Will There be Another ThunderCats Reboot?

I mean, Thunder Cats was, and still is an iconic cartoon. Warner Bros. tried rebooting it once, but failed. So the question is: will they give Thunder Cats another modern makeover in the future?

The problem (kind of) is that the Icon part of Thundercats is the intro and not necessarily the show itself. A modern take would need a complete rehaul to work nowadays.

The reboot a couple years ago did the job pretty well. IIRC, it got quietly eaten up by CN's aversion to action shows.

That's probably what's going to stand in the way of any real new attempt at the series - action animated shows are on the outs, and even if that changes it's probably going to be gradual.

I'd say it's the worst example this decade of a good action show on CN dying a premature death right after a cliffhanger that screams "SECOND SEASON TO COME!"... But Sym Bionic Titan exists. Existed.

edited 5th Jul '15 5:35:44 AM by Enlong

Well, how would YOU do a new Thunder Cats series? And would it be possible thanks to the new management at Cartoon Network?

And would it be possible thanks to the new management at Cartoon Network?

Short answer: No. Long answer: Oh, hell, of course NO!

I was wondering why the reboot suddendly died...Although it was certainly worth watching, I didn't see anything wrong with the show and it looked like it was going somewhere. I blame Cartoon Network. Why not find another company to air an (completly) new series?

Meh, maybe a different company (like Disney) will buy the rights to Thunder Cats and greenlight a new series afterwards.

edited 5th Jul '15 8:13:06 PM by superboy313

Only on Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon.

Otherwise - GAME OVER.

I can't see another Thunder Cats reboot happening for another 30 years.

The reboot was kinda awful. It had good animation, but terrible fightscenes (Characters would just change locations, or just vanish for entire fights) and honestly the writing was kind of lame, with Aesop Amnesia and rethreading the same ground.

That said, I don't know if it'll be rebooted. Hell, He-Man hasn't had another reboot and its own last attempted reboot is even older... And I'd argue He-Man has more of a plot than Thundercats ever did.

Reboot of a reboot? That sounds so revolting it's actually scary.

Agreed - so NO THANKS. Just let it die, IMHO.

When you hear about previously pitched reboots, what we got seems like an absolute masterpiece (the Kiss-style rock band version — I kid you not — was particularly horrifying). I enjoyed the original Thundercats quite a lot as a kid. Looking at it critically, it had way too much of a "we're making this up as we go along" feel to it. It was way, way too centered on Lion-O, and towards the end it had frankly too many characters (or at least, more characters than it's writers knew how to balance). I won't even go into how ridiculously over-powered the Eye of Thundera was. I give the show credit for having progression, though. The status quo did change, the war with Mumm-Ra progressed, and there was even a resolution, of sorts.

The reboot had flaws as well, a number of them, but it did fix a number of things that were a bit goofy or convoluted about the original. Making Lion-O a teenager gave him the same vibe thy were going for with the first series, without the goofy, inconsistent plot-hole to which they resorted in the first series. Tygra had always been my favorite character, and I rather wished they had kept him as the "wise counselor" rather than the acrimonious older brother. I thought a lot of the characterization was well done (not all of it, though), and I didn't care for Mum-Ra's backstory. I hated how they compressed the "Annointment trials"; those were quite the event in the original series. Ultimately, I think it failed less because "action cartoons don't get network support" than because it's toyline failed to get off the ground. The toys for the original series were pretty successful, perhaps not in the same league as Gi Joe, Transformers, and He-Man, but still, successful. The new Thundercats was expected to support a toyline as well, but it's line went absolutely nowhere (the same thing happened to Silverhawks, a much more tightly conceived show than Thundercats, back in the day) and so it was cancelled after a season. Avatar should have demonstrated that adventure shows without toylines can work, but there you are. WB had intended Thundrcats to anchor a line of merchandise, and when the merchandise failed, there you are. I find it mildly interesting that, after the show was cancelled, that they elected to run it on Toonami for awhile. They did the same with Symbionic Titan.

I doubt, given that the property is owned by Warner Bros, that anyone else will get a shot at doing any kind of reboot. I expect, though, that we'll see them do something with it again, eventually. Probably not for awhile, though.

We'll probably see a live action movie before we see another animated reboot.

Anyone, if you were given the task of rebooting Thunder Cats, how would you do it?

First of all, I would focus on the characters. If I remember the story correctly, they are the sole survivors of their planet and travelled through hypersleep to another planet. So let's gave it a little bit more background and change the villain (who in the original was so boring, I can't even remember his name). For example:

The planet was destroyed in some sort of epic war between two species. The Thundercats carry the guilt for starting said war, though they did try to stop it and find a peaceful solution before it got out of hand. The villain and his people are survivors of the "other fraction", but they are set on revenge and the desire to destroy the Thundercats. The first season is mostly about both groups trying to secure the resources on the planet for themselves, the Thundercats striving without success for a peaceful solution.

I also would focus more on Lion. If I remember correctly he was a child when he went into hypersleep, but through an accident aged during it into a man. THAT is interesting. So why not showing how he tries to be an adult and leader from one day to another?

edited 7th Jul '15 3:14:39 AM by Swanpride

What about the characters? How would you portray them? And honestly, Mumm-Ra is an iconic character to the series and replacing him with a random Mutant as the Big Bad would be a slap in the face. (In my opinion, at least.)

edited 7th Jul '15 6:54:57 PM by superboy313

What if there were cat mummies?

The original focused on Lion-O pretty exclusively; it was either all about him, or him and just one of the other characters helping him out. And the original DID center a lot on his learning how to be a good leader from day to day.

I would have liked to know more about the individual Thundercats; they were, in the first series, supposed to each be the ruling nobility of different Thundercat "clans". The series focused on them as individuals so seldom that we never got to know them as people, only, really, through their skill sets.

But it never really addressed the "child in a man's body" aspect. I started the show somewhere in the middle and had no idea how young he mentally actually was until I finally saw the first episode.

You know what my favourite episode of the first run is? Kind of by default, because it is one of the few which stood out enough that I can even remember: The one in which Leon has to fight against all of the Thundercats to prove himself. It was mostly interesting because it also showed the strength and weaknesses of the different Thundercats.

edited 9th Jul '15 9:44:19 AM by Swanpride

True, it never explicitly addressed the "child in a man's body" bit. They mostly only ever alluded to his inexperience at leadership, and how often he needed guidance from Jaga's ghost or the others; they made a point of mentioning on the show, for instance, that while Lion-O was Lord of the Thundercats, Jaga had made Tygra head of the Thundercat council (it only ever came up in one episode).

I thought Lion-O's lack of experience was better addressed in the reboot, by making him a teenager and something of a dreamer; that was much less contrived than the suspension capsule bit. Something rather glaring that was never addressed in the original series was the state of Wilykit and Wilykat; Word of God had it that their particular clan of Thundercats did not get any bigger than they were presented. They were either already adults in the show's first episodes or, if Cubs (likely the case, as everyone called them "cubs") then they were in the same condition as Lion-O, having aged 12 years or so and just, in their case, not looking it. Yet while Lion-O is treated as an admittedly inexperienced adult, Wilykit and Kat continued to be treated like children. All things considered, I'm rather glad they jettisoned the suspension capsule bit for the reboot.

You're referring to the Annointment Trials episodes, which was a five-part story. Lion-O had to test himself against each of the other Thundercats in order to be officially anointed "Lord of the Thundercats" (up to then he had only been the "herditary Lord — and they did actually mention that several times). The original Thundercats series actually had a LOT of 5-part stories, at least one a season.

About re-envisioning Mumm-Ra, should he be a native to Third Earth like in the 80's series? Or a Galactic Conqueror like in the reboot?

edited 10th Jul '15 8:02:46 PM by superboy313

Depends on how you want to approach the series. I prefer Mumm-Ra as an ancient, lurking evil who is either awakened by the presence of the powerful Eye of Thundera or is otherwise roused by the Thundercats.

Agreed, In terms of personality, I would keep Mumm-Ra a Card-Carrying Villain. However, he would boast about his evilness far less frequently and overly and his evil deeds would be far more vile than they were in both the old and new series.

In my ideal Thundercats series, Mumm-Ra would be an utterly vile and heartless villain with zero redeeming qualities. And instead of feeling sorry for him because of his constant failures, you'll hate his guts whenever he does something terrible and feel glad when the Thundercats defeat him.

edited 17th Dec '15 11:06:58 AM by superboy313