About a year has passed since the lukewarm reception of Misty Island Rescue and the fourteenth season of Thomas & Friends. The fifteenth season aired the following spring as a surprise to fans with Nitrogen's third feature-length special: Day Of The Diesels airing later in the autumn of 2011 on DVD and Blu-Ray. I just decided to review this first so that my reviews could be in chronological order of the show. Anyway, Sharon Miller was, for the fourth time, the writer and Nitrogen Studios continued animating. Michael Angelis and Michael Brandon stayed on board for the UK and US respectively while Robert Hartshorne continued with the score for the episode. Was Day Of The Diesels any improvement over Misty Island Rescue and the fourteenth season? If you wanna know my answer to this, read and find out...

1. Plot

This movie had a very good story to it. It was very creative to have another character besides Thomas in the lead role and it kind of suited Percy well despite it's problems. Diesel 10 makes a pretty good comeback with a very significant contribution to the plot. There is a good moral about trusting those around you and the "charge of the steam brigade" where the engines go to rescue the SteamWorks was gripping. Too bad the plot couldn't be supported by how short the movie was on character development but I'll talk about that next. I give this category an 8/10.

2. Character Development

The character development for this movie was, well, a bit weak. Percy's pretty good for the lead role but he should know better than to trust the diesels. Belle and Flynn are both interesting characters and their roles fit well for the climax. The characterization of Thomas is great except for the fact that he claimed that diesels can be devious when there are some very nice diesels like Salty and Mavis and even Rusty and BoCo if they were even thought of at the time. Diesel 10 makes a very good comeback and HIT seems to have outdone themselves a bit with how Diesel's character was handled. Den and Dart are both characters that strike interest to me. But there is rarely any characterization out of Paxton and Norman, who, in the present day are nicer than they let on here as just typical troublesome diesels. Sidney only appeared for less than three seconds and it just shows how Sharon Miller just created these three characters for merchandise without no background whatsoever. I think I'll give this category a 6.5/10.

3. Narration/Voices

The narration for this movie was good. Both narrators sounded good and the voiceover work was spot on, especially for Diesel 10 and Dart. On the whole, I give this category an 7.5/10.

4. Visuals

The animation for this movie was an improvement on what Nitrogen had given us before. The sets are beautiful, especially of the Sodor DieselWorks and especially, the shots at the beginning. I give this category a 9/10.

5. Music/Songs

Robert Hartshorne seemed to have outdone himself with the score on this movie, especially the opening titles and the Charge Of The Steam Brigade. On the other hand, Day Of The Diesels seemed a bit like Go! Go! Thomas with how it was composed and therefore, not as strong as the Misty Island Rescue song. It's an 8.5/10 for this category.

6. Length

Like the previous movies under Nitrogen's involvement, this movie had some good pacing to it. Just a bit too focused on Percy running across the Island to move the plot along. I give this category a 7.5/10.

7. Writing

For Sharon Miller's fourth and penultimate movie, the script is an improvement over Misty Island Rescue. Yes, the alliteration still got irritating after a while but the rhyming that made it's predecessor so annoying seemed to have died down here. Other than that, the script is decent but nothing special. Not much more to say, this category gets a 6/10.

8. Direction

Greg Tiernan still delights us with how he directs the movie The shots throughout the movie are amazing and I don't there is much more to say. I'm giving this category an 8/10.

Overall Views:

On the whole, this movie was a good step up from Misty Island Rescue. The plot includes a very clear moral to get across to audiences about trust and patience and Percy fits the lead role pretty well, even though Tale Of The Brave is a better movie for him. There are quite a few characters that were at first just there for the merchandising, but thanks to Andrew Brenner who developed them even further, we're glad that they even came to existence in the first place. Despite the flaws that it had to it, I do enjoy it, even if it was my #1 favorite movie until Blue Mountain Mystery a year later. This was back when I watched this at 16 and I'm older now so I know what I actually know what is wrong with this movie. Overall, this movie gets an accurate rating of 7.6/10.

WHAT'S YOUR RATING?