Masters of the Universe: Revelation (new cartoon)

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I watched Revelation recently and enjoyed it. In fact, I think it was as good as the original He-Man and better than the New Adventures of he-Man with the dancing Skeletor.
 
So I was watching the new He-Man and the Masters of the Universe on Netflix with my son. I have to say, it’s pretty good. It’s definitely aimed at kids (which it should be) but it’s solid.

It’s a much more coherent take on the material.
 
Yeah, I'm enjoying HeMan and the ridiculously distorted proportions too. I think it's pretty well done. It's a pure re-envisioning but there's nothing wrong with that. It knows what it's trying to be and does it well.
 
Welp, watched the final 5? Episodes of Revelation.

It took a bit again for me to adjust to Skeletor's voice being all wrong and Teela not looking anything like Teela, but once I got over that hurdle....it was perfectly mediocre, just like what came before.

He-Man turns into The Incredible Hulk for an episode, which seemed like it was going to be interesting, but turned out to out be a Deus Ex Machina and some time-filler with no real consequences.

Evil Lynn turns out to be the Big Bad for the series, relegating Skeletor, like He-Man, to a secondary character, There's one point where he and He-Man start to fight in the final episode, but instead of being this grand final battle, He-Man deflates the whole thing by saying "You don't get it, this isn't about us" and I responded outloud to the screen "Yeah, we get that, we've gotten that from the beginning".

Teela vs Evil Lynn turns out to be the main conflict, and there's some pseudo-philosophy shoved in that is pretty much hollow posturing.

I think what it comes down to is just that Kevin Smith simply isn't a good writer. He's not a bad writer, the series isn't bad - it's simply not good either. It's....forgettable.
 
A part of me believes that diehard fans of a franchise should not actually touch the franchise.

I can see the merit in that. On the other hand I’m going through the modern Destroyer novels, and the plot involves one of the characters dismissing something as impossible that was the entire plot of one of the most popular of the early books (based on reprinting and it being one of the few stories adapted to comics). It also keeps referencing a character who was in the series for decades as if it’s still the early part of her character arc, and if memory serves she died in her last appearance in the series.

Sometimes it’s good to have a fanboy on staff for continuity.
 
Kevin Smith isn't a good writer. He's not the worst, he's got ideas and he can be a funny, witty guy. But he burned out a long time ago and his output has been bad ever since.

Not that I entirely blame him for MotU:R being the dreary dud that it is. He's not the only person involved. But it is a pretty insufferable show. My favourite scene (by which I mean the only one I can remember that wasn't a character death) was how He-Man's first death was all about Teela. Everyone else is mourning and worrying, but our new protagonist is whining she wasn't in the loop, strops off and goes to get her millenial hiarcut.

Oh yeah, I'm rooting for her.
 
Kevin Smith isn't a good writer. He's not the worst, he's got ideas and he can be a funny, witty guy. But he burned out a long time ago and his output has been bad ever since.

Not that I entirely blame him for MotU:R being the dreary dud that it is. He's not the only person involved. But it is a pretty insufferable show. My favourite scene (by which I mean the only one I can remember that wasn't a character death) was how He-Man's first death was all about Teela. Everyone else is mourning and worrying, but our new protagonist is whining she wasn't in the loop, strops off and goes to get her millenial hiarcut.

Oh yeah, I'm rooting for her.

Oh yeah, they never resolve that plot thread, Teela just instantly gets over it once it's no longer convenient for the plot.
 
I watched it recently. I knew of the show as a kid, but it wasn't on TV here. It was grand, hard to know what the characters were talking about at times. The fights were very Dragonball in places!
 
It was goodish. It didn't make up for the horrific character assassinations of the first part-- not by a long shot-- but there were some awesome moments and it made its way back to a workable and recognizable status quo.

This isn't the franchise I've known and loved since we were both in our infancy-- but it's still a MOTU-shaped thing that services the MOTU-shaped need in my life.

Best hope is that it does well enough to convince someone else there's a market for more MOTU-shaped things.
 
I will say that having Tony Todd as th voice of Scare-Glow was cool. Not good enough it covered for that episode making no sense at all, but of all the new voice cast, his was the only one I thought was a big plus.
 
The biggest problem I have with it how good it could have been. Powerhouse Animation is one of the best on the market, and they were wasted here.

The only reason Smith was ever brought on board was because he could bring most of the cast they wanted to voice for cheap, as he's actually friends with most of them.

The story makes no sense (As I pointed in previous posts), the characters, even without the half-assed MoTU slathering of paint aren't remotely believable. What did Smith think this was his Clerk's movies? I mean, sure, he's great at the Feelings in Hallways type dialog that the CW loves to make their superhero shows about, but he definitely can't do heroic characters.

Worse, the show expects the audience to have a knowledge of the lore, but then disrupts it better than Rian Johnson could ever hope to do on his best day.
 
I guess I'm the odd one out as I enjoyed it and it hit the beats I expected based on elements in the past (Teela being the daughter of the Sorceress), it covers why Skeletor's motivation is flaky at best and magnified with more power to basically focus his failings all on He-man. I mean sure He-man foiled him a lot, but let's be honest Skeletor messed up his own plans just as often. The only thing I didn't suspect was coming was Hulk form and Beast-Man.

I like that it tied back to a certain villain (through "Mother".) Tying that loop back into play. I liked how Beast-Man seemed to be the most rational and clear-thinking villain as that too was unexpected, but made sense, also hinting at the fact he had feelings for Evil-Lyn and pointed out her abusive relationship with Skeletor.

It's not the kid's cartoon, that's for sure. It's aimed at adults who enjoyed the cartoon, without retreading the same worn groove. Not perfect by any means, but solid show. 4 out of 5 or 7 out of 10 for me.

I particularly enjoyed the clear idea of Adam being the hero all along, and the power itself, being without that moral center more of an uncontrollable rage-filled beast than champion.


But I do agree not enough Stratos!
 
I will say that having Tony Todd as th voice of Scare-Glow was cool. Not good enough it covered for that episode making no sense at all, but of all the new voice cast, his was the only one I thought was a big plus.

Yeah, just like his cameo in the recent Candyman reboot - not enough to save the film, but I did "squee!" in fanboy a bit.
 
Also, where's Zodac? I want to know where Zodak is!


I thought exactly the same thing. If any story called for Zodac to show up, it was this one.

(he is my favourite, though, so I'm biased)

We really only got to see Ram Man once too. He was practically a main character in the original cartoon.
 
I know the show has it's fans, but it really shouldn't be hard to see why everyone isn't on board.

Kill He-Man. Twice. So we know it's not about him.
Say the show is about Teela. Make her insufferable, and an entirely different character to before. Remember to refer to it as "growth" and "an arc" when questioned.
Grim-up everything, by killing random characters, which is the proven-to-never-work tactic DC comics has floundered with for decades.
Guest star characters that really don't fit what's going on, while entirely ignoring the ones you'd expect to have a vested interest in what's happening.

As the first half of this series fades from my memory, leaving only the notable moments, I find myself just very disinterested.

Unless the second half features Scare-Glow in every episode, I'm probably never going to get around to it.
 
Was Zodak an alien from another planet or just an astronaut from Eternia?
 
Was Zodak an alien from another planet or just an astronaut from Eternia?

heh. His background is all over the place. He has like a dozen different origins.

In the Filmation cartoon at least, he was a neutral cosmic observer, kinda like Marvel's The Watcher mixed with DC's Metatron.
 
I just finished the new season of He Man and can confirm the presence of Stratos. And he's pretty funny. Really, I'm liking this show. It's bright, colorful, upbeat and fun and quite a breath of fresh air.
 
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