I’m guessing you never watched Robotech, then. In that show, two characters died onscreen. And they stayed dead. The population of the Earth was nearly decimated in a pretty stark and graphic way for a 1980’s cartoon show. And later we got a character who was a crossdresser (was kind of a big thing then, whereas now it’s pretty commonplace in Anime today). The OS Thundercats looks pretty tame and safe by comparison! 
Nope, never watched it
can’t really compare an American produced cartoon with an anime. two different cultures. Japanese accepted that cartoons can be for mature audiences long ago and we’re still struggling with the stigma that cartoons are for kids over here.
Yeah, but when they dubbed-adapted (adubted?) Macross into Robotech, they didn’t have Roy Fokker or Ben Dixon get injured and retired with honors offscreen the way they did with Sven in Voltron. Roy Fokker DIED. So Robotech was pretty mature for its time.
Exactly what I was thinking 
Anyway, I was just saying that, for their times, the OS seemed more adult than the NS for their times; NS feel like 2011’s “My Little Pony”.
Still, the fact that they brought it over intact and allowed that to be shown on American television speaks to what an animated series could be. And I’d say we’ve come a long way since those days. When shows like The Simpsons, Futurama, South Park, Family Guy and the entire lineup of Adult Swim exist, and that My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is being enjoyed by an audience that goes way beyond their target demographic, I’d say that stigma has all but been erased.
I listened to the Thundercast with the interview of the author of Hear the Roar. Great interview, BTW. It was interesting to hear about what Leonard Starr’s vision for what the show was, and the ideas that got rejected, both out of concern over Peggy Charren’s ACT group (which I always suspected) and Jules Bass wanting to maintain Rankin-Bass’ family friendly image. (Incidentally, I met Peter S. Beagle, author of The Last Unicorn - which R-B adapted into a movie - at the New York Comic Con. I asked him about TLU and why Thundercats never matched that same level of quality. He told me that initially when he heard R-B was doing it, he was livid. “Rankin-Bass?!” He said at the time, “I thought 'Why don’t you just go and give it to Hanna-Barbera, then?” That it turned out as good as it was was something of a minor miracle.) That writers like William Overgard hated writing the show, and were more interested in coming up with their own characters and forcing them into the series, didn’t help matters either apparently. And again, it frustrated me because had those factors not been at play, the old Thundercats really could have been something truly great.
So again, I stand by my assertion - sacrilegious as it may be - that the NS is superior to the OS in that it was able to achieve the potential the OS always had, but for a variety of reasons was never allowed to.
yeah, but Simpsons, Family Guy, etc are all comedies. I’d hardly consider that as indications that the stigma is almost gone. Now when they start making dramas and action shows animated in America (that are popular and successful) then I might consider it gone.
It feels like the honeymoon is over and fans that were cheering simply because Thundercats was back have finally seen the show warts and all, and are seeing the problems that have always been there. When I started watching the new series I was actually disappointed. To me it just slightly missed the mark on most things, for a short time I even considered writing a fanfic on how I would have done it differently. Since then we’ve had a mixture of good and bad episodes, with, for me, only two episodes really standing out as above average, Song of the Petalars and The Duelist and The Drifter, others fell well below average. The biggest problem I’ve had is that it all feels very rushed, no that’s a major problem but the biggest problem is I’m not really being given characters to care about. Lion-O has received most of the development so far but it feels almost like he resets at the start of each episode, Panthro has had some nice moments but who else really has grown as a character or even revealed much of a character. Then came Sight Beyond Sight, for me it didn’t seem to fit the name, not enough was made of the attempts to learn sbs for it to earn the titles, I think I’d have named it after the Elephants or maybe the wraiths. That aside it was a slow paced episode that had Lion-O learn two incredibly important lessons, look at the bigger picture and he needs to be in harmony with his sword, and gave wilykit a plenty of development. Suddenly when they weren’t rushing to get through battles and exposition we had a chance to see character, and develop an interesting local. Buddist elephants with memory issues, on paper it sounds daft, in practice it worked very nicely, mostly because it was given chance to develop. The only thing that felt rushed was the fight scene with the rock giant, which made me think of the old series rock giant more than NES. A cool monster that could have been made to seem a lot more dangerous before Kit and the Elephants demolished it. Great to see someone other than Lion-O be responsible for the victory. I could see Kit coming back to this monastery to study if they can kick Mumm-Ra’s tail while she’s still a kid. We saw the overall arc move forward, character development and the introduction of interesting supporting characters, to me that sounds like an episode well spent and personally I really enjoyed it. Slow down the pacing so the bits that are really important can shine through.
P.S. am I the only one with that UK-Carry On humor that giggled like a school boy at Kit and the Elephants reaching perfect harmony. Maybe that’s just my double entendre rich mind.
First time poster here, jumped on board with the announcement of the new series, and once i saw the new character designs over the old ones i was Sold.
overall I wished this series took a darker tone from the original, the first Couple of episodes were alright, but like a few in here, Ive been disappointed with the series advancement so far, Most people have mentioned their dislikes here-
Is it just me, or is the overall Fight Choreography …well …sub par… sure a sword slash here and a nunchuck swipe there, but most action has been pretty underwhelming, even in the drifter episode, i was expecting to see much more dynamic swordsmanship … I thought being the feral hybrid nature of the BIG cats, speed, strength, reflexes, agility, that theyd have some of the best martial skills around hands down…
Someone else mentioned Cheetara’s running animation, I totally agree ..she seems , almost as if she has wind resistance against her, there must be a reason that she is shown running the way that she does here, maybe they dont want to show her as a blur across the screen making it easier for the little kids watching to follow her? (sarcasm) youd think that at those high speeds that there would be some more explosive flow to her stride, as seen in the Original Thunderctas Intro.
Lion-O : of all words and phrases they could have chosen…“Whiskers?” WHISKERS!!! facepalm x 3
Not enough Tygra and cheetara.
The Thundertank looks sharp, hope to see more of what else it can do in future episodes…
maybe im just expecting too much.
Yeah I’m not fond of it either. :mad:
Not saying “whiskers” is good or anything, could’ve been worse. Then again, I shouldn’t be surprised at something like that.
Anyone remember “duck pajamas?”
the word itself isn’t so bad to me. it’s how they use it. if someone other than Lion-O said it or if it wasn’t always said RIGHT before a commercial it wouldn’t be as annoying. it’s almost like a running gag that was intended to be funny but isn’t.
movie
Following on gunstarheroblue’s post, I agree that the show should have been a little darker. Some time ago there was a script circulating the web. It began I think with claudu’s getting together with lion-o’s mom. Mutants all lived in thundera at one point but were booted out to plundarr or something like that. There was also a description of how mummra came to be, something like “on a distant planet a burial is taking place” it was supposed to be the ancient devil priest mummra…..i really liked that movie script. There certainly were things in there that could have been brought over to the cartoon to give it an edgier feel….I think the new show should have been simpler…keep what works and capitalize on missed opportunities….after 10 episodes I’m still not sure where it’s going, villains are terrible and they’ve made it much more complex and complicated than it needed to be. We haven’t seen mummra for like 4 episodes or so…wheres grune? Where are the mutants? Snowman, hachiman, safari joe etc…… I hope its not too late and the they can point this in a good direction…..
You’ve hit the proverbial nail on the head balgus. It did seem somewhat formulaic that Lion-O would run into some kind of trouble, say “whiskers” then the show cuts to the first commercial break. I realized it when I heard myself saying it in “Berbils” at about that time. Then I realized after watching that episode again that he didn’t say it. :eek:
Well, even though there’s been a lot of complaining about the NS not having enough Mumm-Ra, I think that’s something that works in its favor. According to the interview on Hear the Roar in the Thundercast, the reason why all the villains became such buffoons by the second season was because we had seen them fail so often that they ceased to be effective as villains. They lost their edge and became less threatening. This is the kiss of death for any antagonist. At some point, he’s ultimately got to be dealt with and dispatched for good. Keeping them alive past the point of relevancy is useless. But they kind of painted themselves into a corner in the OS due to the limitations of kids’ cartoon shows at the time, so they could never do this, and that’s why Mumm-Ra kept coming back like Jason Voorhees and Freddy Kreuger (even Peter Lawrence reportedly acknowledged the comparison, according to the book).
One way to get around this, and to keep maintaining that sense of menace, is to use the villains sparingly so that when they finally do show up, it really makes for an, "Oh st!" moment. Of course, when you have a show with a popular villain, it becomes tempting to keep using them because the audience wants to see more of them. Look at the Borg in Star Trek: at first, they were the ultimate, unstoppable bad guys. And they were frightening because not only were they very powerful, but there was no way to communicate or reason with them. They were like a force of nature. And when they showed up, you knew you were pretty much f*ed.
However, as they got more popular and they were used more, and you found out more about them, they started to lose that sense of menace until they became just another alien race to defeat. And while there have been attempts to bring that sense of menace back, it’s still not quite the same as when they first appeared.
Other shows kind of fell into the same trap: the Daleks from Doctor Who got used very frequently at one point, until it was decided that they worked better when they appeared once in a blue moon. And even in Batman: The Animated Series, it felt at times to me that the Joker was getting a little overexposed.
Another way is to simply let the villain run their course, and then do away with them once its finished. Shows like Star Blazers, Buffy and Supernatural all do this, as they have either a major villain or threat every season that’s introduced at the beginning, then ultimately dealt with by the finale at which point the process starts over with the introduction of another villain or threat next season.
So I’m glad that they’re spreading-out Mumm-Ra’s appearances like this, as it’s really maintaining that sense of menace for him and not overexposing him. I’m sorry, but in the OS I really felt like it was a cheat to show Mumm-Ra getting vanquished, only to have him come back in an epilogue with him going “As long as evil exists, Mumm-Ra lives!” To which I’d think to myself, “Yeah. Bulls**t!”
i agree that mumm-ra is best used sparringly. and when they do fight him they should only win by a hair. and sometimes its better story telling to let the villain win every once in a while like in the premiere. keep up the threat. they should have to struggle to win or it’ll feel like a copout
but at the same time i also feel that his presence should be felt more often. maybe something like on ramlak rising where he’s not the focus, but you know he’s up to something. or even something as simple as having the team talk about him. lately it’s been out of sight out of mind.
Maybe once the team finds the first stone, Mumm-Ra will sweep in and take it. That would be a epic “remember me?” moment. Then Mumm-Ra could use the stone to fuse with the Sword of Plun-Darr to give him a weapon to battle the Sword of Omens with. So far Mumm-Ra’s record in fighting the Sword of Omens is what, 0 in 2 attempts?
That’s my exact problem with 80’s cartoon villains. They’re not threatning if they’ve been beaten 26 or more times. In fact, Sam Register admitted this sort of thing is why Transformers: Animated resorted to human villains because they figured it’d be unwise going into the same trap.
THAT WOULD BE AWESOME. This really does need to happen.
In response to some of the negative comments on the eps lately… I was thinking (dangerous pastime, I know) that perhaps on DVD the episodes kinda mesh together better? Like watching them back-to-back gives more of an ‘epic’ or story feel. Because eps 6 & 7 felt like a climax to me, with 8 being a ‘chill’ time. So maybe we could think of 9 as another starting point gradually building to this conflict between the bros and the finding (possible theft by Mumm-Ra) of the stone, as the next little story arc?..
And Lord Slithor- +1K for using the Borg in your explanation. Just…the Borg- they are a forever cherished villain in my heart, just like Azula.