Blue Thunder: The Complete Series [DVD]

During my childhood the one film I wanted to see was "Blue Thunder" but unfortunately, I was too young. However, imagine my delight, as a 14 year old, to one day find the Blue Thunder TV series being shown on BBC1. And now, 25 years later, relive the series thanks to this Sony DVD release.

Has it aged well? Er...................no. What might have been exciting to young eyes all that time ago, is a little cringe inducing now; the writers relied heavily on situations where the helicopter could be used to full effect, and what stock footage from the movie was available, and judging from what I watched so far, they used a lot, thus limiting the story lines, so we get jet fighters being stolen, maniacs in helicopters and one story featuring the then novelty, space shuttle. Remember this was the time that "The A-Team" ruled early Saturday night TV.

The cast do their best playing second fiddle to Blue Thunder, herself. James Farentino takes on the Roy Scheider role as the maverick pilot, here re-named Chaney, with a pre- Wayne's World, Dana Carvey as JAFO (if you've seen the film you'll know what it means) throw in two ex-NFL stars, Bubba Smith, later of the Police Academy movies, and Dick Butkus as the light comedic pairing that the show perhaps could have done without, and you have your cast.

What surprised me was that the series only lasted for 11 episodes, all on this release. Unfortunately, Blue Thunder's thunder was taken by a more successful super helicopter, Airwolf, originally premiering in the USA a few weeks after the first few episodes of Blue Thunder.

Now to the discs. All episodes are spread over 3 discs; no extras really to speak off only a trailer for other titles available from Sony. However, the biggest surprise is that even though the discs are marked Region 1, they are in fact Region 1 AND 2!!! It even played on my £14.99 Region 2 player!!

So, for want of nostalgia or another example of a short lived Eighties TV action series, and for the price, give the old girl back her thunder, that's Blue Thunder.

The Blue Thunder TV series was a backward step to the more explosive and gritty film starring Roy Scheider. The movie had a great, electronic soundtrack for starters whereas the TV series has a score from something belonging to the 1970s although don't get me wrong I do kinda like the opening TV theme.
In fact the entire series is very dated even for 1983. The cockpit shots showing the maverick copper Cheney and his sidekick JAFO look a little false: it just looks like they are seated under a large air-conditioning fan in order to signify that Blue Thunder's rotars are whirling above them. Was that detail really necessary?
However, they do not entirely rely on the movie for Blue Thunder's flying scenes. We see plenty of desert flying and flying over the sea. Additionally, the head-on driving shots of Bubba and "Ski" (in their large blue armoured backup vehicle) look awful! They buffet from side to side a little and Ski makes sure to spin the stearing wheel around to make it look like he is driving. Come on this is 1983 not 1963! You can do better than that!
I can see why Blue Thunder lost out to Airwolf. In the former, pretty much no-one dies; there are few explosions; and the plots are not that complex or involving. It's certainly more of a family-friendly series like the A-Team whereas in Airwolf the hero, Hawke, uses that chopper to kill more people than TB (Airwolf also has the best music scores of any series).
It's quite an omission not to have any continuity from the movie. Blue Thunder is destroyed on a railway line at the end. What happened next? Did they have another in reserve or did they make another? What happened to Murphy (Scheider's character). They never mention him in the TV series. When they talk about whether a chopper had been used to make a 360 degree loop no-one says that Murphy had done. Shame.
The TV series is just okay. I don't think it's worth 2 stars. I'd prefer to give it 2 and a half but must go for a 3.

Blue Thunder started out as a dark movie starring Roy Schnieder as a crack helicopter pilot. The chopper was then destoyed at the end of the movie as it was being misused as a dangerous weapon. The chopper itself was based on a modified Airospaite Gazelle which itself is one of the fastest of it's type. However the movie was a big hit so a series was commissioned by TV veteran Roy Huggins for Universal pictures in 1983. There was a major cast change with James Farentino as maverick cop and ace pilot Chaney. The series dealt with all the regular air based threats due to the nature of the series. But was canned after just 11 episodes which was only half of the season run by 1984. I suspect this was because of the superior ' Airwolf' which ran at the same time for a full 4 seasons. But this is still a good buy as the series is fun and makes a good alternative to Airwolf.