New Masters of the Universe movie

[dahj]

Some artwork has been released
https://mobile.twitter.com/HeManOrg/status/942904437613395970

That colouring in someone did further down that twitter thread looks neat.

It looks like she's wearing plate armour without the boob armour trope, I gotta say a She-Ra cartoon is the last place I expected realism in that regard.

 

[Christopher]

It looks like she's wearing plate armour without the boob armour trope

Either that or she's just flat-chested.

I gotta say a She-Ra cartoon is the last place I expected realism in that regard.

Well, it's a She-Ra cartoon with a female showrunner. Although it surprises me that the design style of that sketch looks so little like Noelle Stevenson's very distinctive artistic style.

 

[FormerLurker]

It looks like she's wearing plate armour without the boob armour trope

Either that or she's just flat-chested.

They did tests, and boob armor is more likely to get a woman killed than to protect her. The boobage directs all blows to the center of the chest, where, even if they don't get through the armor, the impact damages everything under the armor.

 

[Shaka Zulu]

The Rock for Man-At-Arms maybe?
He-Man can be an unknown surrounded by bigger names.

Johnston is too famous and too tall to play Man-At-Arms convincingly, especially since he's a lead.

Y'know, it occurred to me that Dolph Lundgren could have played Doc Savage in a movie back around the time he did Masters Of The Universe.

That surprises me. I thought DreamWorks was the current owner of the Filmation library.

Universal Pictures owns the Filmation library, but He-Man & The Masters Of The Universe is owned by Mattel, and I think that the show was a work-for-hire job, which means that Universal doesn't own it.

 

[Christopher]

They did tests, and boob armor is more likely to get a woman killed than to protect her. The boobage directs all blows to the center of the chest, where, even if they don't get through the armor, the impact damages everything under the armor.

Yes, of course I know that. I read that article too. I can't imagine why you'd think I was disputing it. But the costume in the drawing doesn't look like armor to me. Look at the way the collar is drawn. It's of a continuous piece with the rest, and it's a Mandarin collar, snug about the neck in a way that would probably choke the wearer if it were made of metal. And there's a vertical double line running from the collar to the waist, which looks like a front seam. And the waistline is pointed in a way that could dig harmfully into the abdomen if it were armor (same principle as the "boob armor" wedge effect you're talking about). So I think it's probably more like a leather jerkin that fastens up in the front. Which could also flatten out the chest in a similar way to realistic plate armor, yes. But the way it's drawn is so devoid of any hint of curvature at all that it suggests this She-Ra is simply very small-chested, as many women are. She might even be a teenager, for all we know.

 

[FormerLurker]

I apologize for giving you the wrong impression. I wasn't criticizing you, nor did I think you were disputing it. I was just commenting on the fact that boob armor, however flattering it may look, is in fact deadly to the wearer. I agree that illustration looks like she's wearing either a leather jerkin, or even just a tunic, and that she isn't very endowed. I'd be willing to believe that image is from a time when she was just beginning to resist, previously established as when she was a teenager.

 

[Christopher]

I'd be willing to believe that image is from a time when she was just beginning to resist, previously established as when she was a teenager.

Possibly. The way her face is drawn suggests she's fairly young. But there are certainly adult women who are flat-chested, although they rarely get depicted in animation when men are in charge of the character designs. Since this is a female-run show, that might not be the case here.

It's just that we hardly know anything yet, just one picture, so it could mean a number of different things. I just like to be thorough and consider all the possibilities.

 

[M'rk son of Mogh]

http://toynewsi.com/index.php?catid=414&itemid=30436

So there's a picture here of some sort of battle armour concept art that Goyer is going over. Looks like it's progressing, though, we'll see if this looks like anything resembling He-Man when it's done.

 

[Myko]

That looks awful and the complete opposite direction I want He-Man to go.

 

[Unicron]

It's certainly odd, though it's hard to tell without more context.

 

[JD]

Do they usually have that kind of big mech suit thing in MotU? I'm not very familiar with the franchise, but that seems like a pretty drastic departure from what I have seen.

 

[Christopher]

That looks awful and the complete opposite direction I want He-Man to go.

Keep in mind that the concept art stage is basically about throwing things at the wall, letting the designers' imaginations run wild and coming up with all sorts of different possibilities before narrowing in on the version the director wants to go with. I've seen examples of early concept art that looked completely different from the designs in the final films. I've even seen examples of remakes where the initial concepts went to a radically different place from the original look of a thing, but the final film's version was much closer. Filmmakers like to start out with a range of different options to consider, even if they eventually settle on a fairly obvious one.

 

[JD]

I just finished reading The Art of Big Hero 6, and a lot of the concept art in the book looks absolutely nothing at all like what ended up onscreen.

 

[Stephen!]

Do they usually have that kind of big mech suit thing in MotU? I'm not very familiar with the franchise, but that seems like a pretty drastic departure from what I have seen.

Rarely. There's an episode of the 2002 series ("Of Machines and Men") where both He-Man and Skeletor have them.

 

[Kai "the spy"]

Are we sure this is even supposed to be He-Man?! Could be Man-at-arms, or some other character known for heavy armor.

 

[Christopher]

Are we sure this is even supposed to be He-Man?! Could be Man-at-arms, or some other character known for heavy armor.

The caption on the concept image says "Teela Battle Suit."

 

[Kai "the spy"]

The caption on the concept image says "Teela Battle Suit."

Ah, right. Well, the original Teela action figure wore a kind of cobra-themed battle armor, which was toned down in the cartoon, and again in the 2002 reboot. And since she's supposed to be the non-superpowered Captain of the Royal Guard, giving her a battle suit for at least some action scenes seems reasonable.

 

[Christopher]

Well, the original Teela action figure wore a kind of cobra-themed battle armor, which was toned down in the cartoon

Not "toned down" so much as "skipped altogether." Filmation's character design for Teela, by the way, was actually their Princess Aura design from Flash Gordon with a new hairstyle and a somewhat less skimpy costume. Which is probably why she looked completely unlike her action figure.

 

[Kai "the spy"]

I actually meant they toned down the cobra-theme, but I see how I probably should have made that clearer when the rest of our conversation was about her armor.

Also, nice fun fact about the Princess Aura design.

 

[Christopher]

I actually meant they toned down the cobra-theme, but I see how I probably should have made that clearer when the rest of our conversation was about her armor.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Teela's design in the Filmation show didn't have anything remotely cobra-like about it. "Toned down" implies it's still there to an extent, but it was completely, 100% absent from the show's version. I remember watching the show and then seeing the toys, and being totally bewildered by how that weird cobra woman was supposed to have anything to do with the Teela I knew.