In the 2004 live-action Thunderbirds movie – which I just watched on disk this weekend – and enjoyed! – several times, characters say “F.A.B.” This is usually said by (or to?) a pilot while he is flying a rocket/jet/aircraft/hybrid/thingie.
Is this “Full And By?”
(Or am I maybe mishearing something else entirely?)
The movie is fun, although light-weight and essentially adolescent. Lots of very nice computer special effects, and some delightful scenery chewing, especially by Ben Kingsley as the cardboard cartoon villain. Jonathan Frakes directed it, creditably well although not brilliantly. The “toys” (rockets/etc.) really are the principal stars of the film.
According to Wiki , Gerry Anderson stated that it did not stand for anything , but was just an acknowledgment like 'Roger ’
Other theories have it as " Filed, Acknowledged ,Briefed ," or"For Always Brothers"
The registration plate of Lady Penelope 's lethal Rolls was FAB 1
According to the IMDB page for the Thunderbirds TV show, Gerry Anderson said that it was just supposed to ‘sound cool’. Just a catchy phrase that emulated a contemporary British slang.
But it would have been better if they came up with something else - like the way that Aliens co-opted the phrase ‘5-by-5’ (As the drop ship from the Sulaco is entering the atmosphere, the pilot says ‘We’re in the pipe, 5-by-5’ meaning they were precisely on course). In the real world of NASA (and probably others, but NASA is where I know it from), 5-by-5 was an indication of the quality of received radio transmissions, the first number being volume, the second being clarity. So 5-by-5 meant ‘Loud and Clear’, but it allowed for more subtle rankings (’ I read you, but 1-by-3’ meant your transmission was not very clear, and almost inaudible, while ‘5-by-1’ would be really loud static)
Honestly what’s the point? The main attraction of the old Thunderbirds was the Supermarionation. I tried watching the recent computer animated Thunderbirds series and I was very underwhelmed.
More than just the Supermarionation, the show was about excellent model work. It’s not something you could just throw into a show, they way perhaps you could now with computer effects. A show had to be focused on model work, or it was just never going to be worth it. So, in Dr. Who once in a while you got the Tardis spinning on a string over a planet, but in Thunderbirds you could film an elaborate scenario of trying to land a plane on elevator cars, because the show was about those kinds of effects. moreso than Stingray, for example.
I like the new show, and my son likes it better than the old show. But he’s not old enough to appreciate the impressiveness of the model work in the old show. And although there are plenty of things to carp about in any show, and one with the assumptions of its sixties audience, there weren’t any episodes that I would dismiss as st00pit, as a handful of episodes of the new show were.
Speaking of which. the new show will soon be available on Amazon Prime. I hope they don’t replace the British accents with American ones like they did with Fireman Sam and Bob the Builder. That was pointless and insulting.
Just watched Thunderbirds the movie today. That’ll teach me not to review a movie I’ve never watched. Fairly good, lots of calls backs to the original series. There was one scene though that was absolutely hilarious. Definitely a movie for fans of the original series though.
What one scene are you thinking of that was absolutely hilarious?
I loved every scene with either Penelope or her butler/chauffeur: they were a huge lot of pure fun! They also helped ground the story in “the real world” (as if someone with a 10 billion pound mansion and estate and has a martial-arts trained butler lives in “the real world.”)
It was a fantasy wish-fulfillment movie, and, really, the best word I can think to describe it is “adolescent.” But what’s wrong with that every now and then?
(The movie had far too much use of one particular word: “C’mon!” I find this word to be grievously overused in action movies. “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” used it too much also. Stop grabbing each other by the wrist and shouting, “C’mon!” We get it: you’re in a hurry.)
In the original series Lady Penelope and Parker scenes often had that air of highly attuned comedy drama represented by the Avengers, which came out a few years before.
At one step remove it reeks of classism but it shows just how deft Anderson could be in in blending a supermarionated action drama with comedy and maintaining a suspenseful tone [I do not include the final scene gag around the pool at Tracy Island, which usually sounds like a bad Christmas cracker reject].
I have serious complaints about the movie, though I’m glad somebody liked it.
First of all, they rearranged everything to be for a teen/tween audience. The original show was for kids with some things to appeal to adults, like impressive model work and some grown-up subject matter. The movie focused on Alan and Tintin, and the rest of the brothers were actors that IMDB shows never did anything else. And they barely did anything in this film – they were gotten out of the way almost immediately.
The humor that pops up in the TV show was never great, and the new show continues that tradition. (Barring the memorable line where Alan says that his grandmother’s cookies smell like a foot). The humor in the movie was goofy slapschtick. I hope it appealed to their Disney Channel audience, but I rolled my eyes all throughout.
I hated that the joke about the evil nerd chick was that she was ugly. And she really wasn’t, in fact, except that they had everybody act like she was ugly because it’s so goddamned hilarious for an ugly chick to be on somebody’s jock.
But the vehicle animation, what little there was, was good, and the best thing about that movie was that there were toys marketed to accompany it. These are still available on eBay, and are not bad variations on the vehicles they represent.
Agreed. That was sexist, as well as imageist – I dunno, what’s the word for a bad invocation of body-image stereotypes? You’d think we’d gotten beyond laughing at people for their appearance in the 21st century, but I guess not. (Caricatures of Abraham Lincoln as an ape… Sigh… I really thought we were better than that now.)
The stuttering jokes were also a little uncomfortable, although that was handled with a little more sensitivity. It’s clearly shown as very bad manners when Alan mocks Fermat’s stuttering. Alan goes too far, and everyone – himself included – realizes this.
In the scene where Alan is taking off there’s an extreme closeup of Alan and Fermat’s hands on the plane levers. You can see five strings attached to the hand on the right.
There’s a new CGI-animated TV show called Thunderbirds Are Go which I’ve been impressed by - it captures the spirit of the TV series quite well, and it’s animated by the folks at Weta Digital in NZ, from what I understand.
I seem to remember reading once that it was just spelling out the slang term “fab,” short for “fabulous.” By making it F.A.B., it made it sound official, instead of slang-like.
Coming soon to Amazon Prime. The first 13 episodes, anyway. Over all, I like it. My son prefers it to the original. If you want related toys, you have to order them the UK. Maybe that will change soon now that it’ll be available in the U.S. I hope they don’t redub the voices like they do with Fireman Sam. I mean, the characters were mostly American already, but it’s not like the characters in Fireman Sam were incomprehensible.
