When the first pics of the redesigned Thundercats hit they were met with generally favourable response. But some were concerned about a few of the differences made to the appearance of the beloved characters. Show producer Ethan Spaulding addresses this as well as confirming that Wilykit, Wilykat and the ever loved/loathed Snarf will definitely be appearing.
Here are some excerpts from the interview over at MTV Splashpage..
MTV: Everyone's asking about the anime vibe in the image. Will the series have an anime feel to it? Does the anime vibe extend beyond the character designs?
SPAULDING: [It will extend to] the visual storytelling as well. The original show was done in Japan, and many people probably don't know that. A lot of the artists went on to be in Studio Ghibli, and worked on [Hayao] Miyazaki's first film. So "ThunderCats" does have a footprint in Japanese animation. We're kind of going back and honoring that in the new series. I was always a huge fan of the original show and I love the Japanese animation and what they can do, so we're really going back to the roots...
...MTV: Lots of people are asking about Tygra...
SPAULDING: [Laughs] Everyone wants to know about Tygra, but that's sort of story-specific. I can't reveal too much. Basically, we wanted to make him cooler than he was. The consensus was that he was the boring guy of the old show, so we wanted to make him more interesting and gave him another dimension. But don't worry — he still has the whip. People were wondering where the whip was at one point, but it's on his belt...
MTV: I noticed that even Panthro's nunchuks with the claws made it through the redesign...
SPAULDING: We liked all of the aspects of the old stuff. That's the iconic aspect of these characters — you have to have the nunchuks with the claws at the end. That was the challenge, though: How do you update it? Our art director has done a great job. He actually did the first pass on all the characters, updating them, and then we sent it all to Japan. The character designers there take a pass over the designs, put the final spin on them, and then we give notes. It's like a co-production thing going on here.
MTV: Another thing everyone's asking about is the characters we don't see in the new image. What's up with Snarf, or WilyKit and WilyKat? Will we see them soon?
SPAULDING: Yeah, you'll see them. We're going to slowly reveal that stuff. Rest assured, they're in there, and they look great. They're redesigned in a little different way, though, and you'll see what I mean when it comes time to reveal them....
...MTV: It also looks like Lion-O is a little younger in this iteration of the series...
SPAULDING: Yes, that's part of the story, too.
MTV: And Panthro's looking a little more grizzled with that scar on his eye and such...
SPAULDING: Yeah, we're making him the older veteran. He's been out there on Third Earth exploring. He's the elder of the group, once they get together.
MTV: Are you surprised by the massive reaction to the series and everything that's been released so far?
SPAULDING: A little surprised, yeah — but when I think about it, I understand it. "ThunderCats" has been in pop culture since 1985, so it's had time to marinate.
MTV: What attracted you to this project in the first place? Were you a big fan of the original series?
SPAULDING: I was a big fan when I was young. Everyone talks about the opening animation for "ThunderCats," and it's still to this day one of the greatest openings of any animated series. I appreciated the fantasy and science-fiction elements, and gravitated toward the character designs. I drew when I was a kid, so I always responded to the way everything looked in that show.
Hopefully we're doing justice to the characters. They're icons now, and we're trying to do justice to the old show and its spirit, and flesh out the characters more so than the original series.
Thundercats will premier later in the year on Cartoon Network. For the full interview at MTV click the link below.