Thundercats Roar is Bad, and it's NOT the Fandoms Fault

So, the buzz around Thundercats Roar has started back up with it being released (or at least two episodes of it). Surprising just about no one, after watching it I don't much care for it, but I will say it's not for the reasons I would have assumed. It's not disrespectful per se, it's just not funny, and most of its jokes come from knowing how the original series went. I completely fail to see how this would work for kids, it doesn't really explain itself or its jokes, and most of the jokes aren't funny. But honestly the show itself wouldn't make me write this, it's the defenders who seek to attack those who don't like it that's got me here.

First of all, if you like Roar, cool. Second of all, if you worked on Roar, cool. I'm not here to hate on people for enjoying content and I'm not here to harass creators.

What is NOT okay is the ridiculous levels of shaming and blaming those upset that other people don't like Roar have been doing, and the harassment those who don't like Roar are doing to those who created it.

Harassment is not okay. Don't do it. Seriously. Just because someone worked on this mess of a show does not mean you have the right to harass them. Got it? Good.

To the rest of you, just because SOME idiots who dislike Thundercats Roar are harassing creators this does not mean it is inherent to those that do. Please don't try to link the behavior of some to all who dislike the show, doing such disingenuous at best. I'm not even addressing everyone who likes Thundercats Roar, I'm specifically going at those of you who want to either trash the original, or the fans of the original as a defense for Thundercats Roar. It's not a good sign when your defense is to shit on other shows and people. So next we touch the next elephant in the room, the 2011 Thundercats reboot.

I loved the 2011 show as did a lot of fans of the original series, but some like to go on about how we 'deserve' Roar because we didn't support the 2011 reboot. This myth needs to be put to bed.

Lioconvoy on Twitter thoroughly debunked the crap out of that theory. For those who won't click on links:

link to interview: https://animesuperhero.com/forums/threads/interview-with-dan-norton-the-rest-of-thundercats-2011-detailed.5630741/

To put it simply - Thundercats 2011 was actually doing well, to the point it had been renewed to be 52 episodes (we only got 26). The series was initially renewed so clearly this wasn't a viewership failure, but they then decided Lego Chima was cheaper to produce, and so they dropped it.

This then leads to another claim that can again be debunked thanks to Lioconvoy. There's an accusation going around that no one tried to petition the return. Not only is this incorrect, the creators themselves created a petition that went nearly 10,000 strong, but in addition, there was something screwy going on with the petition being silenced when it would be turned in. Once again, Lioconvoy's got the facts.

https://twitter.com/LioConvoy85/status/1216566229521047554

Okay, so clearly this is not a failure of the fandom that 2011 Thundercats failed. We supported the show, and we even supported a petition to bring it back. CN/WB don't want to make it. There's literally nothing we can do here. So that's not an argument for Roar.

The last argument I see is shitting on the original series. If you don't like it, that's fine but that's first of all no defense for the absolute snorefest that is Thundercats Roar, but it's also not a good argument against those that don't like it.

The original Thundercats may indeed be dated but it wove both a compelling narrative and taught important life lessons, and I don't mean to brush your teeth.

Issues of slavery and freedom were discussed, for example, in one episode, Lion-O saves the Brutemen, who had been enslaved by the villains. Lion-O initially complains that they didn't thank him for this, but the point of doing the right thing because it is right, not for praise is brought into it.

In another instance, there was a story about not jumping to conclusions and the value of talking things out instead of assuming the worst in others, especially your friends, and how doing so is disastrous. If that's not a good moral lesson for today, I don't know what is.

There's several instances like this, and Lioconvoy does go into this in his twitter thread I linked to in the start as well.

Ultimately, even if you don't like the original Thundercats, that's no defense for stripping it down to an unfunny self referential comedy.

If you LIKE the comedy, power to you. A lot of us do not, and it's also a shame that neither Warner Brothers nor Cartoon Network know how to capitalize on what they have, but it's certainly NOT the fandom's fault.