No, that isn’t a Thundercats reference in Turning Red

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 Red At the moment where the main character grabs a sword that has an incredibly familiar look, the blade is centred on the large circular red stone in the crossguard. This moment becomes even more familiar as the character raising the sword to his head. The red circular stone on the crossguard emits light and the blade glows. 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 The Turning of the RedDirector Domee Shi said that any similarities between the two are due to their differences. ThundercatsAnd The Turning of the RedYou can draw inspiration from the same iconography and influence. “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 VeryReminiscent 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.

Image: Pixar Animation Studios

“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, emotional, exciting, dramatic moment, and it just felt like a perfect opportunity to have that epic beam of light. It works perfectly on the beat. It’s very satisfying.”

The light-beam also doesn’t look quite like anything else in The Turning of the RedBecause it uses flat 2D overlays that enhance 3D CGI throughout the movie, The look was created by Rob Thompson, Pixar’s animator. “They were drawing over all this in all the proofs [of this scene], over the beams, trying to really put that element of 2D onto it,” Collins says. “That was really fun.”

Shi says that part of what gave her the confidence to stylize the movie the way she wanted, and to draw on her anime favorites for inspiration, was her work on 2019’s Pixar project Bao. It won the Academy Award in Best Animated Short. Bao sparked some strange reactions in theaters from viewers who didn’t understand its symbolism or significance, but it got a strong, vocal positive response as well. When Shi decided to create, she drew from both those reactions. The Turning of the Red Culturally and individually specific. Knowing that different people will see it differently and interpret it differently, it would be powerful to have an impact on their lives.

“BaoThis gave me the confidence and strength to take it forward The Turning of the Red, and really take a lot of creative risks that I don’t think I would have taken without Bao,” Shi says. “It gave me that craving of wanting reactions — big, big, shocking audience reactions. I was chasing that dragon again, and we’ve been able to get it with The Turning of the Red.”