ThomasNATION Reviews - Skiff Sails Sodor

If you were to ask any longtime fan of Thomas what their thoughts were on the Brenaissance period of the original television series as a whole, they would more often than not tell you that the 2015 full-length special 'Sodor's Legend of the Lost Treasure' is where the era peaked. I mean, the music? The scale? The fan-service? The cinematography? Oh, man! I'm still geekin' out about it! One particular element that made the film an experience to remember was none other than Skiff himself. And be honest, when we first saw him in the trailer for the movie, we thought he looked really stupid, right? I mean, a sailboat on rails. Really? They're that desperate for toys?  Never did we expect that this little boat would turn out to be the most developed new character in that movie thus as a result, he became the standout character of the era. 

While it's great to see Skiff again after so long, it honestly left me rather confused not just because of the fact that I didn't know that there was such a thing as land sickness until I looked it up but also in the way that they retconned how Skiff received his wheel chassis from the original Thomas & Friends series.  Why? Well, if you remember the scene from 'Lost Treasure' where Thomas first meets Sailor John and Skiff on the night that they find the treasure map inside Calles Cavern, the little railboat says this line: "Sailor John gave me wheels after the ship was discovered so we could search for the treasure on land, but I wish I could be a real engine like you - not just a sailboat with wheels stuck on".  Now, I understand that we may never see Sailor John return to the franchise again due to the death of his voice actor Sir John Hurt five years ago, but after we just had an episode that paid homage to Nia's roots from the original series written by a former writer of the original series, you would think that they would've shown the same amount of respect towards another popular character from the Brenaissance Era.