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PostPosted: January 27th, 2008, 3:09 pm 
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With the release of Filmation's '80s He-Man on DVD a while back, and the impending release of the 2002 version of the show, this is a conversation I've had quite a few times with my brother recently (each of us fighting the corner of a different one of those incarnations).

A lot of interesting (to me) debates have come out of this whole He-Man thing I'm on at the moment, and I'd like to post some of it here - but first let me establish whether anyone would be interested in discussing it.

So... would you?

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PostPosted: January 27th, 2008, 4:53 pm 
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is there going to be a 2002 He man release

and yes I guess I would

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PostPosted: January 27th, 2008, 6:11 pm 
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I'm interested in seeing what comes of this. I'm not the biggest fan in the world--truth to tell, I'm a little schizo about it.

I was about ten or eleven when the action figures first came out, and our parents bought a fair number for Ogre and I--we even had the original Castle Greyskull. The figures were squat, goofy looking, but somehow very cool.

Then the cartoon came out, and I pretty much thought it was so awful it actually made me hate the action figures for years.

The 2002 version, on the other hand, was pure awesome to me; the more modernized storytelling and quantum improvements in animation made a world of difference. The figures were completely awesome too. I even managed to snare one of the rare "Iron Cross He-Man"s

I guess I consider it another sign of how dumb kids today are that the original piece of shit show is considered legendary and fondly remembered, but the children of that generation didn't embrace the one that was a hundred times better.

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PostPosted: January 28th, 2008, 6:20 am 
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Both seasons - all thirty-nine episodes - of the newer He-Man cartoon are being released on DVD in three volumes, volume one coming out on February 19th in region 1. Happily for me, there will be a region 2 DVD release soon, though I can’t seem to find an exact date. I have absolutely no intention of buying the third volume when it comes out, as this will be Masters of the Universe vs. the Snake Men, or whatever the hell it was called. I only caught a couple of episodes of that, and I can’t remember exactly why I didn’t like them, but I do remember that I thought they were pretty rubbish compared to the first season.

Fritz wrote:
I was about ten or eleven when the action figures first came out, and our parents bought a fair number for Ogre and I--we even had the original Castle Greyskull. The figures were squat, goofy looking, but somehow very cool.

Then the cartoon came out, and I pretty much thought it was so awful it actually made me hate the action figures for years.


That's hysterical. My brother has said things in the past about RGB that would infuriate you, and now you come out with that. :lol:

He and I used to watch He-Man in the eighties, and he loves it to this day. I like it ok, but I’m not all that fond of it because before the DVDs I couldn’t really remember it that well. Some episodes were recently released on region 2 DVD, and then subsequent episodes - as well as She-Ra: Princess of Power - were only released in region 1, which is the whole reason my brother bought himself a fairly expensive multi-region DVD player. He is quite the Masters of the Universe fan (he’s always saying it and Bravestarr were far better than Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and RGB; I take the opposite view). I watched some of the episodes on region 2 DVD, and I enjoyed them; it’s very good for a cartoon which was commissioned solely for the purpose of selling a toy line. But there came a point when I had to say, “Look, don’t worry about showing me the rest of those He-Man episodes - I’m a bit sick of it now.”

This was a little while after we’d caught the second half of the first season of the 2002 cartoon. Whilst my brother conceded that it was ok, he thought it vastly inferior to Filmation’s efforts. I disagree totally. Its biggest selling point for me is the indisputable fact of it being so much less obvious that Prince Adam and He-Man are the same person. A Filmation episode would go something like this:

Everyone present. Some kind of evil scheme has been exposed.
Man-at-Arms: It looks like Skeletor’s up to another one of his evil schemes. Adam, do you think you could contact He-Man for us?
Adam: Sure I can. Come on, Cringer, let’s go see if we can find He-Man.
Adam and Cringer walk out of the room. Moments later, in come He-Man and Battle Cat, who have exactly the same character designs as Adam and Cringer.
Teela: He-Man! Swoons.

Or some such. In the new one, everyone goes off to deal with Skeletor, leaving Adam and Cringer behind. No one mentions He-man. Once they’ve gone, Adam and Cringer transform, and do not look like the same guy and cat. They then go and join their allies in the middle of the action, still not looking very much like Adam and Cringer at all.

My brother does not dispute that 2002 Adam is a much, much better disguise. Probably every good He-Man fan knows that Filmation used the same character design for Adam and He-Man to save on production costs, but we had to find that out from the fan commentary on one of the DVDs. One of the things my brother points out is that 2002 Adam keeps his heroic side under wraps much more than ’80s Adam, who will occasionally say something out of character for a fun-loving young prince. My brother then goes on to say that Adam’s character is not an act in 2002, whereas in the ’80s it was; Adam’s true nature was He-Man. I say that’s good; Adam has been Adam his whole life, and shouldn’t suddenly have to adopt a whole new personality so people won’t realise he’s He-Man. It does mean - and I do concede this - that a lot of He-Man’s characterisation is sacrificed in favour of Adam’s. I don’t object to that; I’ve got this thing about Adam being who he really is, so he deserves more character defining moments and such. He seems to spend more time as Adam, and my brother really hates that. Now personally I like Adam, and I’d rather be watching him than He-Man - but I guess maybe it’s not so good that He-Man - the title character - is boring.

Here’s another thing I like: Cringer and Battle Cat don’t talk. As a child, I absolutely loved Cringer and Battle Cat, and it didn’t occur to me to mind that they talked. But now it bothers me. They’re cats (or a cat, to those of us who know the secret). And yes, ok, they’re Eternian cats - but no other animal on Eternia can talk. Not even Panthor. So why should they? Here’s another interesting thing from the fan commentary: there was some discussion between the writers as to whether Cringer and Battle Cat should talk or not, and they decided that they should so they could have Battle Cat talking in the transformation sequence. But, as anyone who has watched an episode of He-Man knows, he doesn’t. Apparently, if you look, when Battle Cat transforms his lips read, “And I have the power too.” Now that’s just stupid, so they scrapped it - the only reason those characters can talk! 2002 Cringer is much more cat-like; his relationship with Adam is more like that of a boy and his pet than a boy and his friend who happens to be a cat. And Battle Cat’s more catty too; Cringer’s just like a domestic cat, and then Battle Cat is really savage. I so love his design. He is absolutely huge, with high shoulders and a tiny little head, and he’s got these massive teeth and claws - I just love it. :D

But enough of my Freudian tendencies. I’ve read on the internet that something fans like about the new show is the amount of back story given to pretty much everyone - that’s primary and secondary characters. I agree with that, and I’ll say that it is one of those things that I attribute to J.K. Rowling. I don’t suggest that she’s directly responsible for the obvious amount of effort that went into writing the new He-Man cartoon, but the phenomenon that is Harry Potter has done so many amazing things for the fantasy genre (and for kids actually picking up a book and reading, but that’s irrelevant), and back story is something I’ve been noticing a lot more of since she started putting it into her books. I’m not going to listen to anyone who says she’s not in any way responsible. Yes, there has always been back story in things, but not that much back story. As far as I remember, the 2002 season of He-Man is at least fifty percent back story.

Now there is one thing that I do not prefer in the newer version, and that is Orko. The Filmation guys wanted kids to adore Orko, and I always have. 2002 Orko is ok, but he’s not all that. I think I noticed, when I first started watching, a cluster of Orko-heavy episodes. Maybe I’ve misremembered and there were just one or two - but I did wonder if maybe they were trying to make Orko as popular as he used to be. But that was never going to work. You can’t improve on perfection.

When I first heard mention of Hordak in the new cartoon, I wondered if maybe they were planning on getting into the whole She-Ra thing, and my brother tells me that he’s read on the internet that they were. But unfortunately they made that stupid Snake Men thing first, and it got cancelled. I say unfortunately, even though I never particularly liked the She-Ra cartoon (because of course the cartoon made especially for girls doesn’t get to be as good as the cartoon made especially for boys - maybe next time I’ll get into a big political rant about that); because, with all the amazing things they’ve done with this new version, it would have been interesting to see what they made of it.

(I had no idea I knew so much about He-Man! :o )

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I guess I consider it another sign of how dumb kids today are that the original piece of shit show is considered legendary and fondly remembered, but the children of that generation didn't embrace the one that was a hundred times better.


I thought I'd liked you to an article my brother wrote for his fanzine in a previous post, but apparently those links didn't work at all and it all just links back to knightmare.com. :? That's insane! Well, if you want to read this illuminating article, you can go to http://www.knightmare.com, then find "Eye Shield" on the left-hand menu, "New Issues" about halfway down the screen, and it's in issue 48, November 2007 (you'll spot it from the title).

If you're not prepared to go through all that, let me sum up. I don't think (I didn't write the article, but I agree with every word) that kids are dumb nowadays, so much as they're treated as such. I don't know how it worked in the US, but we had a choice of two kids' TV slots that ran for about two hours after school every day, and a couple of shows on weekday mornings. Now, kids have cartoons all day every day, on twenty different channels. How can they fall in love with them the way we did?

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PostPosted: January 28th, 2008, 9:39 pm 
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That's hysterical. My brother has said things in the past about RGB that would infuriate you, and now you come out with that


Oops?

I can relate to him on one level: I admit deep down I don't really want them to do any more Ghostbusters cartoons because at this point, I'd probably hate them. It'd be another fucking reboot/retcon; they'd probably more willfully ignore the older shows than He-Man 2002 ever did, and of course the Movie Purists would insist on caricatures of Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, ect ect. instead of the characters I would want to see. You know, the ones that look like this:
:venkman: :ray: :winston: :egon: :janine:

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Or some such. In the new one, everyone goes off to deal with Skeletor, leaving Adam and Cringer behind. No one mentions He-man. Once they’ve gone, Adam and Cringer transform, and do not look like the same guy and cat. They then go and join their allies in the middle of the action, still not looking very much like Adam and Cringer at all.

My brother does not dispute that 2002 Adam is a much, much better disguise. Probably every good He-Man fan knows that Filmation used the same character design for Adam and He-Man to save on production costs, but we had to find that out from the fan commentary on one of the DVDs. One of the things my brother points out is that 2002 Adam keeps his heroic side under wraps much more than ’80s Adam, who will occasionally say something out of character for a fun-loving young prince. My brother then goes on to say that Adam’s character is not an act in 2002, whereas in the ’80s it was; Adam’s true nature was He-Man. I say that’s good; Adam has been Adam his whole life, and shouldn’t suddenly have to adopt a whole new personality so people won’t realise he’s He-Man. It does mean - and I do concede this - that a lot of He-Man’s characterisation is sacrificed in favour of Adam’s. I don’t object to that; I’ve got this thing about Adam being who he really is, so he deserves more character defining moments and such. He seems to spend more time as Adam, and my brother really hates that. Now personally I like Adam, and I’d rather be watching him than He-Man - but I guess maybe it’s not so good that He-Man - the title character - is boring.


I think even as an eleven year old, that's one of the things that made me think "This is stupid!" about the old show. How many perfectly muscled blond men with the same exact pageboy haircut could there be hanging around the capitol of Eternia that nobody noticed He-Man was just Adam with less clothes and a slightly deeper tan? Even Superman puts on a pair of glasses and flips up his s-curl.

The more Captain Marvel approach of the new show was one of the things that made it better. Adam=Billy Batson, his real self, scrawny kid. He-Man=Captain Marvel, steroid ideal version of self with deeper voice and super powers. (Just like since 1986 Clark Kent is who he really is, and Superman's the costume he wears to go fight evil)

Personally, I didn't think the Snake Men arc was too terrible, but agree it kind of sucked the charm out of the show. I think it made it too dark.

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If you're not prepared to go through all that, let me sum up. I don't think (I didn't write the article, but I agree with every word) that kids are dumb nowadays, so much as they're treated as such. I don't know how it worked in the US, but we had a choice of two kids' TV slots that ran for about two hours after school every day, and a couple of shows on weekday mornings. Now, kids have cartoons all day every day, on twenty different channels. How can they fall in love with them the way we did?


I think that's a really good point--with more quantity, the quality does go down. Shows that probably would have been rejected twenty years ago get approved because the monkeys in scheduling have holes to fill. Three Retards Named Ed Doing Stupid Shitfills up the hole just as well as something somebody spent some time coming up with.

Obviously, I still watch cartoons too. But except for some of the Williams Street stuff, and WB's Legion of Super Heroes (based off a comic I'd read for over a decade before it came on), it's mostly anime dubs on Cartoon Network (or Toon Disney, which shows Digimon Data Squad). I hate sounding old just because I am, but I don't know how kids with six active brain cells can watch most of the rest of it.

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PostPosted: January 29th, 2008, 6:39 am 
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Fritz wrote:
(Just like since 1986 Clark Kent is who he really is, and Superman's the costume he wears to go fight evil)


You must mean The New Adventures of Superman; I'm a bit amazed that was made in 1986. I used to watch it as part of a Saturday morning magazine show that I remember well, so it must have been the well into nineties by the time we got it. Anyway, my brother and I got into some talk about that one as well, and we were both struck by how poor his disguise was. I had scant memories of the Christopher Reeve films then, and when I saw them a few years later I was impressed by how convincing his Clark was. And, of course, Lois is beginning to figure it out by the end of the first movie, and does in the second (and then he erases her memory)... I found it more believable, I have to say.

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I think that's a really good point--with more quantity, the quality does go down. Shows that probably would have been rejected twenty years ago get approved because the monkeys in scheduling have holes to fill. Three Retards Named Ed Doing Stupid Shitfills up the hole just as well as something somebody spent some time coming up with.


I was subjected to a lot of Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy for a stint I had baby-sitting two boys in my middle/late teens (actually, I laughed at it once in about four years). I am very anti-just-sitting-them-in-front-of-the-TV, but this was obviously how they were brought up, and it's a shame because they're intelligent kids. There are some pretty stupid cartoons out there, and - in spite of my experiences - I believe there are kids smart enough to separate the wheat from the chaff. But the thing is about the twenty-odd channels, and cartoons all day every day, is that the experience is no longer special.

It occurs to me that EGB was one of the last of the Children's Television era, which died shortly before I reached legal (if not mental) adulthood. I had one episode of EGB a week, after school on Tuesdays. Before that there were other shows - it was something to get you through the school day and it was so exciting. But it's simply not like that now. I was going to say, imagine if RGB had been repeated ad nauseum every day for hours at a time. Maybe that sounds like a good thing - but I would be prepared to bet (if I had a time machine and the means of broadcasting RGB over and over again) that you wouldn't have fallen so deeply in love with it.

You can call that off-topic, but those opinions do relate strongly to He-Man. If that was on once a week after school, and if you missed it you missed it (and cried for days afterwards), I am confident that it would find its way into the hearts of millions.

Getting back on topic now - I wonder, would anyone be interested in discussing She-Ra? I do admit, it's years and years and years since I saw it - again, limited access to that multi-region DVD player - but even as a child I remember thinking something didn't feel quite right about it. She had a touch of the Mary-Sue about her, no? :roll:

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PostPosted: January 29th, 2008, 1:34 pm 
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dam you all and your long rants



Fritz wrote:
I'm interested in seeing what comes of this. I'm not the biggest fan in the world--truth to tell, I'm a little schizo about it.

I was about ten or eleven when the action figures first came out, and our parents bought a fair number for Ogre and I--we even had the original Castle Greyskull. The figures were squat, goofy looking, but somehow very cool.

Then the cartoon came out, and I pretty much thought it was so awful it actually made me hate the action figures for years.

The 2002 version, on the other hand, was pure awesome to me; the more modernized storytelling and quantum improvements in animation made a world of difference. The figures were completely awesome too. I even managed to snare one of the rare "Iron Cross He-Man"s

I guess I consider it another sign of how dumb kids today are that the original piece of shit show is considered legendary and fondly remembered, but the children of that generation didn't embrace the one that was a hundred times better.



EGBFan wrote:

He and I used to watch He-Man in the eighties, and he loves it to this day. I like it ok, but I’m not all that fond of it because before the DVDs I couldn’t really remember it that well. Some episodes were recently released on region 2 DVD, and then subsequent episodes - as well as She-Ra: Princess of Power - were only released in region 1, which is the whole reason my brother bought himself a fairly expensive multi-region DVD player. He is quite the Masters of the Universe fan (he’s always saying it and Bravestarr were far better than Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and RGB; I take the opposite view). I watched some of the episodes on region 2 DVD, and I enjoyed them; it’s very good for a cartoon which was commissioned solely for the purpose of selling a toy line. But there came a point when I had to say, “Look, don’t worry about showing me the rest of those He-Man episodes - ”.


Ok in less I'm wrong but if it wasn't He man we wouldn't have a lot of the shows we loved . It was one of the first shows to step up , yes it wasn't GI Joe or transformers but if one is to look as animation as a evolution time line . then He man is were we can see were it brake off and start to evolve. from He man we get GI Joe or transformers then to shows ghostbuster then TMNT then one can say bat man and so on .




EGBFan wrote:

But enough of my Freudian tendencies. I’ve read on the internet that something fans like about the new show is the amount of back story given to pretty much everyone


yes that was something I liked as well.


Fritz wrote:

I can relate to him on one level: I admit deep down I don't really want them to do any more Ghostbusters cartoons because at this point, I'd probably hate them. It'd be another fucking reboot/retcon; they'd probably more willfully ignore the older shows than He-Man 2002 ever did, and of course the Movie Purists would insist on caricatures of Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, ect ect. instead of the characters I would want to see.


not necessarily I mean if they did it to day then they would have more RGB fans working on it then that probably did for EGB. in less they did a hole remake like they are doing with transformers

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I think even as an eleven year old, that's one of the things that made me think "This is stupid!" about the old show. How many perfectly muscled blond men with the same exact pageboy haircut could there be hanging around the capitol of Eternia that nobody noticed He-Man was just Adam with less clothes and a slightly deeper tan? Even Superman puts on a pair of glasses and flips up his s-curl.
well we were still coming off the old hanna barbera days




Quote:

Obviously, I still watch cartoons too. But except for some of the Williams Street stuff, and WB's Legion of Super Heroes (based off a comic I'd read for over a decade before it came on), it's mostly anime dubs on Cartoon Network (or Toon Disney, which shows Digimon Data Squad). I hate sounding old just because I am, but I don't know how kids with six active brain cells can watch most of the rest of it.



yes sad to say but it feels to me that we are going back a bit it the quality of shows . one of the bad thing's is that the sows talk down to the kid's to day as if they cant think or understand thing .

the shows that we all loved didn't dod that . on a lot of the dvd's they say the they made shows that they wonted to see with deep story's and treated the kid's as if they we're smarts enough understand what going on . If a kid is watching something were the have to think and keep guessing then they may just grow but if you just give them slop were all the answers are on a silver plater then you can expect there mined to tern to jell .

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PostPosted: February 3rd, 2008, 6:10 am 
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So, She-Ra: Princess of Power was also commissioned by Mattel, this time because they had a whole bunch of new action figures they wanted to sell and there just wasn’t room in He-Man for all those new characters. So they decided to aim this new show at girls. Now that’s always bugged me about these two shows: I tend to disapprove of anything that says this is for boys and this is for girls. When She-Ra graced our screens, I had been watching and enjoying He-Man with my brother for years, and even at that age - before I had learnt to have big ideas - I got the feeling that I was being told, “Actually, sweetheart, you can’t enjoy watching that - this one’s yours” - and it wasn’t even as good! But, of course, we both watched both.

(With that said, She-Ra was a hell of a lot better than the other cartoon Mattel had commissioned for the sisters of He-Man fans i.e. My Little Pony. I am happy to say that no UK channel ever bought that, and the only glimpses of it I’ve seen were on documentaries. Frankly, it’s insulting - or at least that’s the impression I get from what little I’ve seen.)

Again, my brother knows a hell of a lot more about this than I do. For anyone who needs filling in, Princess Adora was Prince Adam’s twin sister. They were separated at birth, and stuff happened to her in the intervening years - my brother has told me, and it’s very long and complicated - until Adora finds herself living as part of a rebel group on the planet Etheria, in possession of a magic sword a bit like He-Man’s. When she holds aloft her magic sword and says, “For the honour of Grayskull” - which is not nearly as cool as “By the power” - she becomes She-Ra whilst her horse, Spirit, becomes Swift Wind. He can fly. Now what was I saying about Mary-Sues?

Adora/She-Ra’s incantation may not be as cool, but her sword is way better than He-Man’s. She can turn it into pretty much anything. “Sword to shield.” Ok, fair enough. “Sword to rope.” Yeah, fine. “Sword to ladder.” Er… “Sword to ice-maker.” Now that isn’t even a real thing, unless you find it in a fridge, but this is a sort of wand she can use to freeze stuff. I mean! Of course, “Sword to shield” is easy to recreate with an umbrella, which is probably why She-Ra made it into our role-playing games. If it hadn’t been for that, we probably wouldn’t have bothered.

I haven’t seen She-Ra in any of her own episodes recently, but I have seen her in a couple of crossovers with He-Man, thanks to my brother and his DVD habit. If I was a mega He-Man fan, it might annoy me that He-Man has to get himself rescued by She-Ra a couple of times (the last time I mention Mary-Sues, I promise). I remember a bit where he’s getting all caught up in some snakey metal tentacle things, and She-Ra has to come and cut him free. I mean, the most powerful man in the universe - hello? But of course, my brother is the fan, and he just laughs at that.

Adora’s disguise is even less convincing than Adam’s - she doesn’t even get a tan when she changes (just a slightly different outfit) - but I don’t see this issue as a reason to dislike the shows. I said I prefer that it’s a more convincing secret identity in the 2002 He-Man, and I do, but given that Filmation’s is the way it is, you have to laugh. In fact it seems to me that the more devoted the fan, the heartier the laughter. I am reminded of something in the fan commentary, that I shall try to remember as best I can:

“Now you would think that Ram-Man, slow as he is, would notice that he left with Man-At-Arms, Teela* and Cringer, and he’s leaving with He-Man, Man-At-Arms, Teela and Battle Cat.”

*It may not have been exactly those characters - I really don’t remember. But statistically, in terms of appearances, it’s likely to be those two.

(I keep saying to my brother, “Can I watch a couple of episodes of She-Ra?” and he’s like, “Yeah, yeah, sure,” but that’s always as far as it goes because it’s going to be a bit of an effort with the region one DVD issue.)

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PostPosted: February 20th, 2008, 6:35 am 
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I don't imagine anyone's very interested in my opinions on She-Ra: Princess of Power, but since I watched a couple of my brother's DVDs on my laptop I've been feeling bad about what I said last time. Even though I think the whole idea of He-Man's twin sister is really dumb... well, I'm kind of enjoying it.

Yesterday I watched the first five She-Ra episodes, which are all about how Adora got to Etheria and Adam taking her her sword and stuff. I had to laugh the first time Adora became She-Ra, and she woke up an unconscious He-Man and he said, "Who are you?" She was just Adora with a different dress on! :lol: But like I say, it's no reason not to like the shows.

Those origin episodes were pretty good. I say again, the new He-Man cartoon could have done the whole She-Ra thing brilliantly - I can just see those episodes sexed up a bit with 2002 Adam and Battle-Cat going to Etheria and... everything. I'm sorry, but I really don't like the Snake Men thing they did, and I think it would have been better if they'd gone into the She-Ra thing straightaway like they were eventually planning to. But, y'know, if. Stupid word.

Oh, yeah, speaking of 2002 He-Man, they have apparently decided not to release it on region 2 DVD after all. Pshaw! But I ordered it on region 1 DVD from Amazon days ago, and they were actually dispatched on the Saturday before the Tuesday release date - they do that, apparently, if they know you won't get the item before the release date. So it's a good thing my laptop's been getting used to region 1 DVDs.

Anyway...

She-Ra's kind of less for girls than I thought. I always knew it was better than My Little Pony, but now I see that it's way better than My Little Pony.

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PostPosted: February 20th, 2008, 9:14 am 
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I never saw She-Ra. I knew it was a He-Man spin-off and that was enough for me as a teen-age boy who hated the He-Man cartoon, as previously mentioned.

I agree it would have been interesting to see the more recent show's take on the idea, though. Hopefully they would have ditched the "She's really He-Man's long lost twin sister" idea in the process, as it does have the distinct whiff of Mary Suedom attached to it...though of course the purists would have bitched about it the way the Pre-Crisis Supergirl fans bitched and moaned when DC made Supergirls who weren't Kara Sue From Krypton.

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PostPosted: February 20th, 2008, 8:40 pm 
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I used to love He-Man and She-Ra, so this discussion really brings back some memories for me. I was just a kid when they were shown back in the eighties, so I never used to analyse anything about the episodes, really. It was just a fun cartoon to me. I'll be honest and say I haven't seen the 2002 version, so I'll take a look around and see what changes they've made (although I also must admit I was never a huge fan, it's more a nostalgic look back at the days in front of the TV while doing my homework).

I agree that She-Ra the show wasn't as good as He-Man, but a Mary-Sue? I don't know about that. I mean, she's He-Man's twin sister, she's basically the female version of him, and she's got to do something other than stand around and look pretty. Seeing as the show She-Ra: Princess of Power is all about her, it would have been pretty boring if she didn't do anything interesting or have any special powers which differed to her brother's (otherwise they might as well have just stuck with He-Man and been done with it). Maybe they were over-compensating a bit with the sword thing, but as a kid I never got as irritated by her as I have by other female characters in other shows I used to watch.

I did prefer it when He-Man and She-Ra worked together as a team, though. On reflection, I think those episodes were much better than She-Ra on her own.

Personally, I agree that they didn't really need She-Ra, because He-Man was fine on his own, but I can see why they wanted a female-version spin-off which would have brought in more viewers, and which obviously equals more merchandise and more ker-ching.

EGBFan wrote:
She-Ra's kind of less for girls than I thought. I always knew it was better than My Little Pony, but now I see that it's way better than My Little Pony.


Yeah, I used to like both She-Ra and He-Man and I was also quite a tomboy, climbing trees and hanging out with the boys on my BMX bike rather than the girls with their Barbie dolls, so it sort of makes sense.

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PostPosted: February 21st, 2008, 6:03 am 
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nikki wrote:
Personally, I agree that they didn't really need She-Ra, because He-Man was fine on his own, but I can see why they wanted a female-version spin-off which would have brought in more viewers, and which obviously equals more merchandise and more ker-ching.


Well, I know I've mentioned that He-Man was commissioned by Mattel purely to sell a toyline, and She-Ra was just the same only kind of worse. They had to commission a spin-off because they'd made all these new action figures - specifically the Evil Horde members - but there wasn't room for the characters in the He-Man cartoon, which is why they had to make a whole new one.

I don't know if you remember a character called Light Hope. I haven't actually seen him in any of the episodes I've watched so far, but he's one of the characters who knows Adora's secret, and he's just a big blob of light. My brother reckons he's just Filmation going: Ha-ha! Try to make an action figure out of that that, Mattel!

Twins separated at birth is something Mary-Sue writers like to do; I've heard that Harry Potter supposedly has a small collection of twin sisters, though I've never read any stories like that. Maybe it was She-Ra who gave the writers the idea to do that in the first place. Anyway, it really did seem strange, having all those He-Man episodes and then suddenly he's a twin and she's in another dimension and there's another sword and blah blah blah. But I like Fritz's idea: Adora could have been another "chosen one" destined for the Sword of Protection, but she didn't have to be Adam's twin sister separated at birth (though they probably would have said she was, if they'd done it with the new cartoon).

I do admit, it is nice to see a female action hero in one of those eighties cartoons, next to He-Man and the Turtles and the Real Ghostbusters who each have one woman between them and she's not even a mutant or a Ghostbuster herself. Ok, so She-Ra was commissioned just to sell toys, but it was nice of them to take the opportunity to show us girls that we too can be heroic. I've noticed that Adora gets to do more cool stuff actually as Adora than Adam does (as Adam, I mean), as she was raised as a Horde warrior and becomes the leader of the Great Rebellion, whereas Adam has to pretend to be a fun-loving prince. Again, I think maybe that should make Adora's disguise just a little bit less convincing, but people seem to fall for it anyway. :lol:

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PostPosted: February 21st, 2008, 2:36 pm 
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EGBFan wrote:
Anyway, it really did seem strange, having all those He-Man episodes and then suddenly he's a twin and she's in another dimension and there's another sword and blah blah blah. But I like Fritz's idea: Adora could have been another "chosen one" destined for the Sword of Protection, but she didn't have to be Adam's twin sister separated at birth (though they probably would have said she was, if they'd done it with the new cartoon).


Speaking from a personal perspective, as a little girl watching the show I would have wondered why a stranger would have had the same abilities as He-Man. I know the sword gives you a unique power, but I thought it was something innate inside you which helped to trigger it. To me, it made sense that she was related to him in some way. It adds to the mystery of Adam; that there's something unique about him and his family line, rather than something that could happen to anyone if they found the sword. It goes with the concept of Adam being a member of royalty and therefore different from every one else from the very beginning. In my opinion, it would seem a little bit of a disservice to the character of Adam that the Prince of Eternia would end up sharing essentially the same powers with any other random character with a non-royal background.

It also makes more sense that whatever was 'special' about him which led him to use the sword successfully would be shared by a blood relative, rather than anyone else. I don't know what would have connected Adam to anyone else in order for the character to be "chosen" in the same way, or for the powers to exhibit themselves in the same way. If they had vastly different powers and abilities, then I'd agree that anyone could be chosen, but because they shared such similar abilities, and the swords basically did the same thing to both of them, then it seems more sensible for the two characters to be related and that the connection would be something that runs in the family. Their powers are basically twinned with each other, thus it makes sense that the people who share those powers are twins themselves.

I know being a close relative/twin of one of the main characters is something Mary-Sue authors love to do, but I wouldn't assume that every twin separated at birth should automatically be considered to be a Mary-Sue. I agree it was odd that she turned up all of a sudden, but it seems to me being a twin would be a better explanation as to why she would have been destined to use the sword and share similar abilities than it would any other character unrelated to him.

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