My daughter loves it, but she likes anything bright and colourful. The storylines are okay but the voices... they're just awful! Why does British children's tv have these awful strained fake voices for their characters?! Incredibly irritating and unpleasant to watch. Thomas as a character is just not likeable, and the added characters are OTT. There are also lots more countries in the world other than India and Brazil, maybe Thomas could explore Europe more seeing as it's a British classic? Maybe even explore some of England? That being said the songs are insanely catchy and you end up singing them all day.
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ejukes5 May 2023
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nikotoyas-881873 October 2018In the 🎥 I like when Nia the tank engine from the African country of Kenya and a new member of the Steam Team on Sodor. She is a real optimist with a great sense of fun. She is also driven by a strong moral compass and takes being fair and kind to others seriously. She is not afraid to speak her mind when she needs to. Nia is both thoughtful and practical and often comes up with very creative ideas. Her kind heart and infectious enthusiasm never fail to win over others in the end.
She first meets Thomas in her homeland of Kenya when he stops in her yard to collect more trucks to take to Dar es Salaam while in pursuit of Ace. Noticing how heavy his train is getting, she offers to help, but Thomas sternly refuses, stating he can handle it himself. However, she later arrives to help him over a steep hill when the trucks nearly cause him to slide back down it. She later encourages the trucks to sing to raise Thomas' mood during the journey, and to help soothe an elephant that tries to charge Thomas when it was blocking the tracks. When they reach Dar es Salaam, Nia has a chat with her friend Kwaku, but Thomas interrupts before Nia can reveal that her shed was destroyed and she was looking for a new one. After Thomas thanks her for her help, he prepares to board a ship bound for South America and the city of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. However, Nia decides to join him, much to his chagrin, having wanted to see the world herself.
Thomas remains unfriendly with Nia throughout their journey, but begins to warm up to her after they rescue a crashed Ace and made it through the Amazon rainforest after some difficulty, continuing their journey through Central America and Mexico before reaching North America and the United States. As they make their way through the Grand Canyon, Ace is able to trick Thomas and Nia into splitting their delivery to San Francisco between them and race to see who is the faster of the two steam engines. Thanks to Ace, who wanted to get to the Bonneville Salt Flats, Nia is separated from Thomas, and as a result, thinking that Thomas was in on Ace's trick, she becomes hurt and cross, and continues on alone to China.
When Thomas catches up to her in the Himalayas, she refuses to listen to his explanations for what happened, still hurt and upset about it, but hearing his heartfelt apology, she realises he never meant to upset her and is truly sorry for it. Before she and Thomas can fully make amends, an avalanche caused by Thomas trying to get Nia's attention sweeps her off the tracks and leaves her dangling precariously over a cliff. Thomas attempts to pull her back to safety, but a rock underneath her is dislodged causing her to go over the edge and nearly pull Thomas with her until Yong Bao arrives just in time to save both of them. After Nia is lifted back onto the rails by the breakdown cranes brought by Yong Bao and The Chinese Diesel, she and Thomas prepare to return to the Island of Sodor, with Yong Bao advising they travel through Asia and Europe to get back to the Island of Sodor via The Mainland.
Together, Nia and Thomas make their way back to Sodor, unaware of a signalman in India seeing Thomas and phoning ahead to let the North Western Railway know he was coming home. When they reach the Vicarstown Bridge, Thomas realises that once he crosses it, he'll be home, but Nia will have to go home to Kenya. However, Nia reveals what she had tried to tell Kwaku back in Dar es Salaam before Thomas interrupted her, that she no longer has a home to go back to. Sympathetic to her plight, Thomas offers Nia the chance to stay and work on the North Western Railway, knowing that Sir Topham Hatt would love to have Nia working on his railway. The two engines cross the bridge, returning to Knapford to find a large group of Thomas' friends, human and engine alike, welcoming him home. After Thomas formally introduces Nia to Mr. Percival and the others, Nia prepares to enjoy her new home on the Island of Sodor -
CadenTheGWR1500ClassEngine27 February 2022Mattel, has seriously crossed the line, changing the show into BWBA and then All Engines Go! Makes zero sense, Nia is very unlikable, she replaces Edward, and I have zero pity for her, Rebecca from Season 22 to 24 is unlikable too, and replaced Henry, and I have zero pity for her too
this movie is like a 3.2/10 and Seasons 22-24 get a 2.4/10, very dumb. -
neil-47623 January 2021Taking inspiration from irresponsible Australian racing car Ace, Thomas determines to be the first engine to travel round the world. On his journey, he meets assorted engines from other countries, and gets into assorted escapades.
I grew up in the 1950s with the Rev. W Awdry's original Railway Books - short tales featuring a group of engines with personalities of small boys, in which various real-life railway occurrences were tweaked to be due to misbehaving engines, enabling gentle morals to be drawn. Each page of text was matched with a painting (gorgeous stuff by C Reginald Dalby in the early books), and all was set in a gently bucolic version of mid-20th century England. This was long before any thought of merchandising or brand exploitation.
And so we arrive in 2018, at which points the rights to produce Thomas material moved from Britt Allcroft's careful and affectionate model-based adaptations of the original stories to the CGI original material from current owners Mattel. Which brings us to...
Thing is, i started this film expecting to be enormously annoyed by it, and I wasn't. The multicultural inclusivity is rather woke, but it is done fairly tastefully and it, and the mirality ofvThomas' mishaps - don't listen to bad advice when you know it's bad, think of others, don't do stupid and dangerous things - are all morals Awdry would have been pleased to see. It is surely a good thing for Thomas and his friends to forge a new generation of enthisiastic young fans, albeit he has to have his horizons expanded in order to do so. And the Thomas we see here is clearly still Awdry's Thomas, despite - and here is my only big gripe: it is a big one though - despite his American accent. BecausecThomas is quintessentially English.
That aside, this is quite a good fil for youngish children. The CGI is adequate, albeit not dazzling. The film is colourful, and the script does its job. -
macianciolo23 February 2019If a kid wants a good Thomas movie, then show them The Adventure Begins Or Legend Of The Lost Treasure, not this. We've already had a dark age for Thomas with Sharon Miller and then we finally got back on track. Even I got back into the show after The Great Race and I'm well passed the age range. Now I feel as if my childhood has been massacred with the almost complete destruction of all realism and terrible side characters that fail to teach kids any solid morals.
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powellhjl29 December 2023Goodies: The Idea Of Thomas Going All Around The World Seems To Be Tolerable
Nia Is A Decent Character Here.
Pretty Catchy Songs
Ace Getting His Comeuppance By Getting Sent Away By Thomas
Baddies: The Animation Looks Either Rushed Or Uncanny
Thomas Is Worse Than His "Misty Island Rescue" And "Day Of The Diesels" Self In Here
Ace Is An Unlikable New Character
Some Of The Sets (Exclude Sodor) Look Really Bland And Empty
The Scene Where The Crane That I Don't Know The Name Of Lifts Topham Is Very Unfunny
Thomas Never Gets Any Punishment For The Selfish Decision He's Done
My Rate: Awful. -
dfrediani120 July 2018Hello everyone, DaveMan1000 here and today I went to see the premier of the latest Thomas & Friends special, Big World! Big Adventures!. After the overwhelmingly positive response to Sodor's Legend of the Lost Treasure and the more polarising views on The Great Race and Journey Beyond Sodor; both of which did affect my overall opinions on those movies, I wanted a fresh take on this new entry and I didn't read or watch any "reviews" prior to seeing it.
And through all of that, I can personally say that Big World! Big Adventures! is a well paced, beautifully animated and overall really fun movie. Right off the bat, no, this is not as good as Sodor's Legend of the Lost Treasure; putting that debate to rest before it even starts. If you ask me, I don't think The Great Race and Journey Beyond Sodor got the amount of praise they deserved due to being unfairly compared to their vastly superior predecessor, which I'm sure many people will also do for this one, which will in turn detract it's overall quality.
First, let's talk about the elephant in the room: yes, the engines and road vehicles are now fully capable of moving their bodies around. In this movie, they went all out, as opposed to Journey Beyond Sodor and Series 21 where they sort of went half-in half-out, and got stuck in an awkward middle ground. But here, they're more dynamic than ever before, but I really don't see that as a bad thing. I believe that they should've implemented this style into the show as soon as they made the transition to full CGI back in Hero of the Rails. Just seeing the characters visibly interact and respond to the world around them brings much more life to what would otherwise be static vehicles with faces, which works in model form, but not so much in animation if you ask me.
As far the voice cast goes, it's as great as ever:
John Hasler as Thomas brings us the same innocent & mischievous performance as always, though I think this could be his best role as the tank engine yet. This movie I think showcases Thomas' cheeky side much better, like one instance where he goes behind Gordon's back and tricks him without the latter even realising until it's too late, and seeing Gordon's reaction gave me a good chuckle. But when he needed to get serious, Hasler didn't disappoint; unlike his portrayal in say The Great Race, whenever Thomas was a bit grumpy or moody, I never got a spiteful or unpleasant vibe from him, which was a welcome change.
Next up is out newcomer to the Steam Team, Nia. Everyone and I mean EVERYONE hated this character before she even said a word, and don't get me wrong, I wasn't actually excited for her from the start either, but I was willing to give her a chance. And honestly... I love Nia! Yeah! In such a short amount of time, I found myself absolutely loving this character; from her bubbly attitude, to her beautiful engine design, her quirky greetings and even her supposedly "ugly" face model; which grew on me very quickly. Yvonne Grundy delivers a fantastic performance and can't wait to here more in Series 22.
And then there's Peter Andre as Ace, who absolutely steals the show whenever he's on screen. Ace is a character straight out of Cars in every conceivable way, from his body movements, his love for racing and Andre's fast and energetic performance. I really hope this isn't the last we've seen of Ace, he was a blast to watch.
Like with the other specials, unless a character is on the poster, they won't get much screen time and here was no different. The other engines only had small appearances in the beginning for the opening song, but in the time they had, they still gave great performances; everyone gets a few good lines in here and there and there weren't any glaring errors made by the voice actors. A standout performance for me was Keith Wickham as the Fat Controller; ever since Series 20, he's become much more comedic and energetic (maybe in response to his portrayal in SLotLT?), and here Wickham really shines, though I can't say too much without spoilers. The only mistake I heard was when Rob Rackstraw briefly slipped into his US voice for James at one point, but that was very quick and all the other times he used the correct UK voice.
Also, throughout the movie you may see some familiar faces from The Great Race...;)
Speaking of the songs, are they a step up? ... No, I don't think so, but I see them on equal grounds to the ones from TGR and JBS, which is still pretty high. Though if you ask me, the way the songs are implemented into the story is handled much better than in the last two specials. All the songs are on YouTube right now, go give them a listen, you won't be disappointed, I guarantee.
So overall, I really liked this movie and I feel it's been unfairly scrutinised both with being compared to Sodor's Legend of the Lost Treasure and from people who just won't give new things a chance to show what they've got.
Now let's see where I'd rank this special with the other ones from renaissance: 1. Sodor's Legend of the Lost Treasure 2. The Adventure Begins 3. Big World! Big Adventures! 4. Journey Beyond Sodor 5. The Great Race 6. Tale of the Brave 7. King of the Railway
Now while I've ranked this below SLotLT and TAB, that doesn't mean I like this one any less or the latter two any more, this list is purely from the quality level I view these in. But, if you were to ask me which one I prefer and which one I'd probably want to watch again, I have no regrets saying it would be this one. Mostly because it was so much fun. "Fun", that's a word I don't like to toss around too often, as people's perception of the word does differ but that's what I see here; Big World! Big Adventures! is a fun movie, Sodor's Legend of the Lost Treasure isn't, which is why I'd watch the former again as opposed to the latter.
Now though I've stated this with how this post is written (from my POV), I feel I need to stress that this is strictly my opinion and does not reflect that of everyone and it is not my intention to sway anyone's own opinion on the product.
I'm not stating that Big World! Big Adventures! is a great movie, but I am stressing that it is, to no lesser extent a good one. After this, I'm now very excited for Series 22 and can't wait for more from this new direction the show is taking.
As always, I'm DaveMan1000 and I'll see you all next time. -
gemmastubbs-3124018 November 2020Not sure why it's got an average review. My toddler is obsessed and he won't watch the original Thomas the tank engine so it's amazing he's now into something me and my husband used to watch as kids!
I was wondering why the songs stuck in my head like a Disney movie. Like to the point where we are humming them around the house. Then we looked it up and realised Peter Andre voiced the car ace! No wonder the songs are so good!
Nia is an amazing character and such a good friend and role model for my son and the way the story plays out is really good for him to learn how to treat people around him.
Not only that but he is speaking so much more now because he is completely in love with the characters.
Big thumbs up from us for learning, fun, good singalongs and story. -
williamou6 October 2018Big World ! Big Adventures! is one of the BEST T&F movies of all!!!!!!! I enjoyed a lot!
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davis-denton3 May 2021My son loves it and it's enjoyable enough to watch as an adult.
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luizhenriquesouzasilva19 November 2022I Love Big Word Big Adventures The movie is so cool, best movie of Thomas ever The movie is so cool The movie is incrible The movie is amazing Good work Peter André as Ace's voice I Love this movie i Love Big Word Big Adventures The movie is so cool The movie is incrible The movie is amazing Good work Peter André as Ace's voice Best movie of Thomas ever So coll Incrible Amazing I Love this movie I Love Big Word Big Adventures Best movie of Thomas ever I Love the your voice Peter André Good work Peter André as Ace's voice Best movie of Thomas ever Cool, incrible and amazing best movie of Thomas ever.