The double 2010s comeback of the ThunderCats was disproportionally cursed and I don't know why!

[Vuxovich]

I expected the last decade to be great for the ThunderCats franchise, but it ended up being disproportionally cursed. The 2011 reboot got canceled after 26 episodes and the comedic take on the said franchise ended up receiving a huge, Mighty No. 9-scale backlash. But I wonder!

Why the 2011 ThunderCats reboot wasn't revived, unlike Young Justice?

My theory is that showrunner Dan Norton quickly retired from the animation industry after the 2011 reboot's cancelation. Also, judging by his involvement with the 2019 Saint Seiya reboot, which was voiced in Houston, it seems more likely that Shannon Eric Denton moved back to his native Texas and retired from writing the western animation shows. In my opinion, Denton wasn't happy with living in California. But it's certain that Michael Jelenic and other people moved on other projects like the reviled Teen TItans Go!. And Andrea Romano retired from the voice-directing business.

Why I hate the 2011 ThunderCats reboot?

Because of its short run. I would like for the 2011 ThunderCats reboot to last 65 episodes (as it was originally planned). Only the original ThunderCats show's episode The Last Day can heal my woes.

Everyone in the cast of the 2011 ThunderCats reboot, Snarf's voice actress included, had their western animation voice acting careers jeopardized after that reboot's cancelation.

In my opinion, the 2011 ThunderCats reboot would have been an opportunity for Snarf's voice actress to eventually move to Hollywood. But if the new ThunderCats animated show or movie comes out, I think that Andrea Libman or Sarah Wiedenheft will be the new voice of Snarf.

In my opinion, Mike Pollock would be great as the 2011 ThunderCats reboot's Mumm-Ra instead of Robin Atkin Downes.

What do you think about my idea?

Am I the only the person who hates the 2011 ThunderCats reboot?

Probably!

In the end, I ask this question:

Why the double 2010s comeback of the ThunderCats got disproportionally cursed and doomed?

 

[Silverstar]

The 2011 Thundecats just wasn't very good; all of its' stories fell into one of two categories:

1. Lion-O learns a valuable lesson, and
2. WilyKit and WilyKat waste time.

In addition to being boring, it took its' goofy premise too seriously, which brings me to why Thundercats Roar failed: It was redundant. The original 80's Thundercats was already the funny version of itself. There's no way a doodly-drawn comedy version of Thundercats being silly, self-aware and making fun of itself could ever be funnier than the genuine article.

 

[Pooky]

Maybe Thundercats is one of those things that only a specific generation really "got"? I'm not sure if I quite count as part of that generation; I'm too young to have watched it on its debut, and even for its finale, but I did grow up with (and still enjoy) a lot of these 80s "toy" shows, and in the UK the first season was shown in constant reruns in high profile slots on the BBC until 1994 (great use of public funding), and I know a lot of people who consider it one of their old favourites, but I never quite got it, and still don't. Robots that become things is cool. I can get why someone would be excited by a blonde Conan-lite. But...space...action...cats? I think I may need some diagrams. I mean I am missing something, clearly, because I believe it was the highest rated and longest lasting of all the "toy" shows (unless you count TMNT), but I still haven't found it. Didn't really get SWAT Kats either, maybe I just don't get action cats.

I never saw the 2011 series. I heard about it, but I was a bit out of the loop with most animation at the time.

Roar, oddly I did kind of like and watched semi-regularly up until around the time the first batch of episodes stopped or whatever happened there. As far as I can tell that made me one of the biggest Thundercats Roar fans on earth, because let's be honest, it didn't have a fanbase, there were people who watched (maybe) the first two episodes and defended it online because they thought it was their civil duty to defend it after the first teaser got such a backlash, but that's not really a fanbase. Of course that wouldn't have mattered if it had caught on with kids, but it doesn't seem like it did.

Here's part of why I think Teen Titans Go caught on with kids and Thundercats Roar didn't; TTG thrived while superheroes were perhaps more popular than they've ever been, and certainly bigger business than they've ever been. Granted TTG is in the DC Universe, and people are quick to not inaccurately put down the contemporaneous DCEU as being the, oh, let's just say the Winger to the MCU's Bon Jovi. But here's the thing; Batman V Superman and Wonder Woman made well over $800million and Aquaman well over $1Billion; you bet a lot of kids were already into this stuff, or had siblings or parents who were. Thundercats Roar on the other hand, was primarily riffing on a show that hadn't been part of the non-nostalgia mainstream for thirty years, and satirising a genre (fantasy) that hadn't been hip with kids in quite a while; it started a year after the decided kid unfriendly Game of Thrones ended with a thud, and a year before the new Lord of the Rings series was met with a shrug.

I will say Thundercats Roar did make me appreciate that there were some genuinely creative elements in the original series/conception, so that's something. And silent Snarf was cute. Also it was cool that they used Bernard Hoffer's original cues (less cool that they didn't credit him).

 

[Classic Speedy]

As I said previously, Thundercats 2011 may not have been great- in some ways it felt like She-ra or Avatar/Korra lite, but I at least had enough motivation to finish it. I have only sampled a little bit of the original Thundercats and couldn't get into it. And since there are, what, 100 episodes of it, I'm not going to waste my time.

Haven't seen Roar.

 

[Fone Bone]

Roar is the best ThunderCats series. Not because it's great. But because 1985 and 2011 are so lacking. Just being all right places it first.

It did NOT deserve to be written off. The writers and producers of that show clearly loved the original series more than the creators of 2011 did. 2011 created an unrelated quest show and populated it with ThunderCats to be able to sell it to the network. Nothing in that show or writing ever said any of the writers gave ANY sort of damn about either the premise or the characters.

As far as quality goes, 2011 is pretty good. But it's not remotely ThunderCats, and the worst possible take on it you could imagine.

 

[AdrenalineRush1996]

Cursed is not what I would describe the failed TV relaunch of ThunderCats.

If anything, the 2011 reboot was popular with older audiences but not so much with longtime fans, along with that the toyline's disappointing performance is what led to it being cut short of its planned 65-episode run, while Roar was a disappointment to say the least, hence why the next entry in the franchise will instead be the Dynamite comic book series than a new animated series.

 

[Vuxovich]

Too bad Mumm-Ra and his subordinates didn't get punished for their crimes in the 2011 ThunderCats reboot. What do you think?

 

[AdrenalineRush1996]

Too bad Mumm-Ra and his subordinates didn't get punished for their crimes in the 2011 ThunderCats reboot. What do you think?

Except the showrunners did reveal details for the planned climax in which Mumm-Ra would be defeated by Lion-O.

 

[Vuxovich]

Except the showrunners did reveal details for the planned climax in which Mumm-Ra would be defeated by Lion-O.

What a missed opportunity!

 

[AdrenalineRush1996]

What a missed opportunity!

True and I do hope that some of those ideas get materialised in a possible comic book continuation, now that Dynamite has the comic book publishing rights.