By the time this belated TV spin-off appeared, Captain Scarlet had come and gone and Thunderbirds was yesterday's news. Such was the shallow fickle values of us kids back in the 60's. I was very surprised to see this announced for production in TV TORNADO. I recall the vast amount of hype the original film received and assumed for years it had been a box-office success. However, the whole Anderson supermarionation empire was in its decline as fashions changed by the late 60's. Joe 90 was to appear to a less-than-rapturous reception and The Secret Service was virtually stillborn. At least Joe got his own comic and a Big Rat toy. All I recall of The Secret Service was a clip on Magpie and a Sweet cigarette picture card of the Rev Unwin. This might not have mattered so much if the Anderson's had learnt the lesson of the previous film. How many producers get the opportunity to make a sequel to a film that flopped? While the plot against the Tracey's by Black Phantom (is it really a suddenly vain toupeed Hood?) is a more satisfyingly personal drama as opposed to the Zero X launch, the whole plot is, again, a bog-standard TV episode dragged out with whimsical foreign interludes that exercised the model makers ingenuity but fatally kill any sense of pace. The finale of the Skyship delicately balanced on the aerial wrenches up the tension but is too little too late - and it drops onto a missile base for added pyrotechnic value. I recall some publicity being raised on national TV news by the live-action shots of the bi-plane roaring over an unfinished motorway. I suspect Anderson was more interested in these as a calling card to show he could handle live-action as opposed to puppetry so - like The Secret Service - this serves as a transitional film to the human-based melodramatics of the 70's with UFO and Space 1999. While Anderson could handle full-sized action, endowing his non-marionette figures with any breath of humanity often proved beyond him.

The first Thunderbirds film was a flop so why they made another seems strange. Although the technology is better in this one the creaky plot and visible strings spoil this film.

There are lots of nice film parodies throughout and some nice performances from the voice cast but the "Thunderbird 6" element is a lot of hype for nothing. A gimmick to get bums on seats.

Overall Anderson should have learnt that while people were happy to watch puppets move around for half an hour to make them do it for an hour and a half was pushing it. The main appeal of the series was the machines and although the character stuff is nice it is the machines that we want to see.

No more films were made after this and it is not hard to see why. Times were changing and the sight of puppets on the big screen was growing thin.

if you watched this movie you're hopelessly shameless. if you even bother to remember this stuff you're probably kind of shameless too. my mother never heard of this and didn't even remember or know my brother and i were avid watchers and fans of this Saturday morning brain mush. i've even met other baby boomers who barely took note of this show and others who were embarrassed by it to the point of denial. so it's not retro nostalgia for everyone. this kind of thing is not always for everyone's taste.

do i like this? well, yeah, i guess. but i'm not sure that my opinion isn't a little warped or damaged about movies like this. i was a brain washed kiddie consumer like most of my generation and i was always partial to cartoons and fantasy shows and TV shows with puppets.

i think the main question to be asked of any cinema buff or student, is whether 'Supermarionation' is a pure cinema process that makes any real contribution to the techniques and art form of cinema. i mean nobody even uses marionettes in movies these days except in farce or to purposely freak people out. i don't even know how much i actually warm up to the technique here. when i was a child i was both strongly drawn and simultaneously repelled by the whole thing. the marionettes kind of scared me and i even remember having nightmares about this show. i guess i also equated the show a little with the whole 'Curse of the Doll People' thing.

whether or not you find 'Supermarionation' disturbing or scary or just plain kitschy, this is the place it started and pretty much perfected it. the 'Marination' here is equally as good as the 'Team America' spoof decades later, but the plot and concept here are much simpler and corny. you do have to be somewhat "hardcore" to even like this.