I find it funny how you completely ignored everything I said because it didn’t fit your narrative about the original.
I agree.
1 Like
Except this was a very popular thing for cartoons back then. However there are episodes of thundercats that don’t have the “lesson of the day” formula. As for the remake the biggest problem I believe most people had was the fact that it didn’t have super great writing and thy constantly inserted things/ideas that were either done better in something else or could have been done better in their own series. Examples are the petalars and the drifter. As for the other things certain ideas and concepts used on the characters in the series were just dumb. Examples were making tygra jealous and angry which is a major japanese anime trope, the twins going from actually interesting characters to pointless and super annoying, and cheetara didn’t seem to be her own character. Her personality, what there was of one, was tied with her interactions with Tygra or Lion-O. Did cheetara even have her OWN episode? No, she did not. Her backstory was reserved for an episode about tygra and lion-o. Also EVERYTHING they did with Mumm-Ra was terrible and super annoying and I hated the fact Pumyra became a bad guy and mumm-ra’s girlfriend! ick ick ick. and what was the point of making mumm-ra weak against sunlight? It never bothered him in the original! His reflection weakness was fine and they should have kept it instead!
Lovely animation and backgrounds and stuff cannot make up for bad writing. There were a LOT of things that could have been done much better but weren’t.
The old series followed a formula, yes, but the voice actors and stuff sounded like they were having FUN! the VAs in the new series sounded bored and if the VA voiced more than one person is was EXTREMELY easy to tell who was doing whom.
Also the series was just BORING! I nearly fell asleep watching a few episodes.
The ONLY episode of the series I liked at all was Dance of the Petalars and that episode was OUT OF PLACE in the thundercats universe and should have had their own movie instead of being a thundercats episode!
A lot of things done in the reboot have been done before many times in other things and have been done BETTER! The reboot just felt like a stale mess of anime cliches slapped together by bored weeaboos who didn’t really care about what they were even creating.
1 Like
I’ve always felt that the ‘Out of Place’ elements bring forth an element of intrigue and surrealism. It is also a great opportunity to break the monotony and provide a more intimate glimpse of the characters’s journey. I also enjoyed the ‘The Duelist and The Drifter’ for the very same reasons. It was ‘Out of Place’ but it was well appreciated. AMC’s the Walking Dead series has several ‘Out of Place’ episodes, widely regarded as filler, but essential to character development (e.g. Beth, the Governor etc.)
2 Likes
Well said. The TV shows I like now include Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Shameless, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, etc.–all contain a novelistic approach to storytelling. The lack of continuity and character development in the 80s toy-commercial era of half-hour cartoons makes them really hard to watch from today’s perspective. The new Thundercats show was a toy vehicle, too, but at least the writers were attempting to develop the main storyline from episode to episode. Character development, which you bring up, is crucial to making the story emotionally worthwhile…if I don’t give a damn about the characters, I don’t give a damn about the story. Going back to the Petalars episode, it was important for us to see the Thundercats struggling emotionally–of course they are–they’re on the run from violent talking lizards. Just acknowledging this aspect of the characters lends a little bit of depth to the ongoing storyline.
A few years back, I watched every single 80s Thundercats episode on DVD, and at the end, my reaction was pretty much WTF?!! Mumm-Ra dies, comes back, dies, comes back…then there’s a new Third Earth, then more fighting, more fighting, more fighting. Did the heroes ever question what they were doing? Were they morally fallible in any way? What did they want out of their lives? The characters all remained flat (either perfectly heroic or unquestionably evil), and the sense of stakes never felt real because we could never believe that any of the heroes would ever suffer (for long) or die…except for Jaga-Wan Kenobi in the very first episode. There’s little that’s narratively rewarding or substantive. Then again, that’s like blaming a skunk for stinking.
I mean, yeah, there’s an 8-year-old part of me that’s still charmed by the old Thundercats, but it’s hard to watch for extended periods.
1 Like
Have to agree with Serval and Gingaio: as someone who owns both series on DVD/BD, and currently watching the 80’s version 2…3 episodes tops, no more…at a time, I find the reboot’s style of storytelling more engaging.
2 Likes
I watched all of Season 2 (80s version) because I’d never seen the episodes when I was a kid. Good luck. It was a freakin’ chore getting through to the end.
1 Like
After Thundercats Ho the episodes are hit and miss. The inclusion of the Lunatacks really did not help LOL.
‘The Duelist and The Drifter’ was terrible episode. Again another example of the bad writing of the show. The whole thing was soooooooo predictable. Then Lion-O learns sword mastery and throughout the series never shows the same level of fighting skill again. Not to mention he learns it in less than one day. Learns it from the Drifter character whom the Duelist already beat. Makes you wonder why the Drifter never thought to reclaim his weapon and beat the Duelist until then. Then one of the stupidest scenes in the series the Drifter blocking a knife blow with a piece of willow or whatever that is he’s chewing.
I have nothing against an out of place episode, but it needs to be done well.
2 Likes
I was all about this show until the children-plant-baby things showed up, and I just completely lost interest.
Up to that point it did get a lot of things right, including the storytelling and a more serious tone. Maybe that’s what blew it for me, it just felt like that episode broke the mood that the show had set for itself before that.
Also I want to point out that this really needs its own thread
It has it’s own thread. The 2011 series just come up while discussing what a mess WB have made of the Thundercats licence.
1 Like
Nobody is saying the older series was perfect. It had its own problems. Inconsistent animation, goofy storylines but it also had things done well and as for Mumm-Ra dying and coming back. He’s ever-living! He’s already made it clear that if evil exists he’s not going to die. That is actually a very cool idea. Evil cannot be eradicated there will always be evil in the world. Good characters are capable of doing evil and Mumm-Ra only ever officially “died” once. When lion-O threw his sarcophagus into the cauldron and it broke apart.
The show followed the 80s formula.
As for the reboot, I already pointed out the problems with it so I won’t do it again. I just did NOT like it. It was boring, shallow, and frustrating and the episode that introduced the “forever bag” was just so DULL i completely skipped it.
1 Like
Children-plant baby things made the show infinitely more psychedelic.
The Drifter embodied Tao and Zen undercurrents.
You know maybe I will continue to name all the problems I had with the reboot. It will be TL;DR though and probably be ignored.
I accept both the 1985 and 2011 reboots as they are. I believe there should be a fanfic or comic-book crossover between the two shows.
1 Like
Mumm-Ra would kill his reboot self and Pumyra would be so MAD!
1 Like
Hahaha. 
all old mumm-ra would need to do is open a window and he would MELT the reboot mumm-ra.
Pumyra would beat the ever loving crap out of the new pumyra and give her a lecture about loyalty while doing it.
1 Like
Yes. Most definitely.
1 Like
Personally, i found that the reboot was superior to the original in various ways
They were definitely trying to create a mythos
The adventures and fights felt more serious and grand
The story was taken a lot more seriously than the 80’s cartoon’s ever did, (at least to me)
The heroes were actually more realistic in terms of Personality; Lion-O’s struggle to be prove himself a worthy leader was actually consistent part of his character; Tygra was actually given a few traits to help establish what he was like; Kit and Kat both definitely had the skills but were not so quick to jump into danger (in fact, they were realistically frightened by some of the things that came their way), also, we were actually given a reason why they were “parent-less” this time; considering Panthro’s background, abilities and imposing appearance, it would make sense that he would be a little gruff. Also, it was kind of nice to actually see the true relationship between Lion-O and his father, rather than just see Claudis every now and again be left to assume that they had good relationship, which Lion-O conveniently can barely remember any way.
The villains were a lot more menacing than their 80’s counterparts and their motivations seemed a lot more justified (if only a little) too; Mumm-Ra, at his core, truly believes that he could bring order to a chaotic universe; Slithe and Ratar-O both just wanted their own respective peoples to receive the finer things in life, which the Cats have long hoarded for themselves; Kaynar and Addicus are a criminally insane lunatic and a sociopathic serial killer (nuff said); Grune was an ambitious soldier who sought more than what he had in life and allied himself nearly completely with someone who could help him get that. In the original series, they were all just evil for the sake of being evil (at least from my point of view)
Also, certain aspects of the villains were made more believable; Mumm-Ra’ weakness to sunlight is far more acceptable to me than his reflection being his weakness (to me, that seemed just plain silly); Grune getting trapped in a spirit world would make his (theoretical) return as a ghost more acceptable than him just being magically banished and ending up like that some how; also, Mumm-Ra having been in a deep sleep before reawakening by the time of the series helps to avoid the main question; why do the people of Third Earth look so peaceful and prosperous for the denizens of a planet under the control of an evil demon priest mummy?
In my opinion, the reboot handled the premise much better than the original, but that’s just me
2 Likes