R.I.P., Val Kilmer

 

Avengers: Doomsday. What about Bob?

 

Masters Of The Universe: Relevation VS. Revolution

Masters Of The Universe is one of the more enduring franchises to still survive the weird market of the 1980s. The toy line was created by Mattel at first to compete with Star Wars as well as to stand as its own succession into the field of sci-fi/fantasy which included coming up with its an original animated TV series from Filmation of He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe and its sequel She-Ra: Princess Of Power. Despite Filmation's limited resources and reusing the same footage and animated sequences throughout each episode, both shows were viewed as being a fixed figure among 80s cartoons. This lead to several spinoffs, both animated and live-action, but when it came to following up the original series most of them went in their own direction. Then after coming out with a successful reboot of She-Ra, Netflix focused on doing another MOTU animated series, this time produced by Clerks creator Kevin Smith, otherwise known as half of Jay and Silent Bob. Even though Smith already had a history of creating his own View Askewniverse along with several comic books and other geek-centered properties, so having one the biggest fanboys working on revitalizing the MOTU saga seemed like a good idea.

This began in 2021 with Revelation which was released in two separate parts consisting of five episodes each. The first part had He-Man and Skeletor seemingly dying which leaves the rest of Eternia to pick up the pieces of the mess the lead characters left behind, and the second half has less substance as it dealt with various people gaining the Power of Grayskull and its impacts on the universe. In 2024, a new 5-episode series titled Revolution continued where Revelation left off with Eternia being invaded by the Horde and several truths about the past finally being revealed. Both Revelation and Revolution left their impression with old and new MOTU fans, even though most were turned off with the second half of Revelation to even bother with Revolution. Let's see the differences between both titles and see which one did more justice to the MOTU legacy.

Both series were animated by studios DR Movie and Powerhouse which treated this like a theatrical feature with a dynamic style and a real flare for bringing back the 80s nostalgia to modern audiences who have grown up on anime and video games. The production was also blessed with amazing vocal talents and a soaring musical score that immerses you in the world they've created. The premise behind this was that the series acts as a pseudo-sequel to the original He-Man cartoon along with elements from the MOTU movie and other sources such as the various comics and characters' backstory that were explored in expanded media. So, Revelation treats the original She-Ra cartoon as non-canonical which slims the narrative solely to the regular cast of Eternia instead of Etheria.

Revelation starts with a huge battle between He-Man and Skeletor once again for the secrets of Castle Grayskull which leads to the alleged death of the lead hero and villain. The remaining part of the first half shows Teela along with her new partner Andra going on a quest to restore the Sword of Power along with other friends and former enemies like Evil-Lyn. Teela and her party travel from the hellish Subternia to the heavenly Preternia to reforge the Power Sword and resurrect Adam whose secret identity as He-Man is out in the open, even though this also brings Skeletor back to life who claims the Power of Grayskull for himself. The second half might have had Skeletor ultimately winning if he hadn't lost his power to Evil-Lyn who destroys Preternia and plans to wreck the universe. Teela stops this by becoming the new Sorceress and restoring order with Skeletor crawling back to Snake Mountain which has been taken over by a mysterious new cybertronic idol called Motherboard that secretly works for the Horde lead by Skeletor's old boss Hordak.

Revolution picks up with Adam's father Randor dying leaving him to take the crown of the kingdom of Eternos, even though a blue-skinned stranger named Keldor from the forbidden island of Gar arrives claiming to be the elder brother and true heir to the throne. Afterwards, the newly cyborg Skeletor attacks Eternos and starts to infect its citizens with a nanites which takes them over. Keldor helps them fend off Skeletor's attack, and He-Man declares him the new king while he sends the Sword of Power to be modified by his old friend Gwildor from the live-action movie to enhance it to counter this new technology in one big swoop. Hordak arrives on Eternia, his agent Motherboard takes over Grayskull, while Skeletor realizes that he really was Keldor this whole time and has a final battle with Hordak to settle their rivalry. Teela gains the powers of the three Eternian animal gods so she can remake Preternia and help He-Man defeat Skeletor. There's a stinger at the end showing Hordak still alive and being sent back to his leader, Horde Prime, thanks to a mysterious Horde captain.

Story wise, both Revelation and Revolution handled the MOTU lore well. It’s not a direct sequel to the Filmation shows since nothing of the first She-Ra show gets brought up here, and aspects from the live-action movie were also thrown in. Revelation broke more ground as it went off the beaten path and shows what the supporting characters would be like if the main protagonist and antagonist weren’t around anymore, and its first half is a long fetch quest trying to restore a magical artifact, even though the second half wastes a lot of time deciding who is really worthy of wielding that kind of godly power. Revolution on the other hand dug much more into the prior MOTU established history by incorporating elements from different He-Man resources such as the DC Comics and the 2000’s animated series. It brings up the fact that Skeletor is really He-Man's uncle and that he used to work for the Horde when they first invaded Eternia. Even though he is given cybernetic implants to make him compliant to the Horde, Skeletor managed to break free of his programming and discovered the truth of his past thanks to his hidden personality of Keldor who is just as ambitious as his present self that wants to usurp Hordak and his forces. 

Comparing the characters in both shows is a sliding scale as well. Adam himself is either dead for most of the time or shifting to his Hulk form in Revelation, whereas in Revolution he’s more aware of the weight of his decisions, even though giving up the kingdom to a total stranger like Keldor was pretty dumb in hindsight. Teela struggles in the first series to find her identity and comes off being a whiner to most viewers, but in the second she’s reaffirmed her role as the new Sorceress and just trying to work out her feelings for her childhood friend. One of the most surprising story arcs is Orko becoming a full-blown mage, even though he had to die to have that happen like when Gandalf changed his color from Gray to White. The biggest character elevation of all was Evil-Lyn who after finally breaking from Skeletor’s influence manages to rise to being the new Big Bad, then redeeming herself by helping the good guys save the planet for which she becomes a Cosmic Enforcer that is the MOTU equivalent of the Green Lanterns. Beast Man went through some changes in Revelation but is completely left out of Revolution. 

The voice actors selected were totally spot on for both shows. Chris Wood who played Mon-El on Supergirl was a fitting choice for He-Man/Adam, along with Supergirl herself, Melissa Benoist, portraying Teela. The Teela from Revelation was voiced by Sarah Michelle Gellar, though more fans seem to prefer Benoist’s performance. Skeletor was played by none other than Mark Hamill who already had experience playing skeletal villains, but then having Keldor voiced by the living legend of William Shatner was too good to be true. For me, it was a thrill having two sci-fi legends simultaneously voicing my favorite 80s cartoon bad guy. There were other Star Trek alumni in the cast such as Jeffrey Combs as Zodak, Gates McFadden as Queen Marlena(originally played by Alicia Silverstone), John de Lancie is booming as Granamyr, Tony Todd is magnificent in the premiere of Scare Glow, and Keith David does his best galactic conqueror as Hordak. Former MOTU actors like Meg Foster, Cam Clarke, and Alan Oppenheimer were given small roles, as well as other animated voice overs by Grey Delisle, Cree Summer, Phil Lamarr, Kevin Conroy, Susan Eisenberg Kevin Michael Richardson, Diedrich Bader, and Stephen Root. Lian Cunningham was terrific as Man-At-Arms and seriously helped drive the story along. The replacements they made for Revolution along with the additional cast seem to work more for the second show’s favor as opposed to Revelation.  

Overall, Revolution was more appealing to old school MOTU fans than Revelation. The animation, pacing, character motivations, and overall layout works better as a 5-episode series instead of a series broken up into two chapters. Revolution checks a lot more boxes for its audience with a largely fulfilling plot and calls to all branches of the He-Man fandom including the new Netflix children's series plus Dolph Lundgren's hair mullet, even though your choice may vary with all the pop culture homages. No word yet if there will be a continuation of this particular saga, but since a new live-action movie is coming out, there still might be some fabulous secrets yet to be revealed in this version of Eternia.

ANI-MOVIES, *Time Masters

Rene Laloux broke some sci-fi movie standards with his animated feature of Fantastic Planet, but nearly a decade later his next full-length production of Time Masters completely fell flat on its face. Based on the Stefan Wul(who also wrote Fantastic Planet)novel from the 50s, The Orphan Of Perdide, Laloux teamed up with infamous illustrator Moebius to create this drawn-out nap of a space story titled Time Masters. This was an indie animated film with some interesting character, ship, and creature designs, but the movie plays out like a prolonged episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series by Filmation. In fact, the story goes on like Star Trek: The Motion Picture with huge gaps spent just looking at the backgrounds and surrounding areas. The story is profoundly thin on plot and doesn't really even become a time travel story until the final act. Whereas Fantastic Planet had some amazing visuals and a good premise behind it, Time Masters is more like a rejected script for Will Smith's vanity project for his son, After Earth.

A young boy named Piel gets marooned on a planet where space wanderer Jaffar picks up the signal from and plans to rescue Piel since he's the son of a friend of his. Jaffar happens to be transporting a pair of exiled royal siblings along with their collected loot to a hidden part of the galaxy but stops on another world to see his old friend Silbad who has knowledge of the planet Perdide that Piel is trapped on. Silbad communicates with Piel via a radio and helps him to find the right things to live on until they can reach Perdide which should take over a month by their own time. A pair of little annoying telepaths stow away on the rescue mission with the others, and they run across a species of faceless winged humanoids under the control of living liquid which Jaffar and his crew manage to stop. Piel meanwhile makes contact with a bizarre centaur-like creature who gives him a ride, even though he loses the communicator. When Jaffar's crew finally reach Perdide, they learn that the entire world was sent back in time by a race called the Masters of Time for a colonization experiment. Silbad grows sick and dies, even though it's revealed that he was actually the older version of Piel from 60 years in the future.

Time Masters has a terrible dub to it, making it incredibly hard to follow the narrative, so you might be better off watching a subtitled French version of it instead. There are seriously low stakes involved and the movie trots uphill trying to get to its revelation. This was intended to be a full TV series, even though it's impossible to see how the plot could be stretched out that long. Moebius' artwork is the main plus to the film, but unless you're wanting to witness a causality loop at a mind-numbing pace, the only thing this animated space tale might be worth a look for is if you're into getting hopped-up on goofballs.

ANI-MOVIE, *The Magic Pony

Russia is one of the overlooked sources of animation when most people think of the global impact of cartoon media. The Little Humpbacked Horse was a 19th Century fairy tale that Pyotr Yershov wrote which went on to become a popular ongoing ballet starring the stock Soviet fairy tale character of Ivan the Fool. In 1947, a 55-minute animated feature was created by Ivan Petrovich Ivanov which was one of the first Russian movies to receive an English dub that even Walt Disney was impressed with. With film restoration not being a priority in most parts of the world, the original cut of the film was in danger of being unwatchable, so in 1975 Ivanov decided to remake the same story, only this time it was expanded to 73 minutes with additional songs and slightly different animation. The original version had classic fluid movement to it, even though the remake did maintain the appearance of this but appeared a little trippy for its time with some scenes done from different angles and alternate backgrounds, along with an entire chapter involving a giant whale.

A long while back, a young Russian boy named Ivan lived on a farm with his two lazy brothers who think of him as a dumbbell, even though he found out that a heavenly mare ascends from the sky and has been the one eating their hay. The angelic horse tries to shake Ivan off when he catches her and won't be shaken off. In return for her freedom, the godly steed gives in exchange a pair of tall black stallions along with a magical talking girl pony called Zip who can also trot into the air. Ivan's brothers take the two stallions to the capitol city where the Tsar favors them, but Ivan arrives with Zip to claim true ownership of the horses and becomes the Tsar's personal horse groomer. This seriously ticks off the prior stable keeper Spalnik who continuously tries to sabotage Ivan's position by convincing the Tsar to send him off on quests to gather various treasure. This included capturing a firebird, kidnapping a foreign princess, and find a magic ring which has him freeing an enormous whale from a curse after eating too many ships. Ultimately, Ivan's adventures get him aged up into an adult and married to the very princess he kidnapped against her will, all thanks to the help of his noble friend Zip.

The remake was dubbed into English in 1977 under the title The Magic Pony featuring cartoon royalty such as Hans Conried and Jim Backus, along with young actors Erin Moran and Johnny Whitaker. The dub is good with Backus and Conried being over the top, although the Americanized pop songs they put in place of the original Russian songs is not all that welcome. A restoration of the 1947 film has been successfully completed which also received its own English dub, but the 1977 edition is a better fit for American audiences. The remake is available on VHS and DVD, but not on any official streaming services at this time.

ANI-MOVIES, *My Neighbors The Yamadas

Yonkoma manga are the Japanese equivalent of American comic strips, although instead of a left-to-right strip it's a vertical top-to-bottom narrative traditionally in four panels. One of these had a good run in the 90s titled Nono-chan by Hisaichi Ishii, although it was originally titled My Neighbors The Yamadas as it was a slice-of-life comedy about a dyscfunctional family which later geared its focus more on the family's daughter and her school life. Nono-chan went on to get its own TV anime in the early 2000s, but the primary manga managed to get a feature-length animated movie by Studio Ghibli in 1999. This was directed by Isao Takahata instead of Hayao Miyazaki as this Ghibli founder also directed Only Yesterday and Pom Poko, plus would eventually direct the Oscar nominated The Tale Of The Princess Kaguya. This anime movie wasn't a complete story as it was a series of short episodes featuring the daily lives of the Yamada family. The animation can fluctuate between very basic to cinematic with detailed fluid motion mostly in the beginning and the climax with the inner vignettes simple deadpan humor.

The movie opens up with the Yamada parents Takashi and Matsuka at their wedding with Takashi's mother Shige giving the newlyweds words of inspiration on how to navigate their lives together. After this, the majority of it shows the couple living with Shige in a house in the suburbs and their two children, elder son Noboru and younger daughter Nonoko. Despite the yonkoma eventually redirecting to Nonoko, most of the film is centered on her brother and elders. We see how consuming ginger can make you forget, how a simple meal can make you feel better, and why it's important to not involve your nosy parents in your love life. The film bookends with Takashi giving a speech at a friend's wedding similar to that his mother gave at his which ends up getting entirely improved since Matsuka accidently gave him her grocery list instead of his own prepared notes.

My Neighbors The Yamadas is dripping with melancholy and doesn't really instill any huge rewatch value, even if you're a fan of old Japanese superhero shows like Gekko Kamen which gets an entire five-minute segment with Takashi pretending he's the masked motorcycle raider. There's sometimes when the animation breaks its standard simplicity to show the badass grandma trying to coax some rowdy hooligans into doing good instead of just being loud, but the lucid point of view that is prevalent throughout the movie might actually bore some younger viewers with a total lack of story structure or coherence. The dub cast is relatively good with James Belushi playing the stout father, Molly Shannon as the doting mother, and Simpsons regular Tress MacNeille as the grandmother, plus David Ogden Stiers providing the narration as it would be nearly impossible to piece together all the non sequitur gags into a 104-minute-long anime movie. You can skip spending the extra money for watching this in your next annual Ghibli film fest as there isn't any dynamic animation in it. and just catch it on streaming.

ANI-MOVIES, *He-Man & She-Ra: The Secret Of The Sword (40th Anniversary Celebration)

Four decades ago, The Secret Of The Sword broke animated movie tradition by releasing a theatrical motion picture acting as a prolonged toy commercial. Filmation had already broke ground with He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe in 1983 based on the hit action figure line which was intended for young boys. However, one thing they didn't pick up on since there wasn't an abundance of cartoons geared toward girls is that they would gravitate toward a kid-friendly fantasy series, so nearly half of the He-Man fanbase were actually girls. This got Mattel trying out a new line of "action dolls" combining their success with Barbie and MOTU featuring He-Man's long-lost sister. The new She-Ra: Princess Of Power line had the transforming magical girl and her friends fighting against the evil machinations of Catra as she tries to take over the Crystal Castle on the planet Etheria, at least that was the premise of the original story that was sold with the toys. When Mattel was adapting it for with Filmation, it was rewritten that the new enemy faction of The Evil Horde would be She-Ra's acting nemesis instead of being another group of bad guys for He-Man to fight on Eternia. The Secret Of The Sword was essentially the first five episodes of the She-Ra animated series in a single feature, the show of which wouldn't premiere until half a year later, so even if you missed the movie in cinemas, you could just watch it in the span of one week at home after school in the 80s.

Starting out in Eternia, Adam gets sent to the alien world of Etheria by the Sorceress of Grayskull to find the owner of a magical sword that's an exact duplicate to his Sword of Power except that it has a jewel in its hilt. Adam finds that the world is being taken over by a galactic empire called the Horde commanded by the shape-shifting cybernetic Hordak, so he transforms into He-Man to fight this new adversary but discovers the captain of this army is the one he was meant to give the sword to. Adora is really Adam's twin that was stolen from Eternia when Hordak originally tried to conquer it along with his apprentice Skeletor, which Adora finds out after the Sorceress gives her a lore dump via interdimensional telepathy. Adora uses this new Sword of Protection to change into the super-powered She-Ra and teams up with her brother to free a kingdom in Etheria while causing problems for Skeletor while making a quick stopover in Eternity. Adora ultimately decides to stay with the Great Rebellion on Etheria who are still battling the Horde while He-Man goes back to being the bouncer at Grayskull.

The Secret Of The Sword does house some better than average animation for Filmation compared to that which was done for the He-Man cartoon, especially Etheria's trippy backgrounds that are similar to a Roger Dean album cover. The movie totally flips the established MOTU continuity on its head and introduces a totally different world and characters to the catalog. It was unusual to have She-Ra's main enemy be an entire space armada bent on conquering her planet instead of a pesky single cat-themed villain. This was voice actor's Melendy Britt's next project with Filmation as both She-Ra and Catra who had previously done the voices of Batgirl and Catwoman on The New Adventures Of Batman, so you'll notice some similarities to Catra and Catwoman's feline speech patterns. The Secret Of The Sword got the jump on having an 80s toy getting its own movie at least a year before properties like Transformers did which alone makes this a tentpole event, even though in retrospect you could nowadays simply watch it as the beginning of the original She-Ra animated series. This started a new wave of animated projects and merchandise focused on adventure stories for young females like Jem and helped revolutionize the entire magical girl genre which up until then was just youngsters using their powers to help people out and elevates it up to the warrior princess level. Even though the character of She-Ra borrows much from Mary Marvel of the Shazam Family, her first outing set the stage for a whole new type of heroine, so if not for She-Ra then there wouldn't be any Xena or Sailor Moon. The Netflix remake went several steps further by completely removing She-Ra from the majority of the MOTU continuity which ultimately helped the character get a whole new fanbase making her become a gay icon for millions of fans. You can skip viewing The Secret Of The Sword if you're going to see the 80s cartoon anyway, but if you just want a quick setup of what the original series was like than this compilation movie is a must see.