FABulous

I watched Thunderbirds Are Go! last night (1966). I spotted it and
Thunderbirds 6 at the local Blockbuster reduced to $12.99 so bought
them on spec. I hadn't seen the Thunderbirds since I was a child and
decided to watch them because of the Gerry Anderson/UFO connection.

I rented out the recent Thunderbird Are Go release and couldn't
figure out what the F.A.B. stood for. I looked it up on the Internet
and it says it just was a short form for fabulous.

I thought that was stupid but I have to admit last night after
watching the movie I caught myself thinking that the guy who created
the models was brilliant and that they were in fact fabulous. I then
wondered if that was the whole point. Maybe they used FAB because
everyone that saw the models kept saying how fabulous they were.

Anyway my question is this: only once during the movie did I see any
strings used for the puppets but I seem to recall them as a kid. The
same for the flying aircraft, no strings but if you look carefully in
UFO you can see the wires used on skydiver etc. It suddenly occurred
to me that maybe the strings had been digitally removed when they
transfered the movie over to DVD format. Is this true, does anyone
remember seeing the wires when they watched the show as a kid? I'm
just curious.

> It suddenly occurred
> to me that maybe the strings had been digitally removed when they
> transfered the movie over to DVD format.

No, the strings haven't been removed from any Gerry Anderson
series.... yet... perhaps because it's widescreen that everything
is shrunk down to the point where you can't see the strings
as well.

Marc

--- In [hidden email], Marc Martin <marc@u...> wrote:
>> It suddenly occurred to me that maybe the strings had been
digitally removed when they transfered the movie over to DVD format.
<<

> No, the strings haven't been removed from any Gerry Anderson
series.... yet... perhaps because it's widescreen that everything is
shrunk down to the point where you can't see the strings as well. <

Or it could be something else. I noticed when watching the
Thunderbirds series DVDs that the strings are quite noticeable, and
yet I hardly ever saw them (or so I remember) when the series was
broadcast, both in the 60s and the 90s. Make of that what you will;
I'd've expected the strings to become more noticeable at the larger
screen size.

Phil

Not to mention the higher video resolution of the DVD format, compared to the original PAL or NTSC broadcast signal...

Jeff

Phil <[hidden email]> wrote:



--- In [hidden email], Marc Martin wrote:
>> It suddenly occurred to me that maybe the strings had been
digitally removed when they transfered the movie over to DVD format.
<<

> No, the strings haven't been removed from any Gerry Anderson
series.... yet... perhaps because it's widescreen that everything is
shrunk down to the point where you can't see the strings as well. <

Or it could be something else. I noticed when watching the
Thunderbirds series DVDs that the strings are quite noticeable, and
yet I hardly ever saw them (or so I remember) when the series was
broadcast, both in the 60s and the 90s. Make of that what you will;
I'd've expected the strings to become more noticeable at the larger
screen size.

Phil



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