surprised when it's not, than to expect a masterpiece and be utterly devastated when it's the polar opposite.

classic characters like Scruffy and Rheneas, nothing more. Whoopdeedoo. This brand will never see another golden age as long as it's in the hands of Mattel. They fundamentally don't understand anything about it and just see it as a means to sell toys, that's it. Knowing that is so disheartening.

that Rosie has been promoted to main character status, which makes you wonder what happened to James and how prevalent he'll be in this new series compared to before.

to the real people and artists who worked on the show. Mattel should've thought this through.

(which would be the best-case scenario), it doesn’t change the fact that it still looks like an AI generated image. And that’s doing a disservice to the actual show, which was created by real human artists. This AI look on the promo material is causing people to react negatively, which isn’t fair-

it looks. Apparently, the verdict is still up in the air about whether this was made by AI or with AI assistance. I honestly don’t know, so I won’t judge it, I’ll leave that to the experts to discuss and decide. One thing I will say, though, is that even if AI wasn’t involved at all in making this-

franchise for the past decades.

the world to me as a kid, as I know it did for many others as well. So if I sound passionate, that’s why. I just want Thomas to thrive, succeed, and be respected once more, and hopefully, I live to see that happen.

to try and make the best Thomas face possible. Seeing all these attempts makes me feel good, because I know a real artist put time and effort into this, and it’s also great knowing it wasn’t made by AI. Good God, thank goodness for that. This character and series defined my childhood and meant the-

the issues I’ve mentioned, then maybe, just maybe, there’s a slim chance I’ll hold it in a more favorable light. I must say that the concept art that was also revealed alongside this is really impressive and gorgeous. While not all of the faces are hits, I love that there was still a clear effort-

still keep the bouncing and ignore physics, a glaring and puzzling contradiction if I ever saw one. I think where I stand right now is that I’m going to try my best to keep an open mind. And honestly, if the writing and storytelling are strong, and I mean very strong, so much so that they override-

no longer a cartoon and actually looks like a steam engine again, with decent animation and a world that honestly looks really nice around him. It’s perplexing that they added all these rivets and handrails to their CG renders of Thomas to make him look more like a real engine, but then decided to-

conflicting feeling that I’m going through right now. Part of me wants to walk out on this thing just for that, especially since realism is the whole appeal of the series to begin with. But another part of me feels like maybe I should still keep an open mind since, well, at least the character is-

locomotives are heavy metal machines, as portrayed in The Railway Series and the early seasons of the original show, so the laws of physics being ignored in this new series is a huge letdown. It may sound like I’m being too harsh, and part of me does feel that way too. Honestly, it’s a very-

instantly would be an understatement. Unfortunately, it seems that Mattel yet again does not understand that this series is rooted in railway realism. The characters are trains, heavy metal machines. They don’t bounce around like this, simply because real trains don’t either. Real steam-