Anyways, I just got done seeing the film, so here's my review.
With how everyone was talking about this movie, I was expecting some kind of huge blockbuster that would completely rewrite Thomas and Friends as I've known it, but the team just didn't deliver on that kind of hype... and I'm glad they didn't!
This special felt like an extended version of an older episode with a more modern-Thomas premise. In fact, I almost felt like I was watching a remastered take on classic season writing even moreso than had been the case with The Adventure Begins! If I had to say, this really feels like what Magic Railroad would have been if not for the Shining Time Station canon crashing, right down to Marion's obsession with the "magic engines" and the "golddust" that followed them in their wake in the beginning.
That's to say nothing of the villain. When people thought of Sailor John, especially after seeing him with dynamite, their first thought was P.T. Boomer from the Magic Railroad Director's Cut. Myself, I think he was a more refined version of the character with some depth. His motivation is greed rather than a deep-seated hatred of the railway, but his mannerisms and behavior are similar... although Sailor John is clearly more talented at hiding his nefarious motivations. All the same, not too shabby for the first true human villain of a Thomas and Friends story to avoid the cutting-room floor.
At any rate, this was a fantastic watch that really expanded on the canon of the show and The Railway Series, giving me an impression that after the constraints of the model series, the publicly-released resplice of Magic Railroad and HiT's early tampering set the show's growth potential back around 20 years, the series has finally been able to clearly grow beyond its former apices and become something greater than ever!
The Good:
- THE VISUALS! I was watching this with a friend, and they complained because I kept pausing to take in the sheer beauty of just about every camera-cut. It took us an hour and a half to get 20 minutes in! If The Adventure Begins was meeting the quality of Mitton's modelwork, this special finally brought it to the next level!
- The returning characters were all good choices and none really seemed like they were brought in to steal a spotlight. The Arlesdale engines played their roles well, and the Scottish Twins and the Pack were used just enough for the sake of making their reintroduction as secondary characters meaningful, with even Duck acting in a similar manner. The only one who really seemed to try being a breakout character intending to make an impact was... well, the one whose character best fits that description: Daisy!
- The soundtrack and songs will both probably be stuck in my head for quite some time... I wonder how hard it would be to find a recording of that live performance of the music from the special I've heard so much about?
- The numerous callbacks over the series really made me take notice: we can say up and down that the show knows its roots these days, but there's more to proving that than including lines like "bouncing about like peas in a frying pan" or bringing back Awdry characters, and I think that the writing team has really mastered subtlties in both allusion to and resurrection of the more Awdrian aspects of Sodor.
- THEY FINALLY DID IT! THREE CONTINUITIES AND 70 YEARS LATER THEY FINALLY FINISHED THE HARWICK LINE!
- Henry's cowardly nature was brought into this special in a way that actually made sense! Seeing something as nonsensical as a ship in the fog going over the rails would be enough to make most of the older-series engines abandon their better judgment and flee, after all.
- The finale was wisely executed with everyone involved playing a vital role: every time Skiff went down a different track than points were set at for Thomas it was straight after he was rammed by Thomas or would have logically jumped points, and in spite of what people might think, Sailor John COULD keep the momentum going once he had it between slopes and tacking his sail.
- The symbolism of Thomas' "number 1" being sullen with dirt throughout the special until after he stopped Sailor John
The Bad:
- If there was bad, I certainly didn't catch it on the first watch-through.
The Ugly:
- As much as I loved the musical number in both song and visuals, "Never Overlook a Little Engine" was still something of a Big Lipped Alligator Moment.
- Thomas' arrogance throughout the early parts of this special was very in-character, but honestly reminded me of a joking "I'm the main character so I can do no wrong!" persona I'd crafted for him in some gag-works I did with a friend, loosely based on Harry from Potter Puppet Pals... it works well in execution and all, but it's still a huge shock to see it actually happening!
- That kind of damage at the island's head station might've caused enough "confusion and delay" to REALLY effect the railway's operations and earnings. It's a good thing they have like five mobile cranes in their service, because you could actually SEE Topham losing it, only to look up at the corner where a TV screening of the special would place a rating and then choking his words of frustration down before punishing Thomas.
- With Duck, Donald, Douglas and Oliver all working on the Harwick Branch construction, who in Awdry's name was running normal operations on the Little Western? Actually, this might've been answered... Stanley did Background Cameo a few times on distant lines, after all.
- The damage to Thomas after falling into the mine would be enough to put any normal engine out of commission for a ripe long time, assuming they were declared worth repair after that. Between boiler breach (see the funnel's angle and consider he never once fell on his top), one broken and two bent axles and a bent wheel, it's a miracle they even bothered repairing him! It's a good thing he's the main character, because a real E2 with that kind of damage would never have been seen as worth salvaging and at best would probably have been melted down into its own replacement.
- I understand why from a narrative perspective, but I'm a little disappointed we never had the chance to see more of the Arlesdale Railway than Arlesburgh Junction.
- As realistic as the engines and environment have gotten, I feel the Fat Controller's model could use a little work after seeing his feet up on his desk... no, seriously, those spats of his do NOT look right.
- According to the Wiki, an earlier draft was going to have the windmill in the opening be the Dryaw Windmill, AKA the one from the show's original opening, but they changed it later on. My guess would be it was a similar matter to Henry's shape in TAB, meaning budget would be better used elsewhere so they used a reasonable preexisting stand-in, but it's still kind of a sad realization.