She-Ra and The Princesses Of Power

I just re-watched this cartoon & realized that i forgot to post my original review of this show. below it is my updated review.

Jul 6, 2021

I own the original She-Ra cartoon on DVD & all the She-Ra action figures (& fashions). I suffered through all the netflix episodes to see for myself how Dreamworks ruined She-Ra.

I'll start with the positive parts of the show that I liked:

Not keeping Adora's transformation into She-Ra, a secret

The action sequences were well-done

The powered rebellion members are all princesses of their kingdoms

Seeing so many princesses in so many episodes

Incorporating Mara from New Adventures.

Limiting Madame Razz to a few episodes

Hordak & Etheria were cut off from the Horde

The idea of Horde Prime being the original of a bunch of clones

Having Catra be an actual force captain

The Crimson Waste

Glimmer using one of her powers

Scorpia's personality

The theme song

And now for the negative parts of the show. Of course this list is longer, I didn't set out for it be longer, the show was just hell-bent on pushing it's SJW propaganda agenda in every single episode that it overshadows anything positive they did. Things I hated:

she-ra is gay

catra is gay

huntara is gay

the crimson waste waitress is gay

netossa is gay

spinerella is gay

Two gay dads for Bow

1 gay dad looks exactly like original bow

Bow was blackwashed

lonnie was blackwashed

mermista was blackwashed

she-ra's boy shorts costume

catra's thrift store scraps costume

double trouble was turned into an alien

double trouble's entire personality, speech pattern & mannerisms

jewelstar was turned into a boy

peekablue was turned into a boy

peekablue never really appeared.

flutterina was turned into a fairy

flutterina never really appeared

octavia only appears in flashbacks

straight white males were turned into annoying buffoons: seahawk, kyle, swiftwind

Tung Lashor appeared only to be mocked

scorpia was shooting electricity

glimmer mostly just teleported

glimmer had to recharge her power

glimmer was using magic

glimmer didn't use her light powers

castaspella was barely used

king micah was over-used

beast island was nonsensical

the prom episode

every single villain except horde prime was redeemed in the end:

entrapta was forgiven & turned into a hero

scorpia was forgiven & turned into a hero

catra was forgiven & turned into a hero

shadow weaver was forgiven & turned into a hero

hordak was forgiven & turned into a hero

"wrong hordak" was forgiven & turned into a hero

double trouble was forgiven & turned into a hero

the show just glosses over the fact that catra & the horde on etheria destroyed etherian lives & killed etherians, in order to make all the females into heroes at the end.

it intentionally confuses children, conflating friendship with sexual attraction. catra & adora were just friends, who were raised together as sisters, from a young age. it's almost incestous what the show did.

the shows sends the additional message that it's justified to be violent & selfish if someone else wants to pursue their own goal. they showed, catra punhching & scratching adora/she-ra in almost every episode, until the final 13 episodes, because adora was trying to be her own person.

catra was a violent, controlling, hurtful, selfish lesbian. she never should have been forgiven. the show portrayed an abusive relationship as loving.

i re-watched the series on my DVDs after it was pulled from streaming & a few of my opinions have changed:

1) I appreciate the redemption of characters. People don't have to remain Evil. Of course, people should be punished for their past deeds & pay penance. the show didn't really do that, which is why it bothered me so much the 1st time i watched it. 

2) i like how they slowly brought out the villains: shadow weaver, then hordak, then horde prime

3) the background music on the show was also good, i didn't notice it the 1st time i watched.

4) i noticed a couple of lore mistakes. (a) In the beginning they state that the Horde members are mostly crew members from Hordak's ship which landed on Etheria-L, but in later seasons they make it seem like Horde members were native Etherians. (b) When preparing for the All Princess Ball, Adora studied the Star Sisters, but then in the last season they are aliens from another world that everyone meets for the 1st time.

5) i hated the way She-Ra broke the sword of protection (with a stabbing motion instead of breaking it along the flat side) & i hated how she created a magic sword with a costume change.

6) it's telling how they made the two black characters attracted to the only two overweight characters.

7) instead of inventing rogelio & kyle, they could have used octavia & shakra

8)  i can't understand how viewers think Catra is cool, she's a selfish, whiny, loser who is abusive & anti-social. she pushed people away & doesn't understand helping others. even in the last episode she says "what are you doing?" when someone is coming to the rescue. she genuinely doesn't understand doing the right things or sacrificing yourself for others. or being heroic, even in the last episode after she's joined the good side.

people would have noticied that this show was actually well-written, (for example, at first i hated double trouble but he was written well.), if they had not focused so much on misandry, homosexuality, attacking old fans & lesbianism (spoiler alert: it's sapphic love that saves the day in the last episode, not heroism nor determination nor honor). 

i enjoyed it more the 2nd time, maybe i was able to have a more open mind re-watching it this time because this cartoon with it's heavy handed agenda has been forgotten by almost everyone & has had zero cultural impact.

The Scepter and The Sword

Masters of the Universe Revolution

S01E05

The Sailor Moon transformation returned for the last episode. They avoided it the last 4 episodes but they gave him some lion motif with the symbol from the CGI cartoon. That was a mistake, the symbol they've been using from the original battle armor is what they should have continued to use. His mullet looked terrible. Teela got even more powerful as He-Man gave her some of the power of Grayskull like he does with Battle Cat. So technically he saved her from being consumed by the 3 ancient gods & she got yet another outfit. Are they really going to make toys out of all these variant looks?

Evil-Lyn is made a cosmic enforcer? That was incredibly stupid. Not only was she evil her entire life, doing bad things as Skeletor's girlfriend for decades, she killed everyone in heaven, but because she fought along the other guys, she gets made a cosmic enforcer!? Then they made her the blue cosmic enforcer from the comic book who was already named Apokrifa. This cartoon does not respect any existing ideas. They should just make blackternate Andra an enforcer too, after she becomes president of Eternia of course. That scene with everyone worshipping her was really out of place & stopped the whole episode as everyone bowed down to the diversity hire.

Granymyr the Monstrous gets to go to heaven too because he fought one robot? Seeing Monstroid was cool, I think the other monsters might be from the old Christmas special, but this show isn't that good for me to care enough to confirm.

Everyone is excited about Despara because they want to see She-Ra. Despara is available to be the next Big Bad before she's revealed as Adora & King Hiss is also still available as a Big Bad, but no, this terrible show decided to make Hordak survive an impalement through the heart, another stupid decision.

We get a shot of heaven that basically says "look at all the people that this awful show murdered." What's the point of dying if they can all come back & punch things!? - also stupid but I guess it's necessary in order to have yet another person rescue He-Man. What's the final count in only these 5 episodes? He-Man was saved by Randor, saved by blackternate Andra & saved by Keldor. tHaNkS Kevin Smith!

The Dogs of War

Masters of the Universe Revolution
S01E04

Everyone keeps acting like Evil-Lyn is a good guy & blackternate Andra rescues Adam because she's the best at everything, and suddenly Orko's magic is so powerful he can defeat Leech, Grizzlor and Mantenna all by himself, even though we just watched them kill Rokkon in the last episode! Just ridiculous.  Orko is as strong as She-Ra now. And it looks like Teela, not He-Man, is going to save the day again, just like last season. And like last season: what has He-Man actually done?

The only good part of this episode was Mattel fixing failmations demotion of Skeletor from the Lord of Destruction into a lowly "acolyte" of Hordak. The retcon is that Hordak couldn't understand & wield magic so Hordak needed someone else to do it. Not bad, I always hated that diminishing of Skeletor by the She-Ra cartoon. Then Skeletor killed Hordak, which was actually very good. It would have been better if Skeletor had restored himself using Havoc magic to get rid of the Skeletek parts. but still, seeing Hordak be killed by Skeletor is something I always wanted to see. It's also good to see Teela looking feminine like the old cartoon.

Mother board was killed too and Man-at-Arms looks like Gladiator but he called himself Man-at-War instead of War Wraith, another missed opportunity. But I'm not really a fan of Man-at-Arms like some people are.

All the little Easter eggs don't impress me as much as they seem to do everyone else who keep overlooking the plot mistakes & problems.

More Thing in Heaven and Eternia

Masters of the Universe Revolution
S01E03

There is no Heaven on Eternia, it's called Preternia. Do they even keep track of their own show? instead of showing us a character that's never been animated we get Rokkon who was in the old cartoon. Rokkon doesn't create full rock armor, his armor is on the back parts, not covering his face & he turns into a large asteroid, but I shouldn't expect these people to know anything about He-man. They think because they put Saryn & Tytus in a wall mural that viewers will forget all their other mistakes, ugh. Last season Teela was able to defeat Evil-lyn - who had the full power of Grayskull - without training to learn Zoar magic but for no good reason she needs to train in Snake magic from Evil-Lyn, who has absolutely zero connection to Snake magic. Instead of showing Skelecons at Snake Mountain, we get anonymous people in those dumb robes.

So they are using the Keldor story after all, that's good. It was good to see He-Man using his axe with the battle armor. But the easy way that Screech got into the castle was dumb, maybe because Teela was using Ka instead of Zoar? But I shouldn't try to explain away their mistakes. Where is Blast Attack and Trap Jaw, the actual tech bad guys, instead we get cyborgs of characters who were in the 80s show. Evil-Lyn is still annoying and Teela is suddenly an inexperienced amatuer taking advice from a murderer, it's too much of a difference from last season.

blackternate Andra created the battle armor, what else can she do? Why bother asking Gwildor for help, I'm sure fake Andra can do it. All right, finally He-Man is going to go on the offensive & attack Snake Mountin, but that was disappointing too. The fighting at Snake mountain was short and from far away because they spent more time showing Gwildor and Orko meeting, this cartoon is for adults, that's not what people are interested in. Who was sitting on the edge of their seat thinking "I hope we get to see Orko & Gwildor on screen together!" (nobody)

Ascension

 Masters of the Universe Revolution
S01E02

So they brought the Keldor, Miro story from 200x into it, that was cool, and Shatner was great. But Adam just crowns him without any kind of verification of his story? 

Keldor was on some random surfboard instead of it being a Jet Sled, that was a missed opportunity. blackternate Andra is one again the best, of course only she could have shot the big robot in the right spot. Nobody else could do it. This was another wasted opportunity, instead of making the robot a huge Twistoid, it's some random forgettable robot.

Genocide queen: Evil-Lyn killed everyone in heaven and she's punished by being exiled to Trolla, but she's on Eternia violating that! Teela barely reacts to seeing the war criminal & instead of just imprisoning her on sight with magic starts chatting with her like they are friends. More girl-boss stupidity left over from last season.

I also thought it was presumptuous of Granynyr to assume he was going to heaven. At least he's not fat in this one. I admit the reveal of Motherboard as Skeletek was a surprise. So I was also surprised by Keldor being Skeletor, but I would have preferred the Keldor storyline. So stealing the crown is pretty lame because nobody is going to honor that, Keldor, brother of Randor, son of Miro was made king not "whoever wears this crown" so this plan seems dumb, unless it's to make people lose faith in Adam's decision making skills?

Even for Kings

Masters of the Universe Revolution
S01E01

This episode starts out ok, we finally get to see Rio Blast animated but he has the corny lines "even cowboys get the pews. as in pew pew pew" because it's written by kevin smith. black-washed Andra rides into battle smiling because she's a Mary Sue & she can't get hurt even though she's just human, so it's all fun for her. She also built a hulkbuster armor suit which King Randor wears into battle in Subternia. Then later in the very same episode Randor tell Adam that he can't go on adventures as king, even though we literally just watched the king go on an adventure. 

Teela & He-Man are flirting now, which makes this Teela seem like a completely different character from what we saw in Revelation. Last time, she didn't even care that Adam was dead, she was still a bitch to him in heaven(!) Instead of using the Blaster Hawk, they have some new birdplane. Teela is going to restore Preternia using Zoar, Ka & Havoc magic. It would have been nice if they mentioned Horokoth but the Havoc is from the CGI show so no complaints there.

Cyborg Skeletor & Motherboard are terrible ideas. I was never a fan of Hordak so I'm not excited about Hordak, but that's just me. I don't know how they are going to explain Keldor showing up, considering how the Revelation comic book returned Skeletor to his mini-comic origin of him being from a race of people from another world.

Just a "meh" episode, it would have been better if Scareglow stayed normal & actually fought He-Man instead of turning into a weird crab (that made no sense at all), while the other guys fought the shadow demons & other creatures. 

Comes with Everything You See Here

Masters of the Universe: Revelation
S01E10

He-man finally showed up in the very last episode of this garbage show. of course he's a Man so this show did it's best to make him as ineffectual as possible, because this has been the Teela & Evil-Lyn show from the beginning.

According to his show, you can keep the power of Grayskull once you get it. Dark-Lyn dropped the sword, Prince Adam picked it up & turned into He-Man but Dark-lyn remained, just stupid. Is there an infinite amount of power? Does He-Man only call for a percentage? Did Dark-Lyn's power decrease? The show doesn't care about things like that.

Then He-Man gave the power to Skeletor. so now there were 3 champions of Grayskull all at the same time. How incredibly stupid. but of course, the two men together still couldn't beat grrrl power. Sorceress Teela defeated her. The Sorceress who was always just "the guardian of Grayskull & didn't have as much power as The Champion" saves the day, because vagina. Remember, this is the Teela & Evil-Lyn show.

Orko is now some ribbon magician?? that was strange. Evil-lyn then keeps him from going back to subternia, how? Then she's forgiven even though she killed everyone in Heaven!! Just when I though they dropped that dumb tech storyline Trap-Jaw & Tri-Klops are able to overpower Skeletor even though he's back at full strength, for motherHorde? ugh.

After an entire episode where Man-At-Arms was tHe mOsT dAnGeRoUs mAn iN eTeRnIa, Andra turned out to be stronger than him, again because vagina. She was made the new Man-At-Arms even though she was only in one battle for the king, I guess because Clamp Champ is dead & this time, blck vagina. 

What a terrible show. The action we all hoped to see was lacking, a cool looking He-man that we all hoped to see was in only 2 episodes, all the characters that we hoped to see didn't appear & the few that did, were mocked or killed. If you think this was good, you should be embarassed that you have such poor taste in storytelling. 

Hope, for a Destination

Masters of The Universe: Revelation
S01E09

In addition to the terrible writing there is the terrible voice acting from whoever they hired to be Marlena. They named the Avions & Andreenids, but not all those other weird races from the 1st episode. That would have been more impressive: that races we were not familiar with came to help, but that should be expected from this awful show. 'hey, Prince Adam why don't you turn into He-Man again even though you don't have the sword' well, why doesn't Skeletor?

Dark-Lyn whines about Skeletor & even though she would be dead or a sex slave somewhere had he not saved her, according to this show & comic universe, Evil-Lyn is now an agent of chaos & nihilism. Boring. She’s just an angry little girl.

Then they insult Goatman & Pig Boy. Beastman being a beta orbiter is annoying. Then they turn him into a warthog, basically. Human girls Andra & Teela can beat Spikor, Webstor & Clawful? Because grrrl power or whatever. I don’t even care anymore.

The Gutter Rat

Masters of The Universe: Revelation
S01E08

Ugh, this show just gets worse. Not only is He-Man able to call the power of Grayskull without the sword, invalidating everything about the sword. Now Evil-Lyn grabs the sword & calls the power. Why doesn't she just call it without the sword the way Prince Adam did? or Skeletor can call it away from her, now that he had the power once. Nobody thought this through.

Just as kevin smith said, the 2nd half of the 1st season of MOTUR is all about Evil-Lyn. So far, 3 episodes without He-Man. That "Savage Prince Adam" in ep 6 was not He-Man. Sure, everyone made Evil-Lyn into Skeletor's girlfriend as kids. The problem is that this show makes her seem like she hates him, so why would he suddenly fall for her seduction. he has all the power, he could just make her get undressed. Just more stupidity

Oh look, Randor & Marlena are getting divorced, can't have a happy marriage between straight White people. And blackwashed Andra gets a high-ranking position for no reason. Can this show get any dumber?

Yes, if Evil-Lyn is the Sorceress of Grayskull she can't also be the champion. That would mean that the Zoar Sorceress could have been the champion, what do you need Prince Adam for? Then Dark-Lyn destroys "heaven" so they killed Clamp Champ & blackwashed King Grayskull. Only blackwashed Andra is left. Forced diversity killed 2 blacks on this show

Reason and Blood

Masters of The Universe: Revelation
S01E07

Savage He-Man grabs a battle-axe & murders multiple transformed residents of Eternos city. if they change back, then this was a huge mistake, like the killing of Fisto & Clamp Champ.

Now Teela can do magic, with zero training, she teleports them to the Mystic Mountains. Why did they end up there? She didn't know Point Dread was there or that Randor was there. Then Savage He-Man is going to kill his own dad??! We get a touching speech by Randor to Prince Adam, the only good piece of writing in this series so far, but somehow Randor was able to recognize his dead son as a savage but never recognized him as He-Man? More stupidity from this show.

Listening to Mark Hamil be unable to maintain the raspy Skeletor voice is distracting.

It was cool to see Pigboy & Goatman on screen.

Cleaved in Twain

Masters of The Universe: Revelation
S01E06

It took me over a year to watch this continuation of the 1st season because the first 5 episodes were bad. Well this one is even worse. The writing is terrible. The lame jokes are not funny at all. "I'd like to fist him" - that was stupid, this was written by someone who doesn't like Masters of the Universe, so they mock it. Official media from the brand owner should never mock the brand itself, it basically insults the customers for consuming/buying it. The fact that these last 5 episodes did not break into the top 10 list on Netflix when it premiered is clear that the casual fans who watched the 1st 5 episodes didn't bother to return to watch more of this garbage. So what's wrong with this episode?

Instead of using existing evil warriors that have never been in a cartoon, everyone is turned into a ram's head creature, (just dumb) including Clamp Champ & Fisto, then they are killed. Instead of elevating the existing black heroic warrior, they prefer to kill him to focus on the blackwashed girl character who is nothing like the original Andra. The cartoon even said "they deserved a better death" in the actual episode. It comes across as a direct insult to the viewer. 'you're watching this bad show? They deserved a better death, but because we know you will settle for this poorly written garbage we didn't bother to try, so we just killed them off' sucker.

Fake Andra stops Fisto's punch with her own techno fist? Her arm bones would have shattered. He-Man transforms without the sword? It negates the entire struggle for the sword & control of Castle Grayskull. This terrible idea also tells every kid who spent time playing with their action figures using that storyline, that they wasted their time. Thanks Kevin!

I'll suffer through the rest of this train wreck because I'm not contributing to the views, maybe one a week.

Cry Havoc Part 2

He-Man and The Masters of The Universe
S01E10

This one wasn't as exciting as the last episode but it was a good ending to a great 1st season.

The chase for the havoc staff was good. Skeletor showing the Dark Masters who is boss was good. I like him putting them in their place. i like that Randor softened up on his stance against the power of Grayskull. I would have liked a hug between Adam & Krass.

The fact that He-Man's sword can be broken is just a really stupid mistake, writing-wise. Man-At-Arms just re-forged the Kirbinite like it was nothing. 

New Adventures! It would be awesome if season two is on Primus! Seeing New Adventures characters with this animation would be incredible. Then they could return to Eternia in season 3 to all sorts of craziness & more masters that were conscripted while they were gone.

"Failure is but an opportunity to rise again" 

Cry Havoc Part 1

He-Man and The Masters of The Universe
S01E09

This is what I always wanted to see! He-Man & Skeletor fighting each other like the old paintings. Plus all the other characters fighting each other. I don't need some complicated plot or scheme. Just a lot of action with cool poses, camera angles & explosions. I don't like that everyone has magic, but if it means more of this action, I will accept it!

The Menacers of The Universe or Dark Masters, I'm not sure which one the show is going to continue using for the bad guys but they had really great transformations. I think Beastman's is the best because it was shocking to me.
 
I wanted Evil-Lyn in a helmet like the original & I got it plus head wings! like Devilman Lady, Morrigan, Satanika) plus she got her own special power, Wings of Horokoth which is from the DC comics! black Teela had her Wings of Zoar.

I hated that Skeletor was able to break The Power Sword. It would have been better if he was just able to disarm He-Man. They better have a good resolution for that in the next episode.

The Calm Before the Storm

He-Man and The Masters of The Universe
S01E08

So glad, that Adam transforming into He-Man isn't a secret. I always said that there was no need for it. The secret never protected anyone. The royal family was always a target.

Usually kid show jokes aren't funny but that sand witch joke was really funny and it's more funny when you think about shokoti.

I'm glad they showed us the death of the black Sorceress, I guess she isn't black Teela's mom. She's dead so there is no reason to keep that a secret either.

Even though he tried to save his subjects, Randor is stubborn & unreasonable. I see why people don't like him & his guards are bad at their job.

He-Man the Hunted

He-Man and The Masters of The Universe
S01E07

It was weird to see Beastman be introduced as some human instead from a tribe of beastmen. I guess Skeletor will transform him. I'm glad they told Ork-0 that he's not the original wizard. Hopefully he won't be so annoying from now on.

Krass was super annoying in this episode. I get that she's jealous of black Teela & Adam's new destiny but she was being selfish. Her putting her hand on Adam's face in the net wasn't funny. Are they calling their spaceship the Wind Raider?

Orko the Great

He-Man and The Masters of The Universe
S01E06

I never liked Orko, but I liked how he was introduced here, but it doesn't make sense that this drone is so powerful. I liked the kids training. Ram Ma'am's elastics are a good way for her to slingshot around.

I liked that they introduced Collosor. It's interesting that Tuvar & Badrha start out as royal guards. I don't know why they are making the guards so incompetent though. It would have been better if the guards were just over-powered because they are human.

I really liked seeing He-Man hack away with his sword at Collosor, but that slow-motion scene with him getting hit in the face by his own sword was annoying. I didn't like the introduction of the word flarkin either. Also Krass saying that she had to rescue He-Man again was stupid, she didn't even rescue him once. We went 5 episodes without He-Man being incompetent or the butt of the jokes, hopefully it won't continue.