What happens when the UK gets up to episode 26?
Sometimes cartoons just end without any explanation, this is what will probably happen, or will be re run to death.
Most TV shows end without explanation.
All i have to say is that i am very disappointed with the Stop of Thundercats 2011. And let’s not play games, things were gloomy over the last months and much as we wanted to believe otherwise, their end was inevitable.
I don’t agree at all with some aforementioned opinions that the show had substantial flaws or critical inconsistencies which led to its demise. The story was masterfully written and was much more complex with amazing flashbacks as well in depth characterization, than the OS. Studio4c did a great job, above par to the cartoons shown nowadays. Also the NS could attract both the younger and older audience.
The reasons behind the present predicament lies in the marketing section and the whole way WB, CN handled the franchise. Bandai is to be blamed too. The quality of the show alone was keeping Season 1 running and the fans coming in.
I am still trying to sink in the bad news, certainly not the happiest ending. What worries most is the ‘‘hiatus’’ for a future Thundeercats project…how long is it going to take this time??? 5 years??? 10 ??? or 25???
I am all for blaming CN/WB/Bandai, but you can’t put lipstick on a pig and call it pretty. If the show truly is over, the blame goes all the way around.
It is a very convenient thing to blame WB/CN/Bandai/etc, but that doesn’t change the fact that the show never really took off. After the first episodes the show sort of just stagnated with viewers. For such an expensive and hyped production it was essentially a flop.
So the question is, was it reasonable for CN/WB/Bandai/etc to see the NS as a flop and stop throwing good money after bad, knowing that the chances of them succeeding and turning the series into a profitable success were slim to none? Like I said before, it’s easy to blame them for the NS failure, but is that more of an emotional response or a response to reason?
I also disagree with you to say that show was well written, the problem was the writers were trying too hard to outsmart themselves with the story. The result, a story that was needless complex and hard to follow for the target audience 6-12. If you’re writing a kids shows, write it for kids. If you want an older audience do that. The end result was a story that really didn’t captivate, but rather alienated viewers. TOS may have had a clunky, cheesy, and lame story, but it raked in viewers and those viewers bought the merchandise and everyone was happy.
The NS may have been a quality production, but it wasn’t necessarily a well executed show, and for that the blame goes all around.
You hit the nail on the head. Well said.
MGP
What would be very good is somehow CN was able to get the original series to be shown on their daughter network, Boomerang. I can see y’all happily flapping your hands in your face fanboying yourself.
I think when it comes own to it, close-minded OS fans, a bad toy line, and some of the poorest advertising ever are what led to the demise of the show. I know it isn’t cancelled yet, but of it is then this is the reason. You can blame the story, but most kids in the target audience don’t care about the story. They want to see the heroes fighting. The story was there to add something us older fans could enjoy, and it worked for a lot of people. When the network doesn’t advertise the program, then kids never know when the show is on. Not to mention it barely ever repeated besides on Sundays. If you hated the story, good for you. But to blame the show’s possibly (and likely) cancellation on it is not logical.
Bingo! I recently watch the new Ben 10 Omniverse and I asked myself when watching, what makes this show so popular to kids? It’s a catchy show with action and is kid friendly…it also has a cool intro theme!
Although not as cool as ThunderCats it’s okay! The only show that could ever give ThunderCats a run for it’s money is “Avatar: The Last Airbender”…that show had is a masterpiece!
Sure you can. It’s the main reason why the show flopped. Everything is built on top of the storyline. (Toys, ads, viewers) If you have a lousy storyline that doesn’t engage your target demo, all these other components fail. You can’t blame it on the VA, or the art guys, because they come secondary to the storyline that is created for them.
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While I’ll ignore the sarcasm, it probably would have been a good idea to have TOS and the NS run simultaneously or have one pick up while the other one was between seasons over the winter.
I really wanted to like the new series, but to me, it seemed like ThunderCats in name only. A quest to collect magic stones to transform into giant armored robots sounds like the premise of a bad imported animé based on a collectible game. It certainly is not something with any basis in ThunderCats.
I don’t think it’s even close-minded OS fans that have led to the cancellation - because it’s face it, all they can do is tune out. The main audience is, of course, kids. But it absolutely is poor advertising. The first episode was well advertised and the hype came as a result of that - but after that? Even here, in the UK, it’s shown on Channel 5 but with no advertising whatsoever. Not even a highlight in the TV guide.. if nobody knows where you are, how is anybody supposed to watch it?
No, I disagree. If that as the case, then Avatar: The Last Airbender and Legend of Korra should have flopped too. But they didn’t. In fact, they’re the most popular shows on their network with a strong fanbase. And all this in spite of a mediocre toy line. I have to agree instead with those who have been saying it was lack of promotional awareness by CN. For whatever reason, they just weren’t behind this show.
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People said the same thing about the 2003 Battlestar Galactica series, with some fans of the original going as far as to call it “Galactica in Name Only” (or GINO, not to be confused with the popular burger and chicken eatery making a comeback here on the east coast). Yes, both shows were completely different beasts. And fans of the original, who liked it, campy and cheesy as it could get at times, didn’t really like the overly dark and serious take. I was one of them. I gave it a chance, but ultimately I found it wasn’t for me.
But on the other hand, the new series drew its share of fans who loved it, and went on to get critical acclaim and a few awards. And I’m perfectly okay with that. I may not have liked the new version, but I’m not going to begrudge its success. Variety is the spice of life. Makes the world go 'round, etc. etc.
Me, I liked the new ThunderCats. I really hated the old show with its bad voice acting and juvenile storylines. I wanted something serious and epic; and the new series gave me that. There’s always going to be fans who liked the new series and disliked the original, and vice versa. I’m willing to agree to disagree on this.
The worst thing the new series could be accused of, I think was its possible lack of forward momentum. They just didn’t devote as many episodes as they should have in advancing the main story, and with few exceptions (“Song of the Petalars”), most of the stand-alones killed whatever momentum the show had.
I can understand why they did this. You don’t want to blow your whole load right away. And you also want to take some time and get to really know these characters (again, something I don’t think the OS did a very good job of doing). But I think it could have done it a little better. I’d like to say that if there is another season, they would remedy that problem. Obviously the showrunners were paying attention to this board and knew what the complaints were. We’ll just have to wait and see now.
The new show was never meant to be “a new version” of the old show. By quoting Michael Jelenic “the old show felt more like a Saturday morning animated series and this feels more like a movie”.
Not sure if i can agree on the movie part. But it has a story that moved forward each episode, he did not do the “thundercats ho” each episode “just to do it” and to sell toys but rather just for everything to make more sense and be more lovable.
What seems to be the big problem is that this show had to have great toy sales to go on, it represents a throwback to the drearily toy-driven 1980s. We did not see the tank each episode, each characters, weapons or even the “HOOOO”. In the old show you pretty much saw everything each episode can could have your toys ready for those moments.
I’m trired so i can’t really explain right now but you probably understand what i mean. The show was not MADE to be driven by toys like the old show was. The old shows was made in such a way to promote the toys by it’s usage which never happend in the new one as it wanted to get away from that and… It does not work, did not work. If it just had not to sell toys this show would have done good i think.
Just as hammy said earlier but “kids dont care for the story, they just wanna see the characters” just further proves my point. This show was meant for kids to start with but in the end it turned out into something else.
I have to wonder if the reason CN stopped advertising the show so quickly was because they thought the popularity of ThunderCats prior to the new series’ release was enough to let them cut out advertising, like they thought they could just let word of mouth advertise it since ThunderCats is iconic. If that was their reasoning, it’s rather poor.
And I take a little issue with the new series being called TC in name only. I had nostalgic memories of the old show too, when it aired on Toonami, but when I actually sat down and watched s an adult things were very different. The whole show basically boils down to the simple premise of “Cat like humanoids battle bad guys and an evil mummy wizard.” There was barely any sort of overarching narrative or purpose, save for several multi part episodes. The last two seasons sort of had story arcs with the treasures of Thundera and then rebuilding Thundera, but to me it felt like they were done too simplistically in execution.
And what I LIKE about the new show is that it takes all these elements from the old show and actually expands on them and ties them together. I like that the Swords of Omens and Plundarr actually have a connection, and I like that Mumm-Ra actually has some connection to the Cats instead of just being an evil guy they fight for vague reasons outside of him being evil for the sake of it. I especially like that the mutants aren’t just mutants but other animal races like the Cats. This is world building, something which the old show barely had any of. The old show sure had a lot of fun and fantastic things, but none of it really held together because they hardly explained any of the past history.
But overall the 2011 Cats have a very clear purpose and quest from the get go, instead of just waiting for Mumm-Ra or the mutants to do something evil for half the series. There’s a ton of character development compared to the old series, and the writers created their own interesting mythology cobbled together using pieces from the old show. Perhaps the actual execution wasn’t that great, but you can see what the writers were going for and in my opinion this is the RIGHT way to do a reboot.
If they had went with the rock band concept, then it would be in-name-only, because that premise would have been too different from the original premise.
This is going to sound off topic, but I think those who are in tune with where my mind is going with these questions, by all means, follow the rabbit trail, Alice. Now down the hole we go!
How does Hasbro handle its toys and sales? Why are they so successful with Transformers and have been before and now with My Little Pony along with others in the past like GI Joe and Jem (for a little while?) How did they get a network that is now in competition with others? Looking at how they practice their business would be a good idea to do.
Think on these things.
Absolutely 100% correct!
All remakes have the problem going in of being compared to the original. There were always going to be people who would love this remake no matter how bad it was simply because it’s Thundercats, and people who would hate it no matter how good it was simply because it’s not the original. These people probably made their minds up about it before they even watched a single frame of it.
I’ve met people who can’t stand this remake, and people who think it’s better than the original. Quite a range of responses.
Very few remakes get anything like the love and respect that is held for their original counterparts. Mainly because shows that get remade tend to be ones that are already hailed as classics. On that logic, you’d have a better chance of success if you remake a bad show and say “I’m going to fix what was wrong with this the first time round”.
I wasn’t convinced at first. It took a few episodes for me to really get the wow-factor - “Journey To The Tower Of Omens” was what did it for me. Then “Legacy”. From that point on, I was hooked.
I’ve gone on record as saying the original show had hooks you could hang your hat on, but it had its faults too, and everything that was wrong with the original was fixed in the new show.
The main problem with the original was the lack of backstory about why the two sides fought (this is common to most 80s shows, with the notable exception of “Defenders Of The Earth”, where Flash Gordon explains at the start of episode 1 that “Ming’s home planet of Mongo is dying from the lack of resources. He plans to leave Mongo and invade the Earth.”).
The new series gives the characters a proper backstory. The beef between the cats and the other animals, and also Mumm-Ra. There was never any explanation of where Mumm-Ra came from in the original series. OK, technically, we still don’t know where he sprang from, but we do know what makes him tick. What’s more, at least he has a proper claim to the Sword of Plundarr in this series (technically it should have belonged to Rataro in the original).
The quest for the stones gives the show a level of continuity that the original can only dream of (and if anyone can think of any other continuity points for the original series, please let me know on my “continuity order” thread). Apart from the independence of “Native Son” and “Survival Of The Fittest”, and the floating asideness of “The Forever Bag”, the order of the episodes is absolutely fixed.
Overall, my marks for the new show?
Respect for the originals: *****
Animation: *** (not to everybody’s taste, mine included, but most of the characters don’t come across too bad)
Voice acting: *** (never a hope of beating Larry Kenney and Earl Hammond)
Storylines (individual): **** (they are just as good as the originals, and several of the standalone ones would have worked very well in the original series)
Continuity/backstory: *****
All in all, then, a fine show, and worthy of the name.
I do think there are some generational differences that will make a fan support the new show or not. It just seems to be the way it is. Storytelling styles change.
MGP
It’s not always a generational thing. I’ve got a couple of mates who were both born in the same week as me, one loves the remake, one hates it.
As a viewer, I do not need everything explained to me. From the first episode of the original series, we are plunged into the chaotic events of an ongoing conflict. The entire backstory of that conflict is not explained to us, but it is evident that the opposing factions have a long, shared history. That mystery—not knowing—is far more compelling than the entire backstory presented in the new series.
Compare the original series, in which Mumm-Ra is a devil priest granted immortality by the Ancient Spirits of Evil in exchange for perpetual servitude but whose exact origins and motivations are unknown; with the new series, in which Mumm-Ra is an alien conqueror who employs advanced technology to besiege worlds in search of stones that can power his sword, gauntlet, and armor.
The latter is completely banal, never mind that it is not even remotely the same character or premise. The only thing they have in common is their name and their adversarial relationship with the protagonists. Hence, the “in name only” designation.