Thundercats Making a Comeback On TV (first official image)

[oDoUoSoKo]

Anyone who grew up during this era was sure of two things...

Panthro was black....


..and so was Piccolo.

one thing is for sure...


he sure as fuck wasn't norwegian

[TAURO]

Oh dear....

lol

[TAURO]

More about the show http://splashpage.mtv.com/2011/01/27...age-interview/

It's official: The ThunderCats are on the move. Yes, the ThunderCats are loose.
This week's reveal of the first official image from the new "ThunderCats" animated series has quickly made Warner Bros. Animation's upcoming reboot of the late-'80s cartoon one of the week's biggest topics here on Splash Page. The new image debuted just a day after a blurry photo of a "ThunderCats" promotional poster found its way online, and gave us the first good look at how Lion-O, Panthro, Cheetara, and Tygra will appear in the series.
Given the volume of questions the new image has prompted around the 'net, we're excited to bring you an exclusive interview with "ThunderCats" producer Ethan Spaulding, who gave us the inside scoop on the redesign and what it means for the much-anticipated animated series.
MTV NEWS: First off, tell me about the general idea going into the redesign process. How did you approach the task of changing the characters' appearance for a new generation while staying true to the original series' fans?
ETHAN SPAULDING: We decided that it would be best to keep the core character traits of all the characters — specifically their colors — so at first glance you can tell who each one of them is. We really kept that core spirit of all the characters and just updated them with a little more realistic armor, and some of the '80s aspects — like Lion-O's exposed midriff. The original designs are great, but the world we have going on in this story, we had to fit our designs to that story, so that was our overall impetus.
MTV: Everyone's asking about the anime vibe in the image. Will the series have an anime feel to it? Does the anime vibe extend beyond the character designs?
SPAULDING: [It will extend to] the visual storytelling as well. The original show was done in Japan, and many people probably don't know that. A lot of the artists went on to be in Studio Ghibli, and worked on [Hayao] Miyazaki's first film. So "ThunderCats" does have a footprint in Japanese animation. We're kind of going back and honoring that in the new series. I was always a huge fan of the original show and I love the Japanese animation and what they can do, so we're really going back to the roots.
MTV: Were there any elements of the original series that you felt strongly about improving in the new series? Was there anything you felt like there was an opportunity to change for the better in this redesign?
SPAULDING: Not so much. We just had to update it and give it a new spin. Looking at what they were wearing back then, it was more of a superhero show. You can see that in the old lineup, and they looked like they were more of a superhero team. With our back story, we couldn't go in that direction.
MTV: Lots of people are asking about Tygra...
SPAULDING: [Laughs] Everyone wants to know about Tygra, but that's sort of story-specific. I can't reveal too much. Basically, we wanted to make him cooler than he was. The consensus was that he was the boring guy of the old show, so we wanted to make him more interesting and gave him another dimension. But don't worry — he still has the whip. People were wondering where the whip was at one point, but it's on his belt.

MTV: I noticed that even Panthro's nunchuks with the claws made it through the redesign...
SPAULDING: We liked all of the aspects of the old stuff. That's the iconic aspect of these characters — you have to have the nunchuks with the claws at the end. That was the challenge, though: How do you update it? Our art director has done a great job. He actually did the first pass on all the characters, updating them, and then we sent it all to Japan. The character designers there take a pass over the designs, put the final spin on them, and then we give notes. It's like a co-production thing going on here.
MTV: Another thing everyone's asking about is the characters we don't see in the new image. What's up with Snarf, or WilyKit and WilyKat? Will we see them soon?
SPAULDING: Yeah, you'll see them. We're going to slowly reveal that stuff. Rest assured, they're in there, and they look great. They're redesigned in a little different way, though, and you'll see what I mean when it comes time to reveal them.
MTV: When I spoke to your co-producer, Michael Jelenic, about the series, he talked about how one of the redesign strategies was to mute the bright colors of the original a little, and give it a darker tone. How do you describe the overall redesign theme?
SPAULDING: It's more realistic, more real-world palette. The Japanese animations are great. The colors are keyed a lot different than the American animation, and there's a little bit more variety going on. We're fans of that style. You get a little more attention paid to the lighting in this show, the sense of atmosphere, and the scope of the project. We're going for a movie feel, and hopefully we're achieving that.
MTV: It also looks like Lion-O is a little younger in this iteration of the series...
SPAULDING: Yes, that's part of the story, too.
MTV: And Panthro's looking a little more grizzled with that scar on his eye and such...
SPAULDING: Yeah, we're making him the older veteran. He's been out there on Third Earth exploring. He's the elder of the group, once they get together.
MTV: Are you surprised by the massive reaction to the series and everything that's been released so far?
SPAULDING: A little surprised, yeah — but when I think about it, I understand it. "ThunderCats" has been in pop culture since 1985, so it's had time to marinate.
MTV: What attracted you to this project in the first place? Were you a big fan of the original series?
SPAULDING: I was a big fan when I was young. Everyone talks about the opening animation for "ThunderCats," and it's still to this day one of the greatest openings of any animated series. I appreciated the fantasy and science-fiction elements, and gravitated toward the character designs. I drew when I was a kid, so I always responded to the way everything looked in that show.
Hopefully we're doing justice to the characters. They're icons now, and we're trying to do justice to the old show and its spirit, and flesh out the characters more so than the original series.
"ThunderCats" is scheduled to premiere later this year on Cartoon Network. Keep it locked to Splash Page for more "ThunderCats" news as it develops!

[SKAMPOE]

i want a fuckin live action film of this wtf
this whol cast should b hird...

this trailer is my dream come true, sept is fan made

[JIGSAW45]

look at his nose! he even got TSA fucked up.
if that aint a brotha idk what is lololol.

Lolololol....knawmeannnnn!!!!! I hope a live action joint comes out.

[TAURO]

Terry Crews for Panthro

[hide1998]

All I know is that a new version of Thundercats will most likely be much better than what we grew up with. The new He-Man from the early 2000s is LEAGUES better (in every way) over the original 80s version. And, even though the roster is fully built up yet, so is the new GI Joe show over what we grew up with. Transformers, pre-movie, is still better than the newest version of it. But even the excellent (pre-movie, because after the Transformers movie in the 80s came out the show took a HUGE nosedive in art/writing/etc) Generation 1 Transformers wasn't as good as Beast Wars (which is criminally underrated and is still the best version of Transformers ever, nostalgia aside).

[Dokuro]

yah great make it in america it will work ......................................

next up an american Astro boy

then a voltron followd by lupin

were will it end
will we be sing osaka


act like this loser



no no no i want have it i want watched it fox be damned damn you

[Dokuro]

this is a fucking travesty

there going to ruin it.....sub

and i just know that Fujiko is there next target

[Damon]

i want a fuckin live action film of this wtf

I remember hearing a couple years ago a script was written for a live action Thunder Cats movie and it was going to be rated R for extreme violence and language. This is because all the kids who grew up watching Thunder Cats are now adults and they wanted to make it hardcore.

I havent heard anything lately on that script or what the plan is now because of this cartoon that is aimed at kids of today.

[Dokuro]

yah right thats what this world need

[TAURO]

Trailer

[NIGHT MAYOR]

i have a sneaky suspicion this is guna blow
my childhood heroes always get rapped - they turned freddy k into a pedo, transformers movies sucks donkey cocks, JUST LEAVE MY SHIT ALONE FUCKERS!

[NIGHT MAYOR]

..........im not going to even mention inspectah gadget

[TAURO]

While I agree that they've fucked up transformers in recent times, most of the 21st century versions of the classic eighties cartoons have been good, two prime examples being Ninja Turtles and He-Man. Judging from the trailer of this im confident that it's going to be great. I've been watching the original Thundercats series on dvd in the last couple of weeks and believe me, it's not as great as you believe it to be.