Masters of the Universe: Revelation

[hamishspence]

I think I had some of the He-Man books back then, but can't remember which ones. And at least one vinyl record that was just a condensed episode reading.

There were 8 (not counting the Choose Your Own Adventure one):

A Trap for He-Man
Castle Grayskull under Attack!
He-Man and the Asteroid of Doom
He-Man and the Lost Dragon
He-Man Meets the Beast
Skeletor's Ice Attack
The Iron Master
Wings of Doom

[Clertar]

After the initial teaser, here we have the first trailer:

Spoiler

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[Giggling Ghast]

Hmmm. Less exciting than the first trailer. I had a feeling that Sarah Michelle Gellar wouldn't sound right as Teela, and my suspicions were correct.

Still, I'm interested in seeing the show.

[JoshL]

I don't expect I'll like this as much as the She-Ra series, but then, I never did even as a kid. I did love the MOTU comics as a kid though (Star Comics was my favorite imprint, also a big fan of the Ewoks series)

That said I feel a stupid satisfaction in that Prince Adam gets a proper transformation, rather than just Clark Kent-ing his way through the show. That irritated me as a kid...I mean, how did they not KNOW?

[Dire_Flumph]

That said I feel a stupid satisfaction in that Prince Adam gets a proper transformation, rather than just Clark Kent-ing his way through the show. That irritated me as a kid...I mean, how did they not KNOW?

Well, to be fair, they all have that exact body type so it's more of a "Huh, you ever notice how Prince Adam has He-Man's hair color?"

[Trafalgar]

(bolding mine) This was the sole purpose of this and many other cartoons including Transformers, where the cast of characters changed between seasons depending on the new toy line.

But what was awesome about Transformers is that they actually killed off the characters in the old toy line.

[Wraith]

The vibe that I'm getting from the trailer is that a lot of the He-Man centric scenes look like they're happening in flashback. Eternia is supposed to be dying off and going all Mad Max, but in most of the scenes where we see him there's a lot of greenery, and Teela is still wearing her white costume. Total guess, I know it's not enough to go on from 2 minutes of quick-cut out takes, but that makes me think he disappeared when his sword broke and since then Teela has been on her own growing more jaded and the likes.

I'm making all this up from 2 minutes of out takes, of course, so I'm almost certainly wrong.... But between that, the "Teela gets a much bigger role" discussion in the previous pages of this thread, and comparison to other recently rebooted shows that took several episodes for the titular character to return to form - like Samurai Jack, for example - I am slightly worried that He-Man might not be in his own show very much!

[Callos_DeTerran]

Yeah...everything I've heard about this particular show from Kevin Smith and other sources have done a pretty excellent job of convincing me this show isn't actually about He-Man, its about Teela. And new Teela neither seems interesting or makes me want t watch the show.


Which sucks ass, cause I loved the 2002 cartoon to bits, especially the first episodes which stand out in my memory when they first aired on Toonami. Still, this feels more and more like its going to go the way of She-Ra and not 2002 He-Man, so I'mma wait until I see some reviews before giving it a chance. Hoping for the best though.

[Lord Vukodlak]

The vibe that I'm getting from the trailer is that a lot of the He-Man centric scenes look like they're happening in flashback. Eternia is supposed to be dying off and going all Mad Max, but in most of the scenes where we see him there's a lot of greenery, and Teela is still wearing her white costume. Total guess, I know it's not enough to go on from 2 minutes of quick-cut out takes, but that makes me think he disappeared when his sword broke and since then Teela has been on her own growing more jaded and the likes.

I'm making all this up from 2 minutes of out takes, of course, so I'm almost certainly wrong.... But between that, the "Teela gets a much bigger role" discussion in the previous pages of this thread, and comparison to other recently rebooted shows that took several episodes for the titular character to return to form - like Samurai Jack, for example - I am slightly worried that He-Man might not be in his own show very much!

Half of Eterina was always Mad Max looking. Any of the area around Snake Mountain.

[GloatingSwine]

Half of Eterina was always Mad Max looking. Any of the area around Snake Mountain.

Most of Eternia was reused backgrounds from Star Trek The Animated Series....

[Lord Vukodlak]

Most of Eternia was reused backgrounds from Star Trek The Animated Series....

And your point? That established geographical detail was maintained in the 2002 series and other spin-offs of comics and live action films.

[Callos_DeTerran]

So the show is finally out and after looking at some spoiler-free reviews it looks...utterly disheartening. Anyone watch it here who could give an opinion on it? The show looks pretty, if nothing else, but everything I've heard can be summed up as 'a He-Man show that lacks strong male characters...and also He-man' or 'its a Teela show advertised as a He-Man show' and I want a gauge from less biased folk (any direction) on how true that is.

[GloatingSwine]

So the show is finally out and after looking at some spoiler-free reviews it looks...utterly disheartening. Anyone watch it here who could give an opinion on it? The show looks pretty, if nothing else, but everything I've heard can be summed up as 'a He-Man show that lacks strong male characters...and also He-man' or 'its a Teela show advertised as a He-Man show' and I want a gauge from less biased folk (any direction) on how true that is.

If you've seen the netflix Castlevania show, think of what they've released like the first part they released of that. It's the "putting the band together and establishing the stakes" bit of the show.

[JoshL]

I absolutely loved it, and can't wait for part 2! The opening hits the tone of the original series, and then goes off in different directions.

To your questions and a less biased source, "Teela show advertised as a He-Man show" is pretty fair for this first part (which is probably why it's called Masters of the Universe, and not He-Man, but I digress). But to say it has no strong male characters, well, I wouldn't say that at all. All of the characters have more depth and complexity than I was expecting, or frankly, than the show actually needed. I mean, the original wasn't exactly a Bergman film. Hard to comment more on that without getting forum-inappropriate, but all I can say is the RT critical rating of 94% is probably closer than the review bombed audience score of 25%. If you just want to see He-Man punch things, maybe wait to see how part 2 turns out, but if you're interested in the world and want to watch a fantasy/science-fantasy show, it's very well done with a few really good turns and surprises.

[Lemmy]

As it turns out, the rumors were all true and Kevin Smith shamelessly lied... After spending two years attacking a couple youtubers who merely commented on a rumor (which turned out to be true, despite KS' angry replies).

Animation and art are great, but other than that...

Gods! This thing is awful!! It's a mean-spirited "deconstruction" of He-Man clearly written by people who couldn't care less about the franchise. Teela does indeed sideline He-Man... And she's a whiny unlikable B. They go so far as to show that the Castle of Gresykull is fake.

Watched a couple episodes, decided to never ever even think about it again.

Of course, the general negative audience review is already being labeled as "review bomb", but as is the case nearly every time... It's far more accurate than the critic reviews.

[ecarden]

Not bad, not great. I watched it all the way through.

Spoiler: He-Man

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I wasn't a big fan, so I wasn't terribly hurt by it, but the narrative basically starts with He-Man dying and Part 1 appears to end with him at least badly injured and maybe dead. He appears in flashbacks occasionally in the other episodes.

Spoiler: Tone

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This didn't really work for me. It wasn't quite grimdark, but there were a lot of casualties and not all that much weigh placed on them.

Spoiler: Teela

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So, her narrative arc basically works, though they're foreshadowing that she's Sorceress's daughter and has major magical powers fairly hard. However, at least to me, several things didn't quite work. One, her relationship with her adoptive father explodes after He-Man's death, as he knew that Adam was He-Man and kept it from her. This sort of works because everyone is very upset. But then several years past and she never gets over it and he makes no attempt to contact her? That wasn't great for me.

Second, I couldn't tell when she figured out that the mysterious employer was Evil-Lyn. It was clearly before she transformed back as they wanted the awesome 'you didn't trick me' moment, but since I can't tell when she figured it out, it sort of read to me like she was fine working for Evil-Lyn (the woman who helped Skeletor kill He-Man) until suddenly she wasn't.

Building on that, the creepy techno-cult guys were clearly supposed to be evil and so it was supposed to be fine that Teela breaks in and steals their creepy nano-tech cup, but everything evil we see them do follows that action? Up until that point, they're creepy, but the only thing we see is them accepting a volunteer and giving him creepy cybernetics (and his daughter too). I mean, for a show that's trying to go for depth, I sort of hoped someone would point out that they'd just broken into a place people were living, broke up a creepy (but voluntary) religious ritual and stole a religious artifact on the word of Evil-Lyn (though they may not have known that at the time). I was also hoping someone would point out that the cult we're clearly supposed to see as evil (and which will engage in evil activity in future, but they clearly don't know that as they're confused by who they are, so it's not like they know they're raiders or something) shares exactly the same philosophy as Teela at this point? But it's never mentioned again.

Spoiler: King

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Man-at-Arms is banished for keeping Adam's identity from the King (Adam's father) which actually makes perfect sense. Perhaps this is explained somewhere in the past and I just didn't watch it, but why exactly is the King not aware that Adam is He-Man, when his wife and what appears to be one of his senior commanders is?

Also, after Teela quits (which honestly is fine, though the person I'd have thought she felt most sympathy towards and connection with is the jerk king who was also deceived by his closest friends and wife) and Man-At-Arms runs off and He-Man dies...is the kingdom just gone? There's no sign of it thereafter. If so, that's...pretty dark to be honest that Teela abandons them to that and breaks what I would have thought were some sort of oaths to her King who is one of a tiny handful of people who has not kept things from her.

Held my attention while I was watching it, mostly, but not sure if I'll remember to come back if/when the next part comes out. For the folks who care about such things, yeah, this is definitely the Teela and the gang show, occasionally guest starring He-Man.

[Dr.Samurai]

Just watched the first episode...

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The He-Man sacrifice was pretty awesome.

If Teela is really the main character, that's unfortunate, because she's basically a stock entitled annoying character, which is par for the course of a lot of media these days. The show starts off telling us how accomplished she is in technology, strategy, and combat. Ok, no problem, thanks for expositing that as opposed to, I don't know, showing that to us throughout the various episodes in interesting ways. Then Adam makes a point about preparedness and the unknown, and Teela is basically like "this day could not have come any faster, I deserve this, and your dad's wisdom doesn't apply to me because I know everything". Okay, this is leading up to the titular "revelation" but she just comes across as annoying and entitled; my guess is that this is not setting her up for growth because writers these days think protagonists should be entitled, but maybe there is an arc here. Finally, we have the big sacrifice, and Teela cannot even afford herself a single ounce of sadness or sorrow at the death of He-Man and Adam. She is purely angry that a secret was kept from her. It is totally about her and she throws a tirade and stomps off like a child.

All in all, she doesn't come across as a heroic person which, again, is pretty normal these days for protagonists unfortunately. I'll keep watching to see if things change but not looking forward to the edgy main character with a chip on their shoulder so we'll see how it goes. I am hoping that He-Man returns of course, but I've already read that he is killed twice? Lol, not sure why that's necessary to the plot but I'm sure I'll find out soon enough and it still won't be worth it :).

One thing I'll say is that it's too bad these episodes are so short because I would have liked to see how Skeletor unlocked the secrets of the castle after all this time. Instead this feels a little like "we need to get He-Man and Skeletor out of the picture right off the jump so let's create some lore...". I also would have like to have seen a longer scene in the throne room between the king and queen and Teela and Duncan. There's a lot to unpack there but it was sort of quick to establish Teela and Duncan being on the outs.

[Giggling Ghast]

I can’t say I hated it, but I sure didn’t like it.

The action scenes felt weirdly lifeless, the quips were cringy and clashed with the tone they were going for, Teela was a poor replacement for the lead character and I overall didn’t care for the story.

Probably won’t watch Part 2, if there is one.

[Sholos]

First episode ending thoughts

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It seemed weird to me how mad the king was at everyone and the immediate move to banish them all just seems overly harsh. Except his wife, of course, who did the same thing he's mad at the rest of them for. Teela's outburst also seemed an overreaction. It wasn't anyone's secret besides Adam's to divulge. If she wants to be mad at him, fine, but she doesn't really have a right to be mad at the others. And I find it absurd that she's mad at the king who didn't even know!

[Dragonus45]

Of course, the general negative audience review is already being labeled as "review bomb", but as is the case nearly every time... It's far more accurate than the critic reviews.

Well yea, us plebian masses have no right such uninformed opinions as "not liking" something that's bad. Who would even dare such a thing.

[Calemyr]

Been a while since I posted something here, but I wanted to do an experiment. I believe the basic structure of the series is actually sound, but the problem most people have with it is centered around Teela and you could fix a lot of it by adjusting three scenes. I'm very curious if these changes would have made the story better, worse, or actually fix it in your eyes.

Spoiler: Proposed changes (spoilers of course)

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Scene 1: Giving the king the bad news.
Teela's reaction to He-Man's death is complicated. Adam was her [expletive redacted] best [expletive redacted] friend. In the instant he died, she discovers the truth: that her best friend had been bearing a huge burden without her, smiling and joking in spite of a responsibility he knew he would never be recognized for. She's very angry, yes. At Adam and the others for keeping the secret from her, but also at herself. Besides not seeing what she now felt should have been patently obvious in hindsight, every harsh word she said to Adam, every time she dismissed him as weak or irresponsible or any of that, all of it comes back to her, and the simple fact is that she failed to protect her prince, hardly a worthy feat for the newly appointed man at arms. She quits out of heartbreak rather than anger.

Scene 2: Two Girls Chatting
Teela and Evil-lyn have their little chat about "the boys", but the tone is rather wistful rather than dismissive.

Teela readily admits that He-Man was a gigantic dork, with the immature one-liners and such, but also notes that the big guy had more heart than he had muscles. She admits (as much to herself as to Evil-lyn) that she really misses He-Man... and Adam, but that she's finding it harder to see a difference between the two as time goes on.

For her part, Evil-lyn notes that her boss changed when he learned the truth about Greyskull, how he lost the boundless optimism and quirky sense of humor that allowed him to bounce back from every defeat and kept his men focused and enthusiastic in spite of it all. She laments that she always wanted him to take their conquest seriously, but when she got what she wanted, well, Evil lost a lot of its luster, and it's a wish she wishes she could take back and not just because the death of magic is eroding everything that mattered to her.

Scene 3: He-Valhalla
When she comes face to face with Adam in the afterlife, she winds up and slaps him. Hard enough to send him reeling. As he stands up and tries to protest, she yells at him. Tears brimming in her eyes (she is not shown crying at all before this point), she yells at him for not telling her the truth, for not trusting her, for not letting her help... As Adam tries to absorb this, Teela hugs him. Fiercely. Not letting go, she tells him that she was always there for him. Always. And no minor thing like death or the end of the world as they knew it was ever going to change that.

Those are the changes I would have made. I tried to keep them as minimal as possible, to prove just how close I felt they were to something that really worked. Did I succeed?

[Dragonus45]

Been a while since I posted something here, but I wanted to do an experiment. I believe the basic structure of the series is actually sound, but the problem most people have with it is centered around Teela and you could fix a lot of it by adjusting three scenes. I'm very curious if these changes would have made the story better, worse, or actually fix it in your eyes.

Spoiler: Proposed changes (spoilers of course)

Show

Scene 1: Giving the king the bad news.
Teela's reaction to He-Man's death is complicated. Adam was her [expletive redacted] best [expletive redacted] friend. In the instant he died, she discovers the truth: that her best friend had been bearing a huge burden without her, smiling and joking in spite of a responsibility he knew he would never be recognized for. She's very angry, yes. At Adam and the others for keeping the secret from her, but also at herself. Besides not seeing what she now felt should have been patently obvious in hindsight, every harsh word she said to Adam, every time she dismissed him as weak or irresponsible or any of that, all of it comes back to her, and the simple fact is that she failed to protect her prince, hardly a worthy feat for the newly appointed man at arms. She quits out of heartbreak rather than anger.

Scene 2: Two Girls Chatting
Teela and Evil-lyn have their little chat about "the boys", but the tone is rather wistful rather than dismissive.

Teela readily admits that He-Man was a gigantic dork, with the immature one-liners and such, but also notes that the big guy had more heart than he had muscles. She admits (as much to herself as to Evil-lyn) that she really misses He-Man... and Adam, but that she's finding it harder to see a difference between the two as time goes on.

For her part, Evil-lyn notes that her boss changed when he learned the truth about Greyskull, how he lost the boundless optimism and quirky sense of humor that allowed him to bounce back from every defeat and kept his men focused and enthusiastic in spite of it all. She laments that she always wanted him to take their conquest seriously, but when she got what she wanted, well, Evil lost a lot of its luster, and it's a wish she wishes she could take back and not just because the death of magic is eroding everything that mattered to her.

Scene 3: He-Valhalla
When she comes face to face with Adam in the afterlife, she winds up and slaps him. Hard enough to send him reeling. As he stands up and tries to protest, she yells at him. Tears brimming in her eyes (she is not shown crying at all before this point), she yells at him for not telling her the truth, for not trusting her, for not letting her help... As Adam tries to absorb this, Teela hugs him. Fiercely. Not letting go, she tells him that she was always there for him. Always. And no minor thing like death or the end of the world as they knew it was ever going to change that.

Those are the changes I would have made. I tried to keep them as minimal as possible, to prove just how close I felt they were to something that really worked. Did I succeed?

Spoiler

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Not really. I post more in below but the TL;DR is that there is no saving this without aggressively modifying the plot structure. Or changing the name. One idea I did have was thinking that aside from the bad writing one of the core issues the show has is really one of marketing. You wouldn't be seeing this kind of backlash if things had been handled differently going in. But considering the god awful cliffhanger that undercut the whole damn season anyways they would have been better off advertising this season as a prequel to the one coming out later this year anyways instead of doubling down on twitter saying the show is about a character who barely ever shows up in it and you don't run into the issue of actively screwing with peoples expectations.

Scene 1 still has He Man dead, don't do that bad idea. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. The version of the story where he was alive and struggling with the loss of his power was a way better idea and for bonus points it means the plot actually has Adam/He Man present in a meaningful way before it's entire first season is over. From a character motivation stand point that still works better in general as a basis for her probably doing something similar after finding out the truth.

Scene 2, I guess that could work. Certainly much better then what we got. Not as good as me wondering what the **** is going on with Evil-lyn getting so much screen time casually chatting with Tella instead of getting punched in the face repeatedly for her part in all the terrible awful no good very bad mass death.

Scene 3, I guess I'm not sure what this is supposed to change?

[Calemyr]

Spoiler

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Not really. I post more in below but the TL;DR is that there is no saving this without aggressively modifying the plot structure. Or changing the name. One idea I did have was thinking that aside from the bad writing one of the core issues the show has is really one of marketing. You wouldn't be seeing this kind of backlash if things had been handled differently going in. But considering the god awful cliffhanger that undercut the whole damn season anyways they would have been better off advertising this season as a prequel to the one coming out later this year anyways instead of doubling down on twitter saying the show is about a character who barely ever shows up in it and you don't run into the issue of actively screwing with peoples expectations.

Scene 1 still has He Man dead, don't do that bad idea. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. The version of the story where he was alive and struggling with the loss of his power was a way better idea and for bonus points it means the plot actually has Adam/He Man present in a meaningful way before it's entire first season is over. From a character motivation stand point that still works better in general as a basis for her probably doing something similar after finding out the truth.

Scene 2, I guess that could work. Certainly much better then what we got. Not as good as me wondering what the **** is going on with Evil-lyn getting so much screen time casually chatting with Tella instead of getting punched in the face repeatedly for her part in all the terrible awful no good very bad mass death.

Scene 3, I guess I'm not sure what this is supposed to change?

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Oh, I will readily agree a full overhaul would be superior. He-man being depowered instead of killed would be a much better story, I believe. As I initially stated, however, it was an experiment to see if minimal alterations would be sufficient to make it tolerable to unsatisfied fans rather than flat-out upsetting.

As for what I'm getting at, it's all about the disrespect. Scene 1 has Teela outright scolding everyone about lying to her while everyone is mourning the death of a friend, a champion, and (in some cases) a beloved son. She doesn't care about the fact that her best friend died and instead throws a temper tantrum because they lied to her. In Scene 2, they are actively mocking the spirit of the original series. In Scene 3, she's throwing a fit because Adam dying for the entire flipping world hurt her feelings. She never actually treats the guy who is supposed to be her best friend as a non-entity rather than a person. Teela's relationship with Adam does not need to be romantic (I personally would prefer it not be), but it has to be strong. Instead she shows no regard for him at all except for how his actions effect her. It sets a tone that really sours the experience.

There are other problems, I'll grant. Teela's voice actor does not evoke the right persona for the character (as do others, like Skeletor and Merman). There is an unpleasantly transparent gender-focused overcorrection going where all the men are useless and/or killed in short order, He-Man is treated as a joke, and Skeletor is derailed. Smith wanted "Metal", but achieved it at the expense of the source material rather than elevating it. As he said himself, he saw the original show as a thing for babies.

[Divayth Fyr]

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Oh, I will readily agree a full overhaul would be superior. He-man being depowered instead of killed would be a much better story, I believe. As I initially stated, however, it was an experiment to see if minimal alterations would be sufficient to make it tolerable to unsatisfied fans rather than flat-out upsetting.

I don't think there is anything below a full-blown overhaul (or a name change I guess) that would suffice. Particularly after - so far anyway - they delivered the thing they explicitely said they aren't doing. All while treating the source material the way they did...

[Berserk Mecha]

So, I'm not very familiar with He-Man but after watching this show I have one simple question: What's the point of He-Man having a secret identity?

[GloatingSwine]

So, I'm not very familiar with He-Man but after watching this show I have one simple question: What's the point of He-Man having a secret identity?

So they could sell two different toys.

Remember that He-Man is from the golden age of the 23 minute toy commercial.

[Dienekes]

So, I'm not very familiar with He-Man but after watching this show I have one simple question: What's the point of He-Man having a secret identity?

Cheap drama, mostly.

I think it was added in the comics originally, where the writer just wanted to do a version of the Superman thing. Some nonsense about responsibilities at court not letting him be a proper champion. Ignoring the fact this is clearly supposed to be a vaguely early medieval like system where the nobility were expected to be warriors by default.

[Calemyr]

So, I'm not very familiar with He-Man but after watching this show I have one simple question: What's the point of He-Man having a secret identity?

The reason they've tried to give is because the champion (He-Man just being the latest) is a focal point for evil, they'll target those close to the champion in an attempt to harm or strongarm him. A comic apparently had He-Man go back to the era where the first champion, King Greyskull himself, existed. Greyskull didn't use a secret identity and so an interdimensional creature was driven to attack his son. Greyskull blamed himself and started the tradition. That's the in-story explanation (or at least one of them, as I bet there were a few).

In reality it was the same as any secret identity in fiction: part of the fun of watching a hero is getting to see them in an "everyday life". Being known as a super hero poisons the perceptions of those around you and relationships get strained. It's become less of a thing in modern day, where celebrity is so expected that a hero would just be another kind, but in days gone by it was much harder to imagine someone being able to handle 24/7 celebrity status, so it was harder to believe in the character. At least, that's my theory on the matter.

So in the 80s it was fun to imagine "The Most Powerful Man in the Universe" posing as a foppish teenager. Kids get to see young Adam get to be a badass and pull one over on everyone while everyone rolled their eyes at the useless kid who they knew couldn't be the hero himself. Outside of Orko, who Kevin Smith described as "a five year old", there wasn't anyone else that the kids could identify themselves with, after all. Though, of course, that was an era where seeing badasses do badass stuff was far more important to the audience than seeing your exact replica represented on the screen.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

The show has some more mechanical problems as well, mainly with the fight choreography. Characters often just stand around when it's not their turn to be the focus, which is particularly immersion-breaking when it directly leads to major consequences.

Spoiler

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First episode, Skeletor's got the Sorceress restrained and outnumbered and just... carries her around for a while? This wouldn't be a problem, just setting the tone of the series... if everyone, including Skeletor, wasn't totally willing to murder people in their way at other times.

Much bigger problem, also first episode. He-Man stabs Skeletor through the stomach... and then he and all the rest of the heroes just stand there staring while he picks himself off, monologues for a bit, limps over to the magic artifact, and smashes it.

On the boat, the team gets attacked by an equal number of fish people. However, it's not their turn to contribute to the fight, so they literally all just stand there looking nervous while the fish people close in. Every single member of the team is a competent combatant (with the exception of Orko), and regularly goes toe-to-toe with multiple opponents, like the girls versus the cult in Snake Fortress, Beastman versus the cult in the previous episode, and Roboto versus the fear demons in the next episode. It's extremely strange to watch.

The reason for their inaction breaks the theme by just being straight up dumb. Turns out, it was Master At Arms' turn to fight, so he shows up, pretty much single handedly saves the day on the grounds that protecting his family and especially his daughter is more important than protecting Castle Grayskull and the sorceress... and then immediately leaves right before the actually dangerous part of the journey. What? I can imagine a version of these events where this was handled smoothly and transformed into a moving scene, but in this universe I'm just confused and vaguely annoyed.

Enter the underworld. Let's ignore how Teela's epiphany that her fear is a part of her and nothing to be ashamed of doesn't jive at all with her immediate refusal to show it to Scareglow, and how reneging on their agreement directly leads to the death of her friend for no discernable benefit. Scareglow is visibly intimidated by Teela, and she seems to think she can take him... up until she's reunited with her friends, at which point he invokes the Inverse Ninja Law and takes them all out at once. So far this is all excusable; he regrouped, gathered his power, and struck while they were distracted. What's less excusable is how every single one of them besides Evil-Lyn just stands there instead of even trying anything to help Orko (and I know for a fact that at least some of them have electric throwing stars and one has a goddamn laser cannon and is immune to fear), and then they have the temerity to call her out for failing, because apparently it was her turn to contribute to the fight and she ****ed it up.

It feels like the show can't decide what tone it wants to have. Does it want to be like The Seven Deadly Sins, fun and lighthearted, where everyone waits their turn for a moment in the spotlight and the bad guys are thrown overboard to swim away and fight another day? Or does it want to be like Castlevania, dark and violent, where the heroes fight like their lives are on the line and don't spare either minions or villains without an explicit reason? The show sticks to the former in flashbacks, but veers drunkenly between the two in the current timeline.

To be clear, I didn't find the show bad. It's an entertaining watch even if you haven't seen any other He-Man media, let down by several little problems and a deceptive marketing campaign. The set-up for the next season looks genuinely interesting.

[ecarden]

Spoiler

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First episode, Skeletor's got the Sorceress restrained and outnumbered and just... carries her around for a while? This wouldn't be a problem, just setting the tone of the series... if everyone, including Skeletor, wasn't totally willing to murder people in their way at other times.

Much bigger problem, also first episode. He-Man stabs Skeletor through the stomach... and then he and all the rest of the heroes just stand there staring while he picks himself off, monologues for a bit, limps over to the magic artifact, and smashes it.

On the boat, the team gets attacked by an equal number of fish people. However, it's not their turn to contribute to the fight, so they literally all just stand there looking nervous while the fish people close in. Every single member of the team is a competent combatant (with the exception of Orko), and regularly goes toe-to-toe with multiple opponents, like the girls versus the cult in Snake Fortress, Beastman versus the cult in the previous episode, and Roboto versus the fear demons in the next episode. It's extremely strange to watch.

The reason for their inaction breaks the theme by just being straight up dumb. Turns out, it was Master At Arms' turn to fight, so he shows up, pretty much single handedly saves the day on the grounds that protecting his family and especially his daughter is more important than protecting Castle Grayskull and the sorceress... and then immediately leaves right before the actually dangerous part of the journey. What? I can imagine a version of these events where this was handled smoothly and transformed into a moving scene, but in this universe I'm just confused and vaguely annoyed.

Enter the underworld. Let's ignore how Teela's epiphany that her fear is a part of her and nothing to be ashamed of doesn't jive at all with her immediate refusal to show it to Scareglow, and how reneging on their agreement directly leads to the death of her friend for no discernable benefit. Scareglow is visibly intimidated by Teela, and she seems to think she can take him... up until she's reunited with her friends, at which point he invokes the Inverse Ninja Law and takes them all out at once. So far this is all excusable; he regrouped, gathered his power, and struck while they were distracted. What's less excusable is how every single one of them besides Evil-Lyn just stands there instead of even trying anything to help Orko (and I know for a fact that at least some of them have electric throwing stars and one has a goddamn laser cannon and is immune to fear), and then they have the temerity to call her out for failing, because apparently it was her turn to contribute to the fight and she ****ed it up.

Thank you. That encompasses a lot of the problem I had. I do think the Man-At-Arms scene makes it clear that they aren't going for the 'all men are useless' model some (not you) are suggesting, but the tonal dissonance is pretty painful. Are we in a gritty world where we're engaged in a post-apocalyptic struggle for survival, or are we in a fun world where everyone jumps out of their vehicle before it gets hit with laser cannons? It's one or the other.

I think I was subconsciously waiting for the 'Azula shoots Aang in the middle of the transformation sequence' bit to show that we'd switched tones, but the closest they come is right at the start, but then they walk it back...but then they walk it forward again with all the casualties...then they walk it back again with total unwillingness to let the protagonists actually be what we're told they are, competent and dangerous survivors of a dying world.