EVERY Difference in the Restored Thomas Episodes 

Hey Tug, thanks for sharing, can i get the pin?

Another great video, I'm only now realising why some of the shots in S1 look so dark. I also think we need a master cut of everytime Tug says "Old Master" in this video!

"They got the footage from the *Old Master* " Sounds like they did a quest for an old guy with a white beard at the top of a mountain and in return, he gave them Thomas footage

I'm going to use "the David Milton defence" in the future. I'm not overweight, I'm just moving slowly so it looks that way.

“The Old Master” sounds like the name of a Thomas episode. Like, Edward exposits the backstory of HIS old mentor to the rest of the engines, and the lessons he taught him that humbled him from a cocky and young douche, to the wise and respectable engine we all know and love.

2 minutes in and I have already seen Thomas, The Golden Girls, The Wizard of OZ and Star Wars. Now that is an interesting combination.

Still can't believe that Henry moving shot in Coal made it in the final restored episode

So my theory on why some episodes use the old masters despite having the film of the footage is because the restorations were rushed so whoever edited them didn't have enough time to pull up all the shots. That's why i'm not 100% convinced that so much film was lost, especially in S1 and more so that it was just a rush job.

Notoriously, this is where the “look out for the train” version seems to come from Also let’s take a shot for how many new “goofs” are in the restored versions for the expanded aspect ratio

Time for another Unlucky Tug dew drinking game! Every time that the phrase 'Original Master' is said, take a shot. But remember folks, please drink responsibly.

It's funny how often you can see obvious flaws in the sets here, maybe making everything wide screen isn't always the best idea.😂

Excellent video! And a new drinking game for every time Tug says "Original Master"

With the cropping issues, I think there's a perfectly rational explanation for it. These restorations were done in the early 2000s, when most people still had CRT TVs rather than modern LCD displays. Depending on the set, the tube guns crop out a portion of the frame, known as overscan. This is automatic, but modern displays usually have a setting to add a little overscan back in. As such, TV shows and movies of the time often had "safe zones," which were marked in a way that it was important to not get any of the studio equipment in so that no matter what you watched it on, you saw everything you were supposed to. I guess when restoring it, they figured that the TVs it would be watched on would automatically block out the studio props at the top.

YES! Finally a deep dive on the restored episodes. I've been waiting so long for a video like this.

Allcroft: loses footage Tug: OH THE SHAME OF IT! THE SHAME OF IT!

I never noticed Henry’s angry face in Whistles and sneezes!

4:13 Another Show affected by this was the vast majority of the Originial Doctor Who series. The only exception was the "Spearhead from Space" Arc of Season 7, which was shot on film due to a strike from the regular camera crew, and thus was the only Arc from the Original Series to receive a Blu-Ray Release prior to 2019 or so.

I’m mixed on the restored Vs unrestored debate. On one hand, the restored footage is useful for edits and stuff like that. On the other, the original version is more cozy and nice.

I find film restoration very interesting. Pretty amazing how they’re able to remove every little scratch and dust spot from every frame of film. Talk about patience and attention to details. Another great video as always.

I understand that Thomas doesn’t have a huge audience on par with massive franchises, but it would make sense for some kind of physical disc release to follow the completion of these restorations. Collecting episodes from seasons 1-5 on disc is a nightmare. Given the length of each season, it would be so simple to author a 3-disc set with those seasons. Hell, if they want to add seasons 6-8 on another disc, I’d still buy it. There would even be room for supplements, alternate dubs and the original, unrestored versions of each episode. The market is niche but present and if done properly, would be extraordinarily profitable.

You've also forgot to mention at 29:42, in the Original shot, notice that you can still see Edward's Express Brake Coach just stopped on the top-right corner of the camera shot after going through the bridge, whereas the Restored version with a different take, Edward's train had made it through.

If you wanna know an example of how NOT to do film restoration, look at the history of western releases for Dragon Ball Z To this day, that entire show has only had ONE DVD release that we can consider "Good", with the Dragon Box sets. Every other release has had MAJOR problems, from oversaturated colours, excessive grain removal when lines of animation are sometimes removed, cropping a show made in 1989 to being 16:9 and no option to change it back, and really poor sound quality for the original Japanese audio track due to Toei not owning the original audio masters anymore. You think Star Wars releases had it rough, OH BOY

So far we have seen: Season 1 (1984) - *COMPLETE* Season 2 (1986) - *INNOVATIVE* Season 3 (1991) - *BIG* Season 4 (1994) - *COMFY* Season 5 (1998) - *PEAK* Season 6 (2002) - *CUTE* Season 7 (2003) - *EYE OF THE STORM* Jack & the Pack (2003) - *QUAINT* Season 8 (2004) - *MILQUETOAST* Season 9 (2005) - *PEAKS AND VALLEYS* Season 10 (2006) - *DRAWN OUT* Season 11 (2007) - *???*

For the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons, there was a “Behind the Tunes” documentary called “Fine Tooning: Restoring the Warner Bros. Cartoons”, which also shows how film restoration works.

I’m all in for the higher quality picture in these restored episodes, but not for the missing shots and some glaring alternate takes.😅Great video by the way, I learned something new about the process of preserving and restoring film🎥 👍🏼

It would be nice if 20 years later they would have another crack at the restoration of Series 1 at least, but with the direction the brand has taken I think it sadly unlikely to happen. At least Mattel are definitely aware there is interest in the heritage of TTTE&F so fingers crossed they have been working on it, massive props to them if they include the original pilot, I would hope for Series 2 with a pieced together Missing Coach but that's just a dream

Me: Decides to take apart of this new drinking game Also me: Blacks out 5 minutes into the challenge

I know people always complain about the goofs but personally I fucking LOVE seeing all the fuck ups from the restored footage simply because I think it gives it a charm that happens only with real models/effects. Whenever something gets fucked up in cgi I always just call it a “boy I sure hope somebody got fired for THAT blunder” moment

The opening scene of The Flying Kipper does actually use mostly restored footage. The only shots that use the tape master, are when Henry sits waiting to go, when he pulls away, and when the guard shows his green lamp. The close-up of his wheels slipping is also restored footage. You can see that there is more picture to the sides of a lot of these shots than the tape master. The cropping seems to be from them lowering the footage for the scene where Henry passes through Wellsworth, which was to hide the top edge of the sky backdrop, but they accidentally applied this lowering to all the footage in this sequence, and ironically, the top edge of the backdrop was only barely visible in the original master. This couldn't have come from the film scanner, as they are designed to scan the entire viewable frame to allow for croping in editing, which is how some shows are able to be remastered in widescreen, as you mention early in the video. Also, I noticed a few errors about shots being reused for the canal scenes in series 3. The last scene of Gordon and the Famous Visitor, and the first scene of Henry's Forest are not from the tape master, they both use restored footage, you are right about the others being from the tape master. Henry's Forest is one of the few episodes in series 3 to use all 35mm film, along with Edward, Trevor & the Really useful Party, Tender Engines, Percy, James & the Fruitful Day, and Thomas & Percy's Christmas Adventure. You say a few shots are from the old master for All At Sea, and One Good Turn, but they are restored. You can see the differences in the framing, and the fact there is no bobbing from the old master being a poor transfer.

You forgot to bring up the difference in footage within Daisy in the scene where Percy and Toby were feeling exhausted and Daisy's eyes move differently from the original.

I really hope we finally get some new restorations for the upcoming anniversary, hopefully with a Blu-ray release on the horizon.

I love that old school vhs look (ultra bright colors), that was one of my favorite aspects of the show when I was a kid😭😭

Another big difference in The Diseasel that always bugged me was in the scene where Bill and Ben leave their trucks and come back to find them missing. You can VERY clearly see a crew member's hands at the top of the screen pulling on a fishing line in the restored version. In the original that's cropped out of frame.

If there's 3 things i want released for The Railway Series' 80th Anniversary next year, it's these: 1) A Complete *Centenary Library* Set of Christoper's 16 books. 2) The *Down The Mine* pilot. 3) The Complete Model Series ( Seasons 1-12 ) on *Blu-Ray/4K DVD* It's worth pointing out that the actual story behind the mistake in *Coal* wasn't the editor's fault, apparently the original shot of Henry backing into the siding was so old and deteriorated it just couldn't be saved, so regrettably they had no choice but to use the outtake.

I miss the practical effects of “Thomas The Tank Engine and Friends”. The practical effects were so good and a classic.

I think I read somewhere that what happened in Flying Kipper was there was one shot of the nighttime scene where there was something at the top of the set that wasn't supposed to be there, so they MEANT to only have that shot be cropped lower down to remove it, but accidentally cropped it down for the whole sequence

To be fair, I remembered how HBO MAX restored many of the pre 1948 Looney Tunes cartoons that were owned by Turner Broadcasting System for years. For my understanding, Warner Bros. actually had the original elements in their vaults but I’m not too sure what conditions they were in. I think that’s kinda what I’m getting here.

Here’s a fun drinking game: Take a shot every time Nic says “The Old Master” In all seriousness though, great video man! I will forever love the unrestored footage, it’s just my cup of tea I guess.

When he said “from the old master” I felt that.

I genuinely have no idea how you can tell it’s from the old master Lol

Take a huff of Welsh coal every time Tug says "from the old master"

At the end of the day I’m sure that we can all agree that the original version of these episodes are charming with their visuals

I’d be so curious to hear from the people that did the early 00s restoration. I know everyone’s jonesing for the pilot but just give me a perfect restoration of S1-5 and I’d die a happy man. As grateful as I am that we got some effort at a restoration, Thomas is such an iconic show that it deserves to be properly preserved (before it’s too late!)

It's crazy to think they had to go through so much effort to put these restorations together. It's bad enough under normal circumstances with all the cleanup and color correction needed, but here they didn't even have cut versions of the episodes and had to re-edit everything as one-to-one as humanly possible. Imagine how time-consuming that would be.

56:36 If I had a nickel for every video where Tug said “2/3 ain’t that bad”, I’d- oh forget it. The joke was made time and time again

The series 1 remaster can be summed up in 4 words: You had ONE JOB.

Man I never realized how long and how much it takes to take something very very old for it's time to make it absolutely new especially when it came to home media releases on DVD's. I never really cared or noticed the differences between of what was taken from the original and what was actually scanned as everything looked fluent to me, but like you said once you see it you can't unsee it. Overall a very intriguing video that gives me much to think about keep up the good work Tug!

I grew up on nitrogen era but once my grandmother got me golden age CDs and I fell in love with the episode escape

This is like those Star Wars comparisons from Theatrical Release to Special Editions. Personally I think Season 6 could use a Remaster, ever notice how many shots were out of focus?

Love that you mention the episode Brake Van, I can't help but notice that every time I watch the episode. Today is my Birthday.

Cheetos and unlucky tug videos go hard

Season 2 is my favorite batch of restored episodes. It's like the crew realized their many mess ups one season earlier and did their best to make the next one look more presentable.

This raises a question, why is there no restored Footage of the Engine's Nameboard sequences?

The Star Wars references make me happy. Happy Revenge of the Fifth!

In other words- we’re never getting a good quality restoration of the classic series on Blu-ray

4:19 and also may have spared the budget for Full House to damage their film sets. as in that car crash He just showed, case in point, they would not have done that as frequently if they spent the money on filming with higher resolution.

49:48 I never knew about the guy falling in this shot until today. Gave me a good chuckle when it was pointed out lol

Imagine if an ENTIRE episode had been lost and it had to be reconstructed using stock footage from previous episodes, alternate takes and shots from the *Old Master*

I’m surprised he didn’t mention the part in the restored version of “The Diseasel” where you can see the edge of the set and the crew members pulling Bill and Ben back with strings.

So this can be summed up as: Season 1: Old Master Season 2: A perfect reconstruction. Season 3: A DIFFERENT TAKE.

It's very funny that the Henry special coal scene where Henry bumps into the wall and then shot forward was seen in the restored version.

I think the original and restored versions each have their own charm. Sure some of the scenes may look a little worse, but I don’t think it completely ruins things. Seeing my childhood favorites restored still warms my heart. They very well could have just not bothered trying, but people saw how popular/important it was and it was at least attempted. At the end of the day, I’m still glad the restored version exists.

Arise brothers and sisters, for a new Unlucky Tug video has been graced upon us...

Dude the whistles for every title gave me a heart attack for when I wasn’t playing attention and looking somewhere else 😂

SO HE DID MADE THUNDERBIRDS, holy shit my life just turned 90 degres Tugs just got a very new perspective

Those original film reels should be preserved

There were a couple shots you skipped, but seeing as it was only 3 or 4, I won't mention them. It was cool seeing most of the changes in one video.

Percy's whistle creates a high pitched sound in my ears that disturbs the inner reaches of my soul.

As a person interested Interested in 35mm film and Thomas this is exactly my kind of video.

You know it’s gonna be good when the video is almost an hour long. But seriously though, this is great. I never would’ve spotted most of these differences. Some I already know about.

In Thomas & Bertie, the close up of Thomas after Bertie says "But to beat you over that hill, I should have to grow wings and be an airplane" is from the Old Master, which is interesting because the first close up when the narrator says "Everyone was there to celebrate Thomas' Victory" is restored.

Anyone else catch the fact that Daisy and Boco have the same angry face? Just with minor additions to make Daisy's look more feminine?

At this point, I’m convinced that “Thomas and the Trucks” is cursed

Thanks for confirming my suspicion of Trouble in the Shed, I could have sworn I remembered a long while ago Sir Topham Hatt putting his hat on as he leaves his office at the beginning, so my mind wasn't messing with me. Also, you mentioned how a lot of restored Season 2 footage is at a higher angle. I'm surprised you didn't mention how in the restored version of the Diseasel, you can see a pair of hands pulling Bill and Ben back right before their cars disappear early on in the story.

I still stand by the idea that these first three seasons of Thomas need to be re-restored or re-edited with more faithfulness to the original masters. Also the colors are very dark, especially for the first two seasons

A few years ago I started a trend of fake shot edits using different takes of the same set and stitched them together to make the engines pull different trains. People dubbed those as “Mandela edits” and more and more people started making their own. Watching this video though definitely proves to me that such things did actually occur in the show which makes those edits all the more interesting.

Thank you for being a friend 0:24

Babe wake up, new The Unlucky Tug video is up get the popcorn

I agree, that scene where Henry backs up and pulls out again just to back to the same spot is a bad edit. That one bother me, a little bit not that much. Also I never notice the wobbling freight car in, no joke for James. Good eye 👍🏻

Minor correction, Season 6 always used the alternate footage from series 3. I found it pretty interesting as the stories in that season also deal with...well, seasone, quite a bit.

Ok, this is great. You actually made a video about how much hard work these people made to restore these episodes. I hope they're glad you acknowledged them. (And realise some of their mistakes. I swear, that Coal and The Flying Kipper blips are the worst,) When are we getting series 4, 5, 6 and 7?

Another exellent video! As a S2 stan, I'm so happy to hear it's restoration came out on top! Seeing the remasters on Amazon is also part of the reason I sought out the DVD releases with the original masters; they're not as crisp, but they're just so cozy, ya know? Also, I was too busy ranting about S10-11's inconsistent US DVD releases/lack thereof in the previous video, but I'm hyped to see some progress on your layout! I'm really looking forward to see how it turns out! Not to mention, with the recent OO announcements of Alfred and Judy by Rapido, and the release of the Class 28 by Heljan, I predict a Tugs Trains on BoCo, Bill and Ben in our future. Tugs Trains is a favorite series of mine from this channel, it's so inspiring to see other fans headcannons and models of various characters, you know?

7:44 Thomas and Gordon 9:47 Edward and Gordon 10:13 The Sad Story of Henry 10:55 Edward, Gordon and Henry 11:20 Thomas' Train 12:07 Thomas and the Trucks 13:17 Thomas and the Breakdown Train 13:47 James and the Coaches 14:43 Troublesome Trucks 15:27 James and the Express 15:59 Thomas and the Guard 16:08 Thomas Goes Fishing 17:11 Thomas, Terence and the Snow 17:31 Thomas and Bertie 18:06 Tenders and Turntables 18:23 Trouble in the Shed 18:52 Percy Runs Away 19:41 Coal 21:03 The Flying Kipper 22:13 Whistles and Sneezes 23:18 Toby and the Stout Gentleman 24:44 Thomas in Trouble 25:11 Dirty Objects 26:10 Off the Rails 26:19 Down the Mine 27:42 Thomas' Christmas Party 28:44 Thomas, Percy and the Coal

There are so many differences, I can already tell!

I think the Looney Tunes restoration featurette is also worth watching, though it doesn’t go as in depth as the Wizard Of Oz or Star Wars.

I’ll need to rewatch this video to play a drinking game whenever “from the old master” or “to avoid ghosting” is said

I never noticed that canal boat in Heroes... I guess that's what happens when you only watch the restored versions ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Team original vhs/dvds releases all the way, the clearer picture quality is great stuff but the changed scenes and even included goofs during filming as replacement shots is very annoying to see.

I think the only reason the episodes from season 1 tend to end on freeze frames is because they would then roll the credits on the old VHS and DVD’s. The show didn’t use the outro with Thomas until the final release of season 3

Now I don't know which version should I watch. Thank you Unlucky Tug! You have caused confusion and delay! 🙃

I've never truly believed that every occurrence of the previous masters being used was because film was "lost". I'm sure it could have been a factor or at the least there were reels they missed while pulling them out again. But you can find takes from the same shoots as some of those "lost shots" rescanned and used in music videos and sometimes even in other remastered episodes. There's so many amateurish mistakes with the new masters that I think point to these re-edits being rushed out the gate, thus I've believed that missing shots were a product of the editor(s) not finding the shoot footage at the first glance, or perhaps footage was being rescanned at the same time edits were being made. So depending on when the edit was made, it could explain why another episode or music video features restored shots that the respective episode does not. It doesn't make sense to start the edits before having the footage ready, but if these were made under a tight schedule I suppose it's possible. My personal theory is that most footage was rescanned for music videos, but the episode remasters were not mandated until HIT came in, most likely wanting better looking masters to match the quality of the current show, and to use for TV Broadcasts (Note how these new masters were never completely released on DVD until 2012, but were broadcasted on American Television starting around 2005). Interestingly though, a bunch of footage (I think mostly from S1) was rescanned sometime during the 90s (check out the S4-5 Intros and music videos). Would have been nice if the 1998 masters were actual restoration projects instead of just the old masters with new intro and credits slapped over top. I'm sure the output would have been much better with people like John Wright and David Mitton most likely working closely on the project. It is interesting how in '98 S1 did get more of a "restoration" than the others did, getting stereo soundtracks and the tiniest bit of episode re-editing. If anything else we really should have gotten new audio edits of S1-3 with these new masters to give them proper stereo mixing and other tweaks. Shame though that they just repurposed the audio from the '98 masters. I think too that maybe the reason the old masters were used for the stock shots in S2 was because the editor(s) were either too lazy to try or struggled to match the S2 color grading that the old masters used on the S1 footage. Just my thoughts. Sorry for the essay lol.

Wow so many differences, great video Tugs

I thought of a theory as to why the windmill shot from Thomas & Bertie used the old master when the shot was remastered. After remastering the shot the text for the intro was added to it. Whoever was in charge of doing this thought the shot was only used for the intro and deleted the remastered original shot from their computer after the text was added. Then when it came time to reconstruct Thomas & Bertie they realized that the shot was in fact used, but since the original one without the text had been deleted and they either weren’t able or didn’t want to go back and rescan it, they pulled it from the old master.

The 10 episodes from these three season that were completely restored. 1: Thomas, Terrance and the Snow 2: Thomas, Percy and the Coal 3: Saved From Scrap 4: Duck Takes Charge 5: Dirty Work 6: The Deputation 7: Wrong Road 8: Edward, Trevor and the Really Useful Party 9: Tender Engines 10: Percy, James and the Fruitful Day

To those reading this, here are some clarifications or theories and my personal thought on the matter. 15:53, 40:36 and 43:17 - The freeze framing in these episodes are leftovers from their original formatting prior to every S1-3 episode getting S5 styled credits. I know this is going to sound like a pretentious question, but I'm interested so here goes; have anyone reading this comment questioned why Series 1 and 2 uses a Series 3 shot for the credits? From the original airings in 1984, until 1991 with the Early Release of the first 16 S3 episodes, every episode of S1 and S3A ended with a freeze frame of which the credits would scroll over (very 80s editing). S1 originally had the even numbered episodes given these credits, as the episodes were too short to air on TV initially, two episodes would be shown at a time, with nameboard sequences connecting the two together. Each episode was given its own credits atleast by the 90s. Series 2 was aired with 2 episodes at a time, however, odd numbered episodes were given the freeze-frame credits from "Duck Takes Charge" instead. 17:49 Windmill Shot - I presume the shot used for the Thomas & Friends intro must have been the Series 5 intro with the Steam Cloud logo edited over the original titles. Series 1-4 (or atleast Series 1) presumably got their intro sequences re-formatted to Series 5 style around 1998, as that was when the first release of "The Complete Series 1" came out. Alternatively, it could be taken from the Series 7 intro sequence. I think updated footage from the windmill shot is used in the 2012/4 "James Learns a Lesson", so it may have been lost during the editing of the new versions and then found at a later date. 25:07 Zoomed In - The extra detail isn't necesary. All that needs to be shown are the humans, and Thomas. Everything else is unnessecary. Another presumtion is in how I believe (atleast UK) TV were like at the time. They weren't fullscreen and didn't show the entire frame. There was tapering around the corners. The screen also seemed to bulge in the middle, so the zoomed in lends itself to focus to clearly show the children watching what the focus of the shot is. The same applies to 48:35. I presume the thought process while filming was to get as much of the frame as possible while filming so that editing the finalised angle would be easier while editing, so that if Britt or David weren't content with a certain framing, Michael Dixon, Andrea MacArthur in Series 1, or John Wright in Series 3 could alter it later under Mitton's direction. I find that these restorations are a mixed bag. Before watching this video, I never considered how extensive it was to restore something and the fortunate position Thomas is in for that opportunity. The main thing that annoys me about the new versions, are the colour grading and overall editing/cropping. Overall, especially with Series 1, the colours just look more flatter to me. As in, Nitrogen Studios level flat. The originals were either vibrant, or distinct. Series 1 was very vibrant and relied alot on Blues, Green and Yellows to emulate the Dalby illustrations. Series 2 kept the Greens and Yellows, but introduced alot of Red into various shots. While Series 3 is more colourful in the new versions, the amount, and heavy reliance of Greens and Yellows is interesting, and definately distinctive. The editing also gets to me, especially all the camera and studio equipment that can be blatantly seen. Plus, the lack of editing can negatively affect certain episodes. All immersion of the storm sequence in "Edward's Exploit" is gone without the Blue-Purple filter of the original that makes everything look like a storm. It's degrading, and both cheapens the presentation of Thomas, and undoes the effort that went into the episodes.

Dude the amount of effort that was made in this video is fascinating, well done man!

It's 23 seconda how have y'all watched it already 💀

1:26 Fun fact I've actually visited this salt mine several times! It's in Hutchinson KS and offers trolley tours through the tunnels 600 ft down. You can take home a free salt rock of your choice :)

The cab shots from Whistles and Sneezes are actually stock footages that came from the episode Coal.

35:03 I didn't know that "Better Late Than Never" from Season 2 was ACTUALLY from Season 1 lmao!