Thomas & Friends Wood - A Review and Retrospective

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PlumCasualties

Күн бұрын

Пікірлер: 37

@PlumCasualties Ай бұрын

I forgot to mention another canceled item: Fully painted Stanley, who was planned to be re-released in 2019.

@emilioescobedo8487 Ай бұрын

This will remind fans on why BWBA became an era rather than just a movie. Mattel tampered with the toys' accuracy, and they didn't know until the show ended. That's why AEG Trackmaster and Die-cast, and New Wooden Railway are more detailed. Mattel learned their mistake... But they did the unnecessary on the original.

@joshuaW5621 Ай бұрын

I still can’t believe Mattel thought it was a good idea to put out half painted toys.

@FlyingDuckMan360 Ай бұрын

@joshuaW5621 IMO, Mattel did this on purpose because they hate Thomas and are deliberately trying to send him to the scrapyard.

@adultmoshifan87 Ай бұрын

Some of which look more like prototypes! Then again, many of their more recent AEG toys look more like BOOTLEGS!

@theislandofsodorfilmstudio4975 Ай бұрын

I still remember how mad everyone was when Thomas Wood was announced.

@PlumCasualties Ай бұрын

Same.

@adultmoshifan87 Ай бұрын

Thomas Wood is not only the worst official Thomas toy line I know of, it may be one of THE worst toy lines EVER, top the point where even the Over The Top action figure line is better! If I ever have kids, I will be VERY careful what movies, music, TV shows, games, books and toys I give them! I haven't seen a whole episode of AEG but from the clips and storyboards I've seen, it's SO bad, it even makes Dora The Explorer look like Sofia The First! It saddens me that MANY parents let their little ones RELY on Peppa Pig and/or Cocomelon, not stopping to think that there MIGHT be BETTER stuff they could show them! Mattel really are doing a terrible job with Thomas as a whole. That around the world series from the late 2010s was bad enough, but AEG has absolutely NO regard for the original RWS source material, even the Mike Myers Cat in The Hat movie has more respect for the book it's "adapted from"! We REALLY need a more caring company to come forward, buy Thomas from Mattel, make the original cuts of the pre-2000s seasons (WITHOUT the blooper reel footage!) easily available again, guarantee new high quality merchandise again and give Thomas the reboot it ACTUALLY deserves! If I have a kid in the near future and Thomas STILL isn't properly nursed back to health, I would actively seek out pre-existing Brio and TWR products (making sure to avoid TWR products affected by the 2007 lead recall!) and I might even get hold of the Bigjigs Flying Scotsman and Great Western engines, making them into a Thomas Flying Scotsman and Duck respectively! Hey, I gotta get a 3D printer someday, don't I? If I were made the new owner of Thomas tomorrow, I would get the original pre-2000s seasons back on TV the way they were originally shown (so none of the blooper reel footage seen in later remasters!), I'd let Tomy have the motorized and die cast toy rights (they bought Ertl, hence why they'd also get the die cast rights) and I'd give Brio the wooden toy rights (they DID have a Thomas range at one point, and even released their own versions of some destinations, including Wellsworth Station and Henry's Tunnel!) but I'd still let Mattel make Thomas Minis! Of course I'd produce a whole new Thomas & Friends reboot series not long into my ownership of the brand! I'd bring back almost everything that made the pre-2000s seasons and The Railway Series great, I'd also bring back the HiT era's few redeeming qualities! One change I'd make to make the show a bit more diverse is in my reboot, Duck would be female (said engine WAS female until season 17 in the Greek dub!). My first choice of animation studio would be Blue Zoo (Digby Dragon, The Adventures of Paddington, Pip and Posy) and my first choice of storyteller would be Adam Hills (Mock The Week, The Last Leg).

@sammyclark4992 Ай бұрын

Thomas Wood was always doomed to fail when they thought putting half painted toys on shelves was a good idea. If they wanted to cost, why even bother rebranding or continuing the Wooden Railway line? Genuinely probably the stupidest thing Mattel has done for the franchise. I will agree that the painted releases for the characters look better, and I too really like a few them like Harvey and Diesel, for instance. I also thought Ashima looked better than her Wooden Railway counterpart because even though they both suffer from being cut too short, Wood Ashima does look more visually accurate and colorful compared to Wooden Railway Ashima. Emily was the only big engine that I thought looked somewhat decent because her tender out of everyone was the closest to a square shape in the official series and her smokebox and funnel don't look squashed like her damn Wooden Railway models.

@KrazyPuffz Ай бұрын

Thomas wood is railway series accurate only with the small faces

@PlumCasualties Ай бұрын

True.

@Silverlink385 Ай бұрын

but so is TWR 2017 though

@ryanlister1244 Ай бұрын

@@PlumCasualties Hi there, dude, there is a Thomas lost fan media from 2006 if interested to hear it.

@PlumCasualties Ай бұрын

@ryanlister1244 Sure, what is it?

@ryanlister1244 Ай бұрын

@@PlumCasualties Well, mate, another piece of Thomas Fan Lost Media from 2006 is Felix Cheng's New Engine Slideshow series.

@blueteethdog Ай бұрын

This is such a cool video

@FlyingDuckMan360 Ай бұрын

Thomas Wood was one of the greatest disasters ever to hit Thomas the Tank Engine. It didn't help that it came out in late 2017. Around this time, Mattel was making decisions that were more likely to send Thomas to the scrapyard, such as pulling his TV show from PBS despite it having twice been a long-running staple of that network, pulling Edward and Henry from the Steam Team in favor of Nia and Rebecca, and making DVD releases more scarce. Mattel simply could have just kept Thomas Wooden Railway going and released models of the Journey Beyond Sodor characters for that line; Merlin, Theo, Lexi, Frankie, Hurricane, and Beresford, but no, they chose to do something so idiotic. Because of the half-painted stated of Thomas Wood, the shrunken models of bigger engines, and the track system that was incompatible with Thomas Wooden Railway and other leading wooden train systems like BRIO, Orbrium, Maxim, Melissa and Doug, NameTrains, and ZanyTrains, I ended up jumping ship to the aforementioned leading wooden train systems. While the Wood line began to show signs of improvement in the years that followed, such as having the engines be fully painted again and re-introducing Edward, Henry, and Toby, those factors weren't enough to save the line. While Thomas Wooden Railway was re-introduced in 2022 with newer models that were more accurate to their TV series counterparts, once again, Mattel chose not to keep a good thing going in the following years. Instead of giving us new models of characters like Duck, Donald, Douglas, Oliver, Toad, and Daisy (which is what I would have done if I were in charge of the line), they gave us new Day Out With Thomas models in the following years, followed by a celebration pack and a new set. Because of Mattel's horrid mistreatment of Thomas in general, I cut ties with them in 2023 and those ties are going to remain cut until they either stop mistreating Thomas or give his rights to a company that respects the legacy that the Rev. W. Awdry and Britt Allcroft spent decades building up. As much as I want to be optimistic about 2025 being a better year, especially with Thomas' 80th anniversary coming up, I just don't see it happening unless another company acquires Thomas' rights.

@PlumCasualties Ай бұрын

Well put. I've been more interested in non-Thomas wooden railway items as well, mainly stuff from Whittle Shortline and Choo Choo Track & Toy Co. (I don't own any yet, sadly). I also don't think this franchise will get any better. I would love to see a Railway Series collection of all of Christopher Awdry's books, or maybe a collection that includes both Wilbert and Christopher's books in one for the 80th anniversary, but I don't see it happening. Also, I've seen your videos and comments on other videos before.

@abbeyroadfan94-J.P Ай бұрын

Harvey and Thomas are the only wood items I got

@abbeyroadfan94-J.P Ай бұрын

Also forgot to mention I got a wood Toby(bought him from a friend

@SuperDavidBrothers Ай бұрын

I actually like the original Harvey because he's from the model series and the model series is just so much better than the CGI series in my opinion despite the fact that Harvey isn't the correct color of body shape. I would rather just not spend on this line entirely because even though the little engines look great (especially both Harvey and Diesel), the rest of the line sucks and Edward looks great, just not with a square tender. I'll just stick to the 2022 reboot instead and get the 8 main steam characters along with both Rosie and Diesel too! As for worst Thomas merchandise, I would definitely have to say by far Hornby, Nakayoshi, and Trackmaster/Tomy Thomases for sure man! Hornby's models are just way too expensive, big and just don't at all represent the characters from the show (which is why I like Bachmann better as their models are just so much better than Hornby's which is why I'm just so super duper glad they're both still making models and still both very successful to this day)! Nakayoshi is essentially the Japanese version of Ertl that just looks more terrible and creepy than Ertl in my opinion and it didn't get released here in the states I don't think man (and I think that's for the better because I especially don't like how they don't look anywhere near like the original characters in the show). As for Trackmaster/Tomy, they also don't look anywhere near accurate to the show, and I also just don't like how you have to replace the batteries all the time and activate a lever in them all the time on their cabs (so annoying omg). I also just don't like the connectors and nor do I like the creepy looking faces or models on some characters (such as Duck, Oliver, and that's about it). Lastly, this is more a complaint about the show than it is about Thomas merch, but I don't like how they made Bertram just a copy of Duke where he's the same model but he's painted a darker brown and has Smudger's face on it. Why couldn't they just bring back Duke in the episode (a Railway series character) instead of just introduce a brand new character like Bertram (a TV series character) that was a copy of an existing character from the railway series, show him once, and then never again (and why couldn't they also bring Duke back in the CGI series along with also the Mountain Engines, Jock, Frank, Wilbert, Sixteen, and more)?

@huntponce9663 Ай бұрын

I remember going to travel town in la and they where selling the unpainted version of the flying scotsman and i thing the unpainted belle and rocky

@eslm-studios2996 Ай бұрын

Thomas Wood was definitely a start of decline. Sure, there were missteps with Adventures and Trackmaster, but none of them were as bad as Wood. The moment that was introduced, Mattel made their biggest mistake yet with the franchise.

@PlumCasualties Ай бұрын

The beginning of the end for the franchise.