Filmed in Supermarionation (2014) (2024)

Popular reviews

• Review by deMicha ★★★½ 2

  Britische Dokumentation von 2014 über Gerry und Sylvia Anderson und ihre Super Marionette Animation (Supermarionation) Technik. Damit drehten sie von 1957 bis 1968 verschiedene Marionetten Fernsehserien, wo die bekannteste wohl "Thunderbirds" ist.
  Man bekommt einen sehr guten Überblick über ihre Arbeit geboten. Sie selbst und Zeitzeugen berichten über diese Zeit, was von Ausschnitten der Serien und verschiedenen Reportagen begleitet wird. Was sie da teilweise für ein Aufwand betrieben haben, ist schon großartig.
  Ich fand das interessant anzusehen, da ich ein paar Folgen der Thunderbirds von früher kenne. Diese Marionetten Action blieb mir sofort im Gedächtnis.

• Review by mrbalihai ★★★★½

  One of my very earliest memories is watching "Fireball XL-5" on television at around the age of 3, followed a year or two later by "Stingray." However, like millions of other kids back in the 60s, the absolute Holy Grail of my childhood television viewing experience was tuning into "Thunderbirds" every week to drool over the incredibly elaborate miniature sets, supercool vehicles, and thrilling plots of international espionage and complex rescue operations. I had the Tracy Island playset, the Lady Penelope Rolls Royce that fired little missiles from the front grille, and of course, I had Thunderbirds 1 through 5. Lord only knows whatever happened to all those cool toys, but I'm guessing my bratty, rabid, little cousin Chad probably…

• Review by Jenna Ipcar ★★★★ 4

  Truly delightful watch. I’ve never had so much appreciation for Thunderbirds. While the puppets are still kinda uncanny valley creepy, those sets are just exquisite! The detail, the style, holy sh*t! And the effects are genuinely brilliant if not laugh out loud funny in the best way. The insane music too, omg. I’d kill for a chance to work on some sh*t like this. I’m gonna watch all these damn shows now.Four Feather Falls?Supercar? The half live action half puppet frickin under cover priest who speaks gibberish and works for B.I.S.H.O.P. to solve crime around the world?! Fuggedaboutit.

  The next best thing about this movie, besides the sets, the insane concepts and the genuinely adorable interviews, is how freakin British some of the names are in this. My favs being: Riceicles cereal, Twizzle Adventure Stories, Torchy the Battery Boy, and Flopsy the Rag Doll. A true delight.

• Review by Daniel Shillito ★★★★

  She told me they had to be made with puppets, at which point I nearly vomited on the floor. But we needed the money, so I took it on and did the best I could.

  Filmed in Supermarionation is a documentary adaptation of Stephen La Rivière's book of the same name, telling the story of the development of Supermarionation. It's a glorious two hour retrospective on the history of Supermarionation covering everything from Twizzle to The Secret Service. The Supermarionation era is a moment that will forever be frozen in time and live in the public consciousness for years to come.

  Supermarionation was a term coined to describe the unique form of puppetry employed by the teams at AP Films…

• Review by Imperial Leatherosa

  Mario didn't appear once!

• Review by Davitt ★★★★

  A fun, inventive look at a fondly remembered but artistically underrated medium. If the title didn't give it away, the focus of this is almost solely on Pentagon/AP/Century 21's Supermarionation productions and the puppets involved. Other aspects of production like scoring, writing, and costume design are given only brief looks, a shame but understandable given the film's length as is. A great tribute to the ingenuity and creativity involved in shows that entertained children around the world in the 60s, and worth watching for anyone with even a passing interest in these works or puppetry in general.

• Review by Paul Senior ★★★★½ 2

  Well this is delightful.

  I was under age 5 when I was first exposed to the puppets and futuristic vehicles of Thunderbirds. In the late 80s it was rerun on Canadian TV, my girlfriends kids were appalled but I loved it.

  A terrific doco with interviews, tours and recreations. I wish it was longer!

  Film #131 of 2022.

• Review by Silversaxophone ★★★

  More valuable as a record of the technical/production side of Gerry Anderson’s innovative kids' shows of the 1960s featuring puppets rather than the human or broader industry developments within which Anderson’s unique AFB/Century 21 production team worked. Plus, as is often with these kinds of celebratory documentaries, it lacks an outside critical perspective. It also stops at the end of the 1960’s and doesn’t cover Anderson’s last puppet series Terrahawks, which used Muppet style techniques rather than Supermarionation. It was made in the 1980’s and not produced by ITV (which is possibly why it was left out). Still, a fascinating record of an eccentric art form — Anderson’s last Supermarionation feature, The Secret Service, featuring comedian Stanley Unwin speaking his ‘Unwinese’ and combining live -action with puppets, looks absolutely bonkers.

• Review by lesfetes ★★★½

  Mid 70s the reruns got little me interested in sci-fi and this warm documentary just shows how talented they all were.

  Still looks amazing and I’ll go for miniatures on fire over CGI any day.

  How could I forget about Captain Scarlet … that was wild

• Review by Stew ★★½

  I enjoyed it but probably more from just the pure nostalgia of it all. I grew up with Thunderbirds but always preferred Captain Scarlett, which didn't get nearly as good reviews. Joe 90 passed me by (I feel like I had a choice between that and The 6 Million Dollar Man which Steve Austin was always going to win) and I actually remember enjoying Terrahawks which they don't even discuss in this documentary, even though it was to be Jerry Anderson's final series with puppets.

  This has a couple of nuggets I never knew about, some behind the scenes and some history, but really it's just an easy nostalgia trip which felt like it went on a bit. I'd rather be watching Thunderbirds.

• Review by thefleX ★★★½

  As a kid I never realised how high the production value was on Thunderbids.

• Review by Mars Guo ★★★½

  Super interesting art form. I’ve thought about the ways it could be revived, but seeing the difficulties makes it feel like lightning in a bottle more than a medium ripe for more, with the exception of Team America whose aim was more to parody the style rather than necessarily expand it.