ThunderCats has never really been good. ThunderCats Roar is out, drawing a ton of controversy for its different style and aesthetics, which leads many people to lament the fate of the once-great 80s cartoon franchise. There have been three major iterations of ThunderCats: the classic series that ran from 1985 to 1989, the 2011 anime-inspired reboot and the 2020 ThunderCats Roar. While all of them have fans and people who fondly remember them, not one of these series are particularly good.

But this opinion, of course, deserves to be discussed. It's simply important to acknowledge that the same core complaints being made about ThunderCats Roar are not new to the franchise; they're features that have been there since day one.

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ThunderCats Roar has been criticized for its character design since the start. Many argue that the new series is simply bending to the popular "Cal Arts style," a more cartoonish character and animation style that grew in popularity with Adventure Time and later Steven Universe. This is, of course, assuming that the "Cal Arts style" even is a real thing, as the students from the California School of Arts have worked on very different shows over the years. By this logic, both Steven Universe and Castlevania, as well as Primal and The Simpsons, employ the "Cal Arts style."

However, even ignoring the inherent problems with that label, it's clear ThunderCats Roar is conforming to trends of its time. But, then again, so have every prior ThunderCats series.

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The original series from the 80s is heavily inspired by Filmation's style, with the most notable example being He-Man. Despite being cat humanoids, every ThunderCats character would probably look right at home in Eternia. The weapons, powers and transformation are all heavily inspired by He-Man, which ran from 1983 to 1985, ending where ThunderCats picked up.

The 2011 reboot of ThunderCats is also derivative in a similar manner, though it draws heavily from its generation's most popular style: anime. Undeniably, the 2011 series is the best looking series. However, the style looks derivative of more distinct anime out there. It looks much like The Legends of Korra, which began airing in the same year.

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DULL, LIFELESS ANIMATION

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It's undeniable, though, the series with the best animation is ThunderCats Roar in terms purely of how fluid the animation looks. Both of the previous series incorporates a lot of static motions without much movement or flow to it. The iconic intro to ThunderCats 1985 does not reflect how fluid the animation looks like in the series proper. In contrast, ThunderCats Roar is always in motion.

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Despite having beautiful character designs, much of the action in the 2011 reboot of ThunderCats is sluggish. Most fights consist of characters moving as little as possible, with flashy sparks substituting for actual choreography.

Of course, while utilizing flashy lighting and motion blurs to hide the fact very little is moving on screen is one thing, it's still an improvement over the original, whose fights tended to consist of recycled animation even less on-screen movement. Rewatching the series is almost a chore, as so little happens on-screen in the 1980s ThunderCats. Many people forget the episodes consist of very little animation, especially after its frankly incredible opening sequence. The opening sequence of ThunderCats is one of the best pieces of television animation from that era. Contrasting it with the content of every episode only further emphasizes how cheap the rest of the show looks.

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HUMOR -- OR LACK THEREOF

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The new ThunderCats Roar is approaching the franchise with a frankly goofy and an almost parody approach. This has put off a lot of fans, and for very good reason. While this might appeal more to today's audience of kids, it feels like a slap in the face after the 2011 series and 1985 series, whose humor was so poorly integrated that it actually became one of the biggest problems throughout the entire franchise.

The original ThunderCats suffers from the same problem shows like He-Man or Transformers did in the humor department: a lot of it was annoying. Most shows from this era had a comic relief character whose antics would cut the momentum of the series to a crawl. Snarf is the Scrappy-Doo of the series. Every iteration of Snarf is a weak link, but the 1985 series, in particular, features the most annoying Snarf in any ThunderCats series, in part because he takes over every scene he's featured in, drawing attention away from the characters you want to see.

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The 2011 series acknowledged that fans hated the original ThunderCats series, and resolved this by making the series as humorless as possible. All the humor is muted down to the point where it feels like the writers were afraid to make things too goofy. They take the inherently silly concept of a race of cat people way too seriously, and, as a result, there's very little warmth or joy in any of the proceedings. The attempts at humor, mostly centered around the twins this time around, feels overtly safe, like a muddied-down version of Avatar: The Last Airbender's gags. The characters are always restrained.

So, naturally, people will respond with "Oh, it's a more dramatic series. The humor isn't important. The story is. The 2011 series has a great, epic story." This leads us to the biggest problem with the entire ThunderCats saga...

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A WEAK STORY

Most action cartoons from the 80s avoided over-arching plots. Shows were written to be watched out of order, meaning you could flip on an episode and experience an adventure. In this case, it's easy to forgive ThunderCats for lacking a particularly strong narrative. Many mysteries are teased, but you rarely get answers until the end of the series. Conflicts are set-up in the beginning of each season that impact the stories to follow, but it rarely feels like a progression; it's just a new status quo. It's telling that only seasons three and four have an actual finale.

On the other hand, the 2011 series very firmly established itself with its lore, with three to four-episode story arcs building and establishing the characters. However, there is little sense of real progression. There is, however, a sense of inconsistency, especially when regarding Thundera's frankly self-contradictory relationship to technology. Furthermore, since the series was canceled, many of the subplots felt pointless. The romantic love-triangle, in particular, consumes much of the series, yet contributes little. The best moments of the series are self-contained moments. The best example of this is the fourth episode, "Song of the Petalars," which features a fairly sophisticated plot that's never matched by the major story or subplots.

Oddly enough, ThunderCats Roar might have the right idea. It strips down the narrative of ThunderCats to a simple adventure. It remains to be seen if this approach works for the series. However, people saying it's somehow a big betrayal to ThunderCats' legacy might be missing the point because the franchise has always been an awkward adventure series.

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