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Post by The Thomas Cynic on Jan 4, 2021 20:02:36 GMT
Alright folks, it's a very special time! Not my birthday. Not New Years. No, it's much more important than that. It's thread-that-nobody-asked-for-but-I-hope-will-be-accepted time!
So the idea of this thread is to start a series of Thomas-themed debates. These debates can be on pretty much anything as long as it has a direct, clear link to the franchise. The way this is going to work is that I will start a debate topic every once in a while, and after a while, when I feel that the conversation has run its course, I'll start the next one. There aren't many rules, but there's a few I want to mention:
1) Follow the rules of the forum in all of your debates, try to stop things becoming too heated. 2) People are allowed to have opinions. Everyone. The point of this thread is to share and discuss opinions, not bash them. 3) Just don't be a jerk. Man, this should be a much more prominent rule on the internet, it would save a lot of time.
Alright, here's the first debate topic: Thoughts on the HiT Era.
I'll start the discussion off by saying: I don't think the HiT era was actually as bad as people remember it. Sure, there were some awful choices made with the Narrow Gauge engines and the like, but I think this era suffers because what came before it was so good. In my opinion, the HiT era had a lot of interesting concepts, but just sadly failed in the execution. Freddie, Proteus, Flora. All characters with huge potential, which was sadly not followed up. I don't LOVE the HiT era, but personally I think it gets too much hate.
Thoughts?
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Loganthe9F51
Goods Engine
Hiro is the best CGI character, and you can’t change my mind.
Posts: 204
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Post by Loganthe9F51 on Jan 4, 2021 21:53:00 GMT
Sorry, buddy, but I don’t really agree. There was a lot of potential, yes, but several writing choices, like the Steam Team, were poorly handled. The show suffered all the more for it.
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Post by The Thomas Cynic on Jan 5, 2021 7:12:43 GMT
It's an interesting argument you make, and I think many people would agree with you. However, I beg to differ. As much as Thomas is so much more than a kids' show, although it has a beautiful heritage that must be respected, whenever a company picks it up, the thing at the forefront of their mind is money. We should also care about them getting money (it's the only reason the show's alive). It's inevitable, after all, it's how they make a living. With that in mind, here's why I think the HiT era was borderline decent.
It's funny you mention the Steam Team. I agree that as a concept I don't like it, but it was a pretty smart idea to help the success of the brand. The words "Steam Team" and the characters can be plastered onto everything, marketing will use them as often as they can, and merchandise of them can go up too. So although I don't like them as a concept, I think the Steam Team is one of many reasons we're still here in 2020, albeit with a crap show, but also having had the Brenner Era along the way.
Another thing I want to point out is the music. While it's nothing compared to the classic music, the HiT era music is arguably some of the best we have in the show besides the classic (along with the Brenner Era musicals). Honestly, the themes of the HiT era are incredibly overrated. Just listen to Thomas' CAE theme, the song Brave, any music from TGD. That's another point, TGD is epic. So although I agree with you that a lot of CONCEPTS were handled badly, some stuff was good to great as well, balancing out this show to slightly below decent.
Also, since I sense mention of the three-strikes formula coming up, I'll agree it was bad, but with seasons 10 and 11 they did start to slightly shift away from it. Until season 12 came along, but that's just season 12.
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Post by duckfan9 on Jan 7, 2021 5:52:12 GMT
I agree the Steam Team concept did some good for the continuation of the franchise, but I think it would've been better if it stayed as a marketing tool, as opposed to having it so we only saw the Steam Team (plus some newbies and the Skarloey Six) in lead episodes.
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Post by The Thomas Cynic on Jan 7, 2021 7:22:19 GMT
I agree the Steam Team concept did some good for the continuation of the franchise, but I think it would've been better if it stayed as a marketing tool, as opposed to having it so we only saw the Steam Team (plus some newbies and the Skarloey Six) in lead episodes. When you think about it, the Steam Team plus the other characters you mentioned actually gave us a fair bit of variety. The Steam Team (that's 8), plus the SKR 6 (later there's 8, but we'll just count 6 for now), and newbies (a lot, but in one-off episodes mostly). Straight off the bat that's 14+ characters, which is a decent amount. That's not even counting the newbies, who, as I said before, had a lot of unique concepts behind them. When you add in the newbie episodes, you get a lot of variety. Take a look at the two centric HiT seasons (after the team had found their footing but before the CGI unbalanced everything. Season 9: Percy, Thomas, Thomas, Mighty Mac, Molly, Gordon, Thomas, Rusty, Thomas, Rheneas, Neville, Toby, Thomas, Peter Sam, Thomas, Henry, Emily, Dennis, Thomas, Duncan, Thomas, Skarloey, Edward, Thomas, James, Thomas/Diesel. Season 10: Thomas, Sir Handel, Jeremy, Percy, Percy, Duncan, Thomas, Toby, Gordon, Thomas, Freddie, Toby, Henry, Thomas, Rusty, Thomas, Rocky/Edward, Thomas/Spencer, Skarloey, Thomas, Emily/Diesel, Thomas/James, Thomas/Rosie, Duncan/James, Rheneas/Skarloey, Thomas, James/Edward, Thomas/Skarloey. This might look like a downgrade from 9 in terms of variety, and it kind of is, but I want to point attention to all the character duos we get later in the season. Some of the pairings are so inspired - Duncan and James, Emily and Diesel.
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Post by eveningstarr on Jan 8, 2021 15:26:46 GMT
I'm not sure if I'm qualified to have much of an opinion on the HiT era as I haven't seen every episode (although I have recently started slowly working my way through). I grew up with these on the telly, but as children we weren't allowed to watch TV before school, so it was limited to weekends, and only then if we got up early enough to catch it on Milkshake. I was very aware of this 'different' Thomas growing up, but I still preferred the VHSs and DVDs we had of the classic era.
In various instances, people tend to colour their memories, but I'm not ashamed to admit I did enjoy the series 6/7-11 episodes as a child. Obviously now I see them differently, but one thing remained - I was tired of seeing Thomas all the time! Especially in the new character episodes, think Molly, Neville, Billie, Rosie, Dennis etc, they're all 'Thomas takes care of the new engine' or 'Thomas gets cross with the new engine'. Very monotonous, even for a seven year old.
A lot of people dislike this era for said monotony and the dreaded three strikes formula, and I'd agree, but it's not too bad if you watch them now and again (I did say I'm working my way through them SLOWLY).
We stopped getting up early to watch TV around the time the show transitioned to cgi, something that I hated at the time. Much of the series 12-16 episodes I haven't watched, but of the ones I have seen, I can see why people dislike them. Those early days of cgi - classics such as Fireman Sam and Bob the Builder also going computerised - weren't even good for their time, let alone in retrospect, which just makes them completely unwatchable.
One good thing about he Hit era though, is that they did know how to do good merchandise. In fact I'd say this was the peak of Thomas merch, Wooden Railway and Tomy/Trackmaster being the main two that we had. I know we dislike constant one-off characters, made purely for the merchandise, and in the grand scheme of things turned out to be forgettable and pointless, but as a child who only caught the odd episode, I thought I'd just been missing all the other episodes with Dennis and Mighty-Mac in!
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Post by The Thomas Cynic on Jan 8, 2021 18:55:00 GMT
I'm not sure if I'm qualified to have much of an opinion on the HiT era as I haven't seen every episode (although I have recently started slowly working my way through). I grew up with these on the telly, but as children we weren't allowed to watch TV before school, so it was limited to weekends, and only then if we got up early enough to catch it on Milkshake. I was very aware of this 'different' Thomas growing up, but I still preferred the VHSs and DVDs we had of the classic era. In various instances, people tend to colour their memories, but I'm not ashamed to admit I did enjoy the series 6/7-11 episodes as a child. Obviously now I see them differently, but one thing remained - I was tired of seeing Thomas all the time! Especially in the new character episodes, think Molly, Neville, Billie, Rosie, Dennis etc, they're all 'Thomas takes care of the new engine' or 'Thomas gets cross with the new engine'. Very monotonous, even for a seven year old. A lot of people dislike this era for said monotony and the dreaded three strikes formula, and I'd agree, but it's not too bad if you watch them now and again (I did say I'm working my way through them SLOWLY). We stopped getting up early to watch TV around the time the show transitioned to cgi, something that I hated at the time. Much of the series 12-16 episodes I haven't watched, but of the ones I have seen, I can see why people dislike them. Those early days of cgi - classics such as Fireman Sam and Bob the Builder also going computerised - weren't even good for their time, let alone in retrospect, which just makes them completely unwatchable. One good thing about he Hit era though, is that they did know how to do good merchandise. In fact I'd say this was the peak of Thomas merch, Wooden Railway and Tomy/Trackmaster being the main two that we had. I know we dislike constant one-off characters, made purely for the merchandise, and in the grand scheme of things turned out to be forgettable and pointless, but as a child who only caught the odd episode, I thought I'd just been missing all the other episodes with Dennis and Mighty-Mac in! Yeah, I agree with the main problem you raise - there was quite a lot of Thomas (not as bad as the Miller Era, but it did get a little samey sometimes). Man, I loved HiT merch. I've never had a big store of toys like some people, but growing up with this merchandise was very exciting, and I remember and respect that even today.
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thethinmiko
Goods Engine
I can't believe its just a burning firebox.
Posts: 279
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Post by thethinmiko on Jan 9, 2021 2:46:39 GMT
I mean the HiT era was kinda of a blur. Seasons 8 and 9 and 10 sort of swirl together like the magic in the mountain. I like HiT for the merch since I was huge into Wooden Railway at the time.
I don't really care much for the steam team tbh. I mean yeah it centralized the focus on a select few to streamline story writing and pinpoint certain characters but it quickly devolved into just being a checklist for whom the Three Strikes formula should feature.
As far as to how we should debate the various elements of Thomas as a way of discussing what should we do and what opinions we have and to share statements that support our ideas and opinions and I'd love to see this thread cover other topics.
One such thing we could have a debate about is whether or not narrators are necessary. Frankly I know the more conservative folk here would say they are completely necessary and are important whilst a more liberal enjoyer of such media could say "yeah if we focus on subtly and using the visual artform to its highest potential do we even need one?" Honestly I'm in the middle of this sort of thing as I think narrators are important to the Thomas experience but if written and organized in a matter that focuses on show not tell, perhaps narrators could be made redundant.
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Post by The Thomas Cynic on Jan 9, 2021 6:53:29 GMT
Update: anyone can now change the debate topic, as long as a few people agree to talk about it. The thread has also been moved to forum games.
That's a great topic! I think narrators are/aren't necessary depending on what kind of story a writing team is trying to tell. If it's a heavy narrative with a very obviously cemented plotline, then maybe one isn't needed as much. If it's a little more fluid and unpredictable, I think narrators are the way to go.
Personally I loved narrators in the seasons we've had, and I wouldn't send them away. However, this is one thing I'm willing to give the reboot a chance on. From what we've seen, no narration will fit with this reboot's very UNIQUE style (heavy sarcasm).
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Post by Darkknight55 on Sept 24, 2021 2:45:10 GMT
Sadly, I feel that narrators have become redundant. It made since during the model era, since they not only told the story but provided the entire voice cast. Plus, we've had some great actors on both sides of the ocean lend their talents to the series, like Ringo Starr, George Carlin, etc. But once the CGI era rolled around and individual voice actors became the norm, the narrator really didn't have much of a point anymore, and it became more and more apparent to me just how much they stated the obvious. Thomas as the narrator for the BWBA era added something new in that he was a character in the universe, but even there you could get rid of it and little would be lost.
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Post by thomasfandomfan on Sept 24, 2021 14:20:37 GMT
Let me leave my thoughts here:
The steam team is a nice concept, and it's nice that they put engines 1-7 + Emily in the steam team for Seasons 8-12. It's just that I think they could have added more characters, like Duck, Donald, Douglas and Oliver. Then I think that'd make a COMPLETE steam team.
But if the steamies have a steam team, then why can't the diesels have a diesel team? I think it could be Diesel, Daisy, Boco, Mavis, Derek, Arry and Bert. Maybe throw in Dennis as well.
The music is pretty good I'd say, but I wish they brought back some of the classic themes as well. It just feels a bit wrong not to.
I really liked the HiT merch. One of my favorites had to be Trackmaster. That range made the models look pretty accurate to the show.
And the narrators are fine, I guess. It's just that I think Angelis should have put more energy into his narration, and Brandon did pretty good for the narrating.
That's my thoughts.
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