Thomas & Friends - Hero of the Rails [DVD] [2009]

Product Information

The first special to have Shin Yong-u, Um Sang-hyun, Jeon Tae-yeol and Kim Eun-a as part of the voice cast for K.NET in South Korea. This is one of the two US releases to be captioned by CaptionMax until The Thomas Way; the other being Best of James.

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Side guide

Near the end of the special during Thomas and Spencer's final race, the points were not switched, but Spencer was still able to change lines. On some copies of the US DVD releases, they state that the special is in fullscreen, but it is really in widescreen. Entertainment to Grow Up With* | Two Thomas Adventures* | Thomas' Sodor Stories* | Fun with Thomas | Thomas' Trainyard Adventures* | Starting This Fall on PBS* | Thomas to the Rescue | Quarry Adventures on Sodor | The Story of Thomas and the Jet Engine | Thomas Tries His Best | Thomas' Birthday Sampler | Thomas & Friends 2008 Sampler DVD | Go, Go Thomas! | Thomas' Railway Adventures! | Disappearing Diesels In the first trailer, there is a scene where Victor says, "You've come to the right place, my friend." This was not present in the special; it is from the thirteenth series episode, Creaky Cranky. Nitrogen Studios released the "Patchwork Hiro" chase sequence to the public in their Studio Animation Pipeline collection illustrating the three various stages of animation the film went through before the final cut.

The first time that a location outside of the United Kingdom is shown in the television series, in this case, the location shown is Hiro's homeland, Japan. Race for the Sodor Cup | Thomas the Tank Engine Series 25 Vol. 1 ( coming soon) | Thomas the Tank Engine Series 25 Vol. 2 ( coming soon) This special entered pre-production in September 2008, was produced alongside the thirteenth series starting with January 2009 and was delivered in May 2009. [1] DevelopmentI watched this with my daughter and she loved the whole show. Seeing as its newly transition there wasn't a bombardment of loads of characters old and new this strictly focuses on the main cast as the heroes, Spencer as the baddie and Hiro as the plot. The visuals are beautiful, but it doesn't have the stand out magic and physical, reach out and touch feeling of the old model environments. The trains also seem less realistic which has always been a corner stone of Thomas and his creator Rev W Awdry. This is to be expected though, the hardest part for me was the new voices for the trains. Before we could all visualise what each characters voice was like but now we've had it done for us and frankly some of them are a little disappointed. Toby sounds like a fat guy heavy smoking, Percy sounds like child with speech issues talking through his nose, Henry sounds like whining coward and Thomas is a bland, emotionless child. But I suppose each to ones own, others may like the voices. Gordons and Spencers is ok. Spencer and the Duke and Duchess of Boxford's first appearances in a special as well as their first appearances since the eleventh series episode, Dream On. In one shot when Thomas says, "Spencer!" The mail cars behind Spencer are gone. But they reappear when Hiro puffs past Spencer. This can be seen in widescreen version. But that night, the Fat Controller is furious. The summer house is nowhere near done, Spencer has been wandering around the island, the mail coaches still have not been found and Thomas is not working on his branch line. All Hiro needs is one more part before he is completed, so the other engines promise to guard Hiro until Percy delivers the last part. The first special to have its own stylised opening sequence instead of using the Thomas & Friends opening.

The storyline is very believable: a broken-down and forgotten engine is made new again. This seems to be a recurring theme in many Thomas episodes: Something old is made new. Or, something old is worth keeping around, e.g., steam engines in the age of diesel. Note: The first UK trailer uses different voices for Thomas and Spencer, as the footage used in the trailer was from the original version of the film, which would have featured Kerry Shale as the voice of Thomas and Spencer; his parts were recast for the released version. Toby's US voice is also heard in said trailer. Only the Japanese trailer mentions that Hiro is from Japan. The UK trailer merely mentioned he is "from a far-off place." Hiro would confirm he is from Japan in the twenty-fourth series episode Kenji on the Rails Again, over ten years later. In the film, Thomas discovers an old, dilapidated engine in the woods, and tries to repair him in secret, without the villainous Spencer finding out. Thomas heads over to Hiro to tell him the wonderful news and the two engines are overjoyed. Thomas and Percy bring him to the Sodor Steamworks the next day. The Fat Controller and Victor promise to have him running like new again.

Hiro, now in a very "patchwork" design, is feeling much better. Hiro mentions that James will be coming tomorrow, Percy comments on how he feels about James, sending Hiro laughing for the first time in years. This tale sees Thomas at work with his friends on Sodor, whereupon he finds a new engine, Hiro whom Thomas decides to help return to his former glory, from his distant, deserted siding.