Sorry Hammy, I am not singling you out amongst the NS supporters but I have to say stating the NS had “better action” then the OS is reaching. The NS was hugely lacking in action, and when there was action the fighting sequences were mostly dull and dreary. The action sequences in the OS were moments where the art of that time shined and I feel with the art they had for the NS, the action sequences could have been much, MUCH, better.
Back on topic as to why it failed: Yes, the poor toy sales were a contributing factor but the issue is the series its self didn’t capture the hearts and minds of young children and make them want the toys. Remember when we were children? We didn’t care that the LJN toys had zero articulation, we just wanted the toys because we loved the characters. The toys brought us one step closer to “being” the characters we loved (another issue I will discuss later). So whether we think Bandai put out a good toy line based on an adults assessment of the product is a mute point with regards to the shows success, because we are judging the toys in a way that children do not.
I have read of how the producers of the NS wanted the series to have a movie like feel to it, how others state the NS focused on back stories, character development (which I believe the NS failed at) etc… All good and well except these are things we look for in entertainment as adults, children do not care as much. They don’t need every single thing explained. My point is I feel they made the NS to complex for young viewers to get into. Even as an adult it felt like a series that just dragged on and on with very little reward for “sticking with it.”
I think there is a reason why two of the most admired episodes in the NS are The Petalers and The Duelist & The Drifter. They were two stand alone episodes which were very engaging. Great stories, cool characters, and lessons to be learned. These two episodes were for me the two which most resembled OS episodes where for the most part each episode was an adventure of it’s own. I feel the NS would have done much better following that archetype as opposed to the “movie like” feeling they were shooting for.
Moving on to what I was saying about the toys bringing you closer to “being a character;” why would children watching the NS “want to be” Lion-O when he was always out shined by Tygra the golden boy? This plays a lot into the toy sales because if children don’t like Lion-O or “want to be him” then that is going to be a huge problem when you have so many variations of him in toy format hanging on pegs. OS Lion-O was, much like Luke SkyWalker, a character / hero that people could get behind, especially young children. I never really felt NS Lion-O was that type of hero and I don’t believe children saw him that way either from everything I have read.
And I completely agree with who ever said NS Cheetara was pretty much just a card board cut out. She was there for nothing more then to reaffirm that Tygra was the bad ass of this show and not Lion-O. That is sad because OS Cheetara was an epic female character that I know for a fact is the reason why we have many female OS Thundercats fans. Bottom line is young girls are going to be much more into heroine like characters (Sailor Moon) then female characters that are just arm candy.
There are a lot of aspects as to why the NS failed but I firmly believe we just had the wrong people in charge of the show. It’s kind of like cooking. You can have one chef take a certain number of ingredients and make the best damn apple pie you’ve ever had, but you can then have another chef who takes those same exact ingredients and simply changes the way he handles them to end up with an apple pie that doesn’t taste good at all, yet he used the very same ingredients. It’s the same thing for Thundercats. The people behind the OS new exactly how to handle those ingredients and made a very successful show. The NS team took those very same ingredients, handled them differently, and made a pie that not many people wanted…
