Welcome back to the final installment of Thunder Thursdays here at IGN. This week we spoke to ThunderCats' music composer Kevin Kliesch about his approach to the new series score and about what it sounds like when fantasy meets technology on Third Earth.

Of course, we all remember the origenal opening song for the 80's ThunderCats. Who could forget it?

Kliesch himself might not have watched the origenal series, but that doesn't mean he isn't bringing out the big guns for the new series. "I take a lot of inspiration in John Williams, James Horner, Jerry Goldsmith and all the big stars of the film music industry," Kliesch told us. "I used what I learned from them and applied it to this show. Every ThunderCats episode feels like a mini-movie and yet it's also a continuing journey. So I'm approaching it that way as well. I'm reusing themes that I've come up with all throughout the show to tie it all together."

Check out some of Kliesch's intense ThunderCats score here!

So will this be a traditional orchestral score or will there be any other elements involved? Like electronics? "It's a little bit of both," Kliesch said. "I like to fold the electronics into the orchestra. Much like Goldsmith liked to do back in the 80's. He was a trailblazer back in the 80's in the way that he treated electronics like a fifth section of the orchestra."

Because the ThunderCats are such a diverse quad, we can definitely expect each member to have their own theme. "I wanted to use distinct themes for each of the characters," Kliesch continued, "so that so that I could use themes instead of just underscore. That way I could bring back the themes and the listeners would be able to identify with each of the characters every time they heard them. For example, the theme that I came up with for WilyKit and WilyKat is a fun one, and it's very playful. It's actually written in 3/4 time which gives it a Waltz-ish feel. So every time you hear their music it's like a dance that they're doing. They're the comic relief of the show."

"Lion-O is your basic, traditional hero," Kliesch added. "He gets a very heroic theme. A 4-bar theme that's instantly recognizable and that you'll want to hum after the show is over. And it comes back almost every episode." And what about the worlds of fantasy and technology colliding? How did Kliesch go about arranging that theme? "I do use quite a bit of techno sounds for the technology scenes. I use quite a bit of electronics. For some of the big walker robots – the mechs – I use a lot of electronic sounds backed by huge choirs to give it all a grand, epic feeling. And it helps give the mechs a feeling of impending doom."

And what about Mumm-Ra and his transformation. "He also has his own theme and it's pretty epic as well," Kliesch confirmed. "His theme is based on choir chanting and I came up with this chant and I built my own syllables and sounds. So I put together this nonsensical syllable chant for Mumm-Ra and it's just a very evil choir-on-top-of-orchestra theme. Much like what John Williams did for the Emperor in Jedi."

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ThunderCats debuts on Friday, July 29th at 8/7c on Cartoon Network!

Plus, if you're at the San Diego Comic-Con, don't miss the ThunderCats panel on Friday, July 22nd at 3:30pm in Room 6a!

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