ThomasNATION Movie Reviews - Sodor Sings Together
November 07, 2026
This is it. The end of the All Engines Go! era, the moment we transition from this to going back to basics with Railway Stories. It was a long, bumpy, confusing ride to get here, and to be frank, the ride was...okay? Despite getting off to a really rought start, I hesitate to say All Engines Go! was bad, since it wasn't without its merits - it had some great characters like Gordon and Bruno, and once in a while you'll get a good episode, but at the end of the day, for what was being deemed the end of Thomas back when it was announced, it was kinda forgettable. However, there is one thing everyone can agree on: All Engines Go! was Thomas hitting his nadir. Irregardless of the quality of episodes, this was unambiguously the lowest point the franchise ever reached. BWBA and the Nitrogen era still at least made an attempt to feel like Thomas - this felt so detached from what made the franchise special that calling it a full blown Thomas show is kind of a joke. And from what Railway Stories is presenting, you can tell that Mattel thought the same due to how much course correcting it's doing. But with the final special of the series, Sodor Sings Together, does this era go out on a high note or a whimper? Let's begin.
The Sodor Sings festival is almost here, and the Biggest Adventure Club are pulling out all the stops to make sure it goes off great, only for everything to go awry at once.
So at first glance, the story is very barebones. But on closer inspection...this story is very barebones. This story may work in an eight minute episode, but for an hour, it just feels like a waste of time. You may be wondering, how can you stretch a plot like this to 60 minutes? The answer is simple: by dragging it out as hard as possible. It's almost comical how much this movie stretches out its story. It's like the writer, Craig Carlisle, was aware the story couldn't work for 60 minutes, so he put in as much filler as humanly possible. For example, there's a scene where an opera singer belts out a loud high note that shatters all the glass on Sodor. This would work for a 10 second gag, but this goes on for a minute. And what's worse, it's important to the story, meaning you don't even have the luxury of skipping it. And it constantly brings up random details ad nauseum after they get set up, and I mean constantly. After the fiftieth mention of Gordon's love of kazoos or the fact that vibrations can make music, it starts to read more like a desperate attempt to stretch out an essay to 500 words. The story is also super predictable. From the moment they set up the festival, I knew from the start that it would end with the engines singing together. The only thing we really learn from the special is how hard puberty hit Diesel. Seriously, his voice is really deep here. However, while the movie doesn't really work as an anniversary special, it does work really well as a finale. The amount of returning setpieces and songs that show up does give it that "full circle" feeling. But overall, this might work as just another episode, but it fails horribly as a special.
As for the characters, I wanna bring something up because I just noticed this: you ever notice how of all the All Engines Go! specials, only one introduced new engines? And believe me, this special could've been saved by the presence of Riff and Jiff. But this special is notable for being the grand return of Duck! How is he brought into the world of All Engines Go!?
He appears for five seconds and gets no lines. We barely even see his face. I know it doesn't impact anything, but it raises the question: why did they even bring him back if he was gonna do nothing? And with all the merch he received, as well as a Motorized toy for Donald...but no Douglas for some reason, it does leave me wondering: what did they have planned for him? And Donald for that matter? Was Douglas even gonna be part of it? Who knows?
But what does elevate this special from being really bad is the music. I mean, of course, it's called Sodor Sings Together, the songs have to take top priority, but the songs here are really good. Like I said, one thing they do is reprise songs from the show to make up most of the soundtrack. And while that isn't a great idea on paper (looking at you here, Camp Rock 3), the way this special does it is not bad. For example, I'm not a huge fan of "I'm Gonna Chug", but with how it was the first song of the show, I get why it's used. It started this era, it might as well end it. As for the new songs, "Tonight is the Night" is okay, even though it ends pretty abruptly, "Deliver the Music" and "Make Room for Music" are very similar, but still pretty catchy, "Just Think of It" isn't half bad, and "All Together Now" is a really sweet capper. It may not have been a good special, but it did have one good thing to note.
Overall, Sodor Sings Together ends the show just as poorly as it started. In spite of some good songs, the boring and milquetoast writing holds it down a lot. If you're an All Engines Go! fan, there's no harm in checking it out to see how this version of Thomas wraps up, but for everyone else, it's merely a waste of time, and that's why I'm giving this a 1.5/5. A truly sour note to go out on. Thankfully, with a new era on the horizon, there's nowhere to go but up.
Final Rating: 1.5/5
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