similar to the Season 11 episode. But the biggest problem of the film is that some of the ideas brought on are actually pretty good. The story going on with Gordon and the Flying Scotsman is really interesting, the humor can occasionally get a good laugh, and to the film’s credit, the story really starts to pick up once we get to the Great Railway Show. It had the right ideas to make a great film, but let’s be real here; I don’t think the storyline was the main focus of the film. We’ll get into that later.
As for the visuals, they’re honestly pretty good. I would honestly say that one of the highlights of the film are with the designs of the new characters. The international engines, and even the design of The Shooting Star look fantastic, and I also have to applaud them for not really modifying a good amount of them with components you’d find on British railways. A few have been scaled down, and some have been given buffers and chain couplings, but there are also engines with knuckle or buckeye couplings that could be found on their respective railways, which I have to appreciate. I’ll also give credit that sometimes the tension can really pick up during some of the action scenes and especially the competitions. The latter scenes in particular feel pretty unpredictable, where it would be pretty hard to guess the outcome. But of course, the true highlight of the animation is with the musical numbers. Whenever one would pop up, the scene would have a tone reminiscent to either a music video, or in the case of Diesel’s number, a Broadway number. If I do have to name one nitpick with the animation, it would be that the character animation would feel a little bit off. Sometimes, an engine would just stop dead in its tracks (ha ha) in a way that feels unnatural. That, and some of the lip-syncing wouldn’t exactly match up to what the characters are saying, and sometimes the lighting can feel a bit awkward. It may not be the best animation of the specials, but I’ll give it props for trying the best it could.
As for the new characters, the special would only really focus on three: Ashima, Vinnie and the Flying Scotsman. The rest of the international cast is mostly there to serve as merchandise fodder or the occasional joke. But in terms of the characters that get the most focus, let’s begin with Vinnie. I personally consider Vinnie to be the true antagonist of the film as opposed to Diesel, mainly because he actually does affect the plot. But is he any good? Well, kinda. He is kinda pointless, and he doesn’t really go after Thomas in a way, he mostly goes after Philip, which, to be fair, is a decently novel idea and a bit of a switch-up of the trope of a diesel going after a steamie, now with a steamie going after a diesel.
Back when The Great Race first released, TN founder ThomasFan3000 had coined the hashtag “TGRules”, which was used to praise the special to the ends of the earth. But that was all in the before times, back when we were still new to the reviewing field, so I’m here to see if that statement still holds up. So now that we’re headed to the Great Railway Show, will the special be taking home the gold, or will it just crash and fumble onto itself? Let’s begin.
On first glance, the storyline sounds extremely repetitive. It just seems to be “Thomas has an idea, screws up, and he tries a new one, rinse and repeat.” But on further inspection, that’s when a few more problems arise. The first is that Diesel’s subplot serves very little purpose to the story.. At first, it raises a couple decent ideas, where Diesel tries to cheat his way into the Strength Competition. But that plan quickly falls apart, since if the plan does work, he’d just fail immediately. It’d make much more sense just to enrol in the Shunting Competition. And as I previously stated, it’s pointless. This subplot only really affects the story once Thomas has his crash, but even then that could have easily been the result of Thomas overestimating his abilities. Heck, once we get to the Railway Show we don’t see Diesel at all until the very end during the credits.
And then you have Ashima, the main new engine of the special, and I can only describe her as…good. She has an excellent design and Tina Desai does provide a nice performance, but she doesn’t really have that much to offer outside of that. She's mostly just there to guide Thomas on his way.
And then comes the Flying Scotsman, the most hyped up 'new' character of the special, and easily the best of the three. At first, he only serves as an exposition device, but like I said earlier, he and Gordon have the most interesting parts of the movie, and the two play off each other really well. This would probably explain why the most interesting of all the characters in the film is actually Gordon (or should I say, Shooting Star), seeing as he has a constant need to live up to, or even overtake his brother out of envy. The new characters may not be something to write home about, but they do at least have the advantage of being…good.
Final Score: 3/5
About the Author: JF the LOLZOR
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