Thunderbirds Redux

I posted previously about the upcoming Thunderbirds movie. Now I've had a chance to see the trailer, which was showing on my Tivo. I also read the fairly disparaging viewer review posted over on the IMDB. Viewer reviews have to be taken with a grain of salt, but here are some things I noticed:

1. The Thunderbird vehicles seemed to be very true to the originals. They even have the hover bikes.
2. The team uniforms were replaced, trashing the lame caps and sashes.
3. Brain has somehow managed to have a son, who is about Alan's age. Hope for geeks everywhere.
4. Alan and Tin-Tin seem to have lost about ten years off their ages (Alan was 21 in the original series). Jeff Tracy looks a bit young, too.
5. Gerry Anderson is conspicuously absent from the credits. Of course, his own two Thunderbird movies were nothing to brag about as feature films go.
6. They seem to have moved the year from 2065 to 2010. IMHO, this is a serious mistake, as the hardware is just not plausible for 2010.

There are apparently plans to make this movie into a franchise if it does well. It opens July 30th opposite Alien vs Predator, which seems to be a comic book cross between two popular science fiction/horror flicks. Looks like it's worth $10 to go and see.

BTW, the original series can be seen on G4TV (nee TechTV).