First Look At The New 'ThunderCats'
An early glimpse of the character redesigns is spotted at the London Toy Fair.
by Blair Marnell
Jan 25, 2011 Back in June, Warner Brothers announced that it was resurrecting the classic '80s animated series "ThunderCats" with Japanese animation house Studio4°C ("The Animatrix," "Halo Legends") on board to re-imagine the characters.
Earlier today, Bleeding Cool posted a photo from the London Toy Fair which features a first look at the redesigns for Lion-O, Panthro, Cheetara, and Tygra.
The original "ThunderCats" animated series followed a small handful of cat-like humanoids who escaped their dying world of Thundera and crashed on a planet called Third Earth where they encountered and fought the Mutants of Plun-Darr and an evil, seemingly Egyptian villain known as Mumm-Ra The Ever-living.
However, incoming "ThunderCats" producer Michael Jelenic ("Batman: The Brave & The Bold") has promised that the new series will have an easier to understand storyline.
"One thing is that I tried to simplify the mythology a little bit," explained Jelenic to MTV News. "It's a pretty complicated backstory that borrows from a lot of other sci-fi stuff, like 'Superman' and 'Star Wars.' In developing this, I wanted it to be a little more simple. In the other version, there's something like three different planets involved, and they all converge onto one planet, and nobody's really connected. I just wanted to bring that all together.".
"I think when people see the final character designs, people will think it's a different take, but it will feel very familiar to the old series," added Jelenic at the time. "The colors aren't quite as bright as they were. It's a little darker take, but you'll recognize everybody."
The new "ThunderCats" is expected to debut later this year.
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