Thundercats vs the Competition

Cartoons ThunderCats (2011)
1

Hey everyone, I see a lot of people on here concerned about the future of the show and I wanted to bring up a few points I haven’t seen mentioned. The biggest one being TCats compared to other shows that are given as much attention.

As it stand I would put TCats 3rd overall in cartoons currently airing.

1 - Young Justice
2 - Legend of Korra

Further down

3 - Thundercats.

This is not to knock TCats but in many ways it is a more mature take but not on the level of YJ or LoK. People may argue the episodes where Panthro and Grune meet, or the series opener, but the overall story arch isn’t as “obvious” as the other two series. This means that people don’t get as attached because while the stories link they don’t “have” to watch every episode. Also while the writing is good, it does not seem to be on par with the other series.

Character development in TCats is also nowhere near the other two series. This is not me hating just being honest. YJ has a wide cast and manages to get more time to make you get attached to their characters, LoK too. In TCats, it seems like it is the Lion-O show and understandably so however he is not the only character and the character moments that the show features can at times seem forced. An example would be that in YJ given all their characters, I can talk about all the characters whereas in TCats I can’t with only 7 characters.

Like you all, I hope it does get renewed especially when other pointless shows go on forever (see half the cartoon network lineup)but sometimes a show with a good crew and premise miss the mark and Tcats very well may be on of those.

P.S. Once again these are just my opinion but I do believe that given a tweek in writing, that the show can get the audience it not just deserves but needs.

2

ThunderCats and Young Justice tie for me. Korra has been kind of disappointing.

3

i honestly feel the same way with all the points you just made. the show really has potential to be one of the best cartoon series out now but due to inconsistency in writing, the show tends to suffer alot.

4

Thank you for your responses all, one of things that seems to be happening with this show is that it is stuck in a “middle”/grey area compared to other shows. YJ and LoK embrace their older fans and following while Marvel’s shows such as Superhero Squad and Ultimate Spider-Man do the exact opposite and aim for the younger fans. TCats is somewhere in the middle, sometimes is gets you and makes fans in their teens/twenties(me)/beyond go wow, and other times it’s like ok my nephew would enjoy it. It seems that the staff is unsure as of which way to go.

5

I pretty much agree. Some episodes are great, but others just aren’t up to par. And they have a bad habit of throwing fillers in when the tension is high totally breaking the momentum of the show.

6

Well even so, third best overall animated series isn’t bad.

I haven’t seen Young Justice or Legend of Korra (or even the first Avatar series for that matter), so I can’t really say.

My two favorite action/adventure animated shows at the moment are T-Cats and Clone Wars (which gets overlooked alot, but I feel is quite good even if you didn’t like the prequels).

7

I think it depends how you look at it when making comparisons.

In terms of pure popularity that can be quantitatively measured (ie ratings), which HAS been mentioned quite a few times, Thundercats is consistently one of the best shows CN has got. It constantly beats or matches some of the more established and much more heavily promoted shows (Green Lantern, etc.)

I think if you are making comparisons to target audiences and responses, then this is largely unfair. Each programme does not always have to be aimed at the same target audience and in fact often isn’t. It has been stated that CN are much more concerned with the younger viewers for Thundercats despite an extremely strong following from older kids and adults.

As for comparisons based on personal opinion, well that’s completely different. My own personal opinion would put Thundercats at the top of the food chain compared to those other shows, (and in fact any other that CN has).

I agree completely that some episodes are better than others. It’s a series, that was always going to be a given, EVERY show has some episodes better than others, just as EVERY show has episodes that some people love and some people hate. It would be impossible to have a series where this did not happen. Even if every episode as a standalone was fantastic, some would suffer in comparison to others.

And yes I also agree that depsite a large overall arc, and smaller arcs within that, Thundercats have had a number of ‘filler’ episodes. Again EVERY show has this. My own personal opinion is that yes, I would have liked one or two less fillers and one or two more slow burning arc episodes that led into the fantastic arcs that we got, but hey, I’m not overly concerned that we didn’t either. Some of the fillers were okay. Some of them I could have lived without (Pumyras blown up head was ridiculous imo), but I realise that they are aiming it across the spectrum and some of the younger kids would have loved that, so I can live with it because at the end of the day the episodes that I loved, I REALLY loved! It was the same in the OS, some of the better episodes still stand up today, whilst some of the weaker ones are very cringeworthy. It isn’t that the writers are unsure which way to go, they are just aiming the show at a broad spectrum and once in a while are spiking the writing to appeal to one or the other extremes (young children or mature audiences). Overall I think they are doing a fantastic job of keping the balance.

At the end of the day, Thundercats is back on our screens and I couldn’t be happier. Long may it continue!

8

I was going to write a really long statement with what I thought about the series in comparison to others, but this exactly sums it up. I completely agree.

I don’t want to change this in to a hate thread, but I don’t agree with everyone’s absolute idolization of the Korra series. So far it’s just been mediocre, with some episodes feeling like repeats because I could tell what was going to happen in the first two minutes. Characters like Mako and Asami bore me to no end (especially the latter). Mako because he’s skeptical to the point of annoyance, and Asami because she just simply doesn’t provide anything interesting to the plot. Plus, she’s forever confined to Mako and we’ve probably seen the last of any story just involving her. I like Korra’s character overall, and I really like Bolin. Tenzin is cool, too. But I think the show is rushing a lot of things, and also dragging some other things out too long (relationship problems between team Avatar). The plot suffers from them only being in Republic City as well. I will always enjoy the original series more, and unlike some TCats fans, not for the single fact that it came before the new series. On the other hand, I have no complaints on Young Justice. It’s a fantastic show. Just some filler episodes here and there I didn’t like as much.

So yes, I put ThunderCats at the top for my current favorite cartoons. If Teen Titans still ran it would be first for my all time favorite but it’s just a bunch of DC Nation shorts now.

9

I’m a big Avatar/Korra fan, and I respect your opinion hammy. I think Korra has a very interesting plot that’s unfolding, and the show deals with some interesting political subjects like communism and fascism. I also think that the characters are mostly well rounded and enjoyable to watch, and the action scenes are amazing. But I respect that you don’t feel the same way.

Now, as for ThunderCats, the big difference I’ve noticed is that, compared to Young Justice and Korra, TC gets nowhere near the same kind of “fandom energy” s the other two. For example, there were a ton of gifs being made and posted on tumblr after the last episode of Young Justice, but there’s been barely any activity at all after the last TC episode. The same thing with Korra. There’s practically a meme generated every episode. Outside of our fansites, TC does not get very much attention in general forums.

The fact is, a however many people watch ThunderCats, a whole lot of them don’t seem to like wasting time on the internet (like I do). The number of fanfics being made seems rather low. Now, I will say that TC does have a very dedicated fanbase, since the TC page on Tvtropes.org is pretty big. But again, the YJ and LoK pages are bigger, and become updated a lot more often.

ThunderCats may simply not appeal to teenagers and college students like YJ and LoK do. And as has been said, those two shows already had established fanbases before they even aired. ThunderCats already have fans, but fans of a cartoon than aired almost three decades ago. DC comics keep getting published, and The Last Airbender had only ended about four years earlier. Then we have shows like Transformers, which has been kept alive consistently since it began. Really, I think it was a lot to expect ThunderCats to match up to these shows in popularity.

If we may add to the list of competition, I’d add Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heros, Ultimate Spider-Man, and Green Lantern. And all three of those are superhero comic adaptation with established fanbases. Really, ThunderCats is rather obscure compared to its competition, especially for younger viewers who just have their parents’ word to go on.

Now, in terms of content, I do feel that ThunderCats stumbles a lot and can be inconsistent compared to everything else. Except for Ultimate Spider-Man, which I definitely put below TC. Anyway, I feel that TC indeed can’t quite handle all its characters at once, while shows with big teams like YJ and Avengers seem to do it just fine. The Cats’ team is always getting split up somehow for arbitrary reasons. They’re traveling together, they really should be sticking together more. Like in the last episode, The girls and kids don’t go along with the rest of the guys because…why? Besides that, it becomes a little annoying when we’re left to infer so many details, like how Cheetara and Tygra’s relationship developed over the years after they met.

It also bothers me that Cheetara is so under developed in all this time, while the other female characters, Kit and Pumyra, have a lot more development and personality. Heck, Pumyra’s only been in five episodes. Some episodes all Cheetara does is point out the obvious, ask a question to get some expository info, and fight. The love triangle at least gave her something, but Cheetara needs some character development that doesn’t have to do with her love life. It bothers me when I watch the other shows and see how much better the female leads are handled there. It just feels like I don’t really know Cheetara sometimes.

Another little nitpicky thing is the action and editing. ThunderCats seems to have some poor storyboarding during action sequences. Cheracters seem to just disappear during fights because the writers forgot bout them. A lot of times the Cats forget to use their powers when it would be very helpful. There are also times when there are these cuts in the action that really don’t transition well, like in episode 21; when Lion-O saves Pumyra from falling into that hole, she’s tied to a rock, but in the next cut she’s free and they are sliding down a slope. Are we supposed to infer there was some kind of skip in time? I really hope they just had to cut something out for time constraints, because that was just terribly inconsistent. And besides all that, the action scenes can be really boring to watch sometimes. They were better in the earlier episodes, but in the newer ones they seem to lack choreography, and it amounts to just a lot of jumping around and swinging their weapons. It’s a real shame that Joaquim Dos Santos decided to work on Korra instead of this, because he is a master of fight scenes in animation.

10

One of the reasons the Mike Young Productions Masters of the Universe series is so well received by fans is because it is faithful, not only to the continuity but to the spirit of the FILMation series. The Mike Young Productions series feels the way you remember the FILMation series to be.

While the Studio 4°C series is a great re-imagining of ThunderCats, it often feels like ThunderCats in name only. The characters, their appearances, abilities, and weapons are all the same, but their personalities, relationships, and world are completely different. And with the focus on dueling power swords and collecting power stones to transform gauntlets into flying suits of mechanized armor, it feels like a generic American animé series and not something that is uniquely ThunderCats. It is a great show, but it does not feel like ThunderCats to me. If the show is failing to find its audience it is because it does not know what show it is trying to be.

11

I thought about this too …

I don’t watch young justice (yet) but Avatar Korra and Thundercats are my favorite animated action cartoons right now :slight_smile:

And thing is , all the other shows you mentioned , have already established themselfs . the super-hero universe is vast with stories , characters and relationships to chose from . with it’s roots going decades in the past . and avatar - while relatively young . is a continuation of a series that already had arund 60 episodes .

and while Thundercats is also based on an existing thing . the source material isn’t as strong as the others , as the original show had basicly no relationships (just hinted) or character development , and it consisted of mostly stand alone episodes … though it did have alot of great ideas , and charm . so the writers of the new show really developed it and added the missing deph and turned it into a more than a kids cartoon .

but it’s still very fresh and while they do so in high quality they are still expermimenting . so I don’t expect it to balance everything perfectly so fast . it’s good for what it is though . and has had alot more stronger poiints in it’s 1st season than avatar did in it’s 1st season . so maybe if we do get more episodes we will see improvement as the base ground was already layed :slight_smile:

And I agree with about..everything you said . but I feel like it’s too much negative critisism . you almost make it sound bad when you point out it’s every flaw . when it actually has a heart and in really high quality . the show isn’t perfect and I do hope the writers will take notes about what can be improved . but also even in comparsion with other shows thundercats has alot of plus sides as well otherwise we wouldn’t have been enjoying it …

12

ThunderCats’ biggest problem is consistency. The designs are good. The base ideas and plots are good. The animation is good. Individual episodes are good. The voice actors are awesome. The problem is when you put all the episodes together. Characters go back and forth a little too much like they don’t learn from their mistakes until they make them again a few more times. Which would be ok if they didn’t make it seem like they learned their lesson. If you’re going to have people repeat mistakes, make it so they obviously didn’t learn their lesson instead of making it look like they’re going to change, and then just don’t. And the episodes need to flow with each other a little better. Sometimes they feel really disconnected with each other. Also sometimes the characters completely forget their powers during fights just for plot convienance. Make the villains able to overcome the powers instead of just ignoring the fact that they have them.

Overall I love the show. I just want more from it.

13

i 100% agree with everything you just said. i don’t really post much because i have been on and off with episodes this season due to the frustration of the inconsistency of the series. overall, i still love this show and i would be glad if we get a second season. if we ever get a second season, i hope the producers become a little bit strict when it comes to the overall layout and plot of the series. then the different writers of the show won’t be too free when it comes to writing the individual episodes

14

spot on spot on

15

I love both ThunderCats and The Legend of Korra simply for the sake of watching them. Both the show’s main leads also have blue eyes. :wink:

16

I know I sounded really negative in that post. Sometimes I just get carried away, but I do mean what I say.

Another thing is that ThunderCats’ plot is kind of thin. Not a whole lot of episodes really develop it and most are very standalone. That’s compared to YJ, LoK, and especially Avengers; almost every episode in that series really pushes the story forward, but also thickens it with twists and surprises.

ThunderCats, as has been said, loses momentum a lot of the time, and it seems more like they focus on the characters’ development and relationships than the conflict with Mumm-Ra and the stones/swords/book. Some episodes are almost entirely focused on charcter development, but to the detriment of the plot.

The episodes do seem to follow a pattern though; there are usually stretches of plot centric episodes. For example, there’s 5-7 (Panthro joining up through Lion-O going into the book), the Spirit Stone arc (10-13, with Wood Forgers sort of acting like filler), and then we have the Pumyra arc (19-21). Then we have two parters, like the premiere and the Trials. Episode 14 combined with the Trials two parter sort of makes are arc, since all three have momentum.

The rest of the episodes may add little things that change things, but not very much. “Ramlak Rising” and “Song of the Petalars” didn’t really advance the plot, but they each introduced core characters to the team (the Kittens and Panthro). Even “Old Friends” didn’t really advance much other than getting Panthro and Grune’s backstory out, showing how Mumm-Ra got free, and making Panthro a team player.

“Duelist and the Drifter” in hindsight really does feel like pure filler. In all the episodes after that it doesn’t seem like they ever mentioned it, and it doesn’t seem like Lion-O really even became a better swordsman until way later. “Berbils” at least gave the Cats’ a group of workers who could build new equipment for them, like the Sabertank and hoverboards, but then again, the Sabertank doesn’t seem to do anything much different than the old tank, and we’ve never seen the hoverboards since then. “Sight Beyond Sight” gives us the Elephants and the location of the Spirit Stone, but really else happens to advance the plot. We see the Thunder Racers, but this is the only time they’ve ever been used. “Wood Forgers” helped Lion-O see differently, and got Cheetara a new staff.

After that, we have “Native Son.” It’s important because we learn Tygra’s origins, he gets a new whip (which doesn’t seem to do anything different other than being retractable), and we’re introduced to the Spirits of Evil. it also shows how his relationship with Lion-O has changed for the better, but in the end it has little effect on the arc with the stones. “Survival of the Fittest” gives us the Kittens’ origins, but nothing else.

We then get to the Pumyra arc, and I won’t get too much into that because it’s one of the least fillery of all the episodes. Important new character that leads into freeing the Thunderians and Mumm-Ra getting the sword along with more history revealed. These are some of the best episodes in the series so far since the premiere. but after that, we get “Forever Bag,” with the only effect being the acquisition of a magic bag. “Recipe for Disaster” barely changes anything other than pushing Lion-O/Pumyra, and I don’t think it really needed that push.

Last, “Soul Sever.” The biggest change is the destruction of the tank, which I doubt will last long. It’s a little fillery, but it does bring up and resolve Lion-O’s issues with technology, and it may hve greater effects on the next two parter, so it’s not so bad.

Flashbacks don’t really move things forward, sine they’re things that have already happened, but they at least help thicken the plot when we do see them.

After that analysis, I think what this show really needs to do is use, as has been said, use its established villains a lot more, because they make things a lot more interesting and they force the plot to develop. They are the ones driving the conflict that the plot revolves around, and we barely see them anymore. We need Slithe, Addicus and Kaynar to fight the Cats more often. I know that they’re extremely dangerous, but using them less often shouldn’t be a consequence of that. They can be dangerous and still lose if the writers write them that way. Right now it just feels like the only reason the villains aren’t used more often is because they have to only use them for really important episodes.

17

Honestly I don’t think T-cats was supposed to be THAT kind of show . I mean , sure with all the deph in the story and high quality artwork you immideatly think AVATAR , but I think that show was partly written the way you would make a teen drama series (same for young justice) so relationships and character development are treated differently , and as the characters are actually human , you can relate to them alot easier .

When it comes to T-cats I don’t think the writers ever expected the viewers to take all those things so seriously . heck , when I watched part of the classic series before this one just to see what it will be based on . I didn’t expect ANYTHING in those departments . just creative sci-fi \ fantasy action adventure show .

And if to compare it to other cartoons in the way they wrote it , then I would say it’s more like TMNT (2003) the Jackie Chan adventures , Ben10 , The batman , Xiaolin showdown …etc . most of these are also from Warner Bros , and followed a similar type of writing . as the goal of the plot was never really clear , and while it had some relationships and character development , it’s effect the story was very loose , as each episode or arc of them ,was stand-alone-ish .

I do love the way the “competition” treats it’s writing . and I think it’s great it’s becoming a standart nowdays . something the viewers EXPECT from an animated show right now. (just look at the difference between Justice Legaue and Young Justice - they definitely wrote some notes down about this) and I think that if T-cats gets renewed , and the people who are working on the show do visit our comminities . they will definitley notice how people notice these little details maybe they will put more effort in this .