Full story on Mania:
http://www.mania.com/first-look-thundercats-return-2011_article_122951.html
:liono
At first I was all like: YESSSSS!!! AT LONG LAST!!!
Then I saw the images and was like… oh no…
I hope this is just concept art, and not what the show will actually look like.
I dont think it will look like the picture shown. If the cartoon resembles anything like what the producers have done so far such as Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Ben 10, Teen Titans then the new series looks very promising.
At this point ill take anything except the dreaded Thundercats rock band concept.
Chris here…
:eek: This is awesome! 
Sounds like a much more faithful adaptation than the “ThunderCats rock band” concept we’ve heard about before - will definitely look forward to seeing what they come up with! (And Mark, I reckon that is early concept art - I can’t imagine the animation will look like an oil painting every time.)
Take care…
I am pretty psyched. Hopefully between the new statues, toys, and this animated series there will hopefully be a revival for the movie.
Chris here…
To be honest, I think this is almost certainly taking the place of the movie - I think the movie is pretty much a dead project and this has risen to take its place…
Take care…
This is exciting, but the article stated the storylines would stay true to the original mythology, but then ended saying the struggle in this series is for the “stones of power” and not the eye of thundera. Hmmmmmm.
@berbillion Perhaps this “stones of power” wording is more for bringing in new fans and does not necessarily mean a deviation from the struggle to gain the power of the Eye.
@all
Agreed. I’m sure the movie is not going anywhere now that the series is coming out. Rather see a great series than a subpar movie any day.
We’ll see how the series works out.
Here’s to better days in 2011.
Yeeeeeeeees! I am so excited! Also, my kids are 7 and 8 years old so now they will be at the right age for me to find excuses to watch the show and buy the merchandise.
It’s neat that WB is working with Studio 4C and from the article, Studio 4C is in Japan. It’s going to be anime which is wonderful news to me since I love anime.
LOL, I bet we are all holding our breath for the first episode to make sure it’s not the crappy rock band concept.
Holy Jaga!! Holy Jaga!! Holy Jaga!! Holy Jaga!! Holy Jaga!! Holy Jaga!! Holy Jaga!! Holy Jaga!! Holy Jaga!! Holy Jaga!! Holy Jaga!! Holy Jaga!! Holy Jaga!!
AT LONG LAST:thumbsup:
I’m remaining cautiously optimistic, but this has to have a fairly realistic aesthetic to the characters. But if it’s like Teen Titans or other heavily exaggerated WB ‘toons, it will be a pass for me.
Just throwing down the generic label “anime” (probably more accurately termed Koreanime now that many companies outsource animation to South Korea) isn’t enough for WB to sway me. For every one “good” anime with realistic looking humans and hyper realistic machinery, you’ll find 40 “bad” titles with superdeformation, localized J-pop iconism, or chibbi stuff. While I like varied animation styles when it’s situated to its individual title and aesthetics, I don’t ever want to see Thundercats with big eyes and small mouths, overused speed lines, pulsing veins or giant sweat marks near their heads, oversized swords, or flailing arms and big mouth screaming. Obviously the 80’s cartoon was animated in Japan, but I liked the general animation style because it was geared to Western standards of pseudo-realism—at least how it translates to superheroes.
Taking it to the next level, even if a new Thundercat series had realistic animation and Western proportion standards, the writing has to be done by writers who have a clear clue at what Thundercat audiences generally like and dislike; and the mission statement of the franchise on whole. (And preferably ones who were fans back in the day.) It can’t be dumbed down to slapstick comedy, hokey plots, or obnoxious sidekicks. After all, cartoons are a dime a dozen and kids don’t have any vested interest in Thundercats. And it’s even questionable if they even have the attention span to be a long term viewer, considering all the external stimuli vying for their attention. But we, as long time fans, have the nostalgia factor, emotional attachment, and financial resources children do not. It absolutely has to be able to draw in new fans to survive, but it also must maintain some classic elements to placate those of us who have been there from the beginning.
I guess time will tell.
Hang on a second, I’m gonna butt in and offer my two cents worth since everyone else is.
I honestly had the opposite reaction to Grizzlor. I was so afraid this day would come that I’ve been speaking out against a new show for years. I was too afraid they would take this nostalgic treasure and ruin it by either
a) Making it look like a Japanese anime a’la Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh or Naruto, or pretty much any other Japanese t.v. series that has been imported over to America and made it onto Cartoon Network or Nickelodian.
or
b) Making it look like almost every single modern DC Universe show/straight to DVD movie where Lion-O would have stick figure level of animation like Superman and Bruce Wayne from the Justice League series. That is fine and dandy for those shows, but not what I, as a truely nostalgic fan of the show want to see
Either one of these animation styles would completely turn me, and I believe many other fans who choose to keep our Thundercats minds inside the 80’s Rankin Bass box.
In other words I’m probably the pickiest SOB on this page to please as far as a new t.v. show is concerned. I’m not against change and modernization…but it has to have plenty of root to the old animation style and the show. Having said that, I had the exact opposite effect of our good moderator Grizzlor. I was like “oh no, oh no, oh no…tell me this isn’t so. They are going to ruin it” when I saw this topic. Having saw the ‘concept art’ as it is being labled, I was blown away…in a good way for a change. I loved it. I hope it does have a sort of dark/adult orientation to the show to a degree, and I hope they gear it to as high of an age range as possible. I actually wouldn’t mind seeing this show on Adult Swim, and I hope that is the direction they go with it (although not likely, I can still hope).
Two things that will make or break this show IMO
-
They absolutely need to offer Larry Kenny 1st right of refusal to reprise his role as the voice of Lion-O. I believe he’s demonstrated recently that he still has the chops, and it would be an almost necessary bridge from the old show to the new show.
-
The voice casting for this series has got to be spot on for some characters. Forget creative control, WB needs to find someone who sounds like Mumm-Ra, the voice of Panthro needs to resemble Earle Hyman in his prime, and a few other key characters need to be voiced with supreme voice talent. No expense should be spared in getting the best they absolutely can to make this a blockbuster.
I’m probably asking too much, but again…I’m probably the pickiest person on here for what I would deem acceptable, or better for a reprisal of this show. I’m willing to give it a chance though.
On the bright side, this absolutely guarantees that we will be seeing something between now and 2011 that I’ve personally been clamoring for a long long time for…NEW ACTION FIGURES!!!
http://splashpage.mtv.com/2010/06/02/new-thundercats-series-in-2011-first-image-and-poster/
Here is another better look at that image and poster. And the image could just be an official promotional image.
This is indeed great news, but I hope they don’t stray too much from the original mythology of the series. And they better feature some great character music and score to the series.
This guy has it absolutely 100% right on the money. If it deviates from anything he’s said, it will fail in the minds of many of the original fans. I know some on here might want an ‘anime’ style of Thundercats, but it needs to be as Westernized and geared towards Western audiences as possible.
Absolutely right on the money w/ this here.
I reported this back in late January via Actionfigureinsider.com, so the guy was right on Target. It was reported Bandai would be the licensee and not Mattel. Hopefully a Classics Thundercats will be made in the future. I hope the Four Horsemen can get their hands on the license via Mattel, perhaps a Mattycollector.com exclusive line.
Thudercats Animated series in 2010/2011
Now that kind of change doesn’t bother me. The golden rule is to not take anything away from the original and that doesn’t as such…the battle for the Sword ended in Garden of Delights anyway in the original series, once Mumm-Ra discovered he can’t use it.
I have a good feeling about this and think it’s excellent news. I have to admit, I’d always wanted a new cartoon series over a movie. I just don’t like CGI.
I look forward to hearing more on this! I wonder if they will have some stuff to show off at SDCC? :o
It is great for Thundercats to actually have some good news to report instead of the grisly news of recent weeks
Just remember, this is not going to be the Thundercats you became a fan of. No franchise has remained the same since its inception no matter what the property may be
This is great news indeed! Logic would dictate that we will see a new toyline as well. I hope Mattel gets the license!!!
Totally didn’t catch that the first time…that made this sound about 100x cheesier than when I didn’t notice it. Not a good sign…
That’s a good golden rule, but piling on new stuff is equally as bad IMO. If you continue to just add new characters, new vehicles, new things to battle over like these Stones of Power…it dilutes what makes the series great in its early life. Transformers is a classic example of this. During the movie, they chose to kill off or alter many of the original characters from the first two seasons to make way for new characters (looking back its obvious why this happened: to create new characters so new toys could be made). Problem is, they killed characters like Ironhide and Wheeljack, and altered Megatron and we got the inferior Arcee, Galvatron, and Blurr back in return. Thundercats didn’t really kill anybody off, but you saw a big scale back in the use of the Mutants in the latter 60+ episodes after the Lunatacks were brought into the fold. Sometimes, you just run out of material…but too often times just adding stuff in unnecessarily or because it will ‘modernize’ the show just doesn’t cut it.
We don’t have enough information to know if this is a re-imaging, or if it is picking up where the old series or the Wildstorm comics left off, so a lot of that could play a factor into some of these decisions…and who knows it might be very well written, animated, and voiced and it might be a really solid series. I’m just approaching this with the skepticism of someone who’s seen too many attempts to re-hash the awesome shows we grew up with fail in one of those areas.
According to that actionfigureinsider.com article earlier, there’s strong indication it is Bandai. I hope that is not the case. I don’t want Bandai coming within a thousand Thundarian miles of the license. Mattel really would be the optimum choice as far as larger toy companies go. I’d prefer a Thundercats classics, but if the designs of these new characters are really awesome (and so far the poster has me stoked), then I’d be all for Mattel initially doing only the new line for the new show. Having said that, I’m never one to shy away from my interest in Sideshow Collectibles or Hot Toys getting the rights to an ultra premium action figure line…a guy can dream
But yes I really really hope Mattel and not Hasbro gets the rights. Mattel already does DC Universe for WB, and I’m not aware of Bandai having a current business relationship with the company. So I’m hoping business wins out in this regard.
I personally feel this could be a great or bad thing… not sure yet what I think of it, but the Poster has a little bit of promise. I guess only time will tell…