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.

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.

Having just seen the Thunderbirds (2004) remake, I've decided that Thunderbird 6 is great although I've bagged Thunderbirds are GO in the past (the other movie that spelt the end of the TV franchise). But it brings up the question yet again, like the show, why if International Rescue is to remain secret do the members of it keep going around telling everyone who they are! And why would IR go on this around-the-world trip when it isn't a rescue situation?

Still, I think the sets and special effects are great and parts are suspenseful, but I could've done with less of Alan and Jeff Tracy (two really annoying characters even if they are puppets) and more of the other characters. And Brians' little tiff at Jeff's 'bullying' of him to build another Thunderbird quick smart, reminds me of a workmate who was having a hard time with the boss and who...oh, never mind.

Slow but good stuff.