Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go
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 "Once the Americans get hold of it, the whole series would be vulgarised and ruined." -Rev. W. Awdry's statement about Thomas the Tank Engine (Cancelled 1976 Musical Television Series), 1973. He turned out to be right 48 years later.
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Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go is an American-Canadian 2D animated children's television series that serves as a reboot/spin-off of the original Thomas & Friends series that ran from 1984 to 2021, which is a very loose adaptation of The Railway Series of books created by the late Reverend W. Awdry. The series was originally set to be the show's twenty-fifth season before Mattel Television confirmed that it was a separate series altogether. In addition, it introduced "an entirely new approach to Thomas & Friends content", with a new animation style and story structure. Unlike the original series, All Engines Go was developed in both the United States and Canada rather than in the United Kingdom.
The show was announced on October 12, 2020, and it received major backlash from fans. After the trailer was accidentally posted on January 27, 2021, it received mixed reviews from critics but gained widespread negative reactions from fans and parents alike.
Why It Is The Most Disgraceful, Disgusting, And Despicable TRAINWRECK
- To get Thomas into his shed, the idea of rebooting Thomas & Friends (while not the worst idea) is just completely unnecessary because the original series was already so much of a classic to the point where a reboot was essentially unneeded. Plus, the HIT/Sharon Miller, and Big World! Big Adventures! eras (seasons 9-16 and 22-24 respectively) were considered by fans to have confusion and delay too since they caused the show to go downhill. Not to mention the reboot first aired in Mexico 7 months after the original show ended in the UK, earlier than the US airing. If Mattel wanted the series to continue, they could've simply resumed the continuity of the original series or even moved on with the BWBA era rather than taking the big risk of rebooting the show in a completely different style to something unrecognizable as well as discarding any of the continuity the original show had.
- What's not helping with the first pointer is that this show has a very poor grasp of the source material, perhaps even worse compared to most other botched reboots for many reasons:
- A big problem with this flaw can be that it's also shown to be unfaithful to the source material’s realism and completely misses the spirit of what made the original series and the books that it was therefore based on so special and famous in the first place. The original show and books were about anthropomorphic talking trains going on adventures and working on their railway in a realistic setting. On the other hand, this show is about young trains having fun playing around and occasionally working in a very unrealistic setting.
- The most ironic thing about the reboot is that it happened to coincide with Thomas' 75th anniversary since his debut in 1946 as a character in the second book of the Railway Series called Thomas the Tank Engine. It may not help with this that Thomas has been turned into a disgrace to the public as of today by Mattel.
- Unlike the Bob the Builder reboot, post-Season 5 of Fireman Sam, the Netflix era of VeggieTales, Noddy, Toyland Detective and the 2016 reboot of Monster High, which at least kept their original premises despite being unfaithful to their original respective source materials, this reboot completely throws the premise from the original series into the water.
- The only reason why it was made was just so it could cash in on a nostalgic icon. In other words, it was made as a pandering monster that couldn't be escaped.
- This is also due to the horrible direction from Jason Groh, Campbell Bryer (this show marks his directing debut, by the way), and Sean V. Jeffrey, all Nelvana employees who mostly know nothing about the original series and haven't done an ounce of research.
- It’s pretty shocking because both Groh and Jeffrey used to be good at directing shows.
- Three words: quantity over quality. Despite its massive controversy and the fact that it has received universal backlash by everyone who understands what Thomas truly is (even children as young as 2 or 3), it seems to be still running so Mattel can make further profits off of it.
- After reverting to their original personalities in the Andrew Brenner and BWBA eras, most of the characters' personalities have been dumbed down all over again. But due to the terrible changes this reboot made, the butchering levels have gotten higher.
- Thomas himself is depicted as a “flawless” tank engine who always misbehaves and acts like a complete moron.
- As seen in the unaired pilot, he has an allergy to hay, which he never had in the original show or the Railway Series books, and in the main show, he is quite egotistical. For example, in "Rules of the Game", he makes the other engines do his obstacle course his way and not anyone else's, but eventually comes through in the end. In "The Super-Long Shortcut", he's completely annoying to Gordon who is trying to get a delivery done and takes him the completely wrong way and gets himself and Gordon lost.
- He is now also shown to be selfish. In "Dragon Run", he doesn't give his friends a chance to pull the dragon.
- What isn't helping is that because Thomas is now a flawless tank engine, he never gets punished or even scolded when he gets in trouble; he gets away with everything, despite being called a "hero".
- He is now also shown to be selfish. In "Dragon Run", he doesn't give his friends a chance to pull the dragon.
- As seen in the unaired pilot, he has an allergy to hay, which he never had in the original show or the Railway Series books, and in the main show, he is quite egotistical. For example, in "Rules of the Game", he makes the other engines do his obstacle course his way and not anyone else's, but eventually comes through in the end. In "The Super-Long Shortcut", he's completely annoying to Gordon who is trying to get a delivery done and takes him the completely wrong way and gets himself and Gordon lost.
- Percy, instead of a very cheeky and naive but still very useful and brave engine that audiences best know him as, is a complete coward who goes along with whatever stupid stuff Thomas does.
- Annie and Clarabel have gone from kind, faithful but stern coaches at times to being portrayed as elderly figures who can sometimes be overbearing.
- Sir Topham Hatt, who, in the UK dub, is no longer referred to as "The Fat Controller", has reverted to his bad Sharon Miller-era self where he now serves as a pointless comic relief who messes up. What's worse is that he doesn't even appear regularly to give the engines their jobs or discipline them, which he at least did in the Sharon Miller era (seasons 12-16). But here, he does not act as a parental figure and his purpose seems to be comically overreacting to everything.
- Not even the Troublesome Trucks are safe; instead of being trouble-making trucks that like causing confusion and delay and crashes, they are now jokesters with a mere lack of personality.
- Diesel, who has long been the troublemaker of the franchise and had animosity towards steam engines because of his arrogance and beliefs that diesels are better than steamies, is retooled as one of Thomas's friends for some reason. He fortunately still has somewhat of a mischievous side, but his personality is now essential to that of James in the original series and books.
- Speaking of James, he has been reduced to a minor character for the most part. His dialogue is usually little more than just saying 'Hello' to whomever he passes, showing they forgot he even existed.
- Nia is still bland as a character with a very generic personality, but she has been worsened to the point of being very dumb, as in "Thomas Blasts Off", she tries to go into a small tunnel with the shell of a huge rocket on a flatbed, repeatedly banging the shell against the roof of the too small tunnel entrance, such actions of which could damage, or worse, destroy the shell. She should have been smart enough to know that. Moreover, in "Nia's Perfect Plan" she acts egotistical by refusing to accept that there's something wrong with her plan and acts just like Thomas in "Rules of the Game."
- Terence has been flanderized to such an absurd degree that it comes off as character assassination since he now has ADHD and is portrayed as a hyperactive maniac who causes mischief all the time, when Terence wasn't like that as he was down-to-earth and knew what he was doing, and giving him ADHD was a questionable decision since he was a more calm character and ADHD is a disorder that gives people short attention spans and can make them impulsive at times, which is far too deep and dark for a type of show like this, and they dumb it down for it's intended audience, making this version of Terence a far cry from his original counterpart in both the Railway Series and original series.
- Not to mention that it's offensive to people with ADHD, since it's clear that they only gave Terence ADHD as a marketing stunt (like Bruno's autism) and to ruin the source material of The Railway Series and original Thomas & Friends from 1984 to 2021 even further, which is very disrespectful to Wilbert Awdry since he wouldn't have liked it if Terence was given ADHD and any type of engines were given disorders and syndromes or Special Needs in general, since they're objects and are manufactured, and are supposed to be controlled by humans, thus they cannot have Special Needs. In other words, they disrespected a dead man's work and decided to profit on it due to the success of the reboot itself.
- Thomas himself is depicted as a “flawless” tank engine who always misbehaves and acts like a complete moron.
- All the tender engines no longer live at Tidmouth Sheds. This includes Gordon, James, Emily, Rebecca (who has thus far been absent from the show), and by extension, Edward, Henry, and Toby.
- 'Child trains' and 'adult trains' are now a thing. Yes, in the original series, Thomas had a bubbly, childlike personality and Gordon was more like a pompous adult. But in this version, the 'adults' are now twice the height and several times the length of the 'children'. For steam engines, the basic rule seems to be that the tank engines are kids, and the tender engines are adults, but this also affects more mature tank engines like Nia and less mature tender engines like James.
- However, Ashima, Whiff, and Toby, who are tank engines, are adults.
- Its continuity is standalone with almost no connection to the books and original series. The only connections are the characters and the Island of Sodor, and pretty much that’s all it is (Although the events of "Yong Bao and the Tiger" were mentioned in "The Tiger Train"). Given the changes the reboot made it is best that it is non-canon from other Thomas media.
- As aforementioned, most of the engines in Tidmouth Sheds are replaced. This only leaves Thomas, Nia, and Percy with no explanation, not even so much as an episode like "Forever and Ever" from BWBA. Say what you will about that episode, but at least it acknowledged the changes!
- The 2D animation looks mediocre, cheap, and slightly uncanny and is a massive downgrade from the CGI animated seasons of the original show, especially the Andrew Brenner era (Seasons 17-21). But even the Sharon Miller and BWBA eras, to an extent, had way better animation than this. Usually, a show transitioning from 2D animation, live-action, or stop-motion to CGI animation like Bob the Builder Ready, Steady, Build!, the Monster High specials in 2012 starting with “Why Do Ghouls Fall in Love?”, and Thomas & Friends starting with Season 12, at least none of them tried to purposely be the complete opposite of that, which is precisely what this show is doing.
- Like other modern animated shows, it uses ToonBoom Harmony, the same animation software used in other shows including those from Nelvana. While ToonBoom can be great to use for animation's sake, this is possibly mediocre at best, with incredibly poor character animations, cheesy-looking character designs, unfunny faces, and horrible visuals that feel more like they came from a mid-late 2000s Flash cartoon than something made with ToonBoom, and poor texturing with most of the objects.
- All of the tunnels in the show are no different from each other with the only difference being the locations, which just shows how overworked and somewhat underpaid the animators are. Yes, this also meant that the background sets have been downgraded from the original show, which was a problem with the YouTube miniseries, Thomas' Magical Birthday Wishes.
- There are also even more animation errors than before. These include characters clipping through each other, engine pieces and background assets going missing at random points, and many other mistakes that would’ve never happened in the CGI era of the original show.
- This is especially shocking because Nelvana has made plenty of shows with good or even great quality animation before and since this one. Here, it's like they aren't even trying.
- To make matters worse and even sadder, Nelvana barely made shows with good-quality animation when this aired, showing that the studio went downhill, and for good reason. Much like Snipple Animation Studios and Guru Studio, it became a terrible place to work for and mistreats its former animators, whom had already reported toxic working conditions.
- The voice acting from the child actors sounds bad and annoying, especially the voice acting from Meesha Contreras and Aaron Barashi as Thomas in both dubs. His voice in this show is provoking to listen to in both dubs as Thomas sounds more like a child character (though it makes sense as he's a child in this continuity), especially in the UK dub leaving a lot to be desired from John Hasler, Ben Small, Martin T. Sherman, and Joseph May. Nia's voice (provided by Talia Evans in the US dub and Sade Smith in the UK dub) is also a step backward given the fact that the voice directors, Dee Shipley and Marylou Thistleton-Smith, didn't bother to give Nia a Kenyan accent as she had in the original series. It shares the same problem as the US dub of Bob the Builder.
- The poor child voice acting could be from the poor voice direction or probably something else, but regardless, it's still easy to sympathize with/feel sorry for the children who had to voice the characters they were told to, including the ones that voiced Thomas in this reboot, British English and American English respectively.
- The voice acting is even worse in the UK dub as it is way more annoying, mortifying, soulless, and effortless. Though to be fair, Thomas' UK actor Aaron Barashi has to match Meesha Contreras in the US dub in terms of timing, which sounds and seems incredibly difficult, even for the most experienced actors. But even if Aaron Barashi has to match Meesha Contreras in terms of timing, it just sounds shoddy. For Meesha Contreras in the US, he at least tries to sound as lively as Thomas, but for Aaron Barashi in the UK, you can tell in his voice that he was either bored or he simply didn't want to voice Thomas at all, which we don't blame him since this reboot is still rubbish.
- The worst part of it is that the only people who would WANT to do this have already hit puberty.
- As previously mentioned, Nia doesn’t have her Kenyan accent unlike in the original series where she does have one (the latter was given by Kenyan-British actor, Yvonne Grundy), so she has an American accent in the US dub, and a British one for the UK dub. Of course, it would be hard for the actor to understand it, but if the voice directors had a bit more competence in letting her practice this more, then Nia would have been one of the few characters in the cast to have a passable voice out of all the five main engines.
- Plus, in the case of not managing to give Nia a Kenyan accent, at least they can give her an African American or Black British accent, which is as close as her Kenyan accent.
- The child acting would have been passable if it were for the voice directors who were more competent enough to give them more experience.
- As if that wasn't bad enough, the Let's Race, Train School, and All Aboard! miniseries recasts every single character. Not only does it make the characters sound completely off (e.g. Gordon's voice actor sounding like a poor imitation of Neil Crone's voice), but it also comes off as completely pointless since the shorts had the show's cast reprising their roles! If the proper cast can voice their characters in the regular shorts, then why can't they do the same in this miniseries?
- Similar to Happily N'Ever After 2: Snow White—Another Bite @ the Apple, Rio 2, seasons 9 and 10 of The Fairly OddParents, Trolls: TrollsTopia, and season 4-onwards of The Loud House, many characters from the original series are nowhere to be found, as if the series doesn't know how to handle its focus on the characters anymore. The only major characters from the original series that are confirmed to appear are:
- Thomas the Tank Engine
- Edward the Blue Engine, who isn't even referred to by name and is just a background character
- Henry the Green Engine, same issue as Edward
- Gordon the Big Engine
- James the Red Engine
- Percy the Small Engine
- Toby the Tram Engine
- Emily the Stirling Engine
- Nia
- "Devious" Diesel
- Cranky the Crane
- Bulstrode
- Annie and Clarabel
- Harold the Helicopter
- Carly, who is depicted as a completely different character
- Kenji
- Hiro the "Master of the Railway"
- Sir Topham Hatt the "Fat Controller"
- Yong Bao the Chinese Engine
- Skiff the Railboat
- Farmer McColl (Whose design looks nothing like how it did in the original show)
- Salty the Dockyard Diesel
- Whiff the Rubbish Engine
- Terence the Tractor
- Out of those characters, only Thomas, Percy, Kana, Nia, and Diesel are the main characters. The others only have cameos or minor roles.
- This completely leaves out many important characters from the original series and books such as all of the Skarloey Railway engines and the Sodor Construction Crew. Then again, this series can take a similar direction to the original series, starting with a small number of characters and introducing more as it progresses. Unfortunately, this seems unlikely considering Mattel's infamous decisions over Thomas.
- It also leaves out many other characters, including fan favorites such as Diesel 10, Lady, Duck, Paxton, Bulgy, Bill, Ben, Mavis, Harvey, Oliver, Rosie, Toad, Ryan, Donald, Douglas, Bulgy, Stanley, Bertie, Rocky, Porter, Mr. Bubbles, Lady Hatt, Victor, the Arlesdale Railway engines, and many other characters, Which is disappointing, but on the other hand, it's probably better that they don't get botched the way Thomas and the other characters in the show have been.
- As for Rebecca, they didn't bother reintroducing her to the reboot, period. It's as if Mattel now deemed Rebecca as "no longer a marketable character" without any explanation, which seems strange considering the fact Andrew Brenner had just created her to be another female engine alongside Emily, Nia, and Rosie, from when the BWBA era was in production. The marketing seemed so proud and so in love with these female engines that they even knew what was best for those engines. She could have been part of the core cast as with Nia, but they instead introduced yet another new character, Kana, who is pointless. They also could have used her instead of Emily, whose now-taller appearance looks notably jarring.
- It completely abandons the down-to-earth tone of the original series and replaces it with cartoony physics and overly age-appropriate junk as mentioned above. Yes, Seasons 21-24 of the original show relied on some cartoon physics with the engines bouncing their chassis, but this is a lot zanier to a point where any realism, laws of physics, or logic have been completely thrown out of the window whatsoever.
- Like Disney and Pixar's Cars and Planes franchises, there is no real reason for the characters to be engines. They seem to have been made as engines solely for the sake of the franchise. What’s even worse is that the show has no regard for railway practices and does not even attempt to have railway signals, equipment, or other infrastructure that would be appropriate to any real-world railways, which completely goes against what the show was intended to be. The real reason why Thomas was so popular in the first place was not just because of its life lessons and the characters, but also because of its use of distinctly British, railway practices. The Cars and Planes movies also had cartoonish physics and bouncing, but even they were faithful to roadway rules, etiquette, and infrastructure.
- To be fair, the 1984-2021 series also had its share of unrealistic moments. But once again, even their most unrealistic ones were nowhere near as extreme as this show. If the rule of realism is broken, it does not matter because it is not even the plot point of a story or setting, unless one were to count the inventions from Marvelous Machinery or the Shake Shake Bridge.
- Most of the engines' bases and shapes are wrongly depicted and inaccurate to what their original bases were like. Their bases look less realistic, with changes like removing the side rods of each engine, driver doors, lamp irons, etc. Some of the engines got drastically changed and look nothing like their basis.
- A prime example of this is Carly, as for some reason, she has been turned into a railed crane engine, whose basis is probably freelanced, rather than a stationary crane in the original series, and apparently, she isn’t like a moving crane engine like Harvey.
- Henry and Edward are also notable examples as their character models are just minor reskins of Gordon and James but with different colors, slight additions, and alterations. Additionally, Edward is now a 6-6-0 locomotive as opposed to a 4-4-0 as he was originally.
- Although his design seems to be changing and a bit more accurate every time he appears especially in Tiger Train, Henry does not look like a reskinned Gordon compared to his previous appearances in the reboot.
- Speaking of Gordon, his configuration changed from a 4-6-2 locomotive to a 2-6-2 for some reason.
- Harold now has a grey face rather than his face being meshed into his bodywork, making him look ugly, uncanny, and off-putting.
- Nia no longer has her trailing wheels (which were underneath her cab), thus making her a 2-6-0T locomotive instead of a 2-6-2T.
- Thomas, Percy, Diesel, and Nia are all scaled down to half the height of Gordon as mentioned before.
- The title of the show is misleading: This reboot almost completely focuses on Thomas with "Nia's Perfect Plan" so far being the only episode to not have Thomas as the lead character, though he is still featured heavily in the episode. The trailer even says that he is the hero in every episode, which turned out to be a lie since again, Thomas isn't the lead character in "Nia's Perfect Plan". This gets annoying very quickly and leaves some of the other engines completely ignored, despite the title saying Thomas & Friends.
- Most of the episodes are rehashes of episodes from the original series, Railway Series, or episodes from the same series, which shows how indolent and unoriginal the writers are with ideas.
- The very first episode of the series called "A Thomas Promise" rehashes "Don't Go Back" from season 12 of the original series which both revolve around Thomas and Diesel racing around Sodor and Thomas giving up the race to do what's more important, and that episode itself is no better.
- "Thomas Blasts Off", also known as "Thomas Takes Off", rehashes "Percy and the Funfair" from season 10 of the original series, but instead, it has Thomas as the main role and has a rocket instead of a carnival.
- "License to Deliver" rehashes "The Case of the Puzzling Parts" from season 22 of the original series, as both episodes involve two engines acting like detectives. The only difference is that Thomas and Percy have the main roles instead of Sidney and Paxton.
- "Dragon Run" rehashes "Thomas and the Circus" from season 8 of the original series, but has a dragon being delivered instead of a circus being held at Maithwaite.
- "Chasing Rainbows" rehashes "Thomas and the Rainbow" from season 9 of the original series, but with the other characters chasing after a rainbow and not just Thomas.
- "Nia's Balloon Blunder" rehashes "Up, Up and Away" from season 15 of the original series and "Duncan and the Hot Air Balloon" from Season 12 of the original series, but only with Nia and Kana being the main roles instead of Percy/Duncan, and those episodes were already bad enough as they were, but this episode is somewhat an even worse version than the other two.
- "Lost and Found" rehashes "Gordon Takes a Shortcut" from season 12 of the original series, but it only has Thomas and Nia as the ones who get lost instead of Gordon.
- "The Tiger Train" rehashes "Skarloey the Brave" from season 9 of the original series and only Thomas and Yong Bao are the main characters instead of Skarloey and that episode was bad enough.
- "Calliope Crack-Up" rehashes "Percy and the Calliope" from season 16 of the original series. Only Thomas is the lead character instead of Percy and Kana and Nia are supporting characters.
- "Tyrannosaurus Wrecks" rehashes "Rheneas and the Dinosaur" from season 9 of the original series and "A Visit from Thomas" from the spin-off series "Jack and the Sodor Construction Company". Only Thomas is the main character instead of Rheneas/Oliver and Kana, Diesel, Nia, Percy, and Carly. Carly is also the supporting character instead of Skarloey.
- "The Super-Long Shortcut" not only rehashes "Gordon Takes a Shortcut" from season 12 of the original series AGAIN, but also "Lost and Found" from the same series. This time Gordon is the main character instead of Nia.
- "The Paint Problem" rehashes "All in Vain" from season 20 of the original series, Thomas is the lead character, instead of James this time.
- "A Wonderful World" rehashes "A Blooming Mess" from season 13 of the original series. Only Thomas, Nia, and Diesel are the main characters instead of Emily and Mavis.
- "Whistle Woes" rehashes "Faulty Whistles" from season 6 of the original series and "Mike's Whistle" from season 20 of the original series as well as the Railway Series book "Small Railway Engines". Thomas is the main character instead of Duncan/Mike.
- "Letting Off Steam" rehashes "Thomas, Percy and the Coal" from season 2 of the original series as well as the Railway Series story "Drip Tank" from the same Railway Series book "More About Thomas The Tank Engine" only that it's more childish and pettier.
- "Ghost Train" very clearly rehashes the episode from season 2 of the original series of the same name. Boxy, a non-sentient boxcar, plays Percy's role.
- In fact, the ghost story in the episode is almost the same as the ghost story in the original series episode. The only difference is that the ghost train returns every Halloween instead of the day it had its accident.
- "Sir Topham Hatt's Hat" rehashes "Topped Off Thomas" from season 10 of the original series and Emily's Winter Party Special from season 16 of the original series, both of which are dull episodes while "Topped Off Thomas" is the most watchable of the two.
- Just like the Bob the Builder reboot, this reboot tries too hard to modernize Thomas & Friends and be cool and entertaining for today's audience, which is very out of character for the franchise as well as Big World! Big Adventures!/Seasons 22-24 since the original series (i.e. classic era, HiT era, Sharon Miller era, and Andrew Brenner era) at least tried to stay true to the timeline (i.e. the 20th century) and they never intended to be modern and cool for the audience back then, plus All Engines Go tries even harder to be modern, entertaining, and cool than BWBA was, as, unlike the original series which takes place in the 20th century, this reboot might take place in the 21st century, and suffers from various historical inaccuracies.
- There are even instances of modern technology used in a few episodes, such as iPads, modern cruise ships, flatscreen TVs, wind turbines, and even solar panels, which feel out-of-place for the timelessness of Thomas & Friends and are another attempt of modernizing the original series badly.
- This means there is both outdated technology still being used and technology from modern times. Much like with the BWBA era, this leads to a plot hole. This plot hole is "What time period is AEG set in?".
- None of the new characters such as Kana, Sandy, and Bruno get an introduction as they seem like they've been thrown in at the last minute.
- On top of that, the characters introduced from this reboot are not very well written and all of them are boring and pointless characters.
- Kana is for no reason put into the Biggest Adventure Club. She is also very bland with very little personality. She’s even super unlikable in "Race for the Sodor Cup."
- Sandy is also very bland and pointless as a character. Half of the time, she does nothing as she feels more like filler. When she does do something, she is used as a plot device to get the plot to move.
- Bruno (despite being one of the better characters) is a generic disabled stereotype with zero unique traits and doesn't show that much of a personality aside from having autism, which is rarely shown in the series at all and was only supposedly referenced for more disabled representation in kids shows, which is ironic since Mattel is known to be disrespectful towards Autism in numerous cases and the way how they handled Bruno in the series was generally very poor and his unique trait is something that doesn't suit the type of character Bruno is and would be better suited for a human character instead. He wasn't added for more disabled representation, but as a marketing stunt. This comes off as offensive to the autistic community and autistic people!
- To add salt to the wound, the original Thomas & Friends was popular with autistic people due to its slow and calm nature. Combine this with the contrasting, fast-paced, exciting nature of AEG, and the marketing stunt is even more ableist!
- On top of that, the characters introduced from this reboot are not very well written and all of them are boring and pointless characters.
- The second half of season 1 can be considered to be even worse than the first half due to the plots becoming more formulaic, even more, focused on Thomas, more rehashed plots, and occasionally bad morals for kids.
- For some reason, there are even pop culture references in the reboot that feel very out of place in the Thomas franchise like in "License to Deliver", where there are some James Bond references. Even the title of the episode is a reference to the 1989 James Bond film License to Kill. There's even a reference to the Steven Spielberg film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, in which Kana pushes Thomas fast off a hill, and he goes flying in front of the moon (But this is a possible explanation). The title of the episode "Thomas and Percy's Eggcellent Adventure" references Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. These are not only forced but most kids watching won't understand the references since it's very unlikely they have seen these movies.
- Sure, there were pop culture references in the 1984 series, but they are forgivable since they were loads of fun to point out like the Big Hero 1 fantasy sequence parodying Big Hero 6 from "Thomas Goes to Bollywood". But here, it feels as if they forced them in when they’re not needed, making them feel a lot less fun to point out or get a good laugh. They are rather now just referencing the most obvious of popular media.
- The theme song is quite annoying to listen to, and it is too short since it's only 15 seconds long, which is way shorter than all the intros from the original 1984 series with most of them which are at least 30 seconds long. There are 30-second and 1-minute-long versions that exist though, which pretty much are even worse.
- The 15-second version doesn't even introduce the other characters aside from Thomas, and this was made as the default intro for the show worldwide except in Canada and South Korea.
- On a related note, the musical numbers that sometimes show up including "I'm Gonna Chug" from "A Thomas Promise" are also cheesy. Some of the songs are also very annoying, ear-piercing, and sometimes show up completely out of nowhere in a forced manner.
- To make matters worse, some of the songs are just butchered versions of preexisting children's songs.
- It can be seen as similar or a rip-off to Chuggington or Trains: The Animated Series (Паровозик Тишка), as both shows feature trains voiced by children, trains jumping off track and having trains singing songs. This is especially surprising as Chuggington was once considered the opposite of Thomas. However, Chuggington was never intended to be as realistic as Thomas was, and it was never quite as unrealistic as this show.
- The aforementioned bad research of the original series. According to the original 2020 interview with Nelvana, Sodor would not be connected to England in the reboot. Despite this, the Vicarstown bridge that takes engines to and from the mainland is seen in multiple episodes. Even the map of Sodor seen in Race for the Sodor Cup clearly shows the adjoining Isle of Man and the British mainland. The writers said that they used the original Sodor map when making episodes, so despite being somewhat faithful, it's not excusable.
- In the same interview, it was also stated that Mattel didn't "want to use wheels as hands", yet in the actual series, the engines are shown using their wheels to pick up and hold objects, meaning that the animators, directors (Campbell Bryer included since he said that) and the writers working at Nelvana flat-out missed the point about the claim.
- The fact that this show was produced entirely in North America with no involvement from any of the franchise's British creators suggests the show's production staff have little interest in the source material.
- Geographical innaccuracy: The Island of Sodor, despite being a British Island, has a desert of all places , which makes no sense for the Thomas franchise's standards.
- Much like shows such as The Wacky World of Tex Avery, it constantly overuses wacky stock sound effects (mainly Hanna-Barbera and Nelvana ones) which aren't necessary, and it gets very annoying.
- Events from "Yong Bao and the Tiger" from the original series are mentioned in "The Tiger Train" and "Nia's Surprising Surprise" mentions the events from the 2018 special "Big World! Big Adventures!" although this series is supposed to be non-canon to the original series showing how the crew working on the show can't decide if it's the same continuity or a completely different continuity.
- Unlike the original series, the humor falls very flat and is unfunny sometimes, as the reboot overuses bad puns and wacky movements to make itself look like "humor." In "Counting Cows" for example, Thomas and Percy make a lot of cheesy cow puns. The wacky movement in the reboot is also more stupid, and cringe-inducingly so at times than funny. The show sometimes uses gross-out humor just for either a cheap visual gag or a cheap laugh. For example, in one scene in the episode "A Wide Delivery", a skunk comes by and sprays Thomas and Diesel, making them almost vomit, which is gross.
- This example of humor is so horrendous that it gets a whole pointer dedicated to it. So anyway, this is in the song "Music Is Everywhere" (from the episode of the same name). At a certain point in the song, Percy shakes his Lucky Bell. But how does he do it? Simple. He has to twerk to try and appeal to the kids. Twerking is considered inappropriate and unsuitable in a preschool show due to it being a sexual dance, and it fits into an adult cartoon.
- Percy also appears to be a child, so this technically makes it child sexual offense in a children's show.
- To add insult to injury, due to the cartoony nature of this reboot, the twerking part was ridiculously easy to prevent because Percy could do lots of other things to shake the bell. For example, using his wheels as hands to ring it.
- Also, this twerking was featured in a reboot of a beloved show aimed at children. Does that sound familiar?
- For some strange reason, they managed to get the reboot of a movie called Race for The Sodor Cup, which is nothing more than a complete rehash of another Thomas movie called "The Great Race" and showed none of the charms that the 2016 special had. While "The Great Race" hasn't had the strongest or the most original plot, it at least feels like there was something special about it. But here with this impostor that is better off forgotten about, it is lazy and does not try with its story because of the unoriginal writing.
- In fact, the movie doesn't even improve anything about the series and instead makes them worse from here.
- To make matters worse, there is a second All Engines Go movie, making nothing any different.
- It is also confirmed that there will be 2 more All Engines Go movies, showing that the future is the same.
- The Thomas app "Magic Tracks", which was originally a Thomas app based on the original series, was changed into an All Engines Go app, and they replaced Mark Morgan with Meesha Contreras and Aaron Barashi as Thomas, yet they still retained the original songs from the series. On a side note, much of the merchandise including the annuals (which have been around since 1979) has replaced the original series in favor of All Engines Go, much to the disdain of many fans. Even the Thomas and Percy replicas used at Day Out With Thomas events in North America now have the All Engines Go voices, though the Strasburg Rail Road's coal-fired Thomas still has Martin Sherman's voice, and the railroad has, thus far, treated the reboot VERY dismissively, with it having the absolute BARE MINIMUM presence while continuing to promote the original series and even the classic songs by Mike O'Donnell and Junior Campbell.
- Some episodes use titles from previous episodes of the original series which is not only a bit effortless but also confusing to new viewers. Two examples are added below.
- "Thomas' Day Off"
- "Ghost Train"
- Like what was mentioned earlier, the two characters with disabilities (Bruno (with autism) and Terence (with ADHD)) were only added to make money off of people who are interested in diversity in popular culture rather than to represent these disabilities. This is highly offensive to autistic people, the autistic community, people with ADHD, and even the ADHD community!
- Overall, the reboot misunderstands everything that made the original series and books such a timeless classic.
- Speaking of which, the reboot has none of the charms of the original series and the Reverend Wilbert Awdry's precious Railway Series it is based on, proving this reboot the entire time, unlike BWBA or Sharon Miller, was bad from the very start and took it way too far in a more comical cartoony direction.
- So if anything, it overall killed the reputation of Thomas & Friends, Mattel, and even Nelvana. This reboot managed to make some fans hate the entire Thomas and Friends franchise, despite being a success at the very start and shows how terrible of a company Mattel is. It also started the downfall of Nelvana as a studio, with it not recovering since.
- The show itself has managed to show bad advertising by suggesting that being abusive to the source material is okay to watch and watching reboots faithful to the source material is wrong which is still being shown by the reboot itself, and has been repeated since 2023 in the most hated Scooby-Doo reboot of Scooby-Doo history.
- Like reasons 33 and 2 stated, this started the downfall of Nelvana, and the show has also become a cash cow for Mattel. What's even worse is that the reboot is getting a fourth season in 2025, which shows how heavily milked this reboot is.
Useful Qualities
- Gordon's new voice sounds great, thanks to Neil Crone reprising his role from Thomas and the Magic Railroad for the American dub. Will Harrison-Wallace, who voices Gordon in the British dub, also does a decent job voicing him. James' new voice by Luke Marty also sounds really good. In general, the adult voice acting is pretty decent and shows faithful respect to the legendary Michael Angelis, who died on May 30, 2020.
- Despite the animation being cheap, lackluster, and nothing like the original series, it is still at times quite colorful, smooth, fast-paced, decent for Nelvana standards, and is sometimes a nice treat to the human eye. Even the character designs, albeit unfaithful, are at least somewhat cute and appealing.
- Gordon and Nia, despite their changes in configurations, have passable redesigns that stay true to how they appeared in the original show.
- James's redesign is also one of the best redesigns in the show since he still strongly resembles his design from the original series.
- Some of the engines - such as Thomas, Percy, and Diesel - at least still retain their original engine configurations. In addition, Thomas and Percy's redesigns - despite their drastic changes - still bear some resemblance to how they appeared in the original Thomas & Friends series (something that cannot be said about the redesigns in the Bob the Builder reboot) and if the show wasn't called Thomas & Friends at all, it would be very easy to distinguish this as a reboot to the original show.
- Cranky and Bulstrode's redesigns also look good as they closely resemble their original design in the original series.
- Skiff's redesign is the closest of all, as the only change he got in this reboot is getting his "Skiff's Railboat Tours" signs removed.
- In addition, Thomas retains his iconic whistle sound effect that he had since 1984, which is great since most of the other engines use completely different ones. James also regains his original whistle sound after "License to Deliver" (his second appearance in the reboot), and the same applies to Edward, Henry, Hiro, Kenji, and Emily.
- Kana and Sandy, despite their bland personalities, have passable designs that suit their respective main traits (speed and fixing) perfectly.
- Edward, Henry, Gordon, James, Emily, Kenji, Hiro, Yong Bao, Bulstrode, Skiff, Cranky, and Sir Topham Hatt, despite his personality going downhill as previously mentioned, are still likable characters.
- Additionally, Cranky's personality wasn't dumbed down as much, as he is still shown to have his cranky personality from the original series.
- Bulstrode finally returns after a 26-year absence from the franchise (he had been in only one episode from the original series), and he's much kinder to the other characters than he was in the original series.
- Sir Topham Hatt, despite being reduced to a pointless comic relief, is also still likable.
- There are a few times when Thomas, Percy, Diesel, Nia, Annie, Clarabel, and the Troublesome Trucks are likable and retain their original personalities.
- At least they brought back Edward and Henry after their absence in the Big World! Big Adventures! era, despite the aforementioned lack of speaking roles.
- Although Bruno was only added to make money rather than to support autism, it's still nice that this show has some diversity in the form of him.
- In fact, he's better than the other characters due to this.
- Also, despite Terence having ADHD being a bad idea and him having it for the same reason Bruno had autism, it's still nice that this show has some more diversity.
- The official toys for the series are pretty detailed and accurate to the new designs, but that's not saying much considering what the new designs are.
- "Chugga Chugga Snooze Snooze" and "On My Own" are the only decent songs in the reboot.
- The songs can be catchy, especially if one were to like catchy songs, and to make matters better, all of them have album releases.
- This series brings back long-absent locations such as Kirk Ronan and Norramby Beach, which haven't been seen since the fifth season of the original series. Additionally, Kirk Ronan was named onscreen for the very first time.
- At least this series is considered non-canonical to the original series, as both series are considered to be separate worlds and show from each other, but even so, the damage was still done by Mattel and Nelvana anyway, sadly, even though "The Tiger Train" mentioned events from "Yong Bao and the Tiger" and "Nia's Surprising Surprise" mentioned the events of "Big World! Big Adventures!".
- The show does seem to handle diversity a little better than the Big World! Big Adventures! era did it, as they do not constantly point out the obvious that Kana, Kenji, Hiro, and Nia are from different countries as they did before. They only mention the fact that Nia is from Kenya once in the entire first season, and it is brought up in a way that somewhat makes sense.
- Despite its flaws, redubbing this show into British English for the UK is a rather smart move on Mattel's part - after all, the Thomas the Tank Engine franchise did originate in Great Britain. Considering that the show was developed entirely in North America, that is a nice touch.
- The series started improving a little with the second season, as Thomas is getting less focused in favor of other characters, and despite the changes the reboot made, the writers seem to try bringing back the original personalities of characters including Thomas himself despite being aged down, though not saying much.
- The Let's Race and Train School miniseries are also improvements, despite the pointless recasting of all the characters, as the animation got rougher and better. Even better, Chris Renshaw, the last composer for the original series, returned to compose the music for it and he's still got it.
- The Romanian dub, being done at the studio Fast Production Film, actually has decent voice acting.
- Despite most of the merchandise releasing All Engines Go toys instead of toys from the original series, Bachmann has stated their HO, N, and G scale Thomas ranges will still match the aesthetic of the model and CGI series. The controversial Wood range was also discontinued and replaced with an improved version of the beloved Wooden Railway range that originally ran from 1993 to 2017. The Japanese merch, notably Plarail, is still worth buying if you're looking for a good deal on what character you're buying internationally.
- Unlike the Sharon Miller era, at least each episode has a different story (even if many are rehashed from the original series) and isn't repetitive with the characters talking normally.
Reception
Pre-release
When the first concept of the 2D animation was revealed on October 12, 2020, many fans of the original series were concerned, outraged, and/or upset about the show being turned into a 2D animated adaptation of Thomas looking like a child. When the trailer was put online on January 27, 2021, the trailer received widely negative reviews from a wide majority of audiences, fans, and the original creators of The Railway Series and the original Thomas series. It was criticized for its lack of realism, charm, and the switch to 2D cheap animation.
In addition, Britt Allcroft and Veronica Chambers also reacted very negatively to the new series. Allcroft widely disowned the reboot and told the fans of the 1984 series who did not like the new version either that there was nothing she could do.
Release
Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go has been universally panned by parents, fans, and even kids alike. Many fans have even stopped watching Thomas and Friends altogether after the reboot and now only watch fan-made content on YouTube, which is often considered massively superior. As of May 2023, the show currently holds a 2.5/10 on IMDb[1], currently making it one of the lowest-rated Cartoon Network shows on the site, as well as the second lowest-rated Cartoonito show. It also has 35% approval from Google users. It's likely considered to be one of the worst reboots and even one of the worst shows made by Mattel.
In September 2021, many parents from Mexico reported that their kids did not enjoy the new version of Thomas at all, stating their kids found the new design to look menacing and overall not be the same as Thomas. The mentioned report was also covered by many news outlets, even making the front page of a local newspaper. There has been a report about how kids as young as three responded very negatively to the redesign.
In addition, Mattel didn't take kindly to any of the criticism at all (unlike Paramount Pictures and much more like Square Enix, and Kenn Viselman Productions Freestyle Releasing), unsurprisingly because they quickly responded to the criticisms with the "It's made for kids" excuse, since kids also hated this show too.
However, just like Teen Titans Go!, the reboot had high TV ratings and was beloved by toddlers (the target audience of the reboot) despite receiving negative criticism from Thomas fans and older kids alike, thus it was greenlit for more seasons and had a line of best-selling toys worldwide, and it proved to be far more successful than the Big World Big Adventures era of the original series due to better marketing and being aimed by a far younger audience, making it one of Mattel's most successful shows to date and had turned a massive profit for them in the US, and was also successful in both the UK and Canada, but failed in Japan since the original series was still extremely popular over there and was more beloved than the reboot in general. Even to this day, a total of 5 to 10 million viewers in the US of young toddlers still watch All Engines Go and sales for merchandise remain high now the reboot has even been nominated for several awards despite the negative reception from fans and audiences alike.
IMDb vandalism
Many of the photos shown here use anti-rebooted Thomas pics in this IMDb photo page, including one picture that involves the titular characters from Beavis and Butt-Head, in the 4th row. Many of the pictures since then have been deleted.
Not long before the show arrived in the United States, many IMDb users added photos that vandalized pics of All Engines Go's screenshots and promotional images with "SUCKS" and the letter Xs all over the galleries, and many of these pics protested the new show. All these pictures were removed several days after being posted, implying that the All Engines Go hate group took a step way too far.
Trivia
- According to a recent interview, developer Rick Suvalle seemed like he is one of the very few people working on this reboot to understand Thomas in general. He even clarified he has used the wiki for the sake of research and understood the backlash against the reboot from older and newer fans.
- Speaking of which, he is currently producing two new animated preschool series for DreamWorks Animation Television.
Videos
References
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