@thearmag3ddon here with yet another Netflix Original Animated Series Review that you didn’t ask for:
I’m not going to call it a renaissance but the last I guess 20+ years or so has been a great time for the reimagining of some of the more iconic things that we used to love in the 80s.
Not you GI Joe and Transformers.
But Thundercats, various incarnations of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Voltron: Legendary Defender, Space Battleship Yamato 2199 (Star Blazers), hell even Degrassi, and now He-Man (that’s two times) have been absolutely stellar at reinterpreting the original core concept of the property, making it still feel true, and mostly just simply updating the story to fit more in line with current sensibilities and storytelling.
I love this show because it feels like a continuation of all we knew before and takes that to jump off into different realms, explore new ideas, and challenge what you know to be the status quo. The second (but technically third) season of the new He-Man series takes us through the world with a story propelled by characters rather than plot. It’s almost like the plot is secondary and to be honest, I assumed the ending was a given this time so I almost didn’t care, but I DID care about the journeys of everyone along the way.
And that’s it. That’s the core of the review. The actual plot here is a little bit softer, definitely more so than the previous 2 parts, and might have been just a bit better if it had one more episode, but it still was really fun and the characterization is what really makes this new Masters of the Universe work anyway. This show got me on the edge of my seat wondering who’s actually going to make it…or not. And to be honest, that’s a lot of the “fun” here. It all feels like actual stakes.
Now for the rambling part of my review that really no one asks for but my ADHD gonna ADHD so sorry not sorry…
Folks always complain about remakes and Hollywood and how there are no new ideas. But if you actually know the history of storytelling you would know that long before Hollywood, people retold the stories they heard with new interpretations, understandings about the world, and ideas to make what already felt compelling better. So for me anyway I’m always open the idea…just not the execution of it.
Kevin Smith understands that we love the world of He-Man because obviously by default it holds a special place in our hearts, but he also understands more importantly that we loved it in the first place because it is the thing that it is. What am I saying? The movie and the early 90’s version of Masters of the Universe and GI Joe, and most of the Transformers movies miss this completely. They are unrecognizable, and honestly this was mostly the reason why comic book movies failed for decades upon decades. They rarely felt…true. But here Smith starts with your nostalgia and moves it forward, almost as though it was simply just a continuation of the new thing you watched way back when without skipping a beat. It does the trick of moving forward without appearing as though it is looking back. As my good friend Corey Stevenson said “This show is the PERFECT example of how to reboot something but also keep the history and spirit of the original source material alive.”
So yeah, remakes and Hollywood. If you’re a fan of Arthurian Legend, or Robin Hood, loved either the Cumberbatch or Lucy Liu Sherlock, or any mythology ever, then you already have experienced this and probably support this. It’s just that sometimes it’s good and sometimes it’s bad. I don’t mind the attempt because sometimes it can lead to the really good. Like for instance Dawn of the Dead, or The Thing. And the bad…well you can turn it off, or put it down and move on with your life, and at the very worst just go back and rewatch Total Recall with Arnold or the OG Robocop. They still exist just fine (unless Daddy Zazlov gets his grubby hands on them of course.) And anyway comic books have been doing this for a long long time and everyone seems to go along with it for the most part. Mostly. Ok like they don’t always accept the changes, but they do understand and in many ways respond to the “refreshinging” of the properties involved. So it kind of boggles my mind that there’s such a strong reaction by a segment of fandom against this series. But then again, I hate The Last Jedi.
Side rant so you can skip ahead if you don’t want to hear it but… Since this is a review about He-man, let me take this opportunity to vent about Captain Marvel/Shazam.
Of course.
I’m a lifelong fan of the character and he’s pretty much my top favorite hero, and as an OG fan it annoys me to no end that at some point in the late 80s the idea of him being a boy’s personality dealing with being in a grown man’s body I guess because Big came out, has basically ruined the core of the actual point of the wish-fulfillment as metaphor. Just trust me.
Enter…He-Man.
Watching this something in between a reimagining, continuation, sequel of the original He-Man and the Masters of the Universe series captures the idea perfectly in regards to that. It plays He-Man/Adam like he is an undefinable one, but they still almost seem distinct. I loved the way that He-Man is more prone to making painful dad jokes while Adam is actually a lot more grounded. They share the same brain, yet somehow seem different. It doesn’t lean into oh nooooooo I’m just a baby shenanigans to tell stories in the world. And I just wish modern Shazam had that same take. He-Man the character revels in the power and doesn’t ever look back.
Dear Lords of Kobol, let me be the writer of Shazam one day. I promise you all it will be amazing.
Anyway, I love the direction Kevin Smith has gone with and I love seeing all of my favorites from days gone by, recognizable yet being moved forward. In a lot of ways, those shows from the 80s today don’t really hold up to the version in our memory. If you go back and watch He-Man, or Thundercats, they were a lot more cheese than the epic I think we tend to remember, but this show like Voltron and the others I mentioned (not you GI Joe and Transformers) do an amazing job in that they look a lot like the shows I remember and sort of tell stories that actually match my faulty memory.
If you’re an old school fan of He-Man, you’ll love this trip through your nostalgia with a little bit of spice. If you fear change, women, or people of color having agency, you’ll probably hate it. But whatever…I can’t wait for season 4. Plus they planted one very interesting seed in a flashback that OG fans will know that I hope ends up happening like I think it might.
I give Masters of the Universe: Revolution 5 Battle Cat really just wants a Hugs out of 5.
Until the next review no one asked for, @thearmageddon, signing off.