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Author Topic: Thundercats  (Read 34103 times)

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Thad

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Re: Thundercats
« Reply #240 on: November 13, 2011, 08:53:38 PM »

Definitely the most TOS-y episode at least since the Moby Dick one, and possibly even moreso.  Most likely this is because it was written by Peter Lawrence, head writer for TOS.

We met some new characters who were decidedly Overgardy (Overgard loved samurai), and got a Moral Lesson that was identical to the one from original series episode Good and Ugly.  And then we found out this whole side trip would have been unnecessary if the Thundercats had just looked a little closer at that goddamn wall last week; again, in this series "beyond sight" appears to mean "right the fuck in front of you".

While it's great that Lion-O is learning the valuable lesson of FIGURATIVELY looking closer than what's on the surface, he really could stand to learn how to do it LITERALLY.

Maybe he doesn't need the Eye of Thundera, just fucking glasses.


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Disposable Ninja

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Re: Thundercats
« Reply #241 on: November 14, 2011, 06:34:09 AM »

I'm hoping that whatever Lion-O figured out at the end of the episode was more complex than the "it's inside the damn wall".
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Thad

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Re: Thundercats
« Reply #242 on: November 26, 2011, 10:09:05 AM »

Wake me when someone gets put in a hole.

Surprisingly, it took 13 episodes.

Also: HOLY FUCK, DID I REALLY JUST SEE THAT?
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Disposable Ninja

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Re: Thundercats
« Reply #243 on: November 26, 2011, 07:06:54 PM »

... so was that, like, a reference to the Three-Day Drop or whatever it was called? (If you fall it'll take you three days to reach the bottom).

Also? Panthro didn't ask for this.

I'm okay with that.
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Thad

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Re: Thundercats
« Reply #244 on: November 26, 2011, 10:03:45 PM »

... so was that, like, a reference to the Three-Day Drop or whatever it was called? (If you fall it'll take you three days to reach the bottom).

Sure had a more-than-passing resemblance to his fight with Hachiman.

Also? Panthro didn't ask for this.

[spoiler]He's going to look more like Jet Black than ever.[/spoiler]

I mean, okay, I expected [spoiler]Grune would die, because he was a ghost in TOS[/spoiler].  And I expected [spoiler]he'd fight to the death with Panthro, because that's what they've been building to[/spoiler].  But I expected [spoiler]Green Goblin Copout, where the story dares to ask the question, "Can a hero kill?" -- and then totally avoids actually having to answer it, by having the villain accidentally kill himself[/spoiler].  Really the whole episode piled one cliche on top of another just to lull the audience into a false sense of security.
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Disposable Ninja

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Re: Thundercats
« Reply #245 on: November 27, 2011, 07:11:18 AM »

... so was that, like, a reference to the Three-Day Drop or whatever it was called? (If you fall it'll take you three days to reach the bottom).

Sure had a more-than-passing resemblance to his fight with Hachiman.

Is that what happened? All I remember is that there was a massive fell tree across an equally massive pit and that there was one of them Amazonian ladies with unnecessarily gravely voices.

Also, calling it now: [spoiler]Pumyra is going to be Lion-O's love interest, and will help him get over his feelings about Cheetara (more like CHEAT-ara. See what I did there?)[/spoiler]
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Thad

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Re: Thundercats
« Reply #246 on: November 27, 2011, 05:03:05 PM »

Sure had a more-than-passing resemblance to his fight with Hachiman.

Is that what happened? All I remember is that there was a massive fell tree across an equally massive pit and that there was one of them Amazonian ladies with unnecessarily gravely voices.

Hachiman and Lion-O met and immediately engaged in a dickwaving game of chicken where they both started hacking away at the tree.  While standing on it.

The Warrior Maiden in the scene is the younger one, Nayda; her voice isn't particularly gravely (and is based on Katherine Hepburn).
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Thad

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Re: Thundercats
« Reply #247 on: December 08, 2011, 09:23:49 PM »

So I bought Silverhawks when it was like $2.50 on Amazon last week, and I just watched the second episode and MAN that show is crazy.  It really is Thundercats' "a bunch of completely crazy shit happens and everybody just acts like it's normal" style cranked up to 11.  Like, they go to their new assignment and their boss is Robocop and works in a 1930's film noir style detective office.  With bookshelves that part to reveal a screen behind them.

Also, it is a show where "a character named Bluegrass plays nothing but rock music" barely even cracks the list of things that don't make any sense.

And at this point in the series the crazy shit hasn't really even begun in earnest.  Introduce Stargazer and Tallyhawk, 15-minute fight scene, Copper Kidd learns about asteroids, roll credits.

Show's still just $6.42 if anyone else wants to get it.  The complete D&D is $6.49.
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Brentai

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Re: Thundercats
« Reply #248 on: December 08, 2011, 09:48:50 PM »

Honestly I remember most of the show's weird shit and I still think the oddest thing is the whole "if we turn completely different bits of each of you into robots, you can breath in space" premise.

And then Melodia shows up and doesn't even give a fuck.
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Disposable Ninja

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Re: Thundercats
« Reply #249 on: December 09, 2011, 12:08:32 AM »

Really, I thought the weirdest thing was that people fell in space. Like, there was gravity. In space.

And at the end of every episode there was a science fact bit.
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Thad

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Re: Thundercats
« Reply #250 on: December 09, 2011, 08:14:50 AM »

Honestly I remember most of the show's weird shit

And I don't.  I mean, I remember the basic stuff, but I only caught a few episodes when it ran on Cartoon Network a decade or so back, so I've only seen a handful of episodes since about 1986.

and I still think the oddest thing is the whole "if we turn completely different bits of each of you into robots, you can breath in space" premise.

And then Melodia shows up and doesn't even give a fuck.

Yes, obviously the breathing/falling in space shit is ridiculous, but Thundercats had already blazed that trail.  (I used to wonder if the two were set in the same universe, partly because of the "penal planet" idea existing in both shows -- but of course the Silverhawks are from an Earth that looks a whole lot different from Third Earth, so not so much.)

I think part of Silverhawks's general weirdness is that it mashes up so many genres.  I mean, Thundercats is pretty straight up fantasy/SF, so when you see Merlin in one episode and a space game hunter in the next, okay, I mean, that's kinda odd but it's not Silverhawks odd.

Silverhawks is based on the high concept of "the Untouchables in space".  But since they cribbed their villain directly from Thundercats, you wind up with a Mumm-Ra who, instead of being an ancient evil who has been woken from his slumber, is Al Capone.

Aside from that, you get two more immediate problems: Stargazer is the only interesting Silverhawk, because he is Eliot Ness, and you're looking at a children's cartoon about the Mafia that has to deal with mid-1980's network S&P.  So Mon-Star's motivations are never quite as clear to the audience as Mumm-Ra's.  I remember he owned a casino and the Silverhawks kept raiding it, but I don't remember them ever explaining the connection between organized crime and casino operation to 4-year-old me.  And I certainly don't remember anything about bootlegging.

So Mon-Star and the Mob do general Evil Villain stuff.  Like jumping a claim in Limbo Gold Rush.  Whose original title was "Clementine", and which is based entirely around people singing new lyrics to same.

Obviously I'm not saying space westerns don't work.  I'm not even saying that putting the Untouchables in the middle of a space western doesn't work.  But putting the Untouchables in the middle of a space western where Space Al Capone Who Is Also Mumm-Ra sends one of the Misfits to jump a claim by a singing space cowboy who rides a rocket horse, well, there is a whole lot of shit going on at that point.
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Brentai

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Re: Thundercats
« Reply #251 on: December 09, 2011, 08:54:19 AM »

Nono, the weird part is that they had to do something to breath in space.  Thundercats and okay let's be honest Star Wars get a pass because they never really admit that space isn't really something you can get out of a spaceship and jump around in while talking and setting off fucking sound bombs.  Silverhawks is all like, "No, of course you can't just go hopping around in a vacuum... unless we give you a robot arm.  There, have fun!"

Also, as DN pointed out, they end every episode with a science fact.

Looking back on it though, the craziest thing is actually probably Steelheart's hair.
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Thad

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Re: Thundercats
« Reply #252 on: December 09, 2011, 09:13:29 AM »

Well, they have those mask things.  I don't think they use them consistently, and it still doesn't explain Hardware, Melodia, et al, but it's not quite "metal arm helps you breathe".
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Mongrel

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Re: Thundercats
« Reply #253 on: December 09, 2011, 09:44:59 AM »

I am reminded of the time I re-watched all of Aeon Flux, though obviously that was geared to a completely different audience.

Of course there the hopeless weirdness was more-or-less intentional and sort of consistent. Well at first anyway. The show's already-tenuous grip on sanity sort of unravels in a way that the creators want you to think was intentional, but was probably more a symptom of increasingly massive drug consumption by the scriptwriters.

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Thad

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Re: Thundercats
« Reply #254 on: December 09, 2011, 10:55:35 AM »

Adding: come to think of it, Silverhawks was helmed by a British writer.  Wonder how familiar he actually WAS with the Untouchables.  How popular is the American prohibition cops-and-robbers genre in the UK?

Could be that it IS reasonably well-known over there (at least among Lawrence's generation).  Or it could be that it isn't but that he nonetheless knows about it (in the same way that an American can loosely base a series of fantasy novels on the War of the Roses).  Or in any case he certainly had a mostly-American team of writers; Overgard was a bit too young to remember the period but he certainly would have grown up watching movies about it.  Not that Overgard was one to stick to the genre he was supposed to or anything.
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Mongrel

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Re: Thundercats
« Reply #255 on: December 09, 2011, 12:15:26 PM »

Stock American tropes like Westerns and Pulp stuff are somewhat big in Europe. Westerns much more so than gangster stuff though.

The story of The Untouchables was pretty well-known in the 80's if I recall... I think it may have been because that's when Ness's autobiography was published or re-issued or something. The Kevin Costner/Sean Connery movie was kind of the culmination of that surge in popularity.
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Thad

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Re: Thundercats
« Reply #256 on: January 23, 2012, 09:11:43 AM »

Meskimen's concept art for TOS

Most of these made it to the screen unchanged.
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McDohl

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Re: Thundercats
« Reply #257 on: March 01, 2012, 09:02:18 PM »

So, what was the reception for Season 1 of the new series?  Is there going to be more on the way?
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Thad

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Re: Thundercats
« Reply #258 on: March 02, 2012, 07:48:24 AM »

Well, that wasn't actually intended as the ending of season 1 (as should be fairly obvious from the note it ends on); there are at least 13 more episodes already in the can that were supposed to be the back half of season 1 but are now being arbitrarily called "season 2".

Apparently they'll be starting March 24; it's moving to Saturday mornings, which at least puts it in with the DC animation block.

I haven't heard whether more episodes are being produced yet or not.
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Thad

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Re: Thundercats
« Reply #259 on: March 06, 2012, 01:25:45 PM »

Jackalman and Monkian.  Or whatever they're calling them in the new series, since they apparently have actual names now.  (I remember reading Jackalman was "Kayner" now; haven't seen what they're calling Monkian yet.)  Plus, a shot of the Berbils working on Panthro's robot arms.

...and from the messageboard, apparently the next three eps have already aired in Ireland.  Welp, fuck waiting; if CN doesn't want me to pirate its shows it should stop sticking random fucking months-long gaps in the middle of seasons.

Remember, Sherlock series 2 is premiering in May!
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