Out of all the characters that have been seen throughout Thomas' 69 year history, the only one I truly hate is Lady. The new team are starting to win me over with Charlie, and while Flora's just there to make Toby look less special, she's been forgotten about since her introduction. Heck, I don't really hate the Logging Locos! That doesn't mean that I like them per se, but I only really dislike them (even if I've said I hated them in the past).
So why don't I hate them, yet I do hate Lady? Well I shall now explain!
Lady was introduced in Thomas and the Magic Railroad, a movie that has no right to be called a Thomas and Friends film. It had nothing to do with Thomas' roots to the point where the character that started it all - Edward - was completely absent! And, of course, the American influences throughout. But as well as that, Lady's role was pointless! She was, in anthropomorphic character terms, unconscious for 90% of the film, yet things ran as normal, and the engines could still talk. The only thing that had withered was a railway in an alternate dimension! And the portal for said railway made no sense either! Seriously, if Lady was in such a poor condition, surely it wouldn't work in the first place! And that's not even mentioning how stupid the magic buffers idea was! Say what you want about Misty Island, but at least the producers connected it to Sodor in ways that could make sense realistically!
And then, there's her design... What is she even meant to be based on? Yes, Thomas and Friends is fictional, but every character before and since has been based on a real life locomotive, either loosely or a practical carbon copy. Heck, Stanley's a hybrid of two locomotives, and even he has the essence of what the Awdrys were aiming for with character design. And he was created in the Sam Barlow era! The same could be said for Bash, Dash and Ferdinand! Yes, they're American designs, but at least they're actually based on real locomotives! Do you see what I'm getting at here? Lady is far too fictional to fit in! At least, that's what I think.
I would talk about her persona next, but... does she even have one? The only thing she talks about is magic, and she added nothing to the story except the obligatory Hollywood style chase scene! Yeah, it was fun to watch, but in the long term it was absolutely pointless since Diesel 10 was seen in future projects! Even Rosie has more of a personality, and she's basically a female stereotype! That said, other characters between series 9-12 had no personality either, but they were more forgettable than anything. As for the Logging Locos? They were annoying and moronic, but that was part of their personalities! Fair enough, they're not the best traits to have, but it's still more than Lady had..! I could see where the production team were coming from with the Logging Loco; it seemed like they wanted to copy Edward, Bill and Ben's dynamic, but they weren't too sure what made said dynamic work in the first place. With Lady? I can see nothing, apart from a token female lead to keep the politically correct world we live in happy...
So in conclusion, yes. I hate Lady. She is the worst female character on the show (and with a female stereotype like Rosie around, that's an accomplishment) and the worst character overall. She was just a pointless cash-in to try and give some semblance of logic to Britt Allcroft's Shining Time Station send off. She had absolutely no potential - to be honest, I believe that HiT only included her in Calling All Engines! because they thought it would be good fan service - and she looks too fake to be a Thomas and Friends character. If you like her, leave your thoughts below as to why you feel that's the case (and before you say it, being the first female steam engine means nothing when you have the personality of a scrubbing sponge).
There IS an engine with a resemblance to Lady, I believe it was called Lively Polly, but there are enough differences in design that show that Lady was not based off of it.
ReplyDeleteAs for Lady herself, yeah that's about it, nothing more than a blank slate. You're spot on.
Not to mention KESR No.2 Northiam who was in fact a 2-4-0T. seen in the 1937 movie "Oh Mr. Porter!"
DeleteI can't really see much of a similarity with that one and Lady, John. I suppose the cab looks close, but the Northiam's bunker's angled a bit while Lady's is straight
Deletei reckon the basis of lady could well have come from the hornby 0-4-0 model of what i beleive to be a GWR designed tank loco.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.hornby.com/locomotives/steam-locomotives/railroad-gwr-freight-pack.html the one in this set here, no idea what loco thats based on but it does share very similar properties with lady such as funnel, cab and smokebox size compared to the boiler near the cab. its a theory but its a theory that makes sense especially as the following link shows the model being used fro a previous anniversary model in the 1980s http://www.hornbyguide.com/item_details.asp?itemid=609
must admit though you do have a point, she is very bland. almost like putting a teaspoon of nesquick chocolate milkshake powder in a vat the size of which iron is melted down in full of milk, very bland. but yeah no contributions and as much as i like TATMR the whole magic of the island thing and it revolving around an unconcious steam loco currently residing in a mountain and if she dies sodor goes wih her, it is totally stupid but i guess the fact shes not been there much is what makes fans like her moreso as they want more of her to see wht her potential could have been, i like her because she's different, yes she could most likely be based off of one of the most annoying hornby locos alonside the other 2 and now to be 3 with the E2 variant but i like difference in locos but nothing too different... but that rant ill save for an appropriate time.
but yeah my theory on the basis could possibly have some truth behind it, i dunno im just putting 2+2 together whihc i speople modify said hornby loco to make her.
I like Lady. I feel sorry for her as she was not able to have her face visible and was on the run from something who wanted to kill her for so many years.
ReplyDeleteBurnett Stone?
DeleteI mean that seriously, by the way. Yes, Diesel 10 chased her, but Stone was the one who pushed her so hard she practically became unconscious. But I suppose Britt Allcroft wanted us to forget about that too, as that was never bought up at any point afterwards
Yeah that was one of the hundreds of plot holes that the movie had.
DeleteWell, Chris, that wasn't really the original version Britt Allcroft imagined. I mean, I still love Magic Railroad, despite its overall madness and nonsensical plot, but there are some scenes that do make me laugh and remember how much I loved the franchise during my childhood. But when I found out that this might have been a touch better than the final cut, I was curious as to what could be done to get that version released. I've actually wanted to get HiT to make a Magic Railroad CGI remake with a plot that makes more sense.
DeleteI've said it many times before: I don't care about the behind the scenes stuff, I care about what the film is NOW. I care what the "character" is like NOW.
DeleteBringing the director's cut into it though, since so many fans talk about it while trying to defend it, I've heard all about it, and it's still terrible, if not more so. Lady would've gotten an even rawer deal (at least she had SOMETHING in the final cut) and the other problems would've been amplified. There'd still be little focus on the engines (you know, the characters you'd expect to see in a Thomas the Tank Engine film), there'd still be some awful acting, there'd still be a heavy emphasis on the American market and the story would still be very poor.
If I wanted to watch a Thomas film, I'd rather watch Misty Island Rescue. At least that plot is coherent and it's actually pretty fun in places.
I know, I know. I just think it'd might be interesting if they managed to somehow make a CGI film that puts right what Magic Railroad failed to do. Maybe instead of giving Lady a legitimate personality, they would star Millie, who could know Diesel 10 in some way. Diesel 10 himself could use a much better voice, anyway. That mad scientist voice during Day of the Diesels made me cringe. They could have made him so much cooler, but that entire special made me hate Misty Island Rescue a bit less. He could have been an intimidating villain who refused to follow Sir Topham Hatt's orders. But Sharon Miller pretty much CASTRATED Diesel 10, possibly to the point where Andrew Brenner and the team won't ever try to bring him back. I'll have her head mounted on a wall for that f*ckup.
DeleteThey've already made two films that put right what it got wrong: The Adventure Begins and Sodor's Legend of the Lost Treasure.
DeleteTAB is a hell of a lot more respectful to the source material than Railroad could have ever hoped to be, and Lost Treasure is a huge adventure plot done brilliantly.
There's really no need to go back to something that didn't work (and nearly killed the franchise).
Actually, they were originally wanting to have Edward in the film, but they couldn't finish a model of him in time, so they had to very sadly leave him out of it, perhaps they thought that if the film could have been able to have a sequal to it, then they would could just put him in that film.
ReplyDeleteWell aware of that, but it's still disrespectful to the show's roots that the first character ever made was absent. They're basically saying they had the time to make engines 1-7, but not 2, which makes absolutely no sense.
DeleteMaybe if they actually bothered to make sure everything was ready before they wrote scripts and properly started production, he would've been ready.
I respect that Britt Allcroft brought The Railway Series to TV screens, but I hate quite a few of the choices she made, this film and character actually being the biggest problem
Well model trains do take a lot of hard time to make, they need to have work and effort into them.
DeleteI understand that, but they made characters that had no bearing on the story (Bertie) yet they couldn't have finished Edward?
DeleteBy the way, this film was being planned through series 5's production. They had 3 years to produce it, no real excuse.
That said, it still would've sucked regardless of Edward's appearance due to all the other issues.
Yeah, I do suppose that you are right on that one, they had plenty of time to make a model, yet they didn't even bother to try making one, just like they never bothered to make a series 3 model for Daisy to use in the episode Mavis.
DeleteYeah it is a shame that we will never get a sequal to this movie so that we can never see Edward in that, I mean the Mario Bros were completely absent from Wreck It Ralph, an insult to video games roots as they are the two most famous video game characters of all time, but at least Mario (and hopefully Luigi if we are lucky) will appear in the sequal to that, too bad that this film will never have a sequal so that Edward could have had his time to shine on the big screen in that.
DeleteI wouldn't want another sequel. If Thomas' own producer couldn't make a good movie, what hope do Hollywood producers have? Besides, if it was a "sequel", it'd still focus on Stone and his family, rather than the actual show it was based on.
DeleteAs for Wreck-it Ralph, I don't get your objections. It wasn't a "tour through time" of video games, it was telling Ralph's story of wanting to be a hero. Mario wasn't necessary to the plot. Besides, Bowser was there, so it wasn't as if the franchise wasn't represented in some way.
The difference is that Ewdard *could* have had Toby's screen time, and the plot wouldn't have changed. To have Mario and Luigi in Wreck-it Ralph, it would've either lead to nothing (making their roles pointless) or changing the story to put them in