Well to be fair they never really.. “liked” him? If you know what i mean. I dont see how this is forced at all. They just voice their opinion THAT ONE TIME. Just cause you and some other folks here think it’s bad writing does not make it bad 
Don’t doubt it but 80% of the show is about Lion O. Side characters get a go every once in awhile but the show will still focus on Lion O. They may get episodes here and there but they always fall back to the original format. I wish they didn’t because it’s so predictable. At a minimum most of their dialogue scenes will be cut shorter. More action is more likely.
Ok… Over all it was an interesting episode. I had a few issues as do some others. First was the raging on Lion-O. Tygra had the line “Heading up there sounds like a wild goose chase” But that is where the book points to! I don’t think the Book would be leading you on a wild goose chase. Let see Ok Tygra the book points up where would you go. “Well up makes no sense so I am going to go… to my bunk. Cheetara you wanna join me ;)”
Next: P.S. this is how I read the situation.
Panthro: We are vulnerable here out in the open.
Lion-O: Ok you guys wanna whine some more we will just stop so at least we are no longer a moving target.
Tygra: First good Idea you have had today.
:eek:
:eek:
Next I think it would have gone a long way to show that the Generals at least had an idea of where the Thundercats were before they attacked. You know something like a quick shot of the baddies spying the Thundercts start up the mountain through a spy glass. That I think would have been enough to suspend the disbelief of Addicus suddenly appearing behind Tygra.
Speaking of which I can just hear the Generals plan this ambush.
Now troops while we sneak up the mountain to ambush the Thundercats we want you to blast the hell out of the mountain with unguided high explosive ordinance. :duh:
I will say that Kaynar pushing Lion-O of the Cliff was right in Character for him and funny as hell. However as has been stated before I guess we have to accept that Lion-O forgot to use the Claw Shield to Save himself from the long fall down. During which he falls at a faster rate than the rubble from beneath his feet. :sneaky: Physics people!!!
Really I do enjoy this series but this episode, and the last, just seem to be taking some disturbing short cuts. I am all for excepting conventions of a different world and all but they are really starting to push it here.
Conceptually the Idea of the Trial being something in an astral plane is kind of cool but for me I was looking forward to the bonding of the team due to having to face their “Leader” and him proving his worthiness to each of them so we could finally get some group cohesion and stop all the second guessing BS thats been going on.
At the Kit and Kat Trial they could have at least shown him discovering the real Kit and Kat amongst the false one using his sense of smell then actually taking the key off them (by the by: wasn’t illusion Tygras speciality.) instead of him going through and sniffing all these fakes then all of a sudden sneaking up and just having the key. I mean show some hint of him Stealing it and beating them at their own game.
I actually did not have much of a problem with the whole Cheetara Trial except I too would like to have seem how he wrangled the bird. I will say I did like the OS Cheetara Trial where they point out she does have fantastic speed but only in short bursts. They way to beat her in a race is with endurance. and picking a better path.
I will sum this up back in the real world just in time for Tygras plan to escape.
Tygra: I am going to annoy them so they throw me from this speeding vehicle and if I survive I will keep taunting them so they beat the living snot out of me. Sure Addicus and Kaynar can Kill dogs and birds in no time flat but something tells me they will just take their time and not really do any damage. This will give Kit and Kat time to pick their cuffs. Oh and you Kittens don’t bother lifting the Sword of Omens once your free I know your skilled thieves but we don’t want to make the mutants look to bad. We will just run after them on their Speeder anyways. That is after I remove my gun from its “secret hiding place” :o I guess it is a good thing the Enemy doesn’t think to take all our weapons from us.
I know the creative team only has a limited time to tell these stories but they really need to do a better job of Prioritizing plot points and avoiding some of these Glaring distractions.
Did anyone notice a drop off the animation quality by the way in these last two episodes? Not the still frames, but the moving ones. Look at episodes like “Duelist and the Drifter” and “The Forest of Magi Oar” and then look back at these two, esp. with the frame rates… something feels off. Maybe I’m crazy but it just seemed a tad below par which worries me i hope their funding didn’t change in the animation department.
I’m not so upset about them not showing how he got on the bird or not showing him actually stealing the key because in the long run those things just aren’t important. They only have a limited time frame to tell the story in.
That being said I agree that the whole “ganging up on Lion-O” seemed forced. They usually have good reason to doubt him, but this time it didn’t seem like a good reason.
Now after thinking about it myself I could think of a few optional ways Lion-O could’ve went about things. 1. He definitely should’ve used sight beyond sight after they gave their initial doubts to shut them up. and 2. instead of climbing the mountain he and one of the others (maybe Tygra or Cheetara) could’ve borrowed the twin’s hoverboards and flew up.
But still the book said it’s up so there’s no logical reason for all of them to suddenly doubt that the stone is in the air somewhere.
It was mostly during the fighting that i noticed all that stuff btw, the fighting animation frame rates were what bugged me
everything seemed just fine on my end shrugs
were you watching online or on tv?
TV. The art itself still looked great, it just felt like the fight scenes were a tad choppier, the movements weren’t as unique and fluid, it seemed like one punch here, one punch there basics, as opposed to the incredible animation of say when lion-o and the team fights the rock beast that approaches the elephant village a while ago. Or the fight scenes in the forest of magi oar or in the duelist and the drifter. Maybe I’m being too picky but the first 13 episodes felt like a whole other step above other cartoons, almost like an anime film, and this last one wasn’t in terms of the moving animation. The actual art still looked fantastic, don’t get me wrong. I just felt like we got some short cuts when the action picked up
I haven’t noticed any framerate drops at all.
Choreography could be attributed to the fact that they have different directors on the show and probably different storyboard artists as well.
Good lol, it was probably just me nitpicking 
that makes me feel better. I love this show guys, it is so glorious
The animation in the 2011 series ranges from really good to okay most of the time.
Unfortunately it’s not that simple. “Bad writing” is a kind of catch-all argument people like to throw around because the quality of writing is often all very subjective. Keep in mind that the show is written by people who have studied writing and how to write, they have documentation to back it up (diplomas, resumes, etc). “Bad writing” is what they claim when something doesn’t go their way because it’s all very opinion-based and (SARCASM ALERT) opinions are never wrong (END SARCASM ALERT).
In my experience the show is usually competently written and even during the bumps the bad writing has accomplished good things (the shock and anger at the Tygra/Cheetara revelation mirrors Lion-O’s own, placing the viewer directly in his shoes). It’s not great, but it’s not terrible either, and it’s usually far better than the 80’s show.
Once again, a really good episode. I won’t do my usual bullet-point analysis as the ep isn’t as fresh in my mind. But on the whole I did like it. The Mutants again are a credible threat you can take seriously. They really make it clear whenever they’re around that they’re guys you really don’t want to F with. And I really like that.
But again, I have to say to the writers over there, “GET OUT OF MY HEAD!!!” Because I’m really seeing a lot of elements from the story Ocelli and I were writing turning up here and there in this show, to the point where I’m feeling like I ought to start making a tinfoil hat. And the means by which Lion-O takes his trials is the latest.
In this episode, Lion-O “dies,” goes to the astral plane and encounters Jaga, who makes a big revelation that will change the course of Lion-O’s character. In this case, his trials as to whether he’s fit to be leader. On the whole, very clever.
In the course of our story, Lion-O also died. Although how that happened was very different. He’s dueling with Slithor - who by now is Mumm-Ra’s replacement as the next Ever-Living. Realizing that he’s not going to beat him with the Sword of Omens alone, and is both near exhaustion and desperate, he radios the Terran flagship, the William Tell, to have them lock onto his transciever and fire its mega-cannon from orbit Akira-style. He then takes the transciever off his wrist and slaps it onto Slithor’s saying, “As the Terrans say, 'Merry Christmas!” Before Slithor can react and Lion-O can get clear, the cannon fires with both of them at ground zero. This is where Book III would have ended.
But as Book IV begins, we learn it was ultimately futile. While the blast area has been turned to glass, Slithor survives and orders a massive retaliation. Meanwhile, Lion-O finds himself in the Astral Plane where he meets the spirits of Jaga, Claudis…and Snarf (Oh yeah, Spoiler. We killed-off Snarf! Don’t worry. He died a hero.) They tell him the true nature of the conflict between the Ancient Spirits of Evil and Good; that they have been locked for eons in sort of a long chess game where they periodically choose champions to fight for them. The ASOE had Mumm-Ra and now that he’s gone, Slithor has taken his place. The ASOG chose the Thundercats, but the destruction of Thundera due to Jaga’s inadvertent throwing of the Sword of Plun-Darr into the planet threw off that grand design (which is why Jaga was doing his Obi-Wan act, as it’s revealed that was his penance for what he did).
With this new knowledge, Lion-O finds new resolve and inspiration, but he tells them that he does this for the good of all the universe, and not just because the ASOG wants him to. He then asks to be sent back. And he emerges from the ground, breaking through the sand and glass “reborn,” (in the great archetypical tradition of a hero’s “death and rebirth”) just as the other Thundercats have come searching for him.
I have no doubt that Lion-O will come back in a similar fashion, and that proving himself in the Trials will also give him a similar new sense of resolve and inspiration. But yeah, once again it’s eerily similar to what Ocelli and I thought up.
Still, I personally liked that they’re doing the trials in this way. I don’t know if fans are feeling as if they’re “rushing” through them, as the OS took their time, devoting whole episodes to each trial. But I’m thinking that seeing as how this is a weekly series as opposed to five days a week, we really don’t have that luxury here. And besides, I always felt that those trials seemd sort of padded-out anyway. Keeping them short and to the point was just fine with me.
So all in all, a very good, decent episode, and I’m eagerly awaiting to see how it’ll all get resolved. 
In the thread where we suggest things we want to see in the show, I said ‘kill off a major OS character’
I didn’t think it would happen a week later, and it’d be Lion-O!
lol
I really enjoyed this episode, looking forward to part 2.
I’m all set for part two, too. ^^
Anyone think post-trial Lion-O will have more command over the Sword? I’m hoping for a little bit of the zip that original series had, maybe a danger warning or a “come to my hand” moment.
I don’t want it to be a Deus Ex Machina as it was in the original run, but some little more oomph would be nice.
I actually have a theory about the way the final episode (of this season) will end, surrounding that concept, but we’ll see if it really happens.
I haven’t seen this episode yet (still eagerly awaiting it!!!) But I have to say I think apart from a few hiccups, most of which I’m willing to attribute to the constraints of a short cartoon time slot, the writing, as well as the direction and artwork is fantastic!
I kinda liked the episode; again, not great, but good.
I liked how the trials were set on the Astral Plane, and this time the message was clearer than in the OS. In the OS not many people caught the ideas of the trials not meaning that Lion-o had to be stronger than Panthro, faster than Cheetara, cunnier than the kittens, and more “willing” than Tygra, but that he had to use his strenghts and resources to beat them, and I think the message was clearer this time around.
What I didn’t like is that, to me, this was a sign for us to dsay good-bye to Tygra’s mind powers. The trial against the kittens was Tygra’s OS trial, to know what’s real and what’s not. Too bad.
I disagree with those saying the TCs were mean on Lion-o. They were stating their point of view for the first time in 15 eps, trying to teach him a lesson and, for the first time, giving some credit to themselves, which is also important in a team. So far it seemed they underrated themselves to satisfy Lion-o… not any more!
For example, I liked Tygra telling him he can learn from them, and Cheetara scolding him “you’re still the same stubborn little prince you were the day I met you”… and Lion-o didn’t catch the message! How stubborn can he be? Really? He’s coming across as some kind of paranoid kid to me, who thinks everybody is against him. When Cheetara told him “you win”, his reply was “or you lose”… how childish and inmature!
And Tygra in command was great. Yes, maybe some bad writing, but he did well. Of course, I fear next ep he will make mistakes and Lion-o will rub it on his face when he saves the day. Cheetara telling Tygra that Lion-o would be proud of him kind of broke my heart, because there’s no way Lion-o would learn about it.
Also, I liked him showing concern for Lion-o, and punching Slithe in his name. BTW, again he took the hard hits lol.
This is what bothered nme the most. In the OS, the trials were set to make Lion-o grow up as a “human” being (mature) and as a Lord, so the other TCs would also recognize his strenghts and look up at him even more, with respect, care and admiration. But now there wasn’t any bonding, we’re not even sure if the TCs will learn or believe about what Lion-o just did. Sure they will notice a change of attitude on him (because we can assume Lion-o will learn the lesson this time), but that doesn’t necessarily mean bonding.
Now, I do expect Lion-o apologizing to his teammates for how stubborn and inmature he has been to them, that’d be nice and mature.
And finally, does somebody else think those Mutasnts boards were really similar o the ones used by Jabba the Hutt in SW “Return of the Jedi”?
I don’t think Lion-O would have even agreed to participate in the Trials if they were like that. He really is that stubborn. He would have been insulted that they even suggested that he needs to change and run off to do everything himself. 
I think Tygra owned that battle at the end
LIKE. A. BOSS.