h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Do you not think that there were too many nods back to the first film (Spider-Man not Thunderbirds)?


And not one mention of the J Jonah Jameson guy getting a lot morelines and being funnier tut


I thought you would have mentioned the shot which looks almost exactly like the comic panel...

Is Gordon Tracy still the only ginger hero ever in the Thunderbirds movie, or have they made his hair a more socially acceptable colour?

I thought the old/new balance in SM2 was just about right. If I'd picked out everygood thing about the movie I'd still be writing the review.

Gordon Tracy isn't ginger. (I don't think he ever really was.) In the new movie he's, er, incredibly bland and nondescript. The Tracy brothers are more like a boy band than a bunch of action heroes.

Looking on the bright side Gordon is no longer such an obvious halfwit, it was blatantly obvious in the TV show why they would only let him drive the submarine ad not anything with rocket motors.

http://www.algonet.se/~tourtel/interests/thunderbirds.html

Check his picture (Ginger) and a few episodes to see how heroic and intelligent the Mighty Gordon Tracy was. Despite the twin handicaps of being ginger and having to drive a submersible Del Boy van.

Another entirely pointful h2g2 convo begins...

The colour balance in those photos looks a bit screwy to me. Alan's hair is a bit more platinum, less golden, as I recall. I will concede that Gordon's hair is a brownish shade of strawberry blond.

www.thunderbirds1.hpg.ig.com.br

depicts a very brown-haired Gordon.

Anyway, I direct your attnetion to the episode Terror in New York City where Thunderbird 2 gets shot down by the trigger-happy US Navy, wrecking the plane and crocking Virgil, and *Gordon manages to forget about this*, and The Uninvited, where Scott radios TB2 and says something along the lines of 'Scott Tracy to TB2' to which Gordon's rather manic response is 'Listen Virgil! It sounds like Scott!!!'

The Tracy family have made a great contribution to the quality of life of many people. But let's face it, when it comes to the crunch it's Scott or Virgil you want actually rescuing you.

Yeah Alan's not up to standard, Gordon's and idiot and John.... well he's scientifically 'gone a bit weird' up there in Thunderbird 5...

Well, he does wear the lilac sash...

Apparently Gerry Anderson thought John Tracy was 'weird' which is why he was only allowed down from the space station during episodes made while Anderson was on holiday...

But... But he invented John!!

And as for Scott. What did he and T1 accomplish that a phone call couldn't?

*T1 Lands*
*Scott gets out*

The rescue equipment will be here in an hour...

*twiddles thumbs*

Any chance of a cup of tea??

Well, presumably when the puppet came back from the sculptor Anderson must have gone 'Eeuuurrrgh! Off to the space station with you!'

Scott's job was to recce the scene using his remote TV camera etc, sort out a landing zone for TB2, and basically organise everything so TB2 could get straight on with the rescue. He also occasionally does minor-rescue type stuff himself as in the episode I believe entitled 'End of the Road' where he stabilises that week's peril so there's still somebody left to rescue when Virgil actually arrives.

But he didn't do anything too skilful, y'know, that ooh, I dunno, Gordon could have done if he'd been allowed one of the bigger toys?

If only we knew who you were International Rescue with that billionaire's island and famous father.... And in fact hadthe radar switched on to track...

How those crazy Americans have managed not to notice Thunderbird 5, I'll never know...

Especially since it's set in the future!


"Parker, get the Rolls Royce."

"Ja mein Herr."

Why would Parker call Lady P 'my Mister?'

He's old.

Fair enough. The German speaking?

Doesn't matter.

It does.

I did always wonder how long it took about eight of them to excavate all those silos, build all the equipment, etc...

I recall one episode where Scott turns up and says 'we'll only rescue you if you promise not to point your radar at us when we leave' and another where the world government, following a spate of thefts by Thunderbirds impersonators, announces that - shock! - the next time International Rescue leap into action they will be tracked back to their base by radar.

The previously-mentioned navy-shoot-down-Thunderbird 2 episode makes it clear that these aren't stealth Thunderbirds... though the movie suggests otherwise.