Beware the Nice Ones: International Rescue is altruistic and will stop at nothing to rescue those in need. However, those who take pictures of their technology are dealt with harshly, whether it be having their film wiped remotely, or even find themselves shot off the road by Lady Penelope. A race of highly evolved beings have been watching countless civilizations across millions of years. Humanity have become their latest test subjects, and they must decide whether the species pose a threat to the universe. It's up to the Thunderbirds to convince the beings that Earth has evolved beyond its savage past.

Meaningful Name: The sons of Jeff Tracy are all named after famous astronauts of the 1960s, specifically, the Mercury Seven: Alan Shepard, Virgil Grissom, John Glenn, Gordon Cooper, and Scott Carpenter. Peter Dyneley, Shane Rimmer, Sylvia Anderson, David Holliday, Matt Zimmerman, David Graham, Ray Barrett, Christine Finn, John Tate Thunderbirds MerchandiseSpinoff: The presence of Zero-X in the first movie seems to make it double up as the pilot of the following series, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. However, it isn't really confirmed in-series as the Thunderbirds never showed up in Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. U.E. Plant #1, the world's first underwater commercial thermoelectric power plant, is built directly over the Maui fault line near Hawaii. Progress goes well, until Edward Frontosa heads down to illegally search for a mysterious substance. This results in the fault going unstable, and threatens to destroy the entire power plant. Big Anime Eyes: Due to the limits of the Supermarionation technology at the time, the puppets had heads that were disproportionately large with exaggerated facial features, including this trope. This turned out to be a good thing: when they developed the ability to use realistically-proportioned puppets for Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, they found that the smaller eyes were far less emotive, and went for a middle ground in Joe 90. Fake Aristocrat: One episode has Parker pretend to be an English lord and get everyone in the hotel to play Bingo with him. This was part of a scheme where in the event a fire broke out (thanks to a dish falling off a building and lodging itself on a mountain in a position where it would project the sun's rays at the town where the hotel was) everyone would be awake to fight the fire. Sun Probe": When those in Thunderbird 3 have to move closer to the sun than was estimated, they hope that they can stand up to the heat. There is a cut to Virgil and Brains wrapped up in warm clothing on the side of a mountain, hoping that they can stand up to the cold.

Character Title: Let's face it, the Thunderbird machines are just as much characters in the show as the puppets themselves. Also the Mole, used for underground rescues, and a host of souped-up construction gear hauled in TB2's pods.NOTE: The film is a compilation of the season 1 episodes Trapped in the Sky and Operation Crash-Dive . For an in-depth synopsis, please read their respective articles. Transcript [ ] Main article: To The Rescue/Transcript Credits [ ] Caper Crew: Despite being a heroic organisation, International Rescue occasionally finds itself needing to orchestrate a con-like mission to prevent the villains from starting a disaster (e.g. The Man From M.I.5, The Cham Cham). Under these conditions, the hierarchy goes thus: