Revelation pt2 came out more that two years ago. I reckon you watched a lot of other stuff in between.
News He-Man anime series from Kevin Smith coming to Netflix
- Thread starter Enterprise is Great
- Start date
I liked the new season a lot. Its a bit more cramped story wise compared the the first part of the first season, but it was still fun and had some twists that I didn't expect. The very final twist
Hinting at Despara is really interesting, although if its just a tease and its some random character using the identity it will be a bit of a disappointment. Hopefully they worked out something with Dreamworks or whoever owns She-Ra to allow Despara to be a version of Adora, especially since we see her kidnapping in a flashback in this half of the season.
Yes, absolutely. The whole job of science is to expand itself to encompass new realities. A century and a half ago, quantum physics would've seemed like magic, but science extrapolated and verified its existence and now it's the foundation of modern physics. In a world where magic was part of the workings of the universe, there could be a science of magic, studying it to determine how and why it worked and devising ways to apply that understanding.
So it drives me crazy when fiction assumes that science "can't understand" the supernatural in universes where it's a concrete reality. Too many people assume science is a fixed and immutable body of ideas, when the whole thing that makes it so effective is that it's expressly about expanding and changing to encompass new evidence.
"Sorry people, I didn't get what you were saying because I'm too busy watching THE NEW MOTU SHOW!"
Rewatching the last episode more than "science vs magic" they say "technology vs magic". It's a little different, but not very much because usually technology is defined as the practical application of science. I suppose that in the MOTU universe there is a difference between the two, but they didn't make really clear what it is.
I guess it might be the same sort of tension as in my Thayara stories, which are set in an era when the fantasy world is modernizing and industrializing, beginning to use technology as a labor-saving means of doing things that were historically done with Wyrd (as the magic source is known), which causes the Wyrdworkers to see technology as their competition or replacement. (It's a logical-fantasy universe where Wyrd follows physical law and can be harnessed technologically.)
"Magic" comes from a root meaning to have power or knowledge, as in the Biblical Magi/Wise Men. So basically magic means a power that people wield through their own knowledge and skill, as opposed to technology, the use of devices to wield power. (Although "technology" comes from a root meaning skill or craft, so the words aren't that far apart etymologically.)
Are there any specific episodes of the original MOTU I should watch before I start Revelation/lution? I've never watched MOTU and I find the new series interesting mainly due to the people involved. I've also been curious about MOTU for a while now, since I've seen a lot references to it over the years.
I would say only a few would be good homework to get you up to speed:
Teela's Quest
Battlecat
The Rainbow Warrior
The Dragon's Gift
The Problem with Power (just because it's good!)
The Secret of the Sword movie
Edited to add, the new series uses so many characters that it would be tough to give an episode highlighting or including them all. I figure my little list is a good start, but feel free to look around at more!
Also. There's a character that plays a semi-important role first introduced in the live action movie. But that's a tough one to recommend, even though I think it's good, campy fun.
Teela's Quest
Battlecat
The Rainbow Warrior
The Dragon's Gift
The Problem with Power (just because it's good!)
The Secret of the Sword movie
Edited to add, the new series uses so many characters that it would be tough to give an episode highlighting or including them all. I figure my little list is a good start, but feel free to look around at more!
Also. There's a character that plays a semi-important role first introduced in the live action movie. But that's a tough one to recommend, even though I think it's good, campy fun.
Last edited:
Ah, by the way, after watching a few episodes you might want to know why Prince Adam didn't reveal his secret identity to Teela (a valiant warrior) or to his parents (who would also be his king and queen ), but a flying buffoon knows it anyway. We have come to an answer here, after long discussions: "because".
Not really. The new show is only loosely a sequel; it has the surface form of a continuation, but is more of a remix in a subtly different continuity. It basically stands on its own, though there are homages a fan of the original would recognize. But it's distinct enough in tone and approach that it might feel a bit jarring to go directly from the original kids' show to the older-skewing pseudo-sequel.
And really, the original series dated from an era of purely episodic TV, so there was little in the way of continuity. There were a couple of character threads the original show set up without resolution that the Smith show has paid off, but they're sufficiently re-established in the Smith show.
I think it's kind of implicit in "I am Adam, Prince of Eternia, and defender of the secrets of Castle Greyskull."
Plus, of course, it was the default logic of superhero stories -- "My loved ones must not know the secret, or my enemies may harm them to discover it." Which is nonsense, of course, because if the enemies even suspect they know the secret, they could still get abducted and tortured for it even if they don't know, and their ignorance just makes them more vulnerable. (Not to mention that the main character's loved ones tend to get abducted and threatened all the time anyway in superhero stories.) So it's more about protecting the hero than the loved ones, since if the loved ones did know and were tortured into revealing it, or gave it away accidentally somehow, it would make the hero vulnerable to attack in their civilian form.
Which is why He-Man kept the secret and relied on his impenetrable disguise of a change of clothes, a magic spray tan, and a booming, echoey voice. Hey, it's no worse than a suit and a pair of glasses.
And hey, it's lucky nobody ever wondered why Adam's sword looked exactly like He-Man's, or why a lazy, dissolute prince with no fighting skill went around carrying a sword in the first place.
Compared to what?
In terms of quality it was comparable to the average American cartoon of those years. Which were much worse than most Japanese anime of the same era.
In some ways, yeah, but anime often used limited animation to a comparable degree. And by the time of He-Man, Filmation had upped its animation game through innovations like rotoscoped action sequences and moire lighting effects, so it was a lot better-looking than, say, Star Trek: TAS had been a decade earlier.
Also, keep in mind that He-Man featured writers along the lines of Paul Dini, Michael Reaves, Diane Duane, D.C. Fontana, Marc Scott Zicree, J. Michael Straczynski, Larry DiTillio, Tom Ruegger (Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain), and David Wise (the original Ninja Turtles cartoon), as well as being an early credit for Bruce Timm as a layout artist. There were the seeds of the renaissance in animation writing that would come along in a few years thanks to talents like these, and there were occasional episodes that transcended the half-hour toy-commercial format that He-Man pioneered.
Also, Filmation was usually better than its contemporaries at featuring diverse casts and progressive values. The He-Man and She-Ra characters weren't as ethnically diverse as in some Filmation shows, but they did well on the gender-equality front, particularly with Teela, who was portrayed as virtually He-Man's equal as an action hero without needing any superpowers to do it.
"I am He-Man! The goody who fights the baddies! Buy me!"
They never played this on TV when I was young, so I have zero nostalgia, although I could have rented episodes from the Video Store, but I was prioritizing Transformers and GI Joe cartoons that they also did not play on TV, but I had the toys. Transformers showed up on TV years later in syndication when girls and beer were a lot more interesting, but if I wanted to do girls and beer at 8 am before school, I'd need really have needed He-Man to put me on the straight and narrow.
The animation is out lines.
The acting is yelling.
The plotting is non existent.
The episodic story telling is obvious and predictable.
The Threats are one dimensional and pointless.
Okies...
Answer me this: What was Skeletor's motivation?
"Sigh."
It's a cartoon made for 6 year olds.
PS
The Masters of the Universe toy-line was epic.
They never played this on TV when I was young, so I have zero nostalgia, although I could have rented episodes from the Video Store, but I was prioritizing Transformers and GI Joe cartoons that they also did not play on TV, but I had the toys. Transformers showed up on TV years later in syndication when girls and beer were a lot more interesting, but if I wanted to do girls and beer at 8 am before school, I'd need really have needed He-Man to put me on the straight and narrow.
The animation is out lines.
The acting is yelling.
The plotting is non existent.
The episodic story telling is obvious and predictable.
The Threats are one dimensional and pointless.
Okies...
Answer me this: What was Skeletor's motivation?
"Sigh."
It's a cartoon made for 6 year olds.
PS
The Masters of the Universe toy-line was epic.
I liked the toys when I was a kid, and I was intrigued by some of the mythos hinted at in the mini-comics that came with the figures. The show seemed pretty unconnected to those, though, and I didn't watch it all that much. Even now, I still kind of think the toys themselves are more interesting than most of what they tried to do with the property story-wise.
I've seen some of the 2000's show and liked it for the most part, but I've never finished it. It's on Prime Video, so I might give it a shot.
I finished Revolution a couple of days ago and liked it. It felt pretty final, for the most part, but could continue if it gets greenlit. I guess that's how it has to be with Netflix these days. Write every finale like you won't get another season.
I've seen some of the 2000's show and liked it for the most part, but I've never finished it. It's on Prime Video, so I might give it a shot.
I finished Revolution a couple of days ago and liked it. It felt pretty final, for the most part, but could continue if it gets greenlit. I guess that's how it has to be with Netflix these days. Write every finale like you won't get another season.
