Thunderbird 6

In 2068, the New World Aircraft Corporation in England gives Brains an open brief to design a revolutionary aircraft. Brains suggests an airship, prompting howls of laughter from the executives. Nevertheless, his proposal is accepted and the corporation builds Skyship One, a fully automated craft powered by an anti-gravity field. Representing International Rescue for the maiden flight – a round-the-world trip with computer-programmed stops – are Alan Tracy, Tin-Tin Kyrano, Lady Penelope and Parker. Brains is forced to stay on Tracy Island after Jeff asks him to design a sixth Thunderbird machine. Working without a specification, Brains produces a range of concepts but Jeff rejects them all. Alan and Tin-Tin fly to England in Alan's restored Tiger Moth biplane. They meet up with Penelope and Parker and the four of them board Skyship One. As the airship departs on its voyage, the group are unaware that Captain Foster and the stewards have been murdered and replaced by agents of the Hood, now operating as "Black Phantom" from an abandoned airfield near Casablanca. As the ship is automated, the impostors do not need to demonstrate any technical knowledge and are able to avoid raising their guests' suspicions. After Skyship One leaves the Egyptian pyramids, Penelope finds a bugging device in her bedroom. Foster and his men have been recording and editing her voice to assemble a fake radio message asking Jeff to send Thunderbirds 1 and 2 to the airfield, where the Hood and his men plan to capture the two craft. Parker uncovers the editing equipment, but before the group can act, the impostors complete the message and transmit it to Tracy Island via Thunderbird 5. Jeff immediately dispatches Scott and Virgil in Thunderbirds 1 and 2, but Alan realises that his brothers are flying into a trap and Penelope manages to relay the warning just in time. Landing at the airfield, Scott and Virgil use the Thunderbirds rocket launchers to destroy the Hood's base. They then take off to rendezvous with Skyship One. Aboard the airship, the guests engage the impostors in a shootout. Tin-Tin is taken hostage, forcing their surrender. During the fighting, the anti-gravity system is damaged, causing the ship to lose altitude and crash into a radio mast at a missile base near Dover. With Skyship One balanced precariously on top of the mast and its anti-gravity field weakening, it is up to Scott, Virgil and Brains to rescue everyone on board before the ship collapses onto the base below. Scott and Virgil are unable to approach the airship without tipping it over with their thrusters and there are no Thunderbird 2s pod vehicles light enough to deploy onto it. At Gordon's suggestion, Brains flies the Tiger Moth up to the top deck to airlift the passengers and crew to safety, only to be held at gunpoint by Foster and his surviving henchmen. With Penelope a hostage in the plane's cockpit, Foster tries to take off but is shot dead by Alan. The Tiger Moth launches with the guests and impostors clinging on to the wings and landing gear. Shortly after, Skyship One finally crashes to the ground, starting a chain reaction that obliterates the missile base. The remaining impostors are killed in a gunfight aboard the Tiger Moth. Stray bullets puncture the fuel tank, forcing Penelope to make an emergency landing. After near misses with a factory chimney, a bridge on the M104 motorway and a tree, Penelope ditches the plane into a field. Parker is thrown out when the plane clips the tree top and ends up dangling in its branches before falling to the ground. Back on Tracy Island, Brains unveils the new Thunderbird 6 as none other than the repaired Tiger Moth, which all agree has proven its worth in the field. ==Production==

Despite the critical and commercial failure of Thunderbirds Are Go, distributors United Artists (UA) ordered a sequel. Filmed on a budget of £300,000 (approximately £ million in ), Thunderbird 6 had largely the same production credits as the first film; Gerry and Sylvia Anderson returned as writers and producers, while David Lane reprised the role of director. The Andersons wrote the script in three months, originally intending the film to be about a "Russo-American space project". The focus was changed to an airship when their associate Desmond Saunders suggested basing the film on the destruction of the R101. In preparation, Gerry read books on the R101 and other airships, including the R100 and the Graf Zeppelin. The full model name is not spoken. Except for John Tracy and Black Phantom/the Hood, all the returning characters were voiced by the actors who had played them in the first film. The new additions to the voice cast were: • Keith Alexander as John Tracy and the Narrator. Ray Barrett, the original voice of John, had returned to his native Australia. Most of the guest character puppets were recycled from Thunderbirds Are Go, although the Captain Foster puppet was a new creation. The Skyship One filming model was built by effects director Derek Meddings, who also oversaw the construction of scale replicas of the various locations seen in the film, such as the Great Sphinx of Giza and the Grand Canyon. A Swiss Alps sequence called for FAB 1, Penelope's Rolls-Royce, to skate across the ice with miniatures of Alan and Tin-Tin following on skis. To accommodate the amount of movement this entailed, the effects crew built a set wide. It was the largest set used on the film and was filled with salt to simulate snow. Aerial stunts Some of the scenes featuring the Tiger Moth, such as Alan and Tin-Tin leaving Tracy Island, were shot using scale models. Other scenes were filmed on location with a full-size Tiger Moth. Joan Hughes, a ferry pilot who had flown fighters and bombers in the Second World War, was hired to pilot the plane and be Lady Penelope's human stunt double. The location shoot was held at Wycombe Air Park. By the end of summer, the grass around the park had turned brown, so the effects team corrected the colour by applying green paint. Some time later, the production was informed that a local farmer's prize ram had died and that when the animal had been cut open a large amount of green paint had been found inside. Concluding that the ram had been poisoned, the production apologised and compensated the farmer, and production manager Norman Foster gave the farmer's wife a bunch of flowers. glides under the bridge. This flying code violation led to a failed prosecution of pilot Joan Hughes and production manager Norman Foster. The fictional M104 motorway was represented by the M40, unfinished at the time. During one of the takes, a crosswind sprang up, causing the dummies to create drag. Hughes feared losing control if the plane connected with the motorway, so remained in the air, clearing the bridge by as originally planned. Music The score was recorded between 1 and 5 February 1968 at Olympic Studios with a 56-member orchestra. The opening credits music, which Archer and Hearn describe as "jaunty", plays over shots of Skyship One as it sits on the tarmac at NWAC headquarters. The soundtrack was commercially released as a limited-edition CD in 2005. ==Release and reception==

Completed in December 1967, Thunderbird 6 was certified U by the British Board of Film Censors on 22 January 1968 but did not go on general release until six months later. It had its premiere at the Odeon Leicester Square on 29 July. Critical response Thunderbird 6 was a critical and box office failure. Its poor reception put an end to plans for another sequel. In a contemporary review for the Daily Mail, critic Barry Norman described Thunderbird 6 as a showcase of "technical excellence" but also noted its "class-conscious" side, pointing out that manservant Parker is the butt of several jokes in the film. Stephen La Rivière attributes the film's failure to a loss of public interest in Thunderbirds: by the time the film was released, the TV series had been cancelled and the final episode ("Give or Take a Million") had been broadcast over a year earlier. Responding to claims that the tone is markedly different from that of Thunderbirds Are Go, Gerry Anderson said that because months had passed since the last TV episode, Century 21 was "much more aware with [Thunderbird 6] that it wasn't just a question of making a longer episode, but it was, indeed, to make something special for the cinema." John Peel is dismissive of the film, negatively comparing it to the "well-made fun" of Thunderbirds Are Go. He calls it "a feeble last fling for a brilliant series" with an over-long and illogical plot, weak jokes and not enough action. Jim Schembri of The Age praises the story and describes the film as having a "snappier pace, with an action climax leaps ahead of anything in the latest Bond epic." The Film4 website gives three out of five, praising Century 21's decision to introduce more realistically proportioned puppets. It favourably compares the film to the 2004 live-action adaptation. The review describes the film as "entertaining if antiquated" and "a slice of kid-friendly cinema made for a far more innocent age." ==Home video==

Thunderbird 6 was first released on DVD in Regions 2 and 4 by MGM in 2001. Special features included an audio commentary by Sylvia Anderson and director David Lane. In 2004, an "International Rescue Edition", released both separately and as a box set with Thunderbirds Are Go, went on sale in Regions 1, 2 and 4 with additional special features including three making-of documentaries. In 2014, Twilight Time, through their sub-licensing deal with MGM, released Thunderbird 6 on Blu-ray as a double feature set with Thunderbirds Are Go. This was limited to 3,000 copies and available only through the Screen Archives Entertainment website. The set was re-released by Kino Lorber in 2017. ==See also==