Has anyone else been watching this? I've been following it on youtube.
There were always going to be people who would love it no matter how bad it was simply because it's Thundercats, and people who would hate it no matter how good it was because it's not the original. So I went into it with as open a mind as I could, and here's my two penn'oth:
For PRESENTATION - animation and voice-acting, that sort of thing - the remake doesn't quite have the same oomph as the original. The anime/manga style isn't going to be to everyone's tastes, of course, but they could have done a better job with Lion-O and Cheetara. Lion-O's hair just makes me think of Sonic The Hedgehog, while Cheetara has clearly been designed to be a sex symbol - something the original achieved without that in mind. Having said that, they have done a decent job with most of the rest of the characters - Snarf and the Thunderkittens are a bit iffy, but they're the sort of characters that you'll either love or hate in both series anyway. And here I might add the original Snarf wins hands down, the new one doesn't even talk! Speaking of the voice-acting, again I say the original is better, but that could just be because we've had a quarter of a century to warm to the voices of Larry Kenney, Earl Hammond, Robert McFadden et al. Certainly Robin Atkin-Downes does a fair job as Mumm-Ra - if only he'd slow down his delivery a bit. But even if we do gradually warm to them, the guy playing Lion-O, Will Friedle or something like that, doesn't have the same conviction as Larry Kenney did with "the catchphrase".
For CONTENT, however, the new one triumphs. The original occasionally had the odd five-parter (and one two-parter), but the episodes in this new series do have very definite continuity to them - Panthro doesn't join the team until the end of episode 4, for instance. It really keeps you focused on the continuous story element. Equally, the character development is by far superior to the original, which, to be honest, didn't have much. Mainly because the Lion-O-centric format of the original didn't allow for much character development, and after many original episodes, the reset button was pressed. Backstory was one thing they always shied away from in the original, not so with the new series, and that can only be a good thing.
All in all, I'd say the series has got off to a pretty good start, and can't wait to see how the second half progresses.
