A Review of the Thundercats Film

As a child of the 80's, many shows bring back fond memories. One of the chief of these was ThunderCats. The show was the animated work of Rankin Bass Productions, the animation produced by a cooperative collective of agencies known as the Pacific Animation Corporation. The studios represented by Pacific Animation included Topcraft and other prominent Japanese studios. Some of these would later form the anime powerhouse Studio Ghibli.

The cooperation of American producers and Japanese animators gave ThunderCats an unusual, but intriguing look. The series debuted in 1985 and ran for four seasons, plus a television movie in 1986. The plot mixed elements of fantasy and science fiction, telling a story similar in some ways to the Superman mythos.

In deep space, a world named Thundera ends in a massive explosion. Survivors called the ThunderCats, anthropomorphosed members of various big cat families and a sort of Thunderan nobility, flee the destruction in starships. Mutants from Plun-Darr led by Mumm-Ra attack the fleet, seemingly leaving only a single starship to survive. The surviving ship carries the child Lord of Thundera, Lion-O, and members of his court. Jaga the guardian plots a course for the planet Third Earth and places the ThunderCats in cryo-stasis.

The trip does not go as planned. Even the advances of Thunderan starflight fail to deliver the ThunderCats quickly. The trek takes the group decades, in which time Lion-O ages to adult size, and Jaga dies of old age. On Third Earth, the ThunderCats awake to their new environment to find their nemeses, Mumm-Ra and the Mutants, there intending them certain harm. Lion-O learns to wield the treasure of Thundera, the Eye of Thundera, in the hilt of the mystic Sword of Omens. Their strength, their animal prowess, and the power of the Sword give the ThunderCats advantage over the mutants time and again, until they journey to New Thundera.

ThunderCats was only the first of three major sci-fi/fantasy ventures by Rankin/Bass. The other two, which aired in subsequent years were Silverhawks and TigerSharks. Though both achieved a general sense of recognition and popularity, both would fail to rival ThunderCats in the lasting years. The Eye of Thundera became a prominent icon of the 80's and remains a popular T-shirt design among retro-thinkers.

The series lived in reruns on networks such as Cartoon Network during the late 90's, before being dropped in favor of more contemporary programming. Home Video and DVD releases have kept the show very much alive and loved.

Now, like so many other images of the past, movers and shakers are working to bring this classic to the big screen. After Speed Racer, and the announcement of G. I. Joe, Voltron, and Astro Boy, Warner Bros. has secured a script and begun the preparations for a ThunderCats film.

On June 5, 2007, Variety reported that Paul Sopocy wrote an origin story script that WB quickly optioned. Warner Bros. intends to make the film a CG-animated affair, much like TMNT and Astro Boy. The script is Sopocy's first to be secured for a big picture. Currently, he serves as senior writer of print advertising at Fox Broadcasting Co. He has written one film before, a short called "Staring in the Sun," which aired at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival.

So many studios seem to have nostalgia on the mind recently. I wonder how far we can carry it. Too much will make us say "Oh, brother! Not another one!." But I cannot wait to see it. Sink or swim, I want ThunderCats!