Thomas has always been full of lessons in morals, acceptable motives and behavior. This is not just the case here, but the themes are more complex here and a bit more severe. The character issues with Thomas reaps disasters a few times but with redemption each time.

The story line contains 3 sing alongs, and there is a great pop background to the credits- the best part (in my opinion)! The voiceover by Pierce Brosnan was the first thing that impressed me as a music teacher. He does many inflections and dialects to differentiate characters and moods. My favorite was the Irish dialect, being that it provided the low thoughtful inner voice of the engines thinking to themselves. As always, the models, sets and photography were all excellent.

Each tale must have its crashes, and this one has a variety. Kids must know that real life won’t have that excitement, and that this is a good fact! For some reason I always got distracted during the viewing until I saw everything early one day, with the kids joining me. In their early quiet mood they were watching, but (like me) they were leaving the TV sometimes to play instead of watching the entire movie. The end and its impossibilities were not too hard to overlook because the scene was a ‘beautiful’ one. The movie could of been called the ‘Saga of Thomas and new Stanley’, but all’s well that ends well!

If the Thomas movies continue in this manner, kids could grow up with Thomas, and the movies can appeal to both younger and older ages. I definitely look forward to hearing more from Mr. Brosnan. (Perhaps, this is also a great time to take a moment to remember the great voiceovers that the late George Carlin contributed over the years.)