1. #23476
    Extraordinary Member Iron_Twister's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by master of read View Post
    i felt the same but the xindi arc really kicked things into high gear. it was a massive turning point that made the show better.


    The moment we got MACOs, I was kinda hooked.

  2. #23477
    She/Her Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Nik Hasta View Post
    I feel like this is a bit of a disingenuous take on the arguments. If you've seen the show you know what they by this.

    Big old spoilers for the first episode here;

    spoilers:
    He-Man dies to save the universe in the first episode and then the most of his other appearances are via flashback or vision quest.
    end of spoilers

    Like, I don't think that's much to complain about, given how things shake out by the end, but I get how some people might be a bit surprised and not in a good way by this.
    I think, at least as far as the main reason for why people are upset... is mostly because of how Kevin Smith sold the new series. Which from my understanding was, well, to lie to people and set up a rare case of a "legitimate bait & switch".
    Yeah, but if you... man, we're getting into weird analogy territory, like if you disintegrated Superman's arms he wouldn't be able to go "fool! Little did you know that my arms and I are one and can be remade from me!" and will his arms back into being from pure nothingness. - Pendaran

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  3. #23478
    Legendary God of Pirates Nik Hasta's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh View Post
    I think, at least as far as the main reason for why people are upset... is mostly because of how Kevin Smith sold the new series. Which from my understanding was, well, to lie to people and set up a rare case of a "legitimate bait & switch".
    I haven't seen the statement(s) in question to this effect but I've seen a lot of people being angry online and citing that as the source of the anger, so I guess?

    Show is fine by me though, a bit rushed, but it was an enjoyable way to spend an evening after a very long day.

  4. #23479
    She/Her Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Nik Hasta View Post
    I haven't seen the statement(s) in question to this effect but I've seen a lot of people being angry online and citing that as the source of the anger, so I guess?

    Show is fine by me though, a bit rushed, but it was an enjoyable way to spend an evening after a very long day.
    Context for context's sake.

    Essentially, they came to Kevin Smith and said "hey just do a continuation of the silly 80's show." Kevin Smith said "sure thing, I know how uppity fans get when they don't get what they expect."

    You know the rest.

    Can't say I agree with the angry side, He-Man was never my thing. But I'm definitely in the camp of "don't lie about something like this, it's silly."
    Yeah, but if you... man, we're getting into weird analogy territory, like if you disintegrated Superman's arms he wouldn't be able to go "fool! Little did you know that my arms and I are one and can be remade from me!" and will his arms back into being from pure nothingness. - Pendaran

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  5. #23480
    Slime Time The Dog's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh View Post
    Context for context's sake.

    Essentially, they came to Kevin Smith and said "hey just do a continuation of the silly 80's show." Kevin Smith said "sure thing, I know how uppity fans get when they don't get what they expect."

    You know the rest.

    Can't say I agree with the angry side, He-Man was never my thing. But I'm definitely in the camp of "don't lie about something like this, it's silly."
    See, I'm not a big He-Man fan, so I don't have a horse in the race. But I have watched reviews from people who were, and they're pissed because Kevin Smith and the marketing department actively lied about what the show was going to be. spoilers:
    They didn't say "He-Man's basically a background character who dies in episode 1 and occasionally appears in flashbacks while Teela, her black girlfriend, and Evil-lyn are the main characters". They portrayed it like He-Man was still the main character and he would be the protagonist of the story.

    See, I don't like Ghostbusters 2016, but at least they were honest and upfront in their marketing about what the product was going to be. They didn't have Ray, Winston, and Peter plastered all over the marketing for it and act like it was going to be about them and not these other characters.
    end of spoilers
    Last edited by The Dog; 07-25-2021 at 10:10 AM.
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  6. #23481
    Friendship's Shockwave BitVyper's Avatar
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    I never saw much of the marketing, but it seemed obvious that they were going to focus on Teela from the like, one article I read way back.

    That said, I am 100% sure spoilers:
    ditching He Man
    end of spoilers from the plot is a massive troll to generate a bunch of social media buzz between groups of people who will attach way too much meaning to it. Kevin Smith is kind of a turd anyway.

    I thought it was alright except for the last episode trying to pull exactly the same twist shocker as the first one (I groaned as soon as spoilers:
    the Havoc Staff started reforming)
    end of spoilers. The art and animation is all beautiful and the character designs are nice. Voices are great, though I'll say Hamill slips a little bit into his Joker persona when doing Skeletor sometimes and it throws me ("ya did good, Lynnie" sort of lines).

    I enjoyed it while watching it, but on reflection, I feel pretty meh about the whole story. It feels like they wanted to pull this big shocker move, but then they spend the entire series on a nostalgia tour of quotes and obscure apocryphal characters who show up just long enough to say hi and never really do anything. So when I look back, it feels lacking in substance, which would be fine if it was just doing sweet He Man scenes, but if they wanted to ditch all that well... they made some strange choices. I feel like they really needed to do something more.

    She Ra made that choice and went all in on being its own thing with only tenuous connections to the old stuff. He Man is banging all the old action figures together, but they threw the best one out the window at the outset.

    Edit: I mean, to be honest, I think it's pretty reasonable to have spoilers:
    "they killed off He Man"
    end of spoilers as your main criticism of the show regardless of the marketing. Whether you think it was good or not regardless, that's still the move that is going to define the whole series.
    Last edited by BitVyper; 07-25-2021 at 12:16 AM.
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  7. #23482
    Spectacularly Neurotic Sharkerbob's Avatar
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    He-Man was never my thing either, but I stumbled upon the collected editions of the original pack-in comics. Only read a couple, the writing is, obviously, super basic, but the art is pretty good so far. Early issues are one big picture on the page with about a paragraph of prose beneath, though eventually regular comics style is applied. Seeing the series through the fully toyetic lens is amusing, with the plot entirely revolving around introducing toys and gimmicks with zero fluff between. There isn't even a Prince Adam in this continuity apparently, He-Man is just some muscle dude from a hunter-gatherer tribe, and most of his strength actually comes from super tech devices.

    There's a few articles by writers of the series, and it's interesting looking at the behind the scenes perspectives. I'm sure the comics get more actual plot and character nuance later, but even, or especially, then, trying to write a series under marketing mandates is an interesting challenge I don't think I gave much thought to until more recently. It's also made me reflect on my older creative habits, especially as a kid. It's definitely clear my tendency to just mass-produce characters and settings, and drop them after only one to three stories probably took after the toyetic TV writing of the 1980s.

    What got me to check it out is the comic series called Masters of the Multiverse, which does the whole "Oh noes, every universe [read: alternate renditions of the franchise] is in peril! We must assemble multiple versions of [title characters] to stop it!" While I'm a little burnt out on this gimmick, this comic is a pretty good take on the "multiversal crisis" genre. Ironically, the real main hero of the piece is a good version of Skeletor teaming up with various He-Mans to battle an evil He-Man who is jacking Power Swords from across the multiverse.

    On that note, the Thundercats/He-Man crossover was also pretty good as those things go. The mixing and matching of interactions of story elements, and the story had some actual gravitas to it.
    Last edited by Sharkerbob; 07-24-2021 at 07:32 PM.

  8. #23483
    Reborn Samurai Len Ikari145's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by BitVyper View Post
    I never saw much of the marketing, but it seemed obvious that they were going to focus on Teela from the like, one article I read way back.

    That said, I am 100% sure ditching He Man from the plot is a massive troll to generate a bunch of social media buzz between groups of people who will attach way too much meaning to it. Kevin Smith is kind of a turd anyway.

    I thought it was alright except for the last episode trying to pull exactly the same twist shocker as the first one (I groaned as soon as the Havoc Staff started reforming). The art and animation is all beautiful and the character designs are nice. Voices are great, though I'll say Hamill slips a little bit into his Joker persona when doing Skeletor sometimes and it throws me ("ya did good, Lynnie" sort of lines).

    I enjoyed it while watching it, but on reflection, I feel pretty meh about the whole story. It feels like they wanted to pull this big shocker move, but then they spend the entire series on a nostalgia tour of quotes and obscure apocryphal characters who show up just long enough to say hi and never really do anything. So when I look back, it feels lacking in substance, which would be fine if it was just doing sweet He Man scenes, but if they wanted to ditch all that well... they made some strange choices. I feel like they really needed to do something more.

    She Ra made that choice and went all in on being its own thing with only tenuous connections to the old stuff. He Man is banging all the old action figures together, but they threw the best one out the window at the outset.

    Edit: I mean, to be honest, I think it's pretty reasonable to have "they killed off He Man" as your main criticism of the show regardless of the marketing. Whether you think it was good or not regardless, that's still the move that is going to define the whole series.
    spoilers:
    To me, The execution of the series' events feels backwards. If you want to focus on giving secondary and tertiary characters more agency within the plot and character development, awesome. But you easily could've accomplished that with He-Man present, and Adam would've also benefited from it as well(God knows that he needed it as much as everyone else). Heck, having Adam lose the power of He-Man temporarily and watching him adapt to his situation while the others became more active to compensate would've been a perfect avenue to explore for character progression. The confrontation between Adam and Teela had over the subject of his secrecy also would have more substantial emotional weight to it if he were alive vs how it was handled post-mortem(and made Teela's outrage look far less petulant in context). Same could be said about the death of He-Man if it was written as Part 1's season finale and instead of a premiere "shocker".
    end of spoilers

    And yes, Kevin Smith is kind of an *******. The guy thinks too highly of himself and becomes a belligerent
    gremlin towards anyone who even mildly criticizes his work. He also admitted to hate-watching the original show. Yet, Netflix still gave him the job. It's Zack Snyder all over again.
    Last edited by Len Ikari145; 07-25-2021 at 12:58 PM.
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  9. #23484
    Friendship's Shockwave BitVyper's Avatar
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    I think I saw a couple pages of the Thundercats/He Man one, and what I found hilarious was Mummra and Skeletor insulting each other and Skeletor is just clearly leagues better at serving out the scathing one-liners and Mummra can't keep up, entirely fitting with their original presentations. Skeletor is like "Dumb-ra the Ever Drooling!" and Mummra is like "yeah well... you suck!" And it's beautiful.

    So what I have to say to everyone who didn't really know or otherwise doesn't care about the original cartoon is like, whenever these remakes happen and they get criticised, there's always a bunch of people who want to dismiss the originals as toy commercials (as if the new one won't be a vehicle for a toyline), and that kind of sucks particularly in the case of He-Man, because regardless of gimmicks that were forced on them, it was a very sincere show with a lot of heart, and I always find myself talking to people who watched it as children for whom it was a comforting presence in their lives and more than one whose entire concept body autonomy, or the idea that adults could respond to situations without losing their tempers, came from watching it. Many who were inspired to art by the wild backgrounds too. We all had TVs as surrogate parents, and as they go, He Man was not a bad one. Which is not to say that any of those other cartoons were soulless, just that like, yeah I think it kind of sucks that this NFT-selling jerk gets to come in and pull the lamest reboot move imaginable on it and no one is supposed to be upset by that.
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  10. #23485
    Spectacularly Neurotic Sharkerbob's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by BitVyper View Post
    I think I saw a couple pages of the Thundercats/He Man one, and what I found hilarious was Mummra and Skeletor insulting each other and Skeletor is just clearly leagues better at serving out the scathing one-liners and Mummra can't keep up, entirely fitting with their original presentations. Skeletor is like "Dumb-ra the Ever Drooling!" and Mummra is like "yeah well... you suck!" And it's beautiful.
    LOL, yeah, the Skeletor/Mumm-Ra chemisty was great. I would recommend giving it a full read, they really go all out finding interesting ways to mix-up the elements of the two shows.


    So what I have to say to everyone who didn't really know or otherwise doesn't care about the original cartoon is like, whenever these remakes happen and they get criticised, there's always a bunch of people who want to dismiss the originals as toy commercials (as if the new one won't be a vehicle for a toyline), and that kind of sucks particularly in the case of He-Man, because regardless of gimmicks that were forced on them, it was a very sincere show with a lot of heart, and I always find myself talking to people who watched it as children for whom it was a comforting presence in their lives and more than one whose entire concept body autonomy, or the idea that adults could respond to situations without losing their tempers, came from watching it. Many who were inspired to art by the wild backgrounds too. We all had TVs as surrogate parents, and as they go, He Man was not a bad one. Which is not to say that any of those other cartoons were soulless, just that like, yeah I think it kind of sucks that this NFT-selling jerk gets to come in and pull the lamest reboot move imaginable on it and no one is supposed to be upset by that.
    I was more of a Thundercats, BraveStarr, and Transformers kid, and for all I rag on the 80's cartoons overall production quality, I will say there was a ton of creativity in a lot of the worlds (even if they were cribbing from obvious sources, they mixed them up in interesting ways), and you're right, the stories had a sincerity to them as straight forward adventure shows that I can appreciate. And some of these toyetic shows were actually pretty good, as the medium got more of it's stride, and the creators got better at making the stories more compelling, and restrictions on censorship loosened up.

    As I try to claw myself back into writing, I'm slightly tempted to try writing something in the vein of one of these shows for a lark. :V

    I'd have to see for myself how the new show handles things, but it looks like only the first half of the season is out? They might pull some surprise return in the next half.

  11. #23486
    Friendship's Shockwave BitVyper's Avatar
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    It's alright, like I said, and it's got plenty of good points to recommend it, but I'd say the story isn't one of them, and I already don't like Kevin Smith if it wasn't obvious. I'm sure it'll be fine, and I don't think they're going to ditch Adam, but I doubt it's going to be anything as good as She Ra was.

    Man, Transformers is like the one 80s toon that I loved as a kid but I absolutely cannot watch now (aside the movie) despite loving Cullen's Optimus. The video game, Transformers Devastation did such a great job though, of being everything my heart wants the original to have been without just regurgitating the usual references. The writing was like, surprisingly good.
    Last edited by BitVyper; 07-24-2021 at 08:00 PM.
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  12. #23487
    Spectacularly Neurotic Sharkerbob's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by BitVyper View Post
    It's alright, like I said, and it's got plenty of good points to recommend it, but I'd say the story isn't one of them, and I already don't like Kevin Smith if it wasn't obvious. I'm sure it'll be fine, and I don't think they're going to ditch Adam, but I doubt it's going to be anything as good as She Ra was.

    Man, Transformers is like the one 80s toon that I loved as a kid but I absolutely cannot watch now (aside the movie) despite loving Cullen's Optimus. The video game, Transformers Devastation did such a great job though, of being everything my heart wants the original to have been without just regurgitating the usual references. The writing was like, surprisingly good.
    I similarly cannot watch the old shows anymore, and Transformers was like the least bad one of the time. There's been some pretty good TF series since the original, though, so that's something.

  13. #23488
    Slime Time The Dog's Avatar
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    Watching Kevin Smith these days, I can't help but think of this:

    Critics who treat adult as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence.
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  14. #23489
    Legendary God of Pirates Nik Hasta's Avatar
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    So y'all just decided to not use spoiler tags, eh?

    I mean, it's not an issue for me because I've seen the show but some edits might be courteous.

  15. #23490
    Friendship's Shockwave BitVyper's Avatar
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    I mean I'll go back and tag, but this being a surprise is news to me. Far as I was aware, early articles basically spelled this plot point out like, as soon as we knew the reboot was going to happen.
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