Hohboy, there’s a lot to unpack here…
Think a reboot should be more action packed and play older? They tried it in 2011 and turns out viewers didn’t want it.
Not really. The target demographic and amount of action in the original series would be just fine, to tell you the truth. But besides that, this is just an outright lie. Thundercats 2011 was a massive critical success (7.9/10 on IMDB, 8.4/10 on TV.com, 96% Google rating), and even seem to have had a decent showing in the ratings. From what I can tell, Thundercats died for two main reasons behind the scenes: Its production cost and toys. It was relatively expensive to produce and wasn’t selling toys. So they canned it; apparently for Lego Chima, which is dead cheap to produce, and is a Lego property so of course it’s going to sell toys (not like the network itself has to be concerned with that, as it was a licensed property).
That’s fucking Lion-O. I mean, c’mon.
Test yourself by watching the original Thundercats. And by watching it I mean actually watching several entire episodes from start to finish. Most likely you’re going to get bored and want to change it to something else.
You know what? I’ll admit it. Thundercats 1985… wasn’t a very well made show. The animation was barely there, the pacing and flow were wonky, and the voice acting terrible. Kids back then didn’t have as high standards as they would even 20 years later.
But when I look at Thundercats 2011, I see… what I remember Thundercats being like. That show, to me, seems like its trying to be what we all remember the original was like from when we were kids, nostalgia goggles and all. Which is a great thing. And boy did it succeed. Which is even better. The video linked later in the OP talks about how great the Thundercats 1985 intro was, and you know what? It was. If the entire show was like that intro, it would still hold up today.
I just rewatched the Thundercats 1985 opening for what was probably the first time since it went off the air, and I was blown away by how well it held up. The nostalgia goggles were not at all needed. If the entire show was this good, you wouldn’t need to remake it, you’d just have to re-air it.
But, of course, the entire show wasn’t that good. So I wondered… what would the show look like if it had been like that? I asked this question, rhetorically, to a friend. You know what he answered? “It’d probably look a lot like Thundercats 2011″.
You know what Thundercats 2011 reminds me off? The 2002 He-Man and the Masters of the Universe remake. Which I loved as a (slightly older) kid even more than Thundercats. I remember seeing the launch stuff for TC2011 and immediately got hyped, because it seemed to me like they were doing for Thundercats what they did for He-Man a decade before.
You’d be surprised at how much a network relies on the artists’ unique voices to make their shows stand out.
Not really. In fact, it’s actually kind of a problem, though admittedly, Steven Universe probably has it more than every other show in CN combined. Ignoring the fact that one of the main complaints with this whole crop of shows is “they all look alike”, which is the exact fucking opposite of standing out…
From what I can tell, the show creators, Victor Courtright and Marly Halpern-Graser, are best known for their work on Pickle and Peanut (character design and storyboarding) and Right Now Kapow (writer and executive producer).
Both of these shows are absolutely terrible. It was like I’d walked into a twilight zone where the Adult Swim of 2003 was on Disney. I don’t even really like the two episodes of Teen Titans Go Halpern-Graser wrote (Smiles Bones and Road Trip), and I actually find a lot of Teen Titans Go hate to be unmerited (so far as the writing goes). If the writing of TCR is anywhere near the level of RNK, I imagine the show will last about as long.
Just from TC Roar’s sick intro you should know that this show is bringing something to the table.
An overcut and spastic five scenes doing its best to emulate the Hiroyuki Imashi’s amazingly storyboarded opening for OK KO (which I recognized as his work immediately just from watching it, it’s just that distinctively his, and what got me curious about OK KO in the first place), set to a ten second loop of music? This intro… does not encourage me at all.
But check this shit. This actually does an even better job of getting me hyped for a show than TC1985′s original (and not just because it’s better animated, again because I think the animation of the original intro still holds up). And this was just when a fan edited together some video and audio to make something.
So does this. And this. Hell, I had such faith in the third one that I realized I actually wrote that out expecting to link it before I’d even watched it. It really seems like its impossible to make an intro video to TC2011 set to the original theme that doesn’t kick ass.
The TCR intro animation makes me think someone sat down and said “let’s do what OK KO did”. The intro music makes me wonder if the person who decided this song was perfect for the Thundercats had ever watched the original show.
It’s because of the success of shows like these that networks can have the resources to explore new original content.
And those shows, like Clarence and Mighty Magiswords, are just as bad. In fact… Teen Titans Go is probably better than any show that came out after it (unless I’m forgetting something) on Cartoon Network, though I am curious about Infinity Train. It seemed just a little too lolrandum for me, with the corgis and shit, but it was well animated, in a unique style, and… hell, it might just not be my taste. Regular Show really wasn’t my kind of thing either. But hey, it didn’t bother me enough that I’d say it turned me off to the entire show. I’ll probably give it a try when it airs.
Ben 10 wasn’t my taste either, but that lasted for nine years so it must’ve been doing something right, even if the only thing it was doing right was “marketing alien action figures to ten year olds”. Which I can actually respect. I’m not the type to shame a show for being just about marketing toys if the show itself is good. Which it might be. I dunno, I never watched the original. I watched a few episodes of the reboot just to check it out, though, and found it terrible. Is Ben that fucking obnoxious in the original series as well? Because my god he is horrible and totally unlikeable.
It’s because of the success of shows like these that networks can have the resources to explore new original content.
I miss when you could just make a thirty minute long toy commercial. At least then you had to actually sell people on a product. Ben 10 seemed to get it, so I wonder why it’s declined so much recently.
This is just… why should anyone watch this? The writing? Because the writer isn’t good at comedy. Reagan deregulating cartoons in the 1980s did more for cartoons, specifically boys action cartoons, than any other single thing in the last 30 years.
Who knows, maybe a network will even end up developing an original show so successful that in 10 years time trolls on the internet will hate its reboot.
They did, in 2011. It was called “Thundercats”.
Go through your favorite artists’ twitters and tumblrs and see if they have ever said anything bad about any animated shows.
I’d explain why this is, but…
Why would a production want to commit to hiring someone they think will just be rolling their eyes at the designs the whole time?
You already did. You gotta toe the party line or you can’t get into the industry. People who work in an industry don’t generally tend to badmouth their coworkers, and more importantly their employer, in public. At least, not if they want to stay in the industry for very long. I’ve seen a lot of my favourite non-professional artists (from the later comments, it sounds as if you’re talking about professional artists in the industry), and I’ve seen plenty of badmouthing of these comedy reboots, because they’re not bound by any contracts to pretend to like it.
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