ThunderCats Rebooted, First Glimpse!

I guess the first related video I saw to the new series was the official trailer, which was packed with a few pleasant surprises.

The intro, somehow reminded me a bit of Avatar: The last airbender. Much later I read that Ethan Spaulding, the producer of the show, was also a crew person on Avatar and directed several of its episodes. But I actually felt a faint resemblance in the animation style, music and presentation of the characters. Though the studios for both the series are completely different.

Anyway, back to the topic. I always enjoy when the story line of a rebooted series deviates from the original. But I suppose it must retain the key elements which made the original a success. The new story line is quite different. With Thunderians seemingly already settled on third earth in the form of a thriving but ancient kingdom.
I guess only after seeing the thundercats logo on the banner int he throne room, was I convinced that the video is not a fake, like other interesting trailers.

Blind eye of Thundera?

I was surprised to see the lack of the thundercats logo on all the uniforms, replaced with rather just blank red disc shaped thingys. Oh, I was such a fan that I printed out different sized logos many years ago, and all my stationary was always thunderian :) . So the lack of the logo did come as a surprise to me. I thought maybe there's a gimmick this time that they show the insignia when the sword of omens is called upon. what was surprising was that even the eye of thundera was just a blank red blot.

Not Hypertrichosis I hope...

Claudius kinda looked like he was based on Lion-o from the original series. Though I don't remember how Claudius looked then. I guess that was the mental image in my mind of how the original Lion-o would look when he grew old. Also, the shield of omens seemed to have kinda a more mechanical touch to it. Though the new design is better. Seems to have a slot for the eye to fit it.
Next we see the cats riding what appear to be weird dinosaur-griffin-bird-wold mix hybrids. Oh, also we get to see a glimpse of quite a young Tygra, with the same chest centered insignia. We also see a tiny glimpse of the new lion-o here.

Rohan!! ... oops wrong universe

A little later, we're treated to an all new grune. From the voice over, I suppose one can guess that Grune will betray the thundercats. Then lead an army of mutants to conquer the kingdom ultimately resulting in that same old good vs evil fight to death. But, then all epic movies must have those great siege/battle scenes. I do hope it's something more intricate and complex than that. Though the animation, scores, voice acting and such do matter greatly to me, but the central thing for me is always the plot. If the plot is good, I'll even endure bad production and still see the whole series to its entirety.

Wonder if they ever reveal the story behind that tooth

It seems that Lion-o will be crowned king or atleast heir, or some kind of coming of age thingy. Maybe there's a thing involved that he must be able to control the sword to be crowned. Or maybe he just got curious. Anyway, so he sees this image of mumm-ra and the impending invasion. A cliche'd storyline would be that no one believes him. Then all the lizards go full LOTR style on 'em. Claudius goes all braveheart type. And finally giant mechs arrive and go all gundam on the cats' tails. Being a gundam maniac and an electronic engineer, and one recently accepted into a graduate research program in Humanoid Robotics, obviously I was immediately charmed by the scene. The battle kinda reminds one helm's deep. Also, one must wonder, if civilizations else where developed mechs, what had the cats been doing all this time. I assume the mechs are an alien invasion. Who knows? Captain shiner makes a come back?
The lightning effects of the sword were cool. Atleast Claudius didn't just yell Ho! and blast the lizards with his sword like Lion-o in the old series. We also see the new thunderkittens around this time. Other than that, I guess thundercats does always start with the destruction of Thundera.
Then we're treated with the return of our favourite frog mutant, (has always looked like a frog to me) slythe. It seems, by some great battle planning they manage to outsmart the cats, and maybe even kill Claudius. Though,, I doubt they'd just kill off Claudius without him speaking some final words to Lion-o which he'll remember all his life or something like that. Seems like the plot will involve Lion-o and Tygra running away, maybe to wait for some time, or to find some artifact or something to come back and rescue the cats one day. Jaga seems to have taken a role of a sorceror of sorts for the thundercats.
Finally we get to see the new and a much younger cheetara like the rest of the gang, and with her same extendable staff and super speed. Tygra is showcased some more, and we see he still has his old bolo-whip with invisibility too. I guess they made the invisibility process better this time around. I always used to wonder how could he move if he always ties himself up to be invisible.
Finally, we get to see mumm-ra unleashing his usual red lightning on the cats. Wonder if Lion-o would now be going, who's the bitch now?. And with the ending note, it was great to see the original tune of the thundercats still being there.
Let's hope this will be a great and exciting season to watch all over again.