Thomas & Friends: Calling All Engines

Thomas and Friends: Calling All Engines
Directed by: Steve Asquith Produced by: Simon Spencer Written by: Paul Larson Marc Seal (Additional Material) Starring: Michael Angelis (UK) Michael Brandon (US) Release date: September 6, 2005 Runtime: 60 minutes Country: United Kingdom Language: English Franchise: Thomas and Friends Sequel: Thomas & Friends: The Great Discovery

Thomas and Friends: Calling All Engines! is a Thomas and Friends special, the second one (after Thomas and the Magic Railroad) overall, and the franchise's first direct-to-video special, released on VHS and DVD on September 6th, 2005.

Plot

The plans of building a new airport on Sodor spark up old rivalries between the steam and diesel engines. While Thomas takes it upon himself to bring them together, a summer storm breaks out. Thomas and Mavis must work together to get the steam engines and the diesel engine to help build the new airport in time.

"Disgraceful, Disgusting, and Despicable" Qualities

1. The plot, while interesting, can get extremely mean spirited, since it focuses yet again on the rivalry between steam and diesel engines, except this time it is taken to a much worse degree.
2. The learning segments in the special can feel forced at times.
3. The special feels more like a regular episode than a special, since there are few cinematic elements compared to Thomas and the Magic Railroad.
4. Very poor conveniences, such as the scene where Thomas pranks Diesel by giving him bananas instead of building materials to get back at him, only to be revealed that the building materials were needed to rebuild Tidmouth Sheds, which had been demolished.
5. The extremely infamous scene where the steam and diesel engines "fight" each other via pushing, albeit comedy gold, is mean-spirited and very out-of-place.
6. Even though the special's title is Calling All Engines, several engine characters such as Duck and BoCo are absent.
7. Plot Holes:
   • Why was Tidmouth Sheds demolished?
   • Daisy is shown disliking steam engines in one scene despite having worked for Thomas' branch line and somewhat changing her ways after her first appearance.

Really Useful Qualities

1. The final scene where it is revealed that Tidmouth Sheds was rebuilt to have a space for Emily is pretty great, same with the alternate version of the Engine Roll Call.
2. As mentioned earlier, the fight scene is comedy gold despite its mean-spirited nature.
3. Great visuals, typical of the HiT model era.
4. Lady's and Diesel 10's appearances in this film are nothing short of awesome, in fact, Diesel 10 cooperating with the steam engines feels extremely satisfying (albeit it was ruined by his next appearances where he goes back to being a villainous mastermind).
5. Moral: Put aside your differences and work together.

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