TheLittleSongbird I remembered loving Silverhawks when I was a child. At 20, I still love the show. True, the heroes are not always well drawn and there is some cheesy writing, but aside from that it is a great underrated show that doesn't deserve the flack it's gotten. Thundercats to me is the superior show, but Silverhawks I do not consider a rip-off at all, there is a difference between being a rip-off and having something that is conceptually similar and from the same company of which Silverhawks falls into the latter category. The animation is detailed and vividly atmospheric. What's more it does still hold up. The scoring matches the mood of each scene and episode with no problem at all, and the theme song is one of the coolest of any animated show from the 80s. The writing has some cheesy moments, but there is a campy charm and fun and thoughtful moments that is difficult to resist. The story lines are engrossing and well-thought out with some exciting action and heartfelt emotion. Say what you will about Silverhawks having bad science, but people are always going to say that Silverhawks has never tried to be a science-fiction documentary but a piece of escapism and should be seen as that, and actually I do have to agree. I know I have often complained of bad science in the Sci-Fi/SyFy channel movies, but unlike with Silverhawks these were stupid scientific errors that didn't hold water for a second and the movies on their own terms were not entertaining and had no excuse to not be. The characters are good, Tallyhawk is the best characters of the heroes, who are likable at least but not as well-sketched, but the heroes are outshone by the villains, who are interesting and wholly original. The voice acting is great, especially from Earl Hammond and Peter Newman. Summing up, a great show and very underrated and misjudged in my personal opinion. 9/10 Bethany Cox

phoenix2rachelsummers Okay, first the little matter that the producers of "Thundercats" ripped off their own show by doing a space opera version called "Silverhawks" - I grew up outside the States, in Ecuador, and "Silverhawks" was actually shown there before "Thundercats!" So I've never had that issue.And why can't "Silverhawks" simply be judged on its own merits? The science may have been wildly inaccurate, but that's why it's called Science FICTION!! Just shut your mind off and enjoy. I certainly had no problem doing it, with all the brightly colored characters against backgrounds of futuristic buildings and machines and black skies with shimmering stars.Most of all, "Silverhawks" had GREAT villains. Their leader, Monstar, may have been a Mumm-Ra ripoff, but I think his ritual transformation was way creepier than Mumm-Ra's. Instead of getting all muscular and bursting out of a cloak and bandages, Monstar would burst out of his own SKIN, and come out looking like some kind of cyborg-demon! And Monstar's underlings were a memorable bunch: his ridiculously obedient sidekick, a chimp/snake named Yes-Man; Hardware, the troll with a backpack full of gadgets; Windjammer, with his long blonde hair and gaunt face and weather-control staff; Mumbo-Jumbo, a minotaur on steroids; Buzzsaw, a robot with built-in blades; Molecular, the shape shifter; Pokerface, the lounge lizard/walking slot machine; Time-Stopper, a teenage brat with a clock on his chest which could manipulate time; Melodia, the Queen of Rock with a (literally) killer guitar.That was something else special about Silverhawks: the villains were so much cooler than the smug, boring heroes. Even though they always lost in the end, it was almost subversive that a cartoon could have young viewers (or, at least this young viewer) rooting for the villains. It was very cathartic, a healthy way of embracing one's dark side without doing other people harm.Silverhawks was a great show, it deserves much more respect than it gets. I'm hoping this might be remedied during its 20th anniversary in 2006.

Nic_hse I feel like I'm repeating myself with these comments. Silverhawks has every flaw that Thundercats had and more. This show was bad enough to insult a child's intelligence. I'll try to make this quick. SILVER HAWKS USED THE SAME VOICE ACTORS AS THE THUNDERCATS:SilverHawks has almost all the same voice actors from the Thundercats. That's not a good thing. The Silverhawks main villain "Monstar the Planet Master" is voiced by the same actor who voiced Thundercat's main villain "Mumm-ra the Ever Living". The two names look very similar don't they? This is made even worse by the fact that Monstar and Mummra both say a similar chant to transform from their weaker forms to a more powerful one. Mummra's chant was "Ancient spirits of evil, transform this decayed form to Mumm-ra the Ever Living!". Monstar's chant was "Moon star of Limbo Transform this ********** into Monstar the Planet Master!". No attempt was made to make Monstar sound any different from Mumm-ra. This is a big deal when you consider that both Silverhawks and Thundercats were shown back to back in 1986 on weekday afternoons. Talk about a lack of creativity. THE PLOT WAS WEAK AND THE CHARACTERS WERE SILLY JUST LIKE THUNDERCATS:The strongest plot this series ever managed to come up with was when the Silverhawk Hotwing came from the future. After the storyline finished however they didn't put him to any good use. The series didn't seem to know whether it was trying to be serious or funny. The characters were equally as silly as the plots. They had silly names like Zeak the Beak, Seymour the space cabbie, Mumbo Jumbo, and Poker Face. Their gimmicks were just as dumb as their names. Bottomline the characters were terrible.INCONSISTENT ANIMATION QUALITY:Just like Thundercats, Silverhawks animation varied greatly with each episode, The animation in the intro is an example of when the animation is good. The animation quality can be really rough with some episodes and the Silverhawks almost look fat sometimes. Really bad.BOTTOMLINE:Bottomline is the Silverhawks is a shameless, cheap ripoff of the Thundercats and little effort was made to avoid it. Thundercats wasn't a good series either. An inferior copy of an inferior show. You can't get much lower than that.

formula44xxx This Thundercats-ish cartoon takes that show's style to space. Although it has decent heroes, the villains are the draw in this one. This would be great for a big budget live action film, considering it has more style than substance going for it. Still, the villains are original enough and the clashes between them and the bird-theme-armored heroes exciting enough to make this a better-than-average entry.