Friends with him on facebook and he made a comment upon seeing the Samurai ThunderCats of ancient Japan fanart. For those who dont know, Peter Lawerence was a writer for the original Thundercats.
“Dennis, I love some of this art. It really does ‘re-imagine’ the old show - but the original art was very strong, too, and I think the base problem with the new series was… story. I hate to say that because it sounds like sour grapes but, from what I saw, the development and the new back story were excellent. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same about the episodes as they appeared on screen. (I’m not commenting on the scripts because I read so few of them.) I’m not sure that anyone - including the original crew - can really explain the success of the original show but one factor might be that, despite all the guest characters and villains, the show was essentially about the ThunderCats themselves. Their personalties and quirks - including, in fact, Mumm-ra and the Mutants. I don’t think that applied to the new series. The (rather few) shows I saw pulled away from the main characters and, in some, the T/Cats were relatively incidental to the drama. Sure… if anyone at WB reads this I’ll never work again! But so what? Perhaps they ought to have paid attention to some of the original crew, particularly Bass and Lee Dannacher. Lee really did understand the show’s psyche. Bass? Smart guy and lots of good input even though he and I eventually became as friendly as Lion-O and Mumm-ra. Guess who was Mumm-ra?!”
I have really enjoyed the new version, but there is nothing that will compare to the original. Although they will always be compared I choose to enjoy them each for their positive attributes.
I have to agree. It’s best not to compare the two series but hard to do sometimes. I enjoyed the NS but I found myself comparing anyway. And I’ve said it before; if you reboot or reamagine a story it’s going to be compared to its original. There’s just no way around it.
In my opinion, if a story is going to be redone and retold in a way that deviates too far from its source materiall then why bother. Just create an original story and not deal with comparisons.
And before it’s said I’m not an OS fan boy who can’t stand change. The new series was best enjoyed by me when viewed for what it was.
While I understand the new series lacked a certain something, I at least appreciate that it got my wife and son to watch. While the characters weren’t at the forefront, per se, their character arcs were. The OS was less about their personalities (yes, there were several episodes that beg to differ), and more about saving the trouble of the day while learning a lesson. The NS had a heavy dose, for better or worse, of drama between characters and a bigger emphasis on that aspect of character development. You may prefer one over the other, but I liked both efforts.
Back to my wife and son: for them, there’s something missing in the OS which makes them lose interest whenever I have it on. My wife was fully on board with the NS, and I bet the relationship between the cats had a lot to do with it. On the NS, they’re vulnerable, on the run, and not so highly regarded. On the OS, they are like wrestling superstar heroes with a giant fort showing their might that is armed and full of danger-detection equipment.
Just shows there are multiple sides to look at this. Would a Thundercats as world police work these days? I don’t really think so, tbh =/.