Thomas & Friends: Journey Beyond Sodor

I wasn't all too impressed with this movie on my first watch. I did not care for the characters being able to unrealistically move their bodies, and I especially didn't care for the needless musical numbers. Also, the whole "Thomas goes to the mainland" felt overused. We've seen him do this in various episodes, and even one of the movies. It didn't feel like a genuinely epic journey. "We can't do anything" is really catchy, however. I loved seeing James take a more prominent role, but this movie felt too "meh" to really be on the same level as other Thomas movies. It didn't feel new or exciting.

Not a fan of this pointless movie, and I think this movie was weird was because of the bankruptcy of Arc Productions, HiT has turned themselves into Mattel, and has now done a lot worse with the franchise, and this movie was overrated, Beresford is one of the most ridiculous characters in history, they could've cut his appearances here and in Thomas and the Royal Engine, Merling is the Best experimental engine, Theo is shy and moves like he's having a breakdown, Lexi is unbelievably annoying, and Hurricane and Frankie and not great villains, the pacing was bad

6.5/10.

From watching the trailer, reading the reviews of everyone who also has seen the trailer and segment of the movie, the "endless" debate about how the new effects will affect the 22nd season of Thomas and Friends, and the complaining that this is nothing but a Thomas/Chuggington collaboration, but most importantly, watching the movie for the umpteenth time, its my turn to give my thought about if this series will be the end of Thomas and Friends as we know it, or the start of something new.

Body Language: The moment when I saw that Thomas and his friends are now able to use the same features as the characters from Chuggington, using "body language" I actually like the fact that it didn't stand out too much as to what everyone feared, maybe the effect was used a little too much, but none of the engines jumped off the rails, or did back wheelies. Why I liked it was because it gives engines more human quality, showing expressions and getting the message across t. Although the effect was used too much, the movie itself, in my opinion are experiments that the producers wanted to show to the audience what will happen in the future and give their feedback about what to change, do and so on.

target audience: Although i'm 25, each time I watch the newest movie or episode, I feel like 5 years old again but watch the audience in my range should understand is that the company itself is targeting towards families with the new generation of children that are being introduced to the Thomas franchise. None of them know about the models that were used in the earlier series, so none of them could possibly know how the series started.

Overall, I loved the movie, the new features, effects that will be used and with the way the company is going, especially with what happened in the movie itself, I hope that in the upcoming movies and episodes, we will get to see more of whats "Beyond Sodor".

Goodies: A Nice Concept Of Taking Place To The Steelworks

The Animation Is Still Great (In Most Areas)

Some Catchy Songs

The Details Of The North Western Railway Look Nice

James And Thomas' Rivalry

Merlin Is A Decent New Character

The Massive Aerial Shots Of Every Set Look Great

Henry's Crash Is Suspense-fully Amazing

Baddies: The Animation Was Ruined Due To Distracting Bouncing On The Trains

The Mainland Sets Look Rushed And Empty In Some Areas

It Has A Confusing Decision On Where It Takes Place In

The Other Songs Like "Who's Thomas" And "The Experimental Engines" Are Like Stretched Conversations

My Rate: Okay.

We are huge Thomas fans normally and enjoy a huge range of Sodor films from the good old Ringo Starr ones right up to The Great Race. Unfortunately this film seriously lets down the whole franchise. I think the makers have tried too hard to explore a whole range of modern issues and in the confusion have forgotten that the most important thing is to tell a good story well! The songs are also awful. The DVD will definitely not be on our Christmas list!