The new Thundercats series
Last night I saw the first three episodes of the new Thundercats series and was blown away by how good it was. I'd always liked the original series, but was disappointed by the way in which the writers -- in part because of the constraints of Western TV animation in the 1980's -- had thrown away the many good science-fantasy concepts implicit in the world of Third Earth, a world of ancient science, even more ancient sorcery, and numerous obviously genetically-engineered successor species, derived from various animal stocks.
The new series is great. The characters are well-drawn -- both in the sense of art and writing -- with strongly-established relationships and goals, instead of just sort of being there as they were in the old series. There are secondary characters and extras, unlike the old series in which after the pilot they just kind of forgot that both heroes and villains were supposed to be the elites of whole races (this was almost certainly due to limited animation budgets and technologies). And the new series actually hints at resolving some of the mysteries that the old series brought up and then dropped.
This bids to be the best Western animated series since Gargoyles and Avatar: The Last Airbender. I hope it lives up to its promise.
The new series is great. The characters are well-drawn -- both in the sense of art and writing -- with strongly-established relationships and goals, instead of just sort of being there as they were in the old series. There are secondary characters and extras, unlike the old series in which after the pilot they just kind of forgot that both heroes and villains were supposed to be the elites of whole races (this was almost certainly due to limited animation budgets and technologies). And the new series actually hints at resolving some of the mysteries that the old series brought up and then dropped.
This bids to be the best Western animated series since Gargoyles and Avatar: The Last Airbender. I hope it lives up to its promise.