No, that isn’t a Thundercats reference in Turning Red (but it sure feels like one)
If you’re anything like me and you grew up during an era when there was a Thundercats series on TV, you may have perked up during the new Pixar movie Turning Redat the point where one character picks up a sword with a very familiar-looking design, centering on a big red circular stone on the crossguard. Later in the film, when the same character raises the sword over his head and that gem emits a vivid red beam of light, the moment feels even more familiar. The sword looks a lot like the Thundercats’ signature weapon, the Sword of Omens, and the action in that sequence feels a lot like the sequence that ended virtually every episode of the original 1980s incarnation of the show, with series protagonist Lion-O activating the sword and emitting a giant red blast of light to summon his allies or break them free of magical influences and physical restraints.
But Turning Red director Domee Shi says any similarity there just comes from the way both Thundercats and Turning Red draw on the same influences and iconography. “That’s just a homage to anime in general, not specifically to Thundercats!” she told Polygon in an interview ahead of the film’s release. “But it is very reminiscent of Thundercats.”
Shi and her team drew from several of her favorite anime series to create the look and feel of the film, and to inspire details like the big pink poof of smoke whenever protagonist Mei turns into a giant red panda, or the giant quivering “anime eyes” the characters have in moments of intense emotion.
“Throughout the whole movie, you’re gonna see this combination of Western and Eastern animation styles,” Shi told Polygon. “At that moment, in the movie’s act three, we cranked up the anime to an 11, because it’s this action-packed,
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