I can tell this show was written by Bryan Q. Miller because of how quippy and sassy everyone is. And I can totally tell Jeff Matsuda helped with the character designs looking at the physiques and the anime-esque art design. Also did he do the art for what was effectively the next episode previews at the end of every episode? If so, those were pretty cool.
Okay, they're trying to make "Eternos" happen because I guess the kingdom being named after the whole world doesn't quite make sense. It still felt weird every time somebody said "Eternos."
Yuri Lowenthal is a go-to for kid hero and upright protagonists so no surprise he ends up fitting Adam/He-Man like a glove. I would only say that I feel that he could've gone for a deeper voice for He-Man compared to Adam to mark the change in form more. Like his He-Man isn't as high-pitched as his Adam but it's not as pronounced a difference as, say, Cam Clarke's Adam and He-Man voices were. Also why is Adam the only one who visibly ages so much when he transforms? Is it because he's the main one channeling the Power of Greyskull? Or he's the chosen champion? Teela's the only one who arguably seems to maybe age a little, so maybe the idea is that the age-ups for the rest of the team is just less pronounced compared to He-Man.
On the topic of the Power of Greyskull, obviously the main selling point and difference with this reboot is now the rest of the Masters get a share of the Power of Greyskull and get their own transformations and powers. They even all get to say the "I have the Power" line or "We have the Power" line. Like outside the Opening Theme I think Adam only does the traditional full line maybe 3-4 times the whole season. I understand on some level wanting things to be somewhat equal with the whole team and to try to sell more toys by giving everybody what is so marketable about He-Man (even the villains), and on a personal level I know how cool that line is to say, but it felt like it just took away some of He-Man's uniqueness to the point where even his catchphrase and big transformation scene has to be shared now. I mean, at least he's still clearly the main character and they make it apparent he's definitely the strongest out of all of them, but the dynamic with the Masters here wasn't something I absolutely loved.
Adam and Adora can't actually be in the same cartoon together anymore, but Adam can apparently get Adora's backstory of not knowing his true heritage or the fact that he's royalty until destiny comes to him. Of course then he grapples with being a prince and whether he wants the title (because I guess we can't have a character unironically want to be a prince) or his family when he finds out the truth...on-top of the He-Man stuff.
I wonder, if you didn't know ahead of time, if anyone would assumed that kitten Adam was saving at the beginning was actually Cringer. I almost think it would've been cool if they took a little kitten and had it turn into Battle Cat.
Speaking of Cringer...making his name an ironic one he got because he refused to fight his fellow tigers when forced to into an arena doesn't really hold up as well when it has nothing to do with his personality outside of that, or make for much of a contrast when he transforms into Battle Cat. I guess they say he feels "less classy" with the Power of Grayskull, implying it makes him a little more savage still...but I kind of missed the real transformation.
Cringer being Adam's adopted dad was an interesting twist, but it didn't feel like they did enough with it. Adam and Cringer honestly didn't feel as close here as they usually do. Like even in the episode where it seems like they're going to focus on their relationship, it just becomes about Cringer's backstory and Adam and Krass's conflict even though it ends with Cringer sticking by Adam in the end. Hey, at least we got He-Man riding Battle Cat into battle in the final episode.
They really leaned hard into Teela's connection to the Sorceress here (and they label her as half-witch, so I guess the Sorceress is still potentially her mother? She definitely felt motherly towards Teela here at times), right down to having her actually transform into a more traditional looking Sorceress than Eldress does in her kind of skimpy outfit. I kind of get it from a story perspective, but I personally prefer Teela as her own unique individual than to be so associated with the Sorceress like this down to her abilities or to the point where we have two Sorceresses. But I guess Krass had the warrior girl angle covered in the group dynamic. I did appreciate that her base look still had the white and yellow color scheme. And once again Kimberly Brooks is the female lead in a 80's cartoon reboot.
Teela is more often than not Adam's tough best friend but here that goes to Krass...a gender-flipped Ram-Man. And I guess it was an effective gender-flip because her personality was still pretty Ram-Man and unchanged even when they changed the gender of the character, and her first though still is to generally ram stuff. Of course we call her Ram-Ma'am (which was kind of halfheartedly justified) but the way they said it kept sounding like Ram-Man to me still.
Although they sure did tease Adam and Teela's relationship a lot in the first few intial episodes, although in the second half Teela seemed to get more screentime with Duncan despite excising their traditional relationship.
I really couldn't take this version of Duncan seriously. They take He-Man's mentor, Teela's adopted dad, and one of the most prolific of cool old guys in 80's cartoons...and then make him the dorky, awkward, tech guy you always see in these shows. And he starts out working with the villains too. Honestly it feels like they swapped personalities and roles between him and Cringer here. And even his Man-at-Arms suit felt a little excessive to me. I like Antony Del Rio but this just didn't do it for me.
Kind of not sure how we're supposed to feel about King Randor here. They make it out initially that he's a bad king furthering class divide in the kingdom but then it turns out he's really caring and righteous, if rigid? Maybe losing his son to his brother just made it harder for him to rule. Although what happened to Marlena/Adam's mother? We see her in the family portrait but they never address what happened to her.
Ork-O is basically Orko if he were a robot, with a dash of Roboto since Duncan fixes him up. Tom Kenny does a perfect job playing him. Surprisingly for someone known to be in He-Man's inner circle, Adam is the only one of the Masters who Ork-O doesn't really interact with at all this season. I also wonder how bad the original Orko was if the one difference between the robot version and him is that the robot version has a heart. So what does that say about the version that was actually alive?
A standing ovation for Ben Diskin as Keldor/Skeletor everybody. Both roles and voices are so out of the norm for his usual typecast or vocal role and he does such a phenomenal job. How he goes from the cool, collected, yet vengeful and sarcastic Keldor to the manic, crazy, hammy, and vicious Skeletor we all know and love was fantastic. They also finally mine Keldor being Adam's uncle for actual story beats. I also loved how after transforming into Skeletor he henceforth only refers to Adam as He-Man.
It is kind of ironic that once Keldor transforms into Skeletor...he stops caring about Castle Greyksull, which is a sharp contrast to practically every other version of Skeletor. Although it did turn out pretty well for him here, as once again at the end of a He-Man cartoon on Netflix, Skeletor basically wins.
Stock footage! Not only do all the heroes get transformation sequences we see almost every episode, but so do the villains when they finally get their Dark Masters forms. Not only that but everybody gets their own special attack move with a name and everything, complete with more stock footage. I guess I'm just glad they didn't abuse the stock footage as much as they could have.
That shadow version of Cringer that Evilyn summoned made me think of Panthor. And then Skeletor demanded his own Battle Cat. Someone get this man his purple panther.
All those mentions of the ancient snakes and how dangerous they were is totally setting up the Snake-Men to become free and become the antagonists once Skeletor is defeated. Like come the end of season 2 I would bet you it ends on a cliffhanger of King Hiss and the Snake-Men being released.
They mention Stratos and Mer-Man's realms, making me wonder if we'll see them turn up. I'm half-expecting Castle Greyskull to end up in Avion come the beginning of next season. Although with Teela able to fly, I guess that kind of makes Stratos redundant.
"Oh what a world!" Random movie reference is random.
Okay, just going to casually mention that Krass has used her dad's helmet to go to the bathroom before. I think that's a first for a kids cartoon...
Is that brainwashed general going to get transformed into Tri-Klops? I only ask because of his prominence and the fact that his helmet had a mono-eye going on with green coloring when he got brainwashed. Of course the same was true for all those soldiers. Although I guess they made Trap-Jaw Skeletor's tech guy so Tri-Klops might seem redundant.
Teela being able to teleport anywhere she can think of...seems pretty darn overpowered. Wanna bet that will be her most forgotten power? |
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LOL! At 6:57 "Ram Ma'am" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEDiVRORXco
Originally Posted by Frontier
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