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Memo to Hollywood: Not ALL 80s Cartoons Need to Become Movies

Posted on 25 June 2009

Tags: Cartoons, G.I. Joe, He-man, Opinion, television, Thundercats, Transformers

So here’s the thing. When I was a kid, I would go on and on about how there needed to be a movie version of Thundercats. I felt that the world as we know it would not be complete until Lion-O and the gang came to the screen in a full-blown, effects-laden mega-blockbuster, a la Jurassic Park or Independence Day.

(Yes, those references are dated. I was a kid.)

The point is, life wouldn’t have true meaning until we could see up there, in celluloid, the strength of Panthro, the speed of Cheetara, the disappearing act of Tigra, and the cunning of Wily-Kat and Wily-Kit … oh, and Lion-O’s stuff, too.

In my head it would have looked something like this:

Then one night, when I was in college, the RAs in my hall thought it would be fun to throw an anti-drinking party and show episodes of Thundercats for a fun night of nostalgia, sans underage booze-hounding. I goaded some friends of mine to attend, being desperate to bask once again in the glory of Thundercats. (We may have drank after.)

In the hours leading up to the showing, I reminisced about the deep, dense mythology surrounding the feline heroes: their expulsion from their native planet of Thundera; the death of their leader, Jaga; Lion-O’s tragedy of aging physically while being dormant, thus missing out on the formative years of his life.

It was like Hamlet with cat-people.

Then I watched a few episodes. Um, yeah. Not really that deep.

The reason why many people my age went gaga for the likes of Thundercats, G.I. Joe, He-Man, and, of course, Transformers, is one simple reason: children are easy to impress.

But in truth, the source material has all the depth of a bit of spittle drooled onto one’s shirt. These stories were meant to entertain kids, not adults, which is a strange thing, considering the demographic they’re trying to reach with the Transformers movie is men between 18 and 35.

Do kids younger than me really care about Transformers? By the time they were cognizant enough to watch cartoons, the world had moved on to Doug.

Terrifyingly, I’m now of the same age as the guys in charge of green-lighting what movies are made. (On the younger side of the scale, mind you. Like, REALLY younger side of the scale, okay? But still.)

And what’s happening is that those studio execs are banking on the same nostalgia that drove me to watch episodes of Thundercats and waste some perfectly good beer-time.

I first felt the sting of this grown-uppedness some years ago when I watched a commercial for 1-800-COLLECT. (Remember that?) The two characters featured in this particular ad were bastions of 80s cheese: Hulk Hogan and Alf. I realized that they were targeting my age bracket with a healthy dose of nostalgia.

Transformers has come upon us, and now we are faced with its inevitable sequel, because these days, a movie isn’t a success unless it’s part of a franchise.

It’s all about franchises.

And the first of what’s surely planned to be the G.I. Joe franchise will be hitting theaters before long. For anyone who’s seen the trailer, it looks like your standard lots-of-things-blowing-up and a-few-half-hearted-fistfights actioner.

A He-man film has been in the works for a while, although it seems stuck in development hell. (IMDB, however, has a listing for a film called Grayskull, and even a year of release — 2011. This will apparently have no connection to the Dolph Lundgren He-man film.) Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was, for a time, rumored to be playing the lead.

He-man is another show best left to the halls of your memory. He-man, is of course, the secret identity of Prince Adam of Eternia. How no one realizes they’re the same person is beyond me, seeing as how they look exactly the same, and no masks are involved. To become He-man, Adam just does some wonky spell with his sword to make all of his clothes disappear, which means he is now He-man.

That’s not a super-hero transformation. That’s just streaking.

And yes, a new Thundercats movie is coming, allegedly due out next year. Unlike the other cartoon-to-movies jump, however, it will be CG. No doubt some Gollum-esque motion capture will be employed. Not sure I like the sound of this, though. I mean, did you see Beowulf? Yikes.

It seems that only more 80s-cartoon properties will chug along to the big screen. What saddens me most is the lack of imagination involved in any of these projects.

On the other hand, I can’t wait for the big screen, epic adapatation of the Smurfs.