Over the years, fans have requested a reboot or remake of the popular action-fantasy ’80s show ThunderCats. Although Cartoon Network revived the franchise with the comedic ThunderCats Roar, older nostalgic viewers weren’t impressed with the art style and the direction of the show.
Then there were also talks of a live-action film brewing, with many fans voting for their favourite stars to play Cheetara, Lion-O, Tygra, and Panthro. Sadly, that never came to fruition.
One diehard fan, however, took matters into his own hands and recreated the opening of the original ThunderCats series using CGI. Set to the theme song of the original show, Mike Booth’s stunning credit sequence features glorious 3D animation and brings the characters to life.
“Earlier this year, I thought I’d have a go at learning how to use 3D animation software, really just so I could do some simple effects in my films,” Booth stated in the description of the video on his official Youtube channel. “[B]ut I got a little bit carried away.”
“The ThunderCats have been a love of mine since I can remember and the intro is something I thought would be a fun challenge to recreate and keep my interest while I was learning the software,” he continued. “I’ve got no plans to make anything else like this… for a few years, at least. I will at some point make a ThunderCats short film, making use of some of the years of notes I’ve kept for a feature trilogy, but I’ll wait until the software reaches a point where I can film a performance on my camera and just drag and drop it onto my 3D characters.”
Let’s hope someone out there is watching because this is really impressive work.
The original ThunderCats series which aired in the ’80s followed the adventures of cat-like humanoid alien beings called the ThunderCats. Abandoning their dying homeworld, the group travels to a planet called Third Earth, where they encounter a mummified sorcerer known as Mumm-Ra.