Thunderbirds‘ staying power as one of the greatest science fiction television series ever made is evidenced by the fact that despite its brief lifespan between 1965 and 1966, several attempts have since been made to reinvent the series, either as a new TV series or as a feature film. Gerry Anderson himself attempted to revive Thunderbirds in the 1980s and mapped out a clear vision for what this fresh incarnation of Thunderbirds would have been about. That remake, T-Force, never got off the ground, but how much do we know about it?
This Thunderbirds Thursday, we’re investigating T-Force – Gerry Anderson’s lost Thunderbirds remake!
Thunderbirds Are Go…ing to the 80s!
Thunderbirds has had two official remakes: 2004’s Thunderbirds movie and 2015’s TV incarnation Thunderbirds Are Go. Two remakes both barely a decade from each other suggest the classic series didn’t invite huge opportunities for remakes. However, these things are always just the tip of the iceberg. For every one TV series that gets produced, how many more languish in development hell? Thunderbirds isn’t immune to this. Across the decades, we know of many attempts to bring the adventures of International Rescue back to our screens – and who knows how many more that we don’t know of!
Gerry Anderson tried to bring the International Rescue concept back to our TV screens with Intergalactic Rescue in the 1970s, but rumours of a full-blooded remake of his most successful creation would begin to emerge in the early 1980s. In the wake of Terrahawks‘ immediate success in late 1983, fans and critics alike began mulling over the possibility that this return of sci-fi’s puppet master could prompt a new body of work akin to Gerry’s puppet works of the 1960s, from Supermarionation to Supermacromation.
Sure enough, Anderson did have plans to reignite his creative empire, but in typical Anderson fashion, he was in no mood to be tied down to any particular genre or medium. Anderson had always carried ideas and concepts for new creative projects wherever he went, and his newly formed partnership with the savvy business-orientated mind of Christopher Burr prompted a slew of fresh proposals – the political thriller Operation Shockwave, the children’s animated TV series The Hit Squad, and further adventures for Terrahawks. Another proposal was a remake of Thunderbirds, now to be brought entirely up to date for a modern 1980s audience. This remake was to be named T-Force, a live-action reimagination of Thunderbirds, produced by Gerry Anderson himself.
Establishing the Format
Possibly the earliest acknowledgement we have of T-Force comes from issue #10 of the Gerry Anderson fanzine Supermarionation is Go. Released in the spring of 1984, just as the dust was settling on Terrahawks‘ arrival, the issue opens with the blaring ‘breaking news’ introduction that Anderson Burr Pictures were actively pursuing a remake of Thunderbirds.
If this idea is to be developed into a production then make no mistake that it will only do so with backing from the U.S.A. To achieve this support we are currently engaged surveying the market to ensure of an American success and this might mean re-working the series for the U.S. market. I don’t discount a new look altogether, though it is really too early to say one way or the other.
Gerry Anderson, ‘SiGfax’, Supermarionation is Go #10, Spring 1984.
A core premise and accompanying concept art were fleshed out during this time, with the focused intention of reinventing Thunderbirds for a new generation of fans. In our recent deep dive into the Anderson Entertainment archives, Jamie Anderson revealed that T-Force would have shifted Thunderbirds into significantly darker territory compared to the optimistic vibes of the classic series. The Tracy family would have been severely more secretive and harboured internal conflicts. Intriguingly, this would have been the same set-up of character dynamics that Die Hard, Commando, Street Fighter, and Judge Dredd screenwriter Steven E. de Souza embraced for his unrealised cinematic take on Thunderbirds during the late 1990s when he took over from Peter Hewitt and Karey Kirkpatrick.
At any rate, this does indeed sound like T-Force would have been a complete upgrade of the classic series in much the same way that New Captain Scarlet reinvented Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. By detaching itself from the canon of the classic series, T-Force could have established its own timeline and mentality for how International Rescue would operate in a world shaped by the anxieties of the 1980s.
Quite intriguingly, another possible version of T-Force might have existed instead. Speaking to Supermarionation is Go in 1987, long-time Anderson scriptwriter and script editor Tony Barwick gave an insight into what T-Force would have been about. Barwick himself would presumably have been a key creative voice in T-Force‘s storytelling. Unfortunately, by this time, T-Force‘s development had rather ground to a halt, and Barwick himself wasn’t optimistic that the series would see the light of day. It’s worth noting that this would very likely have been the first public description of what T-Force would have entailed…
The basic format was that Scott’s grandson, who is now 35-40, reforms International Rescue; so that’s the link with the past, he is now taking the place of Jeff Tracy as head of the organisation. He has four or five guys working for him and it is an update in that they have a giant submarine – which is almost like an island – and this can submerge and get everything abord. So that’s their secret base, which can surface whenever the need arises to launch updates of all the vehicles to go and do the updated rescues.
‘Solenoid Spotlight: The SiG Interview – Tony Barwick’. Supermarionation is Go #17, Spring 1987. Interviewed by Chris Drake and Alan Howard.
There’s so much to unravel here. Compared to the more definitive sounding premise described by Jamie, Barwick’s version places T-Force slap bang in the canon of the original series. The story possibilities hardwired into this premise feel rather emotionally charged; the acknowledgement of International Rescue’s disbandment, presumably sometime after Jeff Tracy’s command, raises an abundance of questions. What would Scott Tracy’s grandson have been like? What was the catalyst for his desire to reform his great-grandfather’s organisation? Such questions would surely have given this version of T-Force an engrossing emotional core.
“Let’s have a rundown of the International Rescue craft…”
The entertainment value of any incarnation of Thunderbirds can rest quite heavily on the hardware. Whether in puppetry or CGI, comic, audio, or novel format, Thunderbirds brings a world of technologically advanced wonder and imagination to life – and how that advanced technology can lead to thrillingly jeopardous disaster, leaving only International Rescue as the ones capable of saving the day.
Just as the 1960s brought with it the white heat of the space age revolution, the 1980s brought its own global advancements. The emergency of digital technologies through computers and video games would have likely thrust Thunderbirds into the age of the microchip. Personal electronic devices that could fit in the palm of your hand, already predicted in Thunderbirds, were now becoming a reality. Mobile phones, CDs, personal computers. In place of the Cold War, there was instead the VHS and Betamax war! This would have surely influenced the worldbuilding aesthetic and styles of disaster scenarios that T-Force would have indulged in.
Concept art that showcases the kind of hardware that T-Force would have utilised to tackle such emergencies remains in existence, displaying a liberal reinvention of how T-Force‘s equivalent of the Thunderbird machines would have functioned. From what material survives, it appears that a core fleet of at least four main rescue machines would have formed the body of the T-Force fleet.
As Barwick alluded to above, while T-Force appeared to undergo some realignment as either a new continuity or a continuation within the series’ original world, the idea of T-Force using a gargantuan submarine base remained a constant feature. Concept art from our archives shows that the Oceana, as it’s named, would have indeed been a colossal centrepiece of T-Force‘s hardware. This sprawling entity would have served every conceivable purpose for T-Force as a base of operations. Close inspection of the craft’s surface shows retractable launch domes labelled 1, 2 and 3, whilst the Oceana itself bears yellow decal markings and is numbered, quite appropriately, 4. Might a fifth T-Force vehicle exist in outer space? A satellite, perhaps in orbit around the Earth, monitoring communications across the globe?
We recently revealed the Facilitator in our 25 Hidden Gems from the Anderson Entertainment Archive article. This mighty machine would have served as T-Force‘s equivalent of Thunderbird 2. Instead of a pod, the craft’s detachable central section separates to become a land-based tractor vehicle that combines all of the functionality of the pod vehicle system. The Facilitator bears the ability to construct specialised rescue vehicles designed to tackle specific rescue emergencies, an idea perhaps carried over from Intergalactic Rescue 4 and would re-emerge in 2015’s Thunderbirds Are Go.
Evidently then, the technological spirit of Thunderbirds was being well-maintained by Gerry with these fresher concepts. On a purely surface level, the Facilitator performs the exact same role as Thunderbird 2 and does so in just about the exact same fashion, albeit on an enhanced level of scale and engineering qualities. Oceana asks the unexpected question of what might happen if you combined Thunderbird 4 with Tracy Island (with a healthy sprinkling of Cloudbase thrown in), but it’s easy enough to envision this mammoth seagoing base as the nerve centre for an International Rescue that’s been dragged back out of retirement and made to contend with a far more different world of unpredictable disasters.
Thunderbirds Meets… Space Police?
Intriguingly, other concept art hints at an intertwined conceptual period between T-Force and the 1986 pilot film Space Police, which itself marked the first step in the long road towards 1994’s Space Precinct. A poster-styled piece of artwork, produced in 1984 and most likely designed to drum up interest in T-Force to potential financial investors and/or television executives, carries some recognisable T-Force elements. A trio of vehicles can be seen soaring through the skies, most notably the Facilitator in an eye-catchingly familiar green livery! Could the other two vehicles flanking the Facilitator either side be T-Force‘s equivalent of Thunderbirds 1 and 3?
This poster is dominated by a villainous character who can’t be anyone other than the Hood. His menacing, glowing eyes are quite the giveaway as to who this character is meant to represent. However, he boasts a far more grotesquely biomechanical design. It’s a far cry from the original, but in the age of The Terminator and Robocop, it’s an appropriate enough redesign to suit 1980s tastes in supervillains.
The remaining elements of the poster, however, look to be taken from another property entirely. Beneath the Hood’s menacing expression, Space Precinct‘s Slomo can be witnessed operating a bank of controls (the Facilitator, perhaps?), whilst the remaining characters depicted on the poster have a striking resemblance to the animatronic alien characters from the Space Police pilot. Also crashing in from Space Police appears to be the runaway train that’s central to that pilot film’s premise.
Was T-Force borrowing from Space Police concepts, then? Or was it the other way around? Were these characters originally envisioned as part of T-Force but filtered their way into Space Police? The full answer may be unknown, but it feels more likely that this poster’s free-wheeling combination of aspects from different productions was meant to be taken as a teaser, a sampling to give potential backers a taste of what T-Force was all about.
Thunderbirds’ Lost Future
It’s always a tough gamble speculating on projects that never made it past the conceptual stage. Even with all the concept art, series bibles, or scripts at our fingertips, we can never say with absolute certainty how T-Force might have flourished. What we can say with some concreteness is that Gerry didn’t appear too hampered by the need to be strictly faithful to the visual style of Thunderbirds. In his 1987 interview with SiG, Barwick also suggested that T-Force could have been produced in the same Supermacromation style puppetry of Terrahawks, but eventually was planned as a live action series. Could the 1986 Space Police pilot then provide the most tangible evidence of the narrative tone and visual style that T-Force would have embraced?
Alas, we’ll never know. By the late 1980s, development on T-Force had fizzled out. But we can be confident in saying that T-Force would have carried with it all the brilliantly imagined, hardware-driven adventure that’s so synonymous with Thunderbirds, whilst refreshing many of the series’ core elements to sit more comfortably with audience tastes and expectations for the 1980s.
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