Masters of the Universe: Revelation

[batson]

So what do we think of it?

First of all, I fundamentally disagree with what appears to have been a basic idea behind this show; to make a He-man show in part aimed at people who dislike He-man. A show where the actual main draw of the franchise, He-man himself, is downplayed as much as possible. You know that this is the case. Someone over at the studio were like "Gee, a masculine muscular man named He-man who is explicitly decipted as the most powerful and important person in existence... yeah no, that's problematic" and so they went to town trying to "fix" this "problem". To me that is just as stupid as if they were to make a new Harry Potter movie where they try to downplay magic as much as possible in order to try to appeal to christians.

But with that out of the way, I say it's a pretty interesting show. I love the current trend in traditionally child oriented franchises to make new installments specifically aimed at the original generation of kids who consumed the original media and are now adults. I was one of those kids who grew up with the original He-man cartoon (through VHS tapes in the late 80's-early 90's), and the fact that this new show is set in the same continuity as the original show as opposed to being a reboot (unlike for instance the 2002 He-man cartoon) makes the show hit different. The original cartoon was such an innocent and optimistic show where the good guy's victory over evil was guaranteed, and the idea of anyone dying was unthinkable. With this new show, it's as if the world of He-man has grown up along with it's audience, and is now a messy place filled with defeat, grief and moral ambiguity. One thing in Revelations that hit me especially hard was

Spoiler

Orko dying. Orko was one of my absolute favorite childhood characters, in all of media. And he was the most innocent character in the franchise. Him dying, and the other characters having a funeral for him was a bit like watching a part of my childhood die. To you of the younger generation who maybe didn't grow up with this franchise, let me put it this way: I felt the same way seeing Orko die as you would if they made a mature sequel to the Pokémon anime where Pikachu dies, and Ash and the gang have a funeral for him with a little gravestone and everything. Pretty instense right?

All in all, I'd say Revelation's is a pretty good show. the animation looks good, they've kept the toy-etic color composition of the 80's cartoon, and the scripts are fine. And man, the cliffhanger at the end of the last episode. That one got me hooked on seeing a second season alright.

[MetalSkulkBane]

Oh He-man.  Quick though on all the previous versions

Spoiler

-The original show was... well, early 80s cartoon with 130 episodes. That means it aged. It has charm and a lot of creativity, but my god how much of it recycled plots and animation. It has great moments (Dragon's Gift easily best episode) in sea of 80s mediocrity. Same goes for 80s She-Ra
-Still, "New Adventures" had better animation and none of the charm, so no one remembers it. Only Skeletor was kinda fun, if quite different from original.
- 2002 Toonami He-man was just kinda okay. Some really nice animation, but wasn't neither cheezy fun or complex dark, so in the end felt a little dry.
- Life Action movie was... not great to be generous.
- And DC comics were super dark, super serious, kinda going too far. But I did really like "Masters of the Multiverse" mini-series, crossover of all the He-Men.
- And of course the best, truly great part of this whole franchise is Netflix She-ra Reboot. I wasn't sold with first season, but show only got better and better. Lovable characters, humor, gut twisting drama and amazing redesign, especially considering what they were working with.

As for Revelation, it's just fine. Sometimes it's close to being really good, but never quite reaches there

It's quite pretty, even if I don't love most of the designs. Take Evil-Lynn. Rule of thumb for me: if for years character was wearing single color (purple), then fully changing it (to blue) will feel off.

As for plot... new status quot was quite interesting, I don't think I seen it often and it fits Ethernia. I like that old favorites were mixed with more obscure characters like Scare Glow or Stinkor.  And there was surprising amount of tight continuity with cartoon, like Teela naming Cringer or Orko's pyramid in the background, etc.

My real biggest problem? Every one is stupidly over emotional. The world is literally ending, Teela at least 3 times wants to put her own grudges over you know, not dying with everything she loves and cares. She's kinda the main protagonist of this series, but I don't like her at all. And while there are many other characters, most of them don't get enough screen time to make me care. There is this new black chick and I can't even remember her name. Is it Jacqui Briggs?

My favorite moments

Spoiler

Overall Orko's story if pretty good. It kinda clashes with continuity, when he was considered a great hero in his home, with loving uncle and girfriend. But if you can ignore that it's a kinda touching.

Scar Glow was pretty cool.

Roboto's death was thiiiiis close to being very sad.

Ignoring my problem above, the core conflict is interesting. Teela feels betrayed that Adam never trusted her and she fears she never really knew him. But as his form in Pre-eternia shows, Adam was the real him.... again, technically "Adam" was lazy self centered coward, but let's not overthink this.

 

[Baldymcnosehair1999]

I thought She Ra was the girl power series. I really am just meh overall on it. Loved Mark Hamals skeltor, but hated that misleading trailer.

 

But, what did I expect from woke 2021? Make a fathful adaption of a series with 'he' and 'man' in the name?

 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

On 7/25/2021 at 4:03 AM, batson said:

So what do we think of it?

First of all, I fundamentally disagree with what appears to have been a basic idea behind this show; to make a He-man show in part aimed at people who dislike He-man. A show where the actual main draw of the franchise, He-man himself, is downplayed as much as possible. You know that this is the case. Someone over at the studio were like "Gee, a masculine muscular man named He-man who is explicitly decipted as the most powerful and important person in existence... yeah no, that's problematic" and so they went to town trying to "fix" this "problem". To me that is just as stupid as if they were to make a new Harry Potter movie where they try to downplay magic as much as possible in order to try to appeal to christians.

In all fairness, I never really liked the He-man show growing up, so I can’t say aiming it towards folks who don’t like the franchise is a bad idea on paper.

Now if it required downplaying the main character, yeah that’s problematic—my issues were really just I wasn’t that interested compared to other shows like Thundercats or Silverhawks, not that the franchise sucked. Just a personal taste thing.

But let’s just say when I saw the trailer of the new He-man, I was sold on the animation. I don’t know, but it just seems like good artstyle has a way of hooking me on even the franchises that I cared the least for. Haven’t seen it yet, but I’ve been looking back into old shows anyway, so this might be the thing that makes me look into the franchise more vintage series.