Thomas and the Magic Railroad review

Hey, guys and welcome to another installment of Tom’s reviews.

This is one I’ve been wanting to do for a while.

So...I’ve been a huge fan of Thomas the Tank Engine, ever since I was a baby. I grew up watching Thomas and his fellow engines’ misadventures on the Island of Sodor even when I was past the age for it and it’s a major reason why I got into YouTube and online media in general. It helped make me the person I am today and I’m proud to share a name with the little blue tank engine.

But it looks like at this point, the show is nearing its end...or at least its spiritual end...

Look, in case you aren’t aware, as of the time of this writing, “Thomas and Friends” is STILL GOING. Yeah, twenty-four seasons and counting. And of those twenty-four seasons, only Thirteen of them are good...which...is still more than half of twenty-four so I guess that’s a pretty good track record…- Look, point is, Thomas has been going downhill for a while.

The big issue is that, as the show has gone on, the writing has just gotten dumber and DUMBER. And I know some might argue that “it’s for kids” but I’ll tell you, even as a kid watching some of the episodes from seasons 8 to 11, I felt patronized by how simple a lot of them were. (THAT SNOWMAN ISN’T REAL, THOMAS, YOU FU***ING MORON!!!!)

And I haven’t seen much of seasons 12 through 16 but I’ve heard the writing only got worse and worse... Thankfully, thanks to a change in writers in seasons 17 through 21, we can at least have some CGI-era episodes to look back on fondly but even the most competent of writers can fall prey to the unstoppable force known as executive meddling, as shown by the drop in quality in season 22.

The problem is that, unlike some other shows that have gone on too long like SpongeBob that are content to stay in the comfort of the status quo, Thomas KEEPS getting retooled and rebooted every few years and with the exception of season 17’s retool, each time, the retool takes SOMETHING away from what made Thomas special. And much like Fairly OddParents, each retool came with new characters the fans didn’t care for; ESPECIALLY season 22’s retool. Hell, next year, we’re going through another one. Not only is the show shifting to 2D animation but it’s “getting a whole new continuity”. Which basically means they’re probably making the same mistake Terminator Genisys did. To paraphrase Mathew Buck, “Hey, remember those [Thomas episodes]? Well, we’re rebooting them! Even the good ones!”. Yeah, from what I’ve heard, even the target audience of children reacted badly to the news.

I could go on a whole rant about how bad season 25 looks but I’m saving it for when a trailer drops but needless to say the central problem from what we’ve heard so far is that it fundamentally misses what made Thomas special in the first place.

But of course, the show keeps making money through merchandise and as long as the toys sell, then the show’s gonna keep going…but honestly, even then I’m not sure how much life the show has left. Like I said, even the kids that the show is targeted for reacted badly to the upcoming art style change in season 25 and the merchandise keeps getting cheaper and cheaper and some consumers are turning against it.

So unless a miracle happens and season 25 is really good (which I doubt), Mattel gets their shit together and improves the toys and/or the Thomas license gets acquired by another company (Hasbro? PLEASE), it may be the final stop on Thomas’s long, long journey. Honestly, it’s a bittersweet feeling either way…

Anyway, you’ve probably noticed that this blog is not titled, “Why Tom hates what they’ve done to his favorite show from his childhood” and/or you might be wondering, “Well, is there a reason for all this seasonal rot?” and to those people, I say, “I’m getting there” and “Well there is”.

With the recent reveal of the brand new art style for season 25 and the subsequent backlash towards it, and the release of this film on Blu-ray last September, I figure what better time to cover what many people consider to be the first in the chain of dominos that ruined Thomas? Hence, the subject of today’s review, “Thomas and the Magic Railroad”. Just in time before it’s too late to say in honor of Thomas’s 75th Aniversary.

So let’s get into it, huh?

But before we talk about the film itself, we need to discuss probably the most infamous aspect of it...the amount of cut footage. The movie was supposed to be about 110 minutes long but after it had a poor reaction with the test audience (supposedly made up of mostly toddlers and their mothers), it was cut down to 85 minutes.

The most infamous cut of the film was the character of P.T. Boomer (played by the late Doug Lennox), one of the two main antagonists of the film. I’ll get more into him as I go over the film and bring up specific details about him, but to be brief here, his character being excluded caused major plot elements that were driven by him to go unexplained and resulted in several gaps in the story because he was tied so heavily to the character of Burnett Stone. The official reason he was cut was for being “too scary” for children. Boomer being cut was apparently EXTREMELY last minute to the point where several trailers still had him front and center, a tie-in coloring book still had him in it, a tie-in storybook had an indirect reference to one of his actions, the official website still talked about him and there was some merchandise being made of him that had to be cancelled.

The poor reaction of the test audience also led to several voice actors for the engines being changed.

John Bellis, a part-time taxi driver, was originally cast as the voice of Thomas. Britt Allcroft, the woman who helped create the Thomas TV series and the writer, director, and producer of this film reportedly met him while doing location scouting in the Isle of Mann and felt his voice was perfect for the role and practically hired him on the spot. However the test audience disapproved as they felt his performance sounded “too old” for Thomas and he was replaced by Canadian voice actor Eddie Glen. And while I think Glen does a fine job as the little blue tank engine I feel really bad for Bellis. He was apparently really enthusiastic to be in the film and was gutted when he found out he was being canned, to the point where he has refused to talk about the experience to fans who have reached out to him. So it sounds like he wants to just forget about the whole thing. I guess I can understand that.

Micheal Angelis, the UK narrator for the show at the time (and I would be remiss if I didn’t bring up his tragic passing away earlier this year) was originally playing James and Percy but much like with John Bellis, the test audience felt he sounded too old for the parts. Okay to be fair. I kinda understand with Percy, but James?! Angelis sounded perfect in the role from what I could tell in the brief snippets that have been leaked of his performance. They were replaced respectively by Susan Roman and Linda Ballantyne. Unfortunately this had the side effect of making them sound too feminine. To the point many fans were wondering if James was supposed to be a girl...

Diesel 10, the main villain, was originally voiced by Keith Scott but much like Boomer his performance was deemed “too scary” and he was replaced by Neil Crone who initially did a Russian accent for the character...but that was deemed too scary as well and he redid all of the dialogue with a New Jersey accent. Because why not, I guess?

Splatter and Dodge, the villainous sidekicks of the film, were both originally voiced by Patrick Breen but he got the axe as well. However unlike with the others, it’s never been officially stated why this was. Neil Crone and Kevin Frank would replace him.

George the Steamroller, a minor antagonist from seasons 4 and 5, was also originally in the film as one of Diesel 10’s henchmen. However, this was cut even before filming began so this time, it isn’t the test audience's fault. Much like the voice change of Splatter and Dodge it’s never been officially stated why George was cut despite the fact he had a pretty important role.

The rest of the stuff that got cut, I’ll get into as we go on, but for now, I think you’ve waited long enough. Let’s talk about Thomas and the Magic Railroad…

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The movie begins with, appropriately enough, narration from Alec Baldwin, who was at the time the US Narrator for the show, introducing himself as “Mr. Conductor”. We get introduced to the Island of Sodor, a magical land full of vehicles with faces that can drive themselves. The most well-known part of this island is its railway, home to everyone’s favorite steam engine Thomas the Tank Engine.

And here’s one of the oddities with this film...where are all the human characters on Sodor? Like it’s said that the Fat Controller/Sir Topham Hatt is going on holiday (vacation for you US people like me) so that excuses him and his family’s absence, but there are no other humans on the island of Sodor! Or at least we never SEE other humans. I know using the wooden models that the show used alongside the live-action actors would have been jarring but why not just have everyone on Sodor be played by live-action extras? Don’t just pretend they don’t exist! The casual viewer would probably assume that the island is filled with talking trains who pull cargo and coaches for kicks instead of the fully operational railway it has in canon.

Thomas meets up with Gordon the big blue engine (and giant pompous asshole but damn if we don’t love him for it) and Gordon chastises Thomas for being late. Thomas tells Gordon he’s picking up Mr. Conductor who will be covering for Sir Topham Hatt while he’s on holiday. Gordon says they can take care of themselves. Cue the giant diesel engine coming through with a giant claw and Gordon is shaken.

“Diesel 10’s back!”

...What? What are you talking about? We've never seen this guy before! He was introduced in THIS MOVIE. You’ve never seen him before!

See, this is a pretty big deviation from the original version. Originally, this Diesel 10 was a whole new engine that was brought to the island to help out while Sir Topham Hatt was gone, only for him to start causing trouble. Thomas was also the one who gave him the name for being “ten out of ten for devious deeds”.

So why did they change it to Diesel 10 “coming back”? Well, that would require jumping ahead a bit so let’s keep going.

Then we cut to live-action and we see...Shining Time….as in Shining Time Station....okay, where do I begin with this?

Okay, for those who are unaware, Shining Time Station was the framing device of the US Thomas show for its first four seasons. Basically, it focused on the misadventures around the titular Shining Time Station with a small magical man known as “Mr. Conductor” played by Ringo Starr and later George Carlin (And for those of you unfamiliar with Thomas and friends, yes, it was THAT Ringo Starr and George Carlin) who would tell the stories of Thomas and his friends with the story relating to whatever misadventure was going on in the station at the time. So what’s the problem here exactly?

Well, for starters, at the time this movie came out, Shining Time Station had been off the air for two years! And canceled for four! So its inclusion pretty much dates the movie right away.

The second issue I have with this relates to all things VHS tapes. The Thomas the Tank Engine VHS tapes at the time were released without the Shining Time Station segments. So imagine being a kid who’s ONLY watching from the tapes and then going and seeing this movie… you're gonna be so damn confused (I should know. That was me when I saw the movie in theaters as a kid)!

The third issue is this...none of the characters from the original Shining Time Station, except Stacy Jones the stationmaster (played by Didi Conn) and train engineer Billy Twofeathers (played by Russell Means who I should probably note is not the actor who played him in the show), are in the movie. I don’t know if it was a case of not being able to get the original actors back if they just weren’t invited, or what, but in any case, it just ends up making the connection to Shining Time feel hollow…

But whatever. After a really generic song where we see around the station, we...cut right back to Sodor...what was the point of that if you’re just gonna cut back right away to Sodor? Oh, wait! Apparently, that cut wasn’t in the original version!

Thomas meets up with James the red engine (and vain asshole but damn if we don’t love him for it). They get into a conversation about buffers (which is supposed to be foreshadowing) when Diesel 10 shows up and taunts them, saying he’s looking for a Lost Engine and he’s gonna find her and destroy her...

Another major change. Diesel 10’s original goal was just to make life miserable for the steam engines on Sodor. You know, by causing them to derail, crash, and stuff. This was changed because of P.T. Boomer being cut. He was the villain who was determined to destroy the Lost Engine. And while Diesel 10 would eventually try to destroy her, that wasn’t what he set out to do initially. But since they cut Boomer, Diesel 10 had to absorb stuff he would have done, namely, his quest to destroy the Lost Engine.

Cut back to Shining Time where local boy Patch (played by Cody McMains) is working on a welcome sign for the town. He’s talking to Mutt, a dog belonging to Billy. Billy shows up and Patch asks him about some mysterious lines that appear to be some kind of railway tracks. Billy doesn’t have any clear answers for him, and Patch goes to visit local hermit Burnett Stone (played by the late Peter Fonda) in his workshop. The mysterious lines thing is supposed to be foreshadowing but it…really doesn’t make sense given what we find out later…

This scene was also where we were supposed to get our first look at P.T. Boomer when he confronts Billy outside the station and basically brags that Muffle Mountain is gonna be his and he’s looking for Burnett Stone. Billy refuses to give Burnett’s location and Boomer, just to be petty, punches a flower basket Billy was sniffing from.

In Shining Time Station itself, it’s business as usual. Stacy, the aforementioned stationmaster, is showing Billy a child's drawing she found in an old locker apparently drawn by Burnett. Stacy and Billy lament how much Burnett has changed.

Then we get another major change from the original. In the original version, after Billy and Stacy talk, we segway into Mr. Conductor’s introduction but in the final version, we have Burnett hanging around in his workshop when Patch shows up.

And here’s the thing about the scene with Burnett and Patch. It was originally placed closer to the end of the film when Lily was still on Sodor (more on that in a bit). In this scene, Burnett would have gone into his history with Boomer about how the two of them were rivals for the love of a local girl named Tasha. Boomer never got over how Tasha chose Burnett over him and he gave Burnett an ultimatum. Let him ride his steam engine or he’d destroy her. Burnett knew that Boomer was gonna destroy her when he rode her anyway but couldn’t bring himself to stand up to the guy and that’s why the steam engine named Lady is in the wrecked state she’s in (also, the words he uses make it pretty clear it’s meant to be a metaphor for animal abuse of all things…)

Since Boomer was cut, the scene obviously had to be changed so now Burnett is talking about how “an evil diesel” destroyed her. And with the benefit of hindsight and seeing the original scene (thank you, Shout Factory), it’s REALLY obvious something was taken out because there are a lot of awkward jump cuts to avoid mention of previous events in the film as well as Boomer and every time Burnett talks about Diesel 10, he’s conveniently off-camera and the pitch is slightly different, suggesting the lines were added and altered in ADR.

As for why this scene was placed closer to the beginning rather than towards the end? The best guess I can figure is that the test audience complained about the plot being confusing so the editors felt obliged to place a major exposition dump closer to the start.

Back on Sodor, Diesel 10 is talking to his two henchmen Splatter and Dodge. Diesel 10 monologues a bit, saying he wants to destroy Lady because that will…destroy all the steam engines? How? Why?

Now we get that scene I mentioned earlier where we meet Mr. Conductor (played by Alec Baldwin). Mr. Conductor is preparing to travel to the island of Sodor to look over the railway while Sir Topham Hatt is gone (and there’s another noticeable ADR moment where Mr. Conductor mentions Diesel 10 is back and he’s off-camera). He goes to Stacy’s desk and notes that Burnett’s drawing looks like a place on the Island of Sodor (it really doesn’t) and is puzzled by it since “Gold Dust is the only way to travel since the Lost Engine disappeared”...Yeah, I’m gonna get to that in a bit...oh and there’s also a weird bit where he talks to a goldfish in a bowl...again, more on this in a bit…

Something I noticed is that there’s a huge tell that indicates this scene was supposed to go on longer or play out differently because when Mr. Conductor teleports at the end of the scene (if you haven’t seen the film for yourself, how he teleports is blowing into a whistle he has), it happens off-camera.

Also, there’s another deleted scene with Boomer here that involved him looking up Burnett’s address in the paper.

After saying his goodbyes to Mutt, Mr. Conductor teleports to the Island of Sodor where Thomas is waiting for him. Thomas warns him about Diesel 10 and Mr. Conductor assures him it’s under control. The thing notable about this scene is that it shows that Mr. Conductor is normal sized while on the Island of Sodor. This wasn’t the case in the OG script where Mr Conductor remained about an inch high throughout the whole film but presumably for pragmatic reasons this got changed.

Then we cut to Burnett in his workshop being angsty as he flashes back to his childhood and his late wife Tasha lamenting how he failed to protect Lady. Okay, let’s talk about this... a lot of people have criticized Fonda’s performance in this movie for being way too dramatic for a kids’ film but I’m personally fine with it. The problem is that the film itself (or at least the final version) doesn’t really justify the angst much. The OG script put a lot more emphasis on the fact that Burnett was mourning not just Lady’s destruction but his wife Tasha who recently passed away and Boomer being around was bringing all these feelings to the forefront again. But with Boomer being cut, a lot of the stuff about Tasha had to be toned down as well, hence why Burnett seems over the top with his sadness.

And to quote the film itself, “This is where Burnett’s granddaughter Lily comes into our story”. Lily (played by Mara Wilson) is with her mother going to the train station. She’s staying with Burnett for...reasons that aren’t fully explained. Yeah, in the OG script, it was stated it was because her dad was on a business trip and her mom was pregnant and about to go into labor soon but the movie doesn’t give a proper explanation.

Also, it’s at this point you’re probably thinking, “Hey, isn’t this supposed to be a Thomas the Tank Engine movie?” Why, yes, it is. And that brings me to my next point: Thomas and his friends are barely in this film. All the drama, most of the screen time, and character development stuff are going to the live-action human characters in a completely different dimension. To add on to the Thomas downplaying of the massive extensive cast that Thomas has, only six characters from the show appear in this film. Egregiously Edward, one of the main characters of the series and the first engine introduced in the original books the series was based on, isn’t even mentioned in the film! The “official” explanation for why Edward isn’t in the film is that his model wasn’t finished in time but he wasn’t specifically written for the film anyway (a deleted scene would have explained Edward was the engine taking Sir Topham Hatt on vacation).

Oh But they are in it so let’s get back to them. Thomas is talking to Gordon and James who are complaining about how Thomas got to be the one to collect Mr. Conductor and taunting him over his size. Toby the tram engine, Henry the green engine, and Percy the small engine are also talking mostly about the Lost Engine (I have no doubt their conversation was about something different in the original version because, again, Diesel 10 wasn’t searching for Lady originally). Also, Splatter and Dodge have...put sneezing powder on the ground for Harold to blow all over everyone…Why? Because Diesel 10’s original goal was to make the engines miserable, not to find Lady, that’s why.

Cut to Mr. Conductor in Sir Topham Hatt’s office reading a note left by him. Yeah, not two minutes pass and we’re already back on the live-action stuff… After he reads the note, Mr. Conductor begins messing around in the office pretending to be Sir Topham Hatt only for a nearby picture’s facial expression to start changing in disapproval. And then he gets a call from Hatt at the worst time. It is admittedly a funny scene but what does this have to do with the main plot exactly?

Oh and speaking of the main plot, time to talk about another deleted scene. Burnett is leaving his workshop when he runs into Boomer who demands to know where Lady is. Burnett refuses to tell him and Boomer tells him he’s gonna level the mountain till he finds her…really? That’s your plan? Just dig into the mountain and hope you get lucky? A mountain? Oh yeah! That’s totally a practical idea and probably won’t take forever! Do you seriously have nothing better to do with your time?!

Back to stuff that made it into the film, the engines are at their sheds ready for a good night's rest. Mr. Conductor is sleeping with them in his own bed and then he...begins talking to a ball and bat…Okay, I haven’t seen Shining Time Station but from what I’ve heard, the Mr. Conductor in that series never acted this...quirky...so...why is the Mr. Conductor in this film acting so different? Well, I actually might have an answer to this in a bit.

Whatever the case, Diesel 10 interrupts the fun by using his claw to make a hole in the shed, waking all the engines up. He demands to know where the Lost Engine is from Mr. Conductor (another obvious ADR trick: when the Lost Engine is mentioned, Mr. Conductor and Diesel 10 are offscreen). Mr. Conductor tries to get away using his teleportation but he’s almost out of Gold Dust so it doesn’t work. So instead Mr. Conductor threatens to dump sugar down Diesel’s tank…admittedly, that CAN clog up a diesel engine, but what’s keeping Diesel 10 from stopping him from dumping it with his claw? Well, apparently Diesel 10 is an idiot because he flees vowing revenge.

Thomas and Percy ask Mr. Conductor if he’s okay and Mr. Conductor assures them he’s fine. While in his sleep, Mr. Conductor begins muttering something about the “Magic Railroad” and “Buffers” which gets Percy’s attention. The thing that’s weird about this scene is that the way Alec Baldwin plays it, it’s as if Mr. Conductor is either going into denial that everything is not fine...or he’s going insane…

Then he gets a dream about Shining Time Station falling apart without him…why?...how?! How is his presence keeping Shining Time Station together!? It seemed like a normal train station that he just happens to hang out in! Nothing about his backstory or purpose has been established in this film! And that’s another major issue with the movie...it just...presents stuff to us about Shining Time Station and Mr. Conductor as if we’re supposed to go, “yep, that’s what happened in the show” except I haven’t seen the show because, again, it went off the air two years before the movie came out and was canceled four years before the movie came out so I have no idea what the hell is going on here and some of the stuff like Mr. Conductor’s quirky behavior wasn’t even in the show!

Although I might have an explanation for the latter. See, in the original script, this dream sequence was supposed to be longer and would have contained a flashback with Burnett Stone as a child being visited by a “previous Mr. C”. Burnett would have been entrusted with protecting Lady because of his love of trains. With the repeated emphasis on the “Conductor family” in this film, I think the idea is supposed to be that the Alec Baldwin Mr. Conductor is the son of the Ringo Starr/George Carlin Mr. Conductor that was in Shining Time Station (if this scene had been filmed, I have a feeling they would have tried to get George Carlin to cameo as the previous Mr. C). I don’t have a problem with this idea at all...but if that’s supposed to be the case...they probably should have just outright stated he was the son of the Carlin version instead of vaguely implying it…

Except the thing is, this opens up a massive plot hole…

See...If the Conductor family were the ones who GAVE Lady to Burnett (and presumably built her), how the hell does the current Mr. Conductor not know about her?! Later in the movie, the character Junior says that the engine “went missing and they don’t know what happened to it and cuz and I never saw it” except, again, the family GAVE Lady to Burnett! Did no one think to talk to Burnett and ask “Hey, what happened to Lady?” Did Burnett turn them away out of shame? And if he did, why did he turn away the help of the guys who could probably help fix her?!”

The script mentions that “forty years” had passed in between Lady’s destruction and the movie now. That’s a long time but it’s not THAT long... And yet the Conductor family acts like Lady was lost hundreds of years ago to the point where she’s myth and legend...

This is honestly giving me the impression that originally, at some point in the planning stages the Conductor family wasn’t even a part of this movie and it was JUST about Burnett and Lady but then they added the Shining Time Station stuff with the Conductors later in order to give backstory but Allcroft was unwilling to change anything about the Burnett and Lady stuff because it’s meant to be the heart and soul of the story. 

But whatever, back to the movie itself. Mr. Conductor wakes up in a panic and realizes he has to find more Gold Dust and we cut to a train station where Lily is looking for her train...somehow Mutt is here and Lily...asks Mutt (the dog) where platform 3 is and Mutt…feeling Lily needs to go to Shining Time, takes her to platform 4...and Lily boards the train that, again, the dog takes her to without making sure it’s the right one…

...You’re an idiot… 

Also, Mutt making Lily board the wrong train to Shining Time instead of Muffle Mountain made more sense in the OG script because there, Mr. Conductor, through psychic connection, asked Mutt to find help. I’d bother asking how Mutt knew Lily was the right one to get help from but I’ll save it for later when more stupidity arises.

Also, I’d like to point out we’re about one-quarter of the way through the film AND NOTHING HAS HAPPENED.

Cut to Burnett Stone who’s reading an old book and hears Lady’s whistle. And then we get two deleted scenes: one whose cut makes sense and one whose cut doesn’t. Boomer is speeding by on his motorcycle and doesn’t hear the whistle, indicating he’s lost his touch with magic and then we get a scene that I'm baffled was cut, because it’s just Lily talking to her stuffed bluebird about how she wants to visit a more magical place than Muffle Mountain. I have no idea why it was cut because it doesn’t relate to Boomer at all.

Mr. Conductor is cleaning James and the two talk about stuff with Mr. Conductor saying he’s going to the windmill to find something; a clue to help him find more Gold Dust...it then cuts to him...not at the windmill. Apparently, he “lost his sense of direction”...How? Why? This made more sense in the original script wherein he TRIED to teleport but got put in the wrong location. Mr. Conductor tries to teleport again but he’s completely out and he needs to find more or the consequences of his dream will happen...again, how and why?! Explain, movie! EXPLAIN!!!

There’s a pointless scene of the engines talking before we cut to Mr. Conductor again where he’s pacing and thinking before finding a note from….a rabbit encouraging him to eat some food because...it’s good for the brain...What? And then Mr. Conductor starts saying random words after he eats the vegetables which…Okay, what is this?! Nothing like this was in either Shining Time OR Thomas the Tank Engine. The point of this scene is to establish Mr. Conductor getting the idea to call Junior, his cousin, to help. Why did he need brain food to do it? It wasn’t even in the OG script!

I’d really like to know exactly what Britt Alcrofts thought process was while writing that bit...

Oh and Junior…see, this is another thing that the movie just...presents to us without explaining. He’s Mr. Conductor’s cousin but without proper backstory and establishment, he just kinda comes out of nowhere with no setup. I’m not even sure why he’s even in the film. He only has one major contribution to the plot when he brings Lily to Sodor later but you could have easily come up with a different way to do that! And after that, he pretty much does nothing the rest of the movie! So why is he here!? I’d say it’s probably because he had a more fleshed-out role in the deleted scenes except even in the original script which I’ve read he didn’t do much!

Mr. Conductor calls Junior (played by Michael E. Rodgers) using...a bellflower like a phone...again, this wasn’t in Shining Time OR Thomas and unlike the rabbit thing, this WAS in the script! Is this an extension of the magic the conductors have? Okay! Then ESTABLISH that. Don’t just present stuff to us and expect us to go along with it!

Junior appears to be a beach bum and is hanging out on a beach chair when he gets the call from Mr. Conductor on his “shell phone” (hardy har har). Mr. Conductor asks Junior for help in finding the source of the Gold Dust and tells Junior to get his emergency stash and to not tell anyone about the...Buffers...wait, jumping ahead a bit, if Mr. Conductor knows about the Magic Buffers, he knows about the Magic Railroad, and if he knows about the Magic Railroad, how does he not know what the source of the Gold Dust is?!

Back to Lily, she’s arrived at Shining Time Station. When she gets off and goes inside, she meets the arriving Junior. Lily takes seeing a small man teleport right in front of her pretty well and she and Junior hit off quickly...okay so...Mutt presumably brought Lily here to meet Junior so she could get involved in all this...but how did Mutt know that Junior was gonna be here? In the cut scene where Mr. Conductor asks Mutt to find help, he hadn't resolved to get Junior yet! And the most important question of all is why not just have Lily get dropped off at Shining Time anyway instead of doing this business of her getting on the wrong train? Shining Time is apparently a short distance from Muffle Mountain so what’s the point!?

Mr. Conductor is laying down in a field and having more nightmares about Shining Time falling into disarray and is unable to call out to Thomas when he passes by (oh yeah, Thomas is in this movie, remember?)

Stacy offers to give Lily a ride to meet up with Burnett. And this whole section has to be one of the most sliced apart moments in the film. A LOT of stuff got cut here including but not limited to: a scene with Billy and Stacy talking about how all the trains have been late ever since Mr. Conductor left (what did he have to do with that?), a scene where Lily asks Stacy what “Shining Time” means (Which is supposed to tie into how all the characters say stuff like “This is our shining time” near the climax), and another scene of Burnett and Boomer talking with Boomer telling Burnett Lady’s good for nothing but “scrap” just as Lilly and Stacy drive up.

FYI, the scene where Boomer drives away on his motorcycle is one of the few surviving bits of him in the final film with his lines redubbed to make him a biker asking for directions and more ADR work to change what Lily and Stacy say upon arrival.

Also cut was Lily trying to tell Burnett about Junior but Burnett just brushes it off, telling her, “he only believes what he sees”...okay, this is another issue I have...the movie feels like it’s trying to deliver SOME kind of message about...believing in magic which makes us better people and how tragic it is we seemed to have lost the magic in our lives or something, but….I hate to be a cynical bastard but that whole thing kinda falls flat when there is actual magic happening in front of characters.

Then we get some more obvious ADR work. As the truck pulls up to Burnett’s house, Lily says she made a friendship bracelet for Burnett and he thanks her. Why was that put here? Because the scene that showed her giving it to him got cut! In that scene, Lily is at dinner in Burnett’s house asking why he took all the photographs down and Burnett says it’s because he doesn’t like them anymore. Lily asks why he doesn’t live in the valley and Burnett says it’s because he doesn’t like trains anymore either. Lily can tell her grandpa is feeling sad and this is when she gives him the friendship bracelet to make him feel better. Burnett thanks her and he flashes back to when he and Tasha were together and how happy they were. It’s a really well-done scene showing how, even though things are awkward between Lily and her grandfather, they still clearly love each other and it gives some additional context to why Burnett is so sad that doesn’t directly reference Boomer.

So why was it cut? The only thing I can think of is the moms in the test audience didn’t like the distant way Burnett treated Lilly even though that’s the entire point of the scene! Or maybe they were just desperate to get rid of every scene that didn’t involve Thomas and could get away with using ADR to cover it up.

That night, Lily, Patch, and Burnett hear a train whistle…

Back on Sodor (oh yeah, this is a Thomas the Tank Engine movie, remember?), Percy and Thomas are talking with Percy telling Thomas he thinks he’s figured out the mystery. This “Lost Engine” must have a lost railway and since Mr. Conductor kept mentioning buffers in his sleep, there must be buffers that lead to it. Unfortunately, Diesel 10 has heard everything and now knows what to...hang on, if Diesel 10 knew about Lady, how did he not know about the Magic Rail-...Oh right, because he wasn’t supposed to be the one to kill Lady, right.

Toby goes to spy on Diesel 10 who meets up with Splatter and Dodge and tells them it’s time to start looking for the Magic Railroad. Toby tricks Diesel 10 into smashing the shed he’s in over himself to delay him...what was the point of that scene?

And then we get...a montage set to the song “Really Useful Engine” as we see the engines working...well, that’s not mood whiplash at all! And this montage is completely pointless! I wouldn’t be surprised at all if it was added solely to put more Thomas stuff into the movie!

Also, I think it’s worth noting we’re at the halfway point AND NOTHING HAS HAPPENED.

The next day, Henry is complaining about boiler ache and Thomas promises to get Sodor coal to help him. When Thomas collects the coal trucks, however, the one at the back which wasn’t coupled properly is sent flying into a set of buffers...the Magic Buffers.

Later, Thomas and Percy meet up and they discuss the missing coal truck. Thomas and Percy realize those buffers must be the Magic Buffers that lead to the Magic Railroad.

Elsewhere, Mr. Conductor is walking around when Diesel 10 finds him. He grabs Mr. Conductor with his claw and holds him over the Viaduct, demanding to know where the Magic Buffers are. We get some more obvious ADR when some bricks fall off the Viaduct and Mr. Conductor realizes that “this is what he saw in his dream”, even though in the original script, it was just that the Viaduct needed repairs.

Mr. Conductor barely manages to get away when he uses some pliers to cut a hydraulic hose on Diesel 10’s claw, sending him flying through the air and landing near a windmill on some flour bags I placed down there for him. Yep. I got to help him out during this movie. How? You’ll never know…

Mr. Conductor is relieved to see the windmill and goes to find the clue...which is a riddle… Don’t you just love it when people give out vague hints instead of just saying “Hey! Lady, the magic engine who runs the Magic Railroad is the source of the Gold Dust! Just take the shavings she generates while on the Magic Railroad and put them in water. That's how you create more Gold Dust”. Again! Lady getting destroyed happened only forty years ago! How has all the knowledge of her been lost in that amount of time?!

There’s another deleted scene where Lily gets frustrated with her grandpa for refusing to remember the past and then we get a scene that made it into the final film where she meets Patch (yeah, remember him?). They bond pretty quickly and Patch asks Burnett if he can take Lily to Shining Time. Burnett agrees but only if they’re back by sunset.

Patch and Lily ride Patch’s horse to Shining Time and he tells her about the “dark lines” thing from earlier. When they arrive, we get probably...URG, the part where the deleted scenes really show even without ADR. After a brief scene of Burnett angsting over Lady, it cuts to Lily in the station where she meets with Junior again and agrees to go to the Island of Sodor. Now you’re probably thinking, “Wait. What happened to Patch? He brought her here, right? Why isn’t he with Lily when he goes to Sodor?” Well, it’s because they cut out the scene where Patch tells Lily he needs to run some errands but Lilly decides she wants to explore the station. What the hell, filmmakers!? Why’d you cut THAT of all scenes? It's like you were trying to cut out all the scenes that actually added context!... Oh and there’s another scene cut which involves Boomer buying some dynamite...

But okay, it’s finally time for the plot to start going somewhere. Lily and Junior ride on the Magic Railroad which is covered with vines and looks worn down and then they emerge on the Island of Sodor... except that’s not how Mr Conductor arrived on Sodor earlier in the film. He just teleported to a random part of the island. I’d say it’s just because Junior’s bringing along Lilly...except the dialogue implies this is how all the Conductor’s travel to the island.

You know it’s at this point I’m really getting the impression Britt Alcroft was just making stuff up as she went along writing this thing. No disrespect meant to the woman; she did help craft a big part of my childhood but it’s just becoming more and more apparent she was not prepared to handle a production of this size...

After exploring the island for a bit Lily and Junior find Thomas and the engine is annoyed to see Junior at first. Apparently he once “put party poppers down his funnel”...Okay, that sounds funny. Can we see that please? Lily’s in amazement of the talking engine and Thomas takes Lily and Junior to Mr. Conductor at the windmill…

Mr. Conductor gets mad at Junior for being late and the two talk about...stuff for a bit before...a bellflower starts ringing- Are we back to this again? And the call is from...Sir Topham Hatt. WHAT?! I thought the bellflower/shellphone thing was just how the Conductors talked to each other with magic!! How is Sir Topham Hatt’s call, which is presumably using a regular telephone, working with the bell-

WHY EVEN HAVE THE BELLFLOWER PHONE THING!? Why not just have cell phones?! I know cell phones were a new technology back in the 90s and early 2000s but they weren’t THAT new…and this scene where Junior hijacks the call before Mr. Conductor can answer doesn’t add anything anyway!

Mr. Conductor is introduced to Lily and when Mr. C is distracted, Junior...gets on the blades of the windmill and begins riding them...and when the wind picks up, he goes flying and lands on the back of...Diesel 10. If that whole chain of events sounded completely ridiculous, that's because it was…

Back in our world, Patch is telling Burnett about Lily going missing and Burnett assures him they’ll find her. Deleted from this scene is Patch asking about the engine whistle sounds he’s heard on the mountain but Burnett brushes him off. Patch is then confronted by Boomer who tries to bribe Patch for more info about the whistle. Patch tells him to screw off and leaves.

Then we get a scene of Percy spying on Splatter and Dodge at night inspecting some buffers that they think are the Magic Buffers (they aren’t) and Percy goes to warn Thomas that Diesel 10 is searching for them.

Meanwhile, Mr. Conductor and Lily are talking about her telling Burnett about the train whistle she heard and Mr. Conductor says he thinks her grandfather has been here before based on the drawing he did. And then we get a weird scene where...Mr. Conductor says “her grandpa could help if only he believed in himself”...I...What? So...does Mr. Conductor know that Burnett has Lady or not?! Also, Burnett’s problem has nothing to do with belief! He DOES believe Lady can work, it's just every option he has isn’t working!

Oh, and remember how I said that the scene with Patch and Burnett in Burnett’s workshop was originally more towards the end of the film? Where this is where it would have happened. Part of the scene IS still here with Patch talking about how he’s heard Lady whistle and realizing those dark lines are her Magic Railroad but it doesn’t flow as well.

Okay, so remember what I said about how the “dark lines’ thing doesn’t make sense earlier? Well, here’s what I’m talking about. It’s...well, the Magic Railroad, from what I can tell, isn’t underground, it's a dimension between dimensions. Although considering what happens later, I’m guessing the dark lines are more an indicator of where you can enter...so I guess it does make some sense...I don’t know, it’s really complicated and not clear at all…

Percy is telling Thomas they have to get Lily back to her grandfather now before Diesel 10 destroys the Buffers and blocks Lily out forever….Except Diesel 10 hasn’t been destroying buffers….see this is an artifact of George’s inclusion. You see HE was the one destroying buffers on Diesel 10’s orders but since he got cut we never actually get to see Diesel 10 destroying various buffers AKA THE ENTIRE CRUX OF HIS PLAN. Oh and that, Percy vanishes from the story...no, seriously, he just vanishes and is never seen or mentioned again...Why? I don’t know.

Mr. Conductor realizes that Thomas could probably take Lily through the Buffers and after some encouragement, Thomas agrees to do so.

While riding up to the Buffers, they come across a...talking tumbleweed? Did someone watch Big Lebowski right before filming or something?

On the Magic Railroad, Thomas and Lily see the coal truck from earlier and realize that must be what the clue that Mr. Conductor found meant (one of the lines was “stoke up the magic in the mountain”)...except how do you know that it refers to this specific coal and not the dozens of other coals you could find? This made more sense in the OG script where Lady telepathically spoke to Thomas and guided him to the coal truck, implying she knew the coal could restore her and needed it brought NOW.

Thomas and Lily emerge on Muffle Mountain but without railroad tracks, Thomas is stuck. Lily goes to get help and then the ground collapses beneath Thomas and he’s seen flying down the mountain. The thing not shown is that the ground collapsing was because of Boomer setting off an explosion. Boomer sees Thomas but assumes he’s just a giant toy yet goes after him...for some reason. They both end up being flung into another entrance to the Magic Railroad.

Back with Burnett, he’s still in his workshop when Lily comes in and notices Lady. This is another scene where I can’t help but get the feeling something was cut because the jumps between the actors are awkward and the lines don't flow as naturally as they should… Lily tells Patch to get the Sodor coal from the coal truck and we cut to…

...Junior still on Diesel 10’s back? It’s been like a day! Has he been riding Diesel 10 ALL NIGHT?! What was happening during that time? Diesel 10 runs into the smelters and after a sudden stop, Junior goes flying, landing on a nearby James. Diesel 10 is about to push them over the edge into the smelter's pit and Junior is forced to use the last of the Gold Dust to teleport him and James to Mr. Conductor. And much like Percy, James is forgotten about after this scene. Thanks for coming…

Okay, back to the more interesting stuff. Burnett is telling Lily about Tasha and how she never rode on Lady and how Burnett couldn’t fix her in time. The scene was originally a lot longer though. With Burnett talking about how every day, he’d make it right and that tomorrow would be perfect...and then Tasha died...and there was no more tomorrow. He failed his promise to the Conductor family to keep Lady safe and he failed his promise to Tasha to show her the wonders of the Magic Railroad and the island of Sodor...all because he couldn’t stand up to a bully.

Patch arrives with the coal and Burnett begins loading Lady with the special coal. She starts steaming for the first time in decades and begins moving as they enter the Magic Railroad…

And I’ll give credit where it’s due...this is an amazing sequence. The whole movie has been an absolute mess so far but this moment where Burnett gets to share the moment he never could with his wife with his granddaughter as the Magic Railroad heals, feeling happy for the first time in years, is legitimately heartwarming.

As Lady travels along the Railroad, she generates shavings which Lily collects in her pack and the Railroad heals more and more as the vines go away, showing a sunny sky. Thomas meets back up with them, having fallen into another part of the Railroad as stated previously.

After emerging on the Island of Sodor, Lily is reunited with Mr. Conductor and Junior and then...we get a really weird conversation between Mr. Conductor and Junior. Like Mr. Conductor gets excited seeing Lady realizing she’s the Lost Engine and Junior gets excited because this means they can go home...but then Mr. Conductor gets all dour and says “No, they can’t because no Gold Dust”...even though the source of the Gold Dust is RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM...Like..is it that hard to believe that the Lost Engine and the source of the Gold Dust are the same thing!?

Thomas exits the Magic Railroad only to be followed by Diesel 10 and we get our climax. Burnett hops aboard Lady, telling her he won’t let her down again and Thomas promises to protect Lady and the two race off with Diesel 10 (oh and Splatter and Dodge ditch Diesel 10 after having done nothing this entire movie. Why were they here?! And don’t say comic relief because even comic relief needs to have a purpose.) Oh, and it’s only after Lady leaves that Mr. Conductor FINALLY gets that Lady is the source.

But back to the chase scene...it’s awesome. It’s well shot, well-paced, and the music is good. Why couldn’t the whole movie have been like this!? Although there are a few things we should note: in the original version of the film, P.T. Boomer was sent flying after exiting the Magic Railroad and was riding on the back of Diesel 10 during the chase. The line Burnett gives during the chase, “Because the magic you refused to believe in will get the better of you” was originally aimed at Boomer, not Diesel 10. There’s even one shot where you can see P.T. Boomer is still on Diesel 10’s back.

The chase ends with the three engines going over the crumbling Viaduct from earlier. While Lady and Thomas make it, Diesel 10 doesn’t, falling into a river barge full of sludge and in the original script, he and Boomer died...okay, they got “turned into boiler sludge” but that would basically be dying thanks to a “magic bandanna” that belonged to Junior...yeah, it didn’t make much sense in the OG script either…

Thomas, Burnett, and Lady are back with Junior, Mr. Conductor, Patch, and Lily and then we get a scene I’m convinced was part of a larger scene that got cut because the dialogue in it sounds like it was in the middle of a longer conversation, where the characters try to figure out how to make more Gold Dust. But whatever, they put the shavings Lily collected from riding Lady in some water and when they toss them up in the air, they become Gold Dust.

So now we get our wrap-up. Junior gives Lily some Gold Dust to remember him by, Junior decides to be a Conductor at his own station (well, I THINK that's the idea, it’s not really clear by the dialogue if he’s replacing Mr. Conductor at Shining Time or finding his own station), Mr. Conductor leaves to get back to running the railway while Sir Topham Hatt’s gone, Burnett and Lily bond some more, Shining Time Station goes back to normal and Thomas goes home.

And with that, the movie FINALLY ends.

Dear Lord, this was a mess...The plot was basically at a standstill for the longest time, the acting ranges from okay to oh no, and there's little to no explanation for a lot of things that drive the plot which I’m sure is caused by the amount of footage that got cut but I don’t think it would have saved the movie if it had been put back in.

And as I pointed out in the review, it is astounding how much evidence there is of the cut footage in the final film because almost every two minutes there’s a line that’s either ADR’d or a scene that has some awkward cuts to hide the deleted footage. It was honestly a really sobering experience to watch this film alongside the deleted scenes that have been released so far...and that’s not even getting into the deleted footage I didn’t talk about. Like how originally, a grown-up Lily was gonna be the narrator telling the story to her kids, how Stacy and Billy were supposed to play much bigger roles, or how Cranky the crane from the TV show was gonna make a cameo.

But let’s talk about the main attraction of all the deleted footage: Boomer. I’m honestly kinda baffled by him. For all the hype there was over the past few years of Boomer being this terrifying villain who was the missing link that brought the movie together...I felt like he really didn’t do much in the film. Aside from causing Burnett’s angst by being the one who wrecked Lady, and a few scenes where he shows up to be a dick, he really doesn’t do much or have a significant impact on anything. I don’t even know why he was considered “too scary”. He’s more a laughable type of villain than anything else and his plan to dig into muffle mountain to find Lady is needlessly complicated. He only “improves'' the movie by filling in a few holes that were created by his absence. I almost have to wonder if the actual reason he was cut was because the children demanded more Thomas scenes and cutting a character who didn’t have much impact on the Thomas scenes was low hanging fruit…

In fact, now that I think about it, that could explain a lot of the deleted footage. Looking at the whole picture now, most of the ADR work and the awkward jumps are mostly in the human-centric scenes but the scenes on Sodor featuring Thomas and his friends seem to be mostly intact. It seems like my guess from earlier might have been correct. They were probably so desperate to include as much of Thomas as possible they cut out every single part of the movie that didn’t involve him, that they would be able to get away with cutting around or covering up with ADR and then tried to shove in as much Thomas footage as they could. Unfortunately, it seems they also cut out a lot of scenes that actually build context, which is why the movie feels like a jumbled mess.

And lack of context really is one of the big issues with this movie. Even if you put in some of the scenes that were cut that added context you’re still left with a story where NOTHING is established properly. Information is just presented to us without any build up or explanation so it just makes things really confusing and makes you ask “Why” and “How” throughout the entire thing.

Back on the villain front, NEITHER of them really did much in this film...a good villain should be one who impedes the heroes’ progress constantly with his threat hanging over their heads but aside from the scene where Diesel 10 confronts Mr. Conductor at the sheds, the scene where he holds him over the Viaduct and the final chase, neither Boomer nor Diesel 10 really do anything in this movie...

In fact, what IS the plot for this movie exactly? Because it’s all over the place! One moment, it's a story of a man finding the magic in his life again because of his granddaughter, another moment, it’s about a guy trying to find the source of his family’s power that was lost ages ago, and occasionally, you get a Thomas scene in there. Both main plots feel extremely disconnected from each other despite technically having the same end-goal and it also causes massive plot holes in some areas because Mr Conductor’s knowledge of the magic railroad and Lady tends to change depending on the scene. It seems while writing the script Britt Allcroft fell into that trap a lot of storytellers fall into - trying to shove everything except the kitchen sink into the picture - because the blending of the two central plots wasn’t anywhere near as seamless as she seemed to think it was. It probably would have been better if she just decided to focus on one over the other. 

And by that I mean she needed to ax Shining Time Station and the Conductor family. Because When you really break it down they didn’t really add anything to the story. I mean think for a second. What did Mr. Conductor and Junior actually DO in this film? Seriously. Just set this on Sodor with live action actors, have the Lily and Burnett plotline with a different explanation for what the magic railroad does, and you’d probably have the same basic plot! AND we’d probably get more scenes with Thomas and his Friends!

But enough about the actual content of the film, let’s go back to what I alluded to earlier about how this was the beginning of Thomas’s downfall. When the movie got released, it was subject to a savage thrashing by critics and bombed at the box office. And while the Thomas brand would survive, the movie’s failure was so bad, it forced Britt Allcroft to resign as the head of her own company which eventually was sold to Hit Entertainment who proceeded to turn Thomas into a merchandise-driven cash cow and the quality of the show went down HARD.

This movie would be an embarrassing mess on its own but the fact that it was the beginning of the downfall of the Thomas brand just made it even worse and it’s why so many Thomas fans hate the film.

And it seems like it’s officially been made non-canon because, while Diesel 10 and Lady would show up again in Calling All Engines in 2005, their backstories would be completely altered, with Lady being an engine who “works high in the mountains” who appears in a dream of Thomas’s inspiring him to get the Steam Engines and the Diesel’s to work together to save the island (long story), and Diesel 10 reinvented as more as a jerk with a heart of gold who doesn’t like steam engines all that much but is willing to help out when it really counts. So there really is no reason to revisit this thing...

So yeah, unless you're a completionist Thomas fan, don’t watch it. It’s not worth your time…

But is Thomas doomed? No. No, I don’t think so. Because while the quality of the actual show may go down...we’ll always have the work of the fans. As long as we have fans making their own stories and fan series and keeping the spirit alive, Thomas will never die.

Thanks for hopping aboard this train ride, everybody, and until the next review, see you later!