he year is 1965. Or is it 2065? Billionaire ex-astronaut Jeff Tracy launches his privately funded, family-operated International Rescue, an organization sworn to uphold Jeff's desire to provide help to anyone in dire need. Backed by Tracy's billions and the innovations of the young scientist Brains, and crewed by his own five sons, International Rescue offers fast and efficient rescue in situations where standard equipment cannot be of help.
This premise is well known to fans of Gerry Anderson's supermarionation show Thunderbirds, now a live-action movie directed by Jonathan Frakes.
The five main rescue vehicles called Thunderbirds are a diverse set of craft designed for unique purposes. Thunderbird 1 is designed to be fast and maneuverable, getting quickly to the danger zone, where it can then become a mobile command station for the rescue operation. Thunderbird 2 is the large cargo transport designed to get rescue gear to the danger zone; it's used to carry Thunderbird 4, a submersible aquatic rescue vehicle. Thunderbird 3's purpose is to conduct space rescues and to provide a link to and from Thunderbird 5, a space station that remains in orbit around Earth in order to monitor all radio signals, keeping a sharp ear out for emergency calls for International Rescue.
Of all these ships, the clear fan favorite for nearly 40 years has been Thunderbird 2. Its design was revolutionary. Bulky and green, it was a large aircraft with an attractive nose and forward-swept wings (a concept foreign at the time but later found to be quite effective; it is used in some military craft). Its rounded form was oddly enticing and its function amazing.
In updating the look of the series for our time, the visual designers of this film have taken it upon themselves to revamp the main characters of the show—the ships.
Bandai, a Japanese company that has long created merchandise from the original 1960s series to meet demand in Japan, has now released an impressive line of toys based on this new, live-action film. Most impressive is its Deluxe Thunderbird 2.
Packaged in a large window box, Thunderbird 2 measures more than 11 inches from tip to engines and is full of features while accurately portraying the sweeping lines of its new design.
Thunderbird 2 maintains the classic nose of the original but has smoother curves that sweep back to its rear engine section. The forward-swept wings are now moved to the rear to form a more unified look with the engines, and there's a less bulky rear spoiler wing. While most of the body is made of a tough resilient plastic that can take a beating, the rear foil and wings are made of a softer, bendable plastic to prevent breakage or injury to children.
Deluxe Thunderbird 2 comes with three of International Rescue's smaller rescue vehicles—Thunderbird 4, the Jet Mole and the Firefly, each of which fits into pods that drop down from Thunderbird 2's belly.
Thunderbird 2 is going to thrill
Bandai is well known among collectors for its merchandising of the Thunderbirds, the popularity of which has never faded in Japan or, for that matter, in most of the world outside the United States. Bandai's die-cast Jet Moles and its detailed Thunderbird 2s, complete with pods and rescue vehicles, are the stuff of collectors' dreams. The company has created some of the most definitive model kits based on Thunderbirds for decades now. If you were a Thunderbirds fan in the 1980s, Bandai was one company you could consistently turn to for excellent, lovingly crafted merchandise.
And they've done it again. The new Thunderbird 2 is quite large and hefty but costs under $20 in some places. Yet it is so fully featured it is reminiscent of the higher-priced Japanese imports. And the good news for collectors is that this toy line, unlike its earlier counterparts, will be available outside Japan.
This toy is covered in push-button features, and one of the nicest things about it is that each of these buttons is smoothly integrated into the shell of the body rather than awkwardly sticking up or otherwise calling attention to itself. Yet these buttons are not difficult to find.
At the four corners are small square buttons that release the landing gear. A hard tug on each individual telescoping landing leg snaps it into place, allowing the four together to hold the weight of Thunderbird 2 as it drops its rescue vehicles at the danger zone. A good hard shove snaps the legs back into place again once the rescue mission is over.
Just behind the cockpit on the tortoiselike back is a centrally located button that drops a rescue pod from the belly of the craft. In a departure from the original, these pods aren't separate from the ship; they drop down without leaving the body. As soon as a pod drops, with simple smooth action (proving the old adage that if gravity works, no complex mechanism is required), the door drops down of its own accord to house one of three rescue vehicles. To retract the pod, simply close the door and push the pod back into the belly of Thunderbird 2, where it will click into place smoothly.
In what may come as a surprise to fans of the original design, two buttons mounted further down the back cause two more pods to drop down, side by side, just behind the front pod. Each one operates as smoothly as the front pod, and each has room for one of the three rescue vehicles.
Each of the miniature rescue vehicles offers something special as well. The newly redesigned Thunderbird 4 now looks more like a submersible exploration vehicle, and as you roll it along a surface on its tiny wheels the two manipulator arms wiggle up and down. As you move the Jet Mole forward, its wheels cause the digging nose cone to rotate. When the Firefly is rolled along on its rubber tractor tires, the front bulldozer blade rises up and down.
That should be enough for Thunderbirds fans to be sure they got their money's worth. But there is one button left, which is mounted at the rear, just where you would hold Thunderbird 2 to fly it around the room. This one activates a sound chip that plays engine noise and lights up the clear red engine housings. Holding this button down causes the pitch of the engine to rise. Let go and the pitch drops again. The only flaw in this design is that the engine noise stops suddenly, where it might have been better to end it with the rocket blast of landing jets. There is a slide-switch mounted between the engines to shut off the sound. Every toy with a sound chip should have this feature; sadly, few do.
Bandai truly delivers with the Deluxe Thunderbird 2. Quality, solid design, details, features—this one has them all, in a toy that is fun for the adult collector and at the same time is rugged enough that the most energetic child will not get the better of it.
