Cartoon Network officially announced a couple days ago that a brand new animated Thundercats series has been greenlit to air sometime in 2011!
Warner Bros. Animation (owner of Cartoon Network) is producing the show which will feature a hyper anime-style thanks to a deal between Cartoon Network and Japanese animation production house Studio 4C with whom past collaborations include Direct-to-DVD features Gotham Knights, The Animatrix and Halo.
The original 1985 series was a Rankin/Bass production (Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Year without a Santa Claus and The Hobbit) and featured anthropomorphic cat-people from the distant planet of Thundera who flee shortly before their homeworld self-destructs. They arrive on a planet known as Third Earth and struggle to rebuild their civilization while fending off mutants who pursued them, lead by the reptile-like Sliiithe, and Third Earth’s resident demon-lord, Mumm-Ra, an ancient warrior sorcerer who was a cross between Boris Karloff and Hulk Hogan.
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Personally I’m excited about this as I loved the cartoon as a kid. However when I revisited it in my early adult life in the late 90’s (rerun on CN’s Toonami block), I was somewhat disappointed as the storylines were often non-sensical in their random-plotting (yes – I know it was a cartoon) and I found the original animation rather stiff. I did find the series contained very good morals that were smoothly integrated into the plots and touched on at the end of every episode, usually through Lion-O, a literal boy in a man’s body (due to a cryo-stasis malfunction his body aged while in space).
I’d love to see this blow me away after all the currently failed 80’s revamps.
I suppose you have a better thought on the subject?