Masters of the Universe: Revolution
Aug 2, 2021 5:32:51 GMT -6
Post by vitugglan on Aug 2, 2021 5:32:51 GMT -6
Plenty of flack around this one. He-Man promised, Teela with a half-shaved head delivered. Three paragraphs and a video, then spoilers.
This is a Netflix/Kevin Smith outing. Instead of self-contained episodes, the first five that dropped this last week or so are more like a mini-series. The animation is gorgeous, especially the eyes. Orko's eyes are beautifully golden and expressive. I notice that they give the correct shade of blue to the various hair colors - Andra, a black woman with black hair, has eyes that are so blue they're nearly purple while Teela, a redhead, has a more aqua hue. One more paragraph, then spoilers.
This is also a two-D cartoon. None of this marshmallow pillow look of CGI. The characters are more, or less, in their bodies than the 1980s cartoon - Teela has thick muscles, He-Man (and the other He-Men, yes, they do have a bunch of them at one point) are cartoonishly huge while Adam is much less buff than in the '80s. He's a twig, and pretty much a beta-soy-looking character whose clothes hang loosely on him. Come on, Prince Adam, utilize the palace tailor and make your clothes fit! Spoilers incoming!
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Dive for cover!
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SPOILERS
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One thing I've found out by watching YouTubers criticizing the critics of the critics of this show: the Filmation 1980s cartoon used Rotoscope to draw the characters. They take actual people doing actual things and draw over them so the body types were those of actual people. The body types in the new version aren't as realistic, especially the He-Man type of characters. The critics of the critics insist that the new version is more realistic.
I think this is more about Teela's grief at losing a friend and being angry at the deception while not wanting to face her grief. After the below quote, she launches into Adam about her feelings. This has been criticized. I think it was realistic. My son died from his own stupidity, drinking a lot more than he should have. I wanted to grab him and shake him and yell something very similar to what Teela yells at Adam, but I couldn't. I'm still angry at him, but at least, unlike Teela, I can also recognize my grief. It's not cut-and-dried either way, it's a lot more complex than people who haven't been there think. Should it be in a cartoon? Probably not. It's a lot to chew on, even for adults. Should the show center around it? Definitely not. I remember He-Man as being an uplifting cartoon, each episode self-contained - they have a problem, they fight the problem, everything's hunky-dory at the end. There is nothing uplifting in this series so far, each episode taking the viewer further and further down Teela's grief. I don't know who this show is for. Fans who were kids in the 1980s are angry at it. Kids might find it too intense and a downer.
He-Man dies in the first episode and, as Teela puts it later, 'The rest of us had to live with it.' This is Teela's story, a story of deep-seated grief. She doesn't know who He-Man is in real life until Skeletor breaks through Grayskull's defenses and tries to get his hands on the orb that holds Eternia's magic. He pierces the orb and He-Man has to sacrifice himself in order to keep it from demolishing Eternia and thence, the universe. The sword breaks in half to contain the magic between the halves, and He-Man becomes Adam, who is valiantly holding the sword pieces. Stuff and stuff and stuff (hey, you gotta have some surprises!) and he's gone, leaving only a scorch mark on the floor. Teela's upset that she was lied to. This becomes the major pivot of criticism.
Teela becomes Man-At-Arms only to quit because she was lied to. She yells at the grieving parents about how they, or more accurately how Queen Marlena, hid the truth from her. As King Randor is just finding out that his son was He-Man and now he's dead. She carries this all through the five episodes currently available. The quote above was in answer to Adam (in the afterlife) telling her, 'I died!'
The half-shaved head makes no sense other than to signal virtue, I suppose. The hair on the one side and top is thick and long enough to obscure vision, so shaving the other side of the head is useless. The musculature isn't correct for staff fighting. It's barely correct for MMA. The character of Andra wasn't in the old series that I recall, and I never saw the early 2000s version, but I hear she wasn't black, she was another redhead in the comics. King Grayskull, again from the comics but not the 1980s show, was white and blond like He-Man, now he's black. Criticism here is that they could have come up with original characters instead of giving hand-me-downs.
We do get to see more of Eternia, Reternia (the afterlife) and whatever the version of Hell is in this world, I'm forgetting the name but it rhymes with 'Eternia' as well. We see some actual bad things that come from Orko's flawed magic. Again, the animation is top-notch, and not 3-D CGI.
There are all sorts of 'girl power' moments. Teela and Andra, Teela, Andra and Evil-Lyn, Teela alone. Teela and Andra are mercenaries through about three episodes, going around Eternia finding magical artifacts for people desperate to keep some of the magic intact. She constantly whines about being lied to.
Duncan, the disgraced Man-At-Arms, is pretty much a defeated character though he does have some good moments. Adam's more soy than the boy he was in the 1980s. Everyone has to bare their feelings at one point or another, so part psychological dribble. King Randor is less beneficent and more authoritarian. Evil-Lyn is more heart-on-sleeve. A lot of people have gotten a gay-tease vibe from Teela and Andra, though I didn't - they're friends, and they save each other's bacon a lot. I think it's more a friendship than a clandestine romance. I seem to be in the minority.
