Speaking of passive TV watching becoming active youtube trailer making (see the post from earlier today) -- have you seen this? This is deeply crazy, but you have to admire the work that went in here. My friend Brady sent this to me.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
21 comments:
Is that actually Vin Diesel?!
A brief rant:
Thundercats sucked... there, I said it... not only was it even more poorly animated than most 80s cartoons, but it was also, pretty much, a He-Man rip off: In He-man, Prince Adam turns into He-man through reciting a chant and holding his sword, as does Lion-O grow into an adult in Thundercats. On He-man, they fight a muscular Skeleton with beastly henchman named Skeletor, On Thundercats, they they fight a muscular mummy named Mumm-Ra who also has beastly henchman. Both took place on worlds where castles and sword and sorcery coexisted with sci-fi weapons and vehicles. Pantrho = Man at Arms, Cheetara = Teela.
Can someone please explain to me why the show has managed to gain such a cultish devotion that someone would expend as much time and effort into something like this?
Rant ended.
Oh, and, of course, Snarf = Orko... only much more annoying.
Because it's even dumber than He-man?
And I really want someone to write an extensive analysis of He-Man seen through a psycho-sexual angle and possibly point out all the homoeroticism that cartoon is filled with.
(But seriously, because Thunder-Thunder-Thundercast HOOO! is a really good catchphrase. Not that "By the Power of Grayskull!" isn't, but Thundercats' is cathcier.)
In my childhood there was enough room for two separate, curiously similar sci/fi fantasy cartoon series featuring muscular men in leotards with individual thematic special skills, one woman only allowed on each team and curiously literal headquarters. (Castle Greyskull was a skull, Snake Mountain was a snake, Cat's lair was a big cat - that is rad). He-Man might just edge out Thundercats due to having a character called "Ram Man" and the main character having been played in a movie by Dolph Lundgren.
Also - sadly - it looks like the vid was taken down. Suck.
Scott,
As far as why Thundercats beats He-Man ... Thundercats had better animation, better voice acting and better writing.
I'm not sure what makes you say it was poorly animated compared to other 80s cartoons ...which ones are you talking about? It was better animated than He-Man and She-Ra, certainly. The quality of the animation varied from episode to episode, but at its best it was on par with Transformers (and better than Go-Bots -- which reminds me of another awesome YouTube video that you all should see ... but I digress ...)
The best episodes of Thundercats were the ones written by Leonard Starr -- a veteran of the comic-book industry, it so transpires -- a guy who obviously understood the fundamentals of storytelling. The first four episodes of Thundercats are a good example, but any of the Starr ones hold up pretty well (I believe he wrote about 20 of the 130 episodes total).
Also, Cheetara = WAY hotter than Teela
Anyway, I'm a fan. :)
(Hmm ... possible future project once the Claremont blogs are done ... episode-by-episode "Thundercats" reviews ... ?)
As for this trailer, someone first sent it to me about a week ago. I *ADORE* it. I will now watch it again.
Also, Scott ... Snarf more annoying than Orko?
We may come to blows.
Jason,
You may have a point about Snarf Vs Orko... that is if Orko had a nervous tick that made him pepper his spech with his own name :)
(actually, I'm thinking about that right now and it's actually pretty awesome)
Seriously,
He-man is already a distant 4th in my favorite toy/cartoon properties growing up (1. Star Wars, 2. Transformers 3. GI Joe: A Real American Hero) And, actually, I'm just old enough to remember the pre-cartoon He-Man; it was pretty much a different story where both Skeletor and He-Man had swords of power that they needed to unlock castle Greyskull, there was no Prince Adam etc. Castle Greyskull... now there was an awesome playset! Santa brought that to me one Christmas, oh what a happy day that was.
But, with its similarities to He-Man, Thundercats never really caught my interest as a kid. I mean I'm sure I probably watched the show some and had a couple of toys... I just don't remember it as fondly as I do other shows.
and Cheetara hotter than Teela?
I'm pretty sure she's not even human, dude. :)
Dude, Teela isn't human, either. She is Eternian!!!
That's a good point about pre-cartoon He-Man. There was a whole other mythology going on there. Remember how each Masters of the Universe action figure came with a little comic-book, usually explaining his or her origin? They were often a lot more interesting (and with cooler-looking drawings) than the cartoon.
Did you see the recent update of the He-Man cartoon, where the animation is more fluid and the character designs are more stylish? It's sort of like the Paul Dini version of the He-Man Universe (albeit not quite THAT awesome, but still, it was pretty cool). There's a DVD box set of that version which is calling to me ... :)
Anyway, the He-Man toys were better than the Thundercat toys, that I will agree with. (I too remember Skeletor's sword of power. Wasn't there even something about each of them only possessing *half* the sword, and they were each fighting each other to acquire both havles?)
The Thundercats toys were kind of lame compared to the other toys you mention. (Transformers were, of course, the bomb -- each one was like two toys in one!) But as far as which has the best cartoon ...
II don't thin it's overstating the case to say that the pilot episode of Thundercats was better than all three original Star Wars movies and Indiana Jones movies combined. And if the movie in that fake Thundercats trailer were a real film, it would be the greatest film in the history of cinema.
That's not letting the bias of my seven-year-old self bleed into my adult critical faculties too much, is it?
Whatever dude, you can have your pseudo-bestial fantasies... I'll stick with chicks who don't need to spray to mark their territory :)
But, yeah, I saw the He-man re launch, it was actually pretty nice. I think one of the key reasons that it didn't take off was due to the fact that, while the new toys did look awesome, I heard that they weren't nearly as durable as the originals, ie they broke real easy.
I think that Dini/Timm certainly raised the bar on action-adventure cartoons. As a result, nearly all shows of that genre are so much more awesome than what we grew up on.
One of the great unsung heroes of that trend (since, Jason, I know you're fond of unsung heroes) is Andrea Romano and her voice direction/casting of the DCAU stuff. Mark Hammil as the Joker was genius.
Oh, speaking of DCAU voice acting... I've been watching the first season of Batman on DVD (christmas present) and did you know that Richard Moll was not only the voice of Two-Face but the Bat-computer as well?
Speaking of awesome voice casting, I was just watching the new Batman: Brave and The Bold, this week's episode features Wildcat and who better to bring the grizzled old hero to life than R Lee Ermey? Perfect casting.
Batman: Brave and the Bold, aside frome being a really fun show, is a great example of how, thanks to Dini/Timm, even lighter fair like this that is aimed at very young children is now of a much higher quality in terms of, not only animation, but writing and voice acting than most of what we grew up with.
That's true, I do like a good unsung hero!
And that is a good one. The voice acting in the Dini/Timm stuff is amazing. Batman himself is fantastic, and makes Christian Bale's work in the new films seem comical by comparison (or more comical).
Mark Hamill as the Joker IS great. And again, not to compliment by way of a dis, but Hamill's voice is *far* more impressive than Heath Ledger's decision to talk like Al Franken. (Comic Geek Speak pointed that out recently, but I had the same thought in the movie theatre myself.)
That was a darn fine show. I also love that the Justice League show used Carl Lumbly (Dixon in "Alias") to be the Martian Manhunter and Michael Rosenbaum as the Flash.
So Andrea Romano is the lady to thank for all that? Hero, let thy name hereby be sung!!!
P.S. Isn't it great that they used Garfield to create Snarf for that trailer?
Snarfield!!!
That was awesome.
Wasn't there a game where you had to 'find snarf' in every episode of Thundercats? Like he would be hiding in the background of certain scenes or something?
Christian - Someone has already attempted a kind of "psycho-sexual analysis" of He-Man, in the form of a youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8Nc8RCLy1s
Scott, now you are just making stuff up to make "Thundercats" look bad!
(Actually you're thinking of Lookee -- as in "Lookee what we have here" -- a little rainbow-colored imp who gave the moral at the end of every episode of She-Ra, Princess of Power.)
i "played" Thundercats a lot when I was a kid. I loved both He-Man and Thundercats (hated She-Ra tho) but we didn't play at He-Man.
when we played Thundercats I was either wiley kit and wiley kat or snarf. I never got to be cheetara. I so resented that... strike that. I STILL resent that.
Post a Comment