ThomasNATION Reviews - A Thomas Promise
September 04, 2021
So it's come to this.
Yes, this is the first official episode of the controversial reboot to the series All Engines Go!, and let me tell ya, I am not at all excited. However, before we begin, I'd like to state that I'm going to try and remain unbiased throughout the review. No matter how bad it is, I'm just trying to treat this episode as an episode. So, what's the first impression of All Engines Go! so far? Let's begin.
After an accident causes Gordon to damage his coupling, Thomas and Diesel volunteer to take his workload to the recycling plant. But their competitive nature quickly gets the better of them and the race is on to get to the finish line first.
All my problems with the series as a whole from my first reaction to the leaked trailer still apply here: despite some solid animation, the disregard for the source material is still present, the missed opportunity with the idea of a 2D Thomas series runs rampant, and the tone of it all makes it seem like a series of YouTube kids videos by something like Cocomelon. But if I do have to point out one issue I had they seemed to fix here, it's that instead of having Diesel as one of Thomas' best buddies, he's shown more as a rival and a comic foil to Thomas. I'll also give credit that some of the voice acting is generally okay. There are a couple of weak deliveries here and there, but overall it's still decent, especially Neil Crone returning as the voice of Gordon. That, I'll admit, is pretty cool.
As for the episode itself...yeah, it's about as lame as I expected. One major problem is that the episode can be pretty boring at times. There are several intervals of the characters not really doing anything besides watching Thomas and Diesel have their race. And speaking of the race, since that plays a big part in the story, just guess what the moral is.
No, guess. Really. You'll never get it. It's not like this was the moral of nearly every episode about engines competing.
"It's not about winning". No, really? As you can tell, this moral has become pretty tiresome in this type of episode. But what makes it a little more egregious here is that in the end, Diesel wins the race but everyone just randomly declares Thomas the winner because "he kept a promise!" As for the song they constantly play throughout the episode, it starts off fine enough and the composition is okay, but it quickly gets repetitive and annoying, especially how half the lyrics are "I'm gonna chug, I'm gonna choo". It's not a common saying, but trust me, by the episode's end, chances are you'll be pretty sick of hearing it.
So as you can tell, I was not a fan of this episode. It has some decent animation and good voice acting, but that doesn't save its bland message and boring storyline. For my recommendation, I'd honestly just recommend sticking to the original, unless you're willing to give the reboot a chance; in which case, go right ahead. But for me, I never had a lot of faith in this reboot, so this is a 1.5/5. If this is what the future of Thomas is gonna be, then it's off to a terrible start.
Final Score: 1.5/5
About the Author: JF the LOLZOR
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