When I saw “Return to Thundera Part 1” for the first time and say that Tygra & Pumyra were left behind, all I could think was “What on Third Earth did they do to tick Lion-O off to get that job?!”. Its like “Yay! We’re going home!” and Lion-O’s like “No, WE are going home. YOU two stay behind! BYE!!!”. Heck, they rebuilt the Tower of Omens just so they could stick Tygra there! lol!
Then there are all those plot conveniences that always turn up like The Eye of Thundera warning Lion-O of danger & Jaga turning up to give Lion-O advice.
In my mind, I explained Jaga & the Eye’s warnings with this: The Eye of Thundera is like what The Force is to the Jedi in that it has its own will of what is to be done even though its users can use its power for their own goals. When the Eye of Thundera DOESN’T warn Lion-O, its due to some other purpose. Like in “Telepathy Beam”, the reason it didn’t warn Lion-O and let him know where Pantrho really was is because it was Cheetara who needed to prove herself and realize her true potential. And Jaga’s ghost is a similar thing. In cases where he did not lend advice to Lion-O (like showing up to tell him in “Catfight” that the Mumm-Ra in disguise was NOT him), it was because he wanted Lion-O to experience himself and see how he handles it, and as Lion-O grew up, Jaga probably felt that Lion-O was less & less in need of his help anyway.
Know what? Works for me! lol.
Now the BIGGEST inconsistency that has bothered me since I was a kid…
HOW DID HAMMERHAND COME BACK TO LIFE?!?!?!
If “Spitting Image” had never happened (God forbid, I love that episode), I wouldn’t question this. I mean The Mutants have been put in situations that should have killed them, but I follow the cartoon law of “if there is no body or its not stated, then they aren’t dead”. With Hammerhand we see him “go down with the ship” but he could have shown up in the next episode and I would have thought “Eh, Lifeboat off screen”.
BUT NO!!! In “Spitting Image” he is confirmed as being deceased by the mere fact that HE’S A GHOST!!! Mumm-Ra summons his ghost from the site from where his ship sank and he possesses the lifeless Pantrho clone. At the end of the episode, he seems to resume being a ghost and tornados away.
So how is he alive and well in “Thundercats Ho!”?!?!? Its just always bugged me. Either the writers forgot that he was dead (most likely) or there is a major chapter missing in his story.
That’s something that always bothered me. In “Last day” Mumm-Ra clearly destroyed the Tower of Omens, but the next episode it was standing there. Why would the TCs rebuild it? Or were writers so eager to get rid of Pumyra and Tygra that they did it just to have a reason to leave both of them in Third Earth? At least they could have left them together in Cats Lair so they will get some company.
And yes, I always found it selfish from Lion-o and the others not to have a rotative system. Like, Pumyra and Tygra staying there for 2 weeks, then Bengali and Cheetara, etc. Even the twins could have stayed, it’s not as if there was too much danger on Third Earth by then lol. And I don’t think Tygra and Pumyra volunteered to stay in a lonely planet away from their friends, when they could have returned to their own home.
I was expdecting a third season in which they were finally allowed to join the others in New thundera
I suppose Jaga at least could be explained as him doing other stuff in the Astral Plane. I mean, he can’t watch Lion-O all day every day. That’d be kinda creepy.
I never liked the idea of some Thundercats stuck on Third Earth permanently, either. In my own fanfiction, I had them decide to do a rotating schedule similar to what you mentioned. They stayed for six weeks, but were staggered three weeks apart. That way every three weeks they at least got to see a new face, and were never stuck there longer than six.
I don’t know why the writers never thought of that
Other things I always wondered about Pumyra and Tygra when they were left behind were:
a) where / how did they eat? As far as I know, Snarf was the cook…unless they went into a rotative system as well: Mondays with the Berbils, Tuesdays with the Warrior Maidens, Wednesdays at Hook Mountain, Thursdays with the Tuska, Fridays at wollos villages, Saturdays with the wolkians, and Sundays Mandora brought them some food from another planet
b) did they have to do the maintenance / cleaning of those huge buildings all by themselves, or get some help from the berbils, WMs, etc? I remember in “Day of the Eclipse”, Pantrho and Tygra said they use to do it every month (maintenance), and the cleaning must have been on a daily basis I think. Also they always said they used to do that in team work. I guess they did it only once a year now, otherwise it would be exhausting.
c) when did they sleep? I mean, with only one TC in each building, they had to keep guard every night, as they couldn’t rotate turns. What if something attacked Third Earth at 3:00 a.m.? They had to be alert.
Yes, the uncut pilot shows a much more epic, realistic and violent approach then a lot of subsequent episodes - the show could have been so much more than it was, which is saying a lot
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Thats always been my preferred explanation, BUT it doesn’t quite make sense - his aging was distinctly explained by Jaga as “aging is slowed down, but still takes place” and was the reason that Jaga couldn’t survive the trip himself - the same 10 years or so Lion-O ages would be enough to push Jaga over the edge. Panthro, Cheetara and Tygra can pretty much just age from mid 20s to mid 30s and not skip a beat. The kittens should at least be young adults now but aren’t.
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I like that. Never thought about it before, but it very well could have been alterred by Jaga intentionally. Good thought, and fits the plot. The sword could have been about confidence - by the point of the later examples, the sword is not so much this mystical thing, but part of every day life, and much less terrifying
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ahhhh. yes, good point, the original 3 didn’t have ANY time capsules. And what are the odds they end up at third earth? Thundara is GALAXIES away not even just another star system. Remember, our GALAXY is “a little dinky one” to them. So they must have some pretty damn powerful interstellar/intergalactic tech. How DID the 3 thundarians survive and get there? Does the Feliner have a warp drive? The sword might not have warned about them since they weren’t thundercats, just thundarians, however.
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Well the reason they had to use the time capsules was because the ship was damaged, but that definately doesn’t explain why the Mutants didn’t destroy the ship during the YEARS in transit, and definately doesn’t explain why the haven’t aged. AHH. i never wanted to see THIS many plot holes!!
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Didn’t mumm-ra sink most of their crew along with their ship and weapons?
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Since i was a kid, i’ve always thought episodes were played out of order - specifically in the beginning, there is one episode of Lion O i think joyriding in the tank and then a few episodes later, he has never driven it and is asking for lessons, i believe. has anyone actually gone back and made a timeline for episodes?
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this distance thing definately bugs me, since its GALACTIC travel…!! The kittens pods being the defective ones? makes almost the MOST sense… or that they DID age, and are just short in stature being housecats! meaning they have the same “grown body/young mind” issue as Lion-O, and we don’t realize it, because they will ALWAYS be small!
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would u really notice aging from 26-36, for instance? i’m starting to like this idea. mostly everything fits.
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i thought it was made pretty clear that the shift was damaged, which was why Jaga had to pilot it. it was barely maneuverable.
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Hahahaha. i had the same thought - which also leaves Cheetara for Lion-O. nice pairing
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Having both Panthro and Tygra (creator/inventor/scientist types) go would leave no one to repair the tech on Third Earth. Lynx-O definately became a new source of wisdom and was an elder to the team, I liked his involvement with the core team tremendously.
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I may have seen them out of order, but the “ghost” of Hammerhead was his first appearance (at least, the first one i saw as a kid! :D) so i just figured that he stayed alive after Mumm Ra brought him back or something. It definately seemed like a re-imagining of the character.
Spotted this quite a while ago, but finaly took the time take a screen cap of it.. I present to you, the dumbest animation error in the entire series… Straight out of “Frogman”:
Here’s something that always bugged me (not sure if it could be called an inconsistency though).
In many eps, the TCs were trapped by an enemy adn Lion-O learnt about it because of the Sword of Omens (like in “Mongor”, “Monkian’s Bargain”, etc… “Safari Joe” doesn’t count because the TCs were encaged in thundranium cages); we also know that when Lion-O needed their help, he would use the sword to open the Eye, then the signal appeard in the sky, and the TCs were able to get free.
So, why did Lion-O always wait for him to be in trouble to do that? In “Mongor”, he saw the TCs trapped and let them there, until he was needing help and summoned them, same in “Monkian’s Bargain” or “Chain of Loyalty”.
Was he some kind of selfish sadist that enjoyed knowing his friends tied up, or trapped in some magic spehres that made them hunch and crouch, to only set them free when he needed their help?
Wouldn’t it have been more humanistic and friendly, not to say wise, to save them as soon as he learnt of their situation? It was easy, just summon them and the Eye will give them the strenght to get free.
Also,why did the Eye always wait for all of the TCs to get captured to warn Lion-O about it? Again, wouldn’t it have been wiser to warn Lion-O as soon as the first TC got captured, so he could warn the others and rescue his friend? In “Mongor”, we saw how we captured Tygra, then Cheetara and then Panthro. I think it wouds have been better if, as soon as Tygra got captured, the sword warned Lion-O, he called the others to stick together, rescue Tygra and defeat Mongor. So waht if Lion-O defeated Mongor alone and fast, not needeing the help of teh TCs?Would he just leave them there?
It sometimes souned to me as “they’re in trouble, but I don’t care…” Then, some minutes later he was in trouble “oh, I’ll call for the others, time to set them free so now they can help me, even if I gave a s**t for them before”
Here’s another one. In “Trouble with Thunderkittens” (when the kittens “stole” the TCs weapons) and “Mycrits”, there was a room at Cats Lair especially designed to store the weapons (really, a whole room for 3 weapons? That wasn’t even the Sword of Omens chamber I think). In other episodes though, the weapons seemed to be kept in each of the TCs bedrooms, and sometimes it even seemed they slept with them!
Same with the SoO. Sometimes it appeared to be in a special room, others in Lion-O’s room.
A shame the episodes probably aren’t in the right order, but after the kittens stole the weapons perhaps the Thundercats decided to keep them in their own darn rooms.
But Lion-O never told the others what the thunderkittens did (btw, I always hated that when some of the TCs decided not to tell the others something that happened… I hate that in real life as well lol).
In “Fireballs from Plun-Darr”, Tygra turned visible again when he lost his whip in the lake. But then we saw many other times when he turned invisible with his whip and then used it in battle (“Monkian’s Bargain”); and other times when some Third Earth being, like Red-Eye or Vultureman in “Super Power Potion” were able to see him invisible, and Tygra didn’t have the whip wrapped around him.
So why did he turn visible again when he lost it in “Fireballs from Plun-Darr”, but he didn’t need to keep it wrapped around him to remain invisible in other eps?
I think “Fireballs from Plun-Darr” earns the prize to the ep with more inconsistency-leading facts lol (like the inability to swim stuff).
Perhaps he only needed the whip to be physically in contact with this body and not necessarily wrapped around it. That would explain why he was able to use his whip after he turned invisible.
But you are right. The whole “whip-invisible-swim” thing has varied from episode to episode and often led to inconsistencies like the ones you mentioned. It is kinda ironic too as in real life Tigers are excellent swimmers and love to spend time in water, unlike other cats who despise it.
Tygra could turn invisible even when he didn’t had the whip on is hands. It’s true that most times in the OS he turned invisible while grasping the bolo, but there are occasions like in Exodus,right after the Mutants invade the ship where Tygra caught 2 mutants by surprise when he became invisible(w/o using the whip) and attached them from above.
That’s right. I’ve pointed out many times that he also turned invisible without using the whip in “Pumm-Ra” and in Lion-o’s trial.
I think invisibility was part of his mind powers, and the reason he used the whip most of the times was precisely to not use those powers that we later learned drained him; like the whip was a sort of “extarnal battery” for him or something like that. That’s why I’m surprised that he turned visible again when he lost it in “Fireballs…” but was able to take it away of his body in so many othe eps.
Wow! I’m learning a lot of things about Tygra that I never knew! I guess I need to re-watch the series more attentively.
The sword of omens was also a major source of inconsistency. In some episodes it displayed remerkable intelligence and incredible power, warning the Tcats and at times even doing battle on its own. However, in other episodes it was just a dead piece of iron.
Jaga also was a confusing character. There were so many instances where he could have alerted the Tcats but he didn’t. I suppose that an argument can be made that he wanted the Tcats to learn from their own mistakes and experience rather than being guided all the time. But some situations were really life-and-death serious and yet he never appeared.
