Ok so perhaps I’m a little late
with this post as it is a while since the series aired but being a huge fan of
the original Thundercats I felt it necessary to finally inflict the remake upon
myself and consequently inflict my reflections on it upon yourselves.
On first glance I shied away and
my initial impressions were numerous. ‘Lion-O doesn’t look like that.’ ‘The
Thundercats don’t look like that.’ ‘Why isn’t Snarf talking?’ ‘What happened to
the rest of the theme song?’ ‘Where’s Panthro?’ ‘Why is Tygra so mean to Lion-O
and how can they be brothers?’ My mind was reeling with questions and
attempting to hold onto as much of the original series as possible.
However, I watched with an open
mind and found myself soon drawn into this re-imagining of one of my childhood
favourites. Tygra is adopted and jealous that he will never be king. Snarf may
not speak but his other character traits have definitely translated. Fear not,
Panthro does reappear and the visual appearance of the characters, with their
sharper lines and anime styling, becomes pleasingly appropriate once you get
into the series.
I was also glad to see that some
of the core elements of the original Thundercats have remained. The logo, the
Sword of Omens and thankfully Lion-O’s “thunder, thunder, Thundercats, Ho!”
have survived the years along with an almost exact “ancient spirits of evil,
transform this decayed form into Mumm-Ra, the Ever-Living!”
So it may be modernised and it
may be different to the original but fortunately the programme makers have
recognised that the original fans may not welcome a remake with quite so open
arms and have thus ensured they bring the core elements across but have also
made the series sufficiently different to the original that it does not replace
or destroy what we watchers from the 80s loved so much. Overall conclusion is
it is not bad and I will be watching the rest of the series because it is
Thundercats after all. Don’t think I’ll ever be replacing my DVD set for a new
one though.
Elloise Hopkins.
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