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.