Well kids its finally happened. The world has gone topsy-turvy and we're actually going to get a big screen, live action Thundercats movie! I know, totally insane. My inner geek may be squealing with delight over this news, but the entire rest of my being is just sitting back and saying oh my god, how the hell can this be anything other than total garbage...Variety reports that the film, being penned by neophyte feature scribe Paul Sopocy, will tell an expanded origin story of the anthropomorphic kitties. Specifically the plot will focus on the coming of age of Lion-O, who as we all know, is the often petulant leader of the Thundercats. Of course defending Third Earth from the likes of Mumm-Ra, and the mutants is no easy task; so Lion-O will be assisted by a host of the original Thundercats on his mission.
What I really worry about though isn't so much the story. I've re-watched a lot of the old 80s cartoon series on dvd and while it moves pretty slow at times, there are flashes of creative brilliance that especially in the context of a straightforward comic book fantasy work very well. What I really worry about is the look of this as a film. How an third earth do you expect people to look at the cartoon colors, and anime hair, the barbarian warrior garb, and the mystical weapons of the Thundercats in live action and not find it absurd. Is this really a property that can be taken even tongue in cheek seriously as a live action film? I personally don't think so.
I know this is just a fan made example, but check out this live action Thundercats fan film.
For what its worth, I think they really did the best they could. It's not that the film is actually that badly made, particularly for a fan film. Look past the production value and I think the problem is really that these characters just look ridiculous in the real world. There's this Vincent from Beauty and the Beast quality to humanoid cats that just makes me think of cheesy special effects.
I hope to god the real aliens don't look like humanoid cats; or I'll never be able to take their threats of death ray annihilation for real. As for the Thundercats movie. well I am really extremely interested to see where they take it. I just hope that they can find a way for it to work. For now we'll just have to wait and see.
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2 comments:
And you think SpeedRacer will work? This has the ability to be great...think of how cool the cat people looked in ..... what was that Freddy Prinze and Matthew Lillard film? Wing Commander?
It had to happen. BTW that fan vid is really pretty good for a fan vid.
But the cat pwople in Wing Commander arent what the Thundercats look like. Those aliens in Wing Commmander were more like Beast from the X-Men. If you want to keep the look of the Tundercats generally the same I thinky you end up with this Vincent look. Maybe if the redesigned them to look a bit more feline it might work. I hope it can be done, I just have my doubts.
Yes the fan film isn't bad at all for a fan film.
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