Background: I loved the He-Man cartoons when I was a kid in the 80s. They weren't quite up there with the Holy Trinity (Star Wars, G.I. Joe, and Transformers), but I still watched the cartoons and owned a lot of the toys. I haven't paid much attention to the franchise since the 80s, though. I know there have been a few attempts at bringing it back, but nothing ever caught my eye.
The new series is a sequel to the 80s cartoon, and it even makes direct references to some of the specific classic episodes. But it takes itself a lot more seriously. That's a point of contention with me, honestly. I mean, MotU has always been sort of silly. With goofy characters like Clawful and Stinkor, I'm not sure it deserved a darker, more serious tone. But it works, in its own way.
He-Man himself doesn't get much screen time, and the story is more focused on Teela. So of course, it got review bombed by tons of misogynistic trolls. Keep that in mind if you see it has a low rating somewhere - some of the ratings don't actually reflect the quality of the show, but rather the politics of the reviewers.
If you're reading this blog, then you probably know that I prefer female antagonists. But it goes beyond that. Even when I was a kid, I thought He-Man was the least interesting MotU character. He was basically Conan with Superman's personality, and there just wasn't much to him. I was a big Stratos fan myself, but I also had a thing for Trap-Jaw. In fact, the show's focus on He-Man might be one of the reasons it never reached the aforementioned "Holy Trinity" status for me.
So downplaying the He-Man character was probably the most interesting thing the new MotU could have done. It gave some of the other characters a chance to shine for a change. To be fair, some of the review bombers complained that He-Man was prominent in the trailers, and accused it of false advertising. It's a legitimate complaint, but they had to do it that way to make some of the twists more surprising in the show itself.
The voice cast is pretty good. Mark Hamill's Skeletor kind of gives me an uncanny valley feeling, since it's sort of like the Joker but without the humorous edge. I'm not crazy about Sarah Michelle Gellar as Teela, because it sounds like a weak character's voice coming out of a much stronger character. It made sense for Gellar to play Buffy, because that show's concept was about a powerful fighter in the body of a waif. But Teela's appearance and voice just don't really match up, IMO.
The art is pretty good. Cartoons have come a long way since the 80s, and the animation is a lot smoother. Some characters look better than others. I love that Prince Adam actually looks different from He-Man this time; it's more believable that his disguise fools anyone. Orko kind of creeps me out, with his mystical eyes and scrawny blue arms. The only part I really don't like is the obvious CGI in places. I thought cartoons had gotten better about that.
It throws in a lot of Easter eggs for long-time fans, including an entire episode set in "Preternia" - a prehistoric setting from a cancelled toy line, but now repurposed as the Eternian afterlife. The series features several characters and vehicles that were relatively obscure in the original run. In fact, in some ways it feels more like a toy commercial than the original series did, even if it's no longer easy to buy these toys.
The fifth episode ends on a very big cliffhanger, with a twist far gutsier than anything seen in the original cartoon. I do hope they aren't too slow about posting the rest of the series. I'm ready for more.
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