Thunderbirds-Volume 4 (1964)

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General		Extras
Category	Science Fiction	Main Menu Introduction Main Menu Audio & Animation Featurette-The Tracy Family Gallery-Photo Trivia
Rating
Year Of Production	1964
Running Time	192:43 (Case: 200)
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	David Elliott Desmond Saunders David Lane Alan Pattillo
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	None Given
Case	C-Button-Version 2
RPI	$34.95	Music	Barry Gray

    This volume contains another four episodes:

• Day of Disaster - the Martian Probe rocket (which is being transported fully fuelled for some unexplored reason) causes a bridge to collapse, falls into the water below, and the countdown for lift-off is accidentally triggered. This is a bit of a problem for the men trapped inside.
• Edge of Impact - The Hood is contracted by a foreign general to sabotage the test flights of the Red Arrow. The crashing aircraft damages a broadcast tower, and threatens the lives of the men stuck in the control room at the top.
• Desperate Intruder - Brains and Tintin want to help an archaeologist investigating a temple that's underwater, and not just because of the treasure reputed to be in there. The Hood, however, sees this as an opportunity to combine revenge against International Rescue with a bit of treasure stealing.
• Move and You're Dead - a very unusual episode, told almost completely in flashback. We learn about Alan's racing career, and we discover that Thunderbird 1 is armed (not something I knew before).

    There's a really gorgeous mistake in the same episode. Towards the end of the episode a car is shown being driven along a road. When we see it in long shot it is left-hand drive; when we see it in close-up it is right-hand drive. There are several shots of either type, so you have ample opportunity to confirm it for yourself.

    The only other glitch I have to mention is in Day of Disaster. We are told about how the rocket must be launched from England because of the position of Mars - a launch from Cape Kennedy (remember, this was made in the early 60s, so it was called Cape Kennedy) would have "problems". Considering that we are talking about a trip of tens of millions of kilometres, a difference of a few thousand kilometres is supposed to make a difference?

    Then again, we are talking about Thunderbirds - trying to pick out all of the technical glitches would be foolish. Sit back and enjoy the fun.

Video

    Thunderbirds is a TV series made in the mid 60s - it is therefore presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, and consequently not 16x9 enhanced.

    Sharpness comes in two levels. All the interior shots are sharp and clear, with good shadow detail and no low-level noise - there are films made in the last year or so that could learn from this. Almost all of the exterior shots are models, and the model shots have been been filmed, in many cases, at quite high frame rates, then slowed down for display so that the models seem to move as if they were full-size. Unfortunately, these higher frame rates give the film less time to expose, and yield more grain and reduced sharpness and less shadow detail. Additionally, some of the stock shots (Tracy Island, Thunderbirds in flight, ...) are used often, and the film has been printed repeatedly, yielding reduced sharpness. Add to that one or two shots which are horribly grainy (the opening shot of Edge of Impact, and the sky at 10:12 and 32:35 in Move and You're Dead), and you see that I have been fairly generous in my sharpness rating.

    There are lots of machines painted in solid colours: reds, greens, yellows - plenty of chances for colour to show, but 1960s film stocks can't capture colour as well as modern ones. So, colours are good, but a little less than fully saturated. It is not that the film is a bit faded through age, it is that the colours weren't captured by the original film.

    There are quite a few film artefacts, but they aren't really troublesome - mostly tiny flecks. There has to be aliasing, because the Thunderbirds milieu includes so many objects with parallel lines - grilles, flutes, grooves. The aliasing is quite well-controlled, and never bothersome. The only artefact that annoyed me was telecine wobble - perhaps because it is the most easily controlled. I must say, though, that the wobble was predominantly during the credits, and is unlikely to bother anyone not doing a review.

    The disc is single sided and double layered, but not RSDL-formatted. There is no visible layer change - they appear to have placed two episodes on each layer.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    Dialogue is clear and easily understood. There are no problems with audio sync.

    The score is classic Thunderbirds. Barry Gray did all the music, and it is very consistent. It wouldn't be Thunderbirds without the music.

    The surround sound is quite nice, particularly given the original mono soundtrack. There are some good uses of the surrounds for ambient noise - bird calls, falling rocks, a nice sequence underwater in Day of Disaster.

    The subwoofer is used mostly for explosions, but that's OK - Thunderbirds always has explosions!

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

    I have meant to mention in earlier reviews that there is no separate Play command for each episode. Selecting an episode from the main menu brings up the scene selection for that episode. Pressing Enter starts the episode at the beginning, because Chapter 1 is highlighted.

Featurette - The Tracy Family (15:12)

Original Promotional Stills

Merchandise

Thunderbird Facts

    The video quality is surprisingly good for mid 60s TV.

    The audio quality is good.

    The extras are not as good as previous volumes.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall