Thundercats Roar was recently announced and the reaction was… Well, just look at Twitter. Or not, it’s super toxic.
What I want to talk about in this article are my personal concerns with Thundercats Roar from the perspective of finding its audience. Because honestly, it’s not doing a very good job. And no, I’m not just talking about making a bunch of overly-nostalgic fans on Twitter mad. That said, I’m also not going to speak like the overly-pretentious fans that attack the overly-nostalgic fans for being upset. There are legitimate issues with the direction this show is taking in terms of getting in touch with its target audience.
Disclaimer: I have zero nostalgia for the original Thundercats. The show aired from 1985 to 1989, and I was born in 1994. I didn’t watch it as it aired, and never really followed the reruns when it was on Toonami. I’ve seen a couple of episodes here and there, and that’s it.
Aside: Seriously, regardless of what side you’re on for this whole Thundercats thing, if you’re just attacking the other side without actually backing your points up, then you’re making a fool out of yourself.
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get started.
Thundercats Roar was announced on May 18th, 2018, with an official announcement trailer breaking down what it’s going to be about. This announcement isn’t just a brief trailer, it’s a 3-minute preview of the creative direction of the show, with the official intro of the show at the very end.
I’m going to use this video as the basis for my argument in this article. So if you haven’t seen it yet, I’d advise watching it so this article makes a bit more sense. Obviously, it primarily concerns its art style, but not on whether it’s bad or not. I’m going to focus on why this art style simply doesn’t make sense from the perspective they’re presenting in the trailer, and why that could potentially harm the success of the show.
For all I know, this show could be amazing.
And I genuinely hope it is. We won’t know that until it comes out. What I’m talking about here is simply analyzing what they’re saying and the concerns that those generate. Primarily that Thundercats Roar is trying to push itself towards appealing to both kids and nostalgic adults, but is going about that means of appealing in a totally wrong way that has a decent chance of backfiring.
Throughout the entire video, they highlight the nostalgia factor of the series, and it’s definitely played off in a way that says nostalgia will be a big part of this show. As a matter of fact, at the end of the video, Victor Courtright, the producer, says that “This show is all about praise and love of the original.”
This the primary concern I have with this show trying to appeal to its core audience. If one of the driving forces behind this show is trying to appeal to nostalgic fans, then why aren’t you going with a style closer to the original 80s look? Simply put, that entire nostalgic audience is more inclined to prefer an older looking style, as that’s the kind of style that will invoke a stronger feeling of nostalgia.
And understand that, while there is more to inciting nostalgia than just an art style, at this point in time, the only things this show has to make an impression other than the art style are one brief interview, a few seconds of Lion-O talking with no backdrop, and the intro.
Out of all of these, the art style is going to leave the largest first impression.
That’s the first thing people notice, and what people see most of throughout the video. Knowing this, especially when they spend time in the video talking about how they tried to make this appealing to older, more nostalgic fans, the question of why they chose this style in particular, instead of one more similar to the 80s style only stands out even more.
The actual reason is that Cartoon Network doesn’t necessarily care about older fans because they want to market towards kids. This art style sells to kids much better. In that case, though, then why market it towards an older audience as a nostalgia trip? When marketing it as a show that’s all about showing appreciation for the original, especially in a video that is literally directly comparing Thundercats Roar to the original, it only makes it harder for people to look at this as its own thing, which will only generate more sour opinions and more bad PR. You are fully capable of marketing this to an older audience as well as kids; pitch it as something new and separate from the original.
Thundercats Roar could easily pull something off to make it appeal to both children and adults.
Pitching this show as a completely new take on Thundercats allows more creative freedom with less audience backlash. Thundercats Roar wouldn’t be compared to the original all the time. People will still complain about how different it is, but the fault in that situation would be with just the viewers instead of with the viewers and the company.
You can’t drop a video literally comparing the two and expect others to not compare the two. Forcing viewers to compare the two will make one look much worse than the other, regardless of what Thundercats Roar turns out to be. Especially when it is the only piece of promotional material you have for your show. It’ll be successful enough to make the toy sales Cartoon Network wants it to make, and that kids will eat it up, simply because they’re kids. However, the nostalgic adults who give it a chance will still likely feel a disconnect.
Cartoon Network has done this art style change before, most notably with Teen Titans Go. And despite the backlash it gets, it still sells very well. So what makes Thundercats Roar any different in that regard? Teen Titans Go isn’t trying to appeal to fans of the original. Thundercats Roar is. And that’s what makes this choice so odd. Cartoon Network has seen the kind of backlash shows like Teen Titans Go get from the older fans. Why make a show trying to appeal to older fans by giving it an art style you know they would dislike? It’s easy enough to meet in the middle and make a goofy, toy-selling art style that also appeals to older audiences; just look at Steven Universe.
In summary, Thundercats Roar could easily pull something off to make it appeal to both children and adults. Either:
- Change the look to a more “in the middle” art style that can appeal to multiple age groups i.e. Steven Universe, or
- Change the marketing focus from hyping up a love of the original to being its own take on the series.
If Thundercats Roar would do either of these things, it could easily find more success appealing to its target audiences. Until then, it’s going to continue staying in this limbo of not being able to fully get what it wants.