Now that all 130 episodes of Thundercats are availalbe on Region 1 DVD, what are your thoughts on the sets? What was done well? What could have been done better? What does your ideal set include?
Sad to say but I think everything should have been done much much better. From the artwork to the packaging and of coarse the extras and quality of the sets.
My ideal set would have been better quality covers (By this I mean something similar to MOTU, not thin cheap cardboard) and it would have one of the four main Thunderctas on each cover with THE ORIGIONAL Thundercats Logo! Not that lame and effortless logo they used. The Spines would have come together to form the REAL Logo with the Thundercats Symbol.
The disks themselves would all have Thundercats characters (Like BCI did with MOTU) and their would be an extra CD with nothing BUT extras! This would include…Commercials, Fan Art, Internet forums, any voice actors that took part in Thundercats, artwork, sketches, The entire Thundercats Broadway Play/show. To sum it all up anything that had to do with Thundercats back them. From toy sales and marketing to the era of 80’s toy competition. I would hold off on releasing the sets until I know that I have done everything and anything that I can to make sure I have brought the fans all that is out there.
What WB put out even falls short of the Super Mario Bros. Super show. They could have done 10X better! Thanks Warner Bros!
It is my understanding that the most common complaints about the existing Thundercats DVDs are with the quality of the audio and video, and the order of the episodes, i.e. that they are not in continuity order.
It is also my understanding that there is audio and video missing from certain episodes. Will someone please elaborate on this?
My roommate is an Interactive Media Design major and I am a Graphic Design major. We are considering collaborating on Thundercats box set. Our goal is to improve upon the existing Thundercats DVDs by correcting these errors. Any suggestions would be helpful.
Here is my 2 cents, with suggestions of things that should have been done.
Episodes:
A major problem with some episodes is they were missing their title cards. I believe The Evil Harp of Char-Nin was one of the casulaties here! I think better care needed to be taken to ensure WB used the best masters available. I understand if a clean up of the video is out due to the costs involved, but there is no excuse for episodes missing their title cards!
Another problem is with Exodus, as WB used the edited episodic version (the version that was edited for TV) They should have released the original uncut pilot episode itself. However if this is not possible (if it’s no longer available) then the cut scenes should be included as extras under the title of ‘deleted scenes’
Video:
The video is ok for the most part (not perfect, but satisfactory) However during the pilot episode (Exodus) the picture flips for about 3-4 seconds. Now for the pilot episode this SHOULD have been corrected for the DVD release and not just left! I also noticed the video being a little jittery on some episodes (an episode affected by this which springs to mind is Exile Isle on the last boxset) Like I said above, it’s understandable that WB couldn’t clean the episodes up because of the costs involved. However jittery video and blips during the episodes is unacceptable on a DVD release. The footage on the VHS releases is better in some cases because at least the picture is stable!
Audio:
Honestly I can’t really complain here because the audio for me has been ok. I have the BCI He-Man and the MOTU DVD sets and I have the sound on my TV at the same level for both cartoons. The sound on both has been clear enough for me.
Packaging:
I prefer the packaging WB used for Thundercats as I don’t think the digipak packaging BCI used for He-Man is very practical. The cardboard wears much too easy and is prone to getting badly damaged or even crushed! At least with the Thundercats sets, if your cardboard holder gets damaged, you still have your discs protected in their plastic cases. However perhaps using the slimline cases might be a better idea to save space and give each disc it’s own case rather than have 2 discs housed in one case. As for the art for each case and the box itself, WB you needed to get an amateur artist who is an huge fan of Thundercats. Someone who would base the art off of the original designs of the characters. The art they used was not appropriate for these releases. Surely it would be cheaper to pay a Thundercats fan who is also a talented artist than pay a well known professional who doesn’t really know the Thundercats property that well.
Discs:
Like has been said above, they should have put an image of each character on each disc like BCI did with He-Man. Heck, they could have re-used the same images of the characters that were on the front covers of each case. The Thundercats symbol is very iconic, but having it spread across 24 discs is overkill! lol
Extra content:
*Deleted scenes - from Exodus if the uncut version isn’t able to be included
*Interviews - I will give credit where it is due and say thanks to the folks who gave us the interview segments on the latter 3 boxsets. However it simply wasn’t enough and they should have gotten much more interview footage done with Leonard Starr, the voice actors, Bernie Hoffer and any other writers or animators they could have interviewed.
*Commentaries - would have been nice as well, but I don’t know how feasible these would have been for those who worked on the show?
*Character profiles/guide - One of the simplest and easiest things to put on a DVD release are character profiles! Surely this is quite cheap to do as well. This site already has an encylopaedia well under way, so had WB asked we would have been more than thrilled in assisting putting these together for them. Only thing we’d have wanted in return would have been a mention of this site on the packaging or perhaps on the extras! lol
*Scripts - Another very easy thing to include would be episode scripts. A lot of people I’m sure would have been happy to donate these to be put on the DVD set.
*Commercials - Cartoon bumpers/Network ads. Also any LJN toy ads (if possible as I’m not sure of the copyrights on those!)
Incentives:
It would have been cool to get a simple gift with each set. Perhaps a different one with each boxset. Perhaps 2 postcards, a poster, a comic and if possible a small statue/figurine in the final set.
and in closing: Warner Bros UK, if your reading this please take all of my ideas into consideration for the UK releases because most of the stuff is very easy to do, as well as about half my ideas also being very cheap to do as well. If you need any assistance at all on the releases feel free to contact us 
Hi everyone,
I’ve seen mates with the box sets and must say that while having original box sets are great and I’m a massive, massive fan of TCs, that my collection is happily bought off ebay, copied off the tele etc and includes adverts and, well, anything that’s every been on the tele to do with TCs… I have packaged them up myself, printed pictures of the characters on the disks etc. That type of personalised thing I think is pretty cool, especially for a nostalgic collection like Thundercats.
oooh - my first ever post. I feel somehow like a better person 8) xx