lannamichaels

Thomas & Friends: Race for the Sodor Cup (2022): This movie has very nearly nothing at all to do with Thomas The Tank Engine as a long-established media property. It takes the general characters and the general setting, and tossed out nearly everything else that makes it Thomas The Tank Engine. Some engines are now children. Some engines are now adults. They are able to jump up and turn around on the tracks. Multiple trains can be on the same tracks at the same times. The engines are able to get themselves back up if they derail. It is now essentially "characters who happen to be shaped like trains and theoretically move around on tracks"; they are not actually trains. The trains can go up on "their toes" by having their wheels down and their bodies up, and things can go underneath them. At one pivotal moment, two trains deliberately jump off the tracks and onto a grassy hill, drive on it for a bit as a detour, and then jump onto a boat.

This might sound like a complaint. An indictment, if you will. They took a beloved children's media property and removed everything that made it what it was. They turned it into a hollow shell with a cutesy animation scheme and kept the branding to keep the market share from the existing audience. You may think I have a problem with this decision.

I don't.

Because I didn't notice a single moment anyone in this movie was called Really Useful, or prized for being able to work, or follow orders blindly, or not question their superiors, or work overtime in dangerous conditions.

This movie is a wholly contrived story about a train race around Sodor that has three teams of two engines. It has to be two engines because Kana's partner Kenji gets injured before the race, so Thomas has to substitute in. Despite them being fully outclassed, they, of course, win the race. They also are the only team to finish the race, thus necessarily winning by default, but let us not delve too deeply into this.

Meanwhile, the engines all learn the importance of teamwork.

Thomas & Friends: The Mystery of Lookout Mountain (2023): Not yet completed but same as above, with the addition that there is now an autistic train named Bruno, who is a brake car. Thomas The Tank Engine has completed its journey into becoming a kids television show. Welcome.

Diesel is also able to use the front of his bumper as hands.

My Aunt Is A Monster by Reimena Yee: a delightful mid-grade graphic novel about a blind orphan named Safia who is taken in by her Famous Adventurer Aunt (who was turned into a monstrous form eight years ago) and her aunt's former-nanny-later-adventuring-partner, who used to work for a dastardly agency determined to cause chaos. Chaotic actions include stealing artifacts and selling them to private collectors, oh no! Don't worry, the nanny/partner is retired from that life.

When the aunt's old childhood friend/rival/possibly former-significant-other risks befalling the same monstrous fate that she did, she comes out of retirement, and they prevent current chaos agents from causing chaos, on an Exciting Adventure. Great story, great illustrations.

Unicorn on A Roll: Another Phoebe and Her Unicorn Adventure by Dana Simpson: I haven't read the first one but that doesn't really matter; this isn't a single narrative, it's a collection of comic panels/strips about the characters. Enjoyable!

Frankenstein Doesn't Plant Petunias. Graphic novel by Pearl Low, original book by Marcia Thornton Jones and Debbie Dadey. Enjoyable graphic-ization of the original book!

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