He Man Reboot Announced

[skykiii]

I'm not gonna pretend like the original series was gold, It's a dated product of its time and shows its age

The original series WAS gold. While it definitely does wear its age around its neck, watching it again and learning more about the culture surrounding it (and particularly Filmation, the company that made the 1983 show) has highlighted for me that its actually an amazing achievement. I understand why it stood the test of time and why none of the revivals ever measured up.

To use an analogy: the 1983 He-Man is like Lord of the Rings the Original Novel.... and everything since then has been more like Shadows of Mordor or Gollum. The big problem in both cases is that the creative minds (Filmations crew or Tolkien) were very individual, on a different level than the culture around them... and everything since then has been worthless peons trying their best to morph their work into something braindead capeshit-loving normies can understand.

 

[The Lawgiver]

Firstly, a kids show probably shouldn't have Evil-Lyn aggressively mounting Skeletor and talking about his penis.

Did you forget? this is the ADULT ORIENTED SEQUEL SERIES TO THE ORIGINAL. NO HE MAN SERIES APPEARED BETWEEN THE OG FILMATION CARTOON AND NOW NOPE IT'S NOT LIKE THE SHOW IS BLATANTLY APING OFF OF THE ACTUALLY DECENT 200X REBOOT THAT ACTUALLY SHOWED SKELETOR'S FACE GETTING MELTED DESPITE BEING A KIDS SHOW.
Seriously the ads acting like the filmation one was the only series is odd given the fact the one between the original and now was pretty well recieved but got fucked over by the network or something IIRC. It's not even like Mattel is trying to sweep theold seriesunder the rug, they've been coming out with Figures of the 2000s designs reworked into 80s style figures the last few years. It's not just those either but stuff like the original kids show continuation of the 80s show where he went to space.

So a teaser for Season 2 of Netflix's Masters of the Universe, titled "Revolution" this time around, dropped about two weeks ago and no one is talking about it. Actually I didn't even know the teaser dropped until last night. That is not a good sign.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=6ucJLmGdHVg
Yeah, Keith David as Hordak is cool. Meg Foster (who played Evil Lyn in the 1987 film) having a role is cool. Granamyr being in it is cool. And oh, look at that, He-Man is all over the teaser. Well by golly, this all looks great.

But yeah, fuck you, I'm not biting. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Maybe this can be like a Picard Season 3 where they put together something good against all odds, but I'm not counting on it, and I'm fully expecting He-Man to take a backseat to Teela and possibly She-Ra.

Also, the hell is up with that cyborg Skeletor design? That looks awful. Guys, you know you could have just used the New Adventures design, right? I mean you're trying to suck up to the fans again, and plopping that in there would have made some fans pop. The NA design does have cybernetic components to it, so it would have made sense.

View attachment 5525217

"there's a greater power" [dramatic music playing as it cuts to teela]
Yeah no, no it's still gonna be the fucking teela show lmao. If they REALLY didn't want he-man to be the focus they could have madeit some kinda ensemble cast thing but it keeps doing that thing of acting like he's the main character and then cutting to teela because like she's like god level power and better than he man or whatever.

I'm fine with this new skeletor design, just feel kinda shit bout how neat designs in this thing are wasted on the writing equivalent of turning one of the supporting cast into a badly written main character for really petty ass common reboot reasons. The thing they're going for with it is clearly a "he's been corrupted by hordak's new computer woman minion" visual which is why he's got some disgusting robotic snake arm thing and cybernetics on half his body. The New adventures cyborg skeletor design was one meant to look like he was more powerful than base skeletor, this one's supposed to be a sickly ass shell of himself partially controlled by an external force.

 

[skykiii]

It's not just those either but stuff like the original kids show continuation of the 80s show where he went to space.

I always find it funny people describe New Adventures of He-Man as "the one where he went into space" as if he never went into outer space in the original cartoon.

That said...

Bring back the blonde ponytail and blue jeans. Just, like, do it as a new character, don't tell me its He-Man.

Those four scientists who were meant to be comedy relief can die in a fire though. Or get traumatized and wise up. Speaking as a guy who actually likes both Orko and Snarf, you know they must've been bad when they can get on my nerves.

 

[The Lawgiver]

I always find it funny people describe New Adventures of He-Man as "the one where he went into space" as if he never went into outer space in the original cartoon.

There's being on his home planet which is technically "in space"compared to earth, and then there's literally going through space/time to numerous different worlds that aren't his own as like the main focus. I never watched the show tied to it save for out of context clips over the years but it's kind of funny how it's so severely blatantly animated by an anime studio.

Also his sword in that series literally looks like a fucking keyblade and I somehow forgot that.

 

[skykiii]

There's being on his home planet which is technically "in space"compared to earth,

What I meant was, plenty of episodes of Filmation's show involved trips to moons, other planets, or other worlds.

Admittedly there was a slight context difference: Skeletor wasn't literally living on a space station shaped like a skull.

New Adventures is a weird show tho, and honestly kind of hard to watch. There's parts I like, but it really does watch like a badly dubbed anime at times.... and I will never understand Skeletor acting like Jim Carrey.

...............

Going with this theme of judging the later He-Man shows... so not long ago I revisited the 2003 Cartoon Network series. It wasn't as bad as I used to think, but its not exactly great.

For me its biggest failings are two things.

First, what I'll for the moment call "story economy." The original show PACKS its stories, but the 2003 one makes its stories feel shallow.

The best way to see for yourself is to watch two episodes: 1983 show's "Disappearing Act" and 2003's "The Courage of Adam." The latter is almost a remake of the former (Skeletor kidnaps Prince Adam to ransom him for He-Man, so Man-at-Arms has to make a He-Man robot to buy time), but the older story has a TON of side-elements and sub-plots going on, while the remake feels pared down to essentially the basic elements.

Second problem I had is... for as much as people like to call the old show a "toy commercial," Filmation would actually stand their ground on things. The 2003 series, on the other hand, was clearly under the thumb of Mattel. For the first season literally every episode ends by introducing one of the He-Man and Skeletor variant figures, then having "fight scenes" that always amount to "He-Man punches Skeletor, Skeletor flies and leaves an impression in a wall. Skeletor gets up, hits He-Man, who then also leaves an impression in a wall. Repeat until the battle just decides to end."

Actually its probably worst when the Snake Armor He-Man is introduced. there's no story leading up to it, its just Sorceress contacts him one day and says "hey I got new armor for you" and there it is. Like you can tell the writers were mentally checked out at that point.

I honestly had a third problem, similar to my issues with the reboots of Thundercats and something I said recently about Street Fighter--it feels like this show was trying hard to twist He-Man into something its not. Like treating the "Masters of the Universe" as if they're a superhero team. It always bugged me that often Man-at-Arms would be like "Summon the Masters!" as if they were always on-call... even though it establishes that Stratos, Buzz-Off etc. were, you know, royalty in their respective nations and, presumably, have responsibilities. The old show at least acted like these characters had a life outside of fighting Skeletor.

....

I have not watched the Netflix stuff at all (except for Netflix She-Ra, if that counts).

I mean, why bother? Going back to the comparison I made earlier, I never even bothered playing Shadow of Mordor or Gollum because I know they're bad, the people who think they're good are probably shills, and even if they are "good" they're still an insult to the original creators (though offending Filmation is slightly less of a sin than offending Tolkien). And unlike most internet nerds I don't like to watch trainwrecks in action.

I've heard there was a CGI He-Man show that was good, but when I read the descrption say that now he can share the Power of Grayskull so that his friends can form (sigh) a superhero team, I mentally checked out. While He-Man had some capeshit tropes originally, it was still more firmly rooted in a Robert E. Howard-esque tradition. If Conan the Barbarian getting superpowers and forming a team to scour Hyborea and stop jaywalkers wouldn't parse, then it wouldn't parse for He-Man either.

 

[Woe-B-Gon (TM)]

I always find it funny people describe New Adventures of He-Man as "the one where he went into space" as if he never went into outer space in the original cartoon.

Yeah, even ignoring magic portals between worlds and stuff like flying a ship to one of Eternia's varying number of moons for things, the guy flew near Earth with an astronaut in a space shuttle. That's about as "space" as you can get.

That said...

Direct link: https://youtube.com/watch?v=K7CxVXRzRtM

Since I haven't seen more than an episode and a half of this, maybe someone can explain.... I never understood why they changed the iconic "By the power of Grayskull!" to "By the power of Eternia!" in the same moment they were writing Eternia out of the show. Unless, like everything else it seems, they just couldn't keep it after the pilot.

Bring back the blonde ponytail and blue jeans. Just, like, do it as a new character, don't tell me its He-Man.

Would've made more sense. I mean, the sword and Castle Grayskull itself predate Adam and will presumably outlive him. Surely the simplest idea if you have to make a He-Man show but can't/won't use the original character designs or the entire setting would just be to have a worthy future person get the sword and take up the mantle rather than write in a weird one-off time travel plot. You can even keep Skeletor, say he was finally defeated and trapped in a magic crystal or cryonically frozen or something, only to be freed in the future. (As I recall Skeletor actually got to the future by telling the future good guys something like "Yeah, I'm He-Man. Guy with a skull for a face, beloved hero of all time, yep. Take me to the future now." They... kinda deserve him after falling for that.)

It amazes me that the producers' entire plan seemed to hinge on capturing an audience loyal to the original by having this guy who looks little like Adam and even less like He-Man with a different sword and different catchphrase. What's worse, the children who saw the original had all aged out of the demographic by then and weren't even their target market.

 

[skykiii]

It amazes me that the producers' entire plan seemed to hinge on capturing an audience loyal to the original by having this guy who looks little like Adam and even less like He-Man with a different sword and different catchphrase. What's worse, the children who saw the original had all aged out of the demographic by then and weren't even their target market.

I feel that.

I was actually there when New Adventures first aired, and even back then, I don't remember anyone liking it... almost unanimously, most of us took one look at this blonde ponytail guy and said "That's not He-Man!" For years afterward, I heard people calling it "the bad version."

The funny thing is, I've actually heard (though I may be getting different bits of trivia mixed up in my head) that New Adventures being about a distant descendant was the original plan--apparently Mattel was gonna make something called He-Ro Son of He-Man or something like that. Likely though the actual behind the scenes is far more complicated than I'm remembering. The cartoon wound up not quite resembling the toys anyway--in the toyline, He-Man had this helmet that honestly made him look like a creepy stormtrooper (no wounder they don't have it in the cartoon).

 

[TheAmbiguousLurker]

Come on guys, how can you not think He-Man is the main character this time? He's getting all the spotlight in the trailers and marketing, this is really his story after all. What, do you think Kevin Smith would just lie- What do you mean we've already been through this?

 

[XYZpdq Jr.]

I found out that the OG Skeletor voice actor also was the voice of Alistair on Passions until the character actually appeared on-screen.
Now I want to rewatch it and listen for hints of MYEH! in his voice

 

[Woe-B-Gon (TM)]

I found out that the OG Skeletor voice actor also was the voice of Alistair on Passions until the character actually appeared on-screen.
Now I want to rewatch it and listen for hints of MYEH! in his voice

Heh, I don't know if being a soap opera villain would suit Skeletor. Besides, with the soap opera schedule I doubt Alan Oppenheimer had any time to get any more creative than just reading his lines:

I quite liked the evil laugh just after the eight minute mark, though.

 

[RumblyTumbly]

New Adventures was a well meaning misfire.

Part of the appeal of the original was that it was kids version of Conan mixed with elements of Flash Gordon, so He-Man could go anywhere and be in any kind of story. NA leaned too heavily into the Flash Gordon aspect and it felt more limiting.

I rewatched NA few years ago and it lacked in several areas. The music (one of the major pluses of the original show) was bland. The voice acting (despite being filled with great talents that would go on to do great work in shows like Beast Wars) was very stilted. Aside from Campbell Lane's zany take on Skeletor, everyone sounded flat.

For all the limitations of the Filmation series, there was an energy, charm, colorful look, and genuine feel to it that elevated it to being a hit with kids and all of that was lacking here.

There were some things I liked about NA. The dynamic between Skeletor and Flogg was interesting with Skeletor being a manipulator rather than just over powering Flogg and taking over. It made for interesting interactions at least. Towards the later half of the show, they worked in some storyline that made the show more interesting, like the big cosmic competition that they built up to. Also, the toys were neat. Optikk and Sagitar were particular neat figures.

Also, I'll say this for NA. It wasn't disrespectful. It didn't try to piss off fans on purpose and tried to do something different. It didn't work, but like I said, it was well meaning. That's how low the bar is now.

 

[The Lawgiver]

Mentioned this before I think but It's still surreal to me how the Kevin Smith he man got the original Skeletor VA but made him voice several other characters instead of Skeletor. I have no doubt in my mind Mark hamill absolutely has the range to do a skeletor-esque voice so it wouldn't bother me as much that they pulled that shit if it wasn't for the fact they just made him do the batman joker voice most of the time with small bits of skeletor-esque bits slipping through. Never stops being weird to me since very He-man crossover in media lately has just been the new Mark Hamill skeletor. Even other mid or shitty reboots the last few years that did similar stuff had the guys that replaced the returning VAs in their main fucking role clearly were allowed to/told to do a similar performance.

 

[skykiii]

Also, I'll say this for NA. It wasn't disrespectful. It didn't try to piss off fans on purpose and tried to do something different. It didn't work, but like I said, it was well meaning. That's how low the bar is now.

Honestly yeah. I was thinking of doing a topic about why 80s cartoons were better, and one of the reasons I thought of was similar to what you're saying here--there was a lack of pretention. The best/worst they got was just wanting to make something that would have merit beyond just being brainrot.

Other than that, you never had people inserting politics into things (despite how often redditors like to act like the PSAs at the end of episodes do just that--please someone, explain to me what is "political" about saying exercise is healthy or telling kids how to stop a nosebleed).

They understood that primarily their job was to entertain children, and (perhaps cynically) to sell toys.

They also were working with properties that at the time were brand new, and had uncertain futures. Nobody working on He-Man, Transformers, Thundercats etc. had any inkling that these things would be nostalgic icons and cultural cornerstones in decades to come, the same way Charles Dickens never thought his stories serialized in cheap rags would one day be regarded as classical literature.

I often feel one of the things that goes wrong with reboots of old media is that... nowadays, the producers do know that these things are so relevant, and it often leads to one of two equally bad outcomes: Bad outcome one is they get a creator or producer who was a superfan and basically wants the new show to be his personal fanfic come to life (the Doctor Who problem). Bad outcome two is get a creative who hated the original and wants to ruin it on purpose (the Thundercats Roar problem).

Of course then there's things like the Netflix She-Ra, which basically has next-to-nothing to do with the original show at all and could easily have been an original property with just a few name changes. I usually find this to be the preferable outcome.

 

[Overly Serious]

Mentioned this before I think but It's still surreal to me how the Kevin Smith he man got the original Skeletor VA but made him voice several other characters instead of Skeletor. I have no doubt in my mind Mark hamill absolutely has the range to do a skeletor-esque voice so it wouldn't bother me as much that they pulled that shit if it wasn't for the fact they just made him do the batman joker voice most of the time with small bits of skeletor-esque bits slipping through. Never stops being weird to me since very He-man crossover in media lately has just been the new Mark Hamill skeletor. Even other mid or shitty reboots the last few years that did similar stuff had the guys that replaced the returning VAs in their main fucking role clearly were allowed to/told to do a similar performance.

Mark Hamill is a better Skeletor than he is a Joker. Whether it was the director making him reign it in or him just doing it himself for a character he sees as different, he strikes a better balance between absurd and evil. And I also feel his vocal rasp works well for a dude who's had his face burned away by acid and lives only through dark magics.

But please - don't let the clip above make anybody watch this show. Hamil's voice acting is one of the few bits of polish on this turd.

Other than that, you never had people inserting politics into things (despite how often redditors like to act like the PSAs at the end of episodes do just that--please someone, explain to me what is "political" about saying exercise is healthy or telling kids how to stop a nosebleed).

I have bad news for you, then. You might be suffering from rose tinted glasses. Remember the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon? Remember the character of Eric? The blog of one of creators of that series:

https://www.newsfromme.com/pov/col145-2/

https://archive.md/fCBoF

Spoiler: In his own words...

I also told the story about Phil because I wanted to talk about Dungeons & Dragons.I have a confession to make and also, I think it's time we cleared up an urban legend, which I'll get to in a moment. But first the confession —

Dungeons & Dragons was a series about six kids who were transported to a dimension filled with wizards and fire-snorting reptiles and cryptic clues and an extremely-evil despot named Venger. The youngsters were trapped in this game-like environment but, fortunately, they were armed with magical skills and weaponry, the better to foil Venger's insidious plans each week.

The kids were all heroic — all but a semi-heroic member of their troupe named Eric. Eric was a whiner, a complainer, a guy who didn't like to go along with whatever the others wanted to do. Usually, he would grudgingly agree to participate, and it would always turn out well, and Eric would be glad he joined in. He was the one thing I really didn't like about the show.

So why, you may wonder, did I leave him in there? Answer: I had to.

As you may know, there are those out there who attempt to influence the content of childrens' television. We call them "parents groups," although many are not comprised of parents, or at least not of folks whose primary interest is as parents. Study them and you'll find a wide array of agendum at work…and I suspect that, in some cases, their stated goals are far from their real goals.

Nevertheless, they all seek to make kidvid more enriching and redeeming, at least by their definitions, and at the time, they had enough clout to cause the networks to yield. Consultants were brought in and we, the folks who were writing cartoons, were ordered to include certain "pro-social" morals in our shows. At the time, the dominant "pro-social" moral was as follows: The group is always right…the complainer is always wrong.

This was the message of way too many eighties' cartoon shows. If all your friends want to go get pizza and you want a burger, you should bow to the will of the majority and go get pizza with them. There was even a show for one season on CBS called The Get-Along Gang, which was dedicated unabashedly to this principle. Each week, whichever member of the gang didn't get along with the gang learned the error of his or her ways.

We were forced to insert this "lesson" in D & D, which is why Eric was always saying, "I don't want to do that" and paying for his social recalcitrance. I thought it was forced and repetitive, but I especially objected to the lesson. I don't believe you should always go along with the group. What about thinking for yourself? What about developing your own personality and viewpoint? What about doing things because you decide they're the right thing to do, not because the majority ruled and you got outvoted?

We weren't allowed to teach any of that. We had to teach kids to join gangs. And then to do whatever the rest of the gang wanted to do.

What a stupid thing to teach children.

Now, I won't make the leap to charge that gang activity, of the Crips and Bloods variety, increased on account of these programs. That influential, I don't believe a cartoon show could ever be. I just think that "pro-social" message was bogus and ill-conceived. End of confession.

 

[Uranus Pink]

The Get-Along Gang show was fucking arse even from listening to a snippet of the dialogue. Imho it was much worse than Captain Planet in handling and delivering the message.

 

[skykiii]

I have bad news for you, then. You might be suffering from rose tinted glasses. Remember the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon? Remember the character of Eric? The blog of one of creators of that series:

Oh I've read this before actually.

And I actually just re-watched the cartoon (ironically Eric is one of my favorite characters).

The thing is I think Mark Evanier underestimated his own writing. Eric is not an example of "the complainer is always wrong" by any means.

In fact... second episode: the group meets a guy who is a coward but pretending to be a brave knight. Guess who is the only one to see through the act?

By the third season of the show, the group is consistently agreeing with Eric, and in one episode even Dungeon Master backs Eric up.

I have no doubt in my head that Eric may have been inserted by agenda-pushers. But clearly they did not have that much control or weren't really paying attention, because Eric winds up being anything but "the complainer is always wrong."

And frankly... if this is their idea of "agenda-pushing" then it was far more milquetoast than today. Oh, the group has a dissenter who questions things? Most writers would do that anyway simply because it introduces the possibility for character drama (see Boromir in Lord of the Rings).

It's still ultimately on a completely different scale than modern "we have to have fat characters for body-positivity, we have to have someone of each gender for representation" type agenda-pushing.

EDIT: Also, Mark says that they weren't allowed to make cartoons where you were taught not to bow to majority pressure or to be yourself.... while I respect the guy, I think his memories of the 1980s may be sketchy, because lots of high-profile cartoons taught those lessons. "Don't succumb to peer pressure" became especially popular around the time anti-drug PSAs like Cartoon All-Stars came out.

(And to be fair, Cartoon All-Stars itself was clearly political.... though I still think the people who made it had ultimately good intentions, and again the message is far less malicious than what we consider "politics" today)

 

[RumblyTumbly]

Well, I gave my thoughts on NA, so here are my thoughts on the other He-Man reboots.

The 2002 series was a faithful reboot that looked great and did a lot of things to make the fans happy. In that sense, it was generally entertaining. However, it lacked what gave the Filmation show its heart. In the old show, He-Man/Adam, Teela, Duncan, Cringer/Battlecat, Orko, the Sorceress, and the King and Queen felt like a family. All of their problems and relationships felt real and they were able to create engaging situations like Adam wanting to gain his father's approval, Adam wanting to be on Teela's good side and not always be a screw up, or The Sorceress being a caring mother without revealing her ties to Teela, Adam's mom hinting she knows he's He-Man, and on and on.

In the 2002 show, its like alien Justice League where they tried to make every toy into an important character. They focused alot on Buzz Off and Sy-Klone and outside of selling toys...why? They were never important characters and focusing on guys that were side characters in the old show took away from the family dynamic that gave the original its heart. Instead it was kind of like "Eternian Justice League" which had the unfortunate impact of making the world feel smaller as everyone was restricted to being near or around the palace, when previous versions implied that they were always off doing their own things and inhabiting different parts of Eternia.

Again, there was a lot to enjoy about it. I loved Skeletor in this show, Evil Lyn was great, and it was cool to finally get the Snake Men in a real capacity, but they probably focused their attention on the wrong things.

Earlier in this thread, somebody compared 80s episode "Prince Adam No More" and 02 episode "The Courage of Adam" and that basically demonstrates what was different about the two shows and why the old show stayed with people more, despite its limitations. I would also invite a comparison of old episodes "Teela's Quest" and "Teela's Triumph" to 02-03 episodes "The Ties That Bind" and "Out of the Past" to also highlight this.

Then there's Revelations...I've already ranted and raved enough about this, so I'll keep it brief. The major point I want to drive home here is that this was an opportunity to do something special. The show looked great, the voice cast was mostly great, and you had a fan base starved for it and ready to have a good time. What we got was a show that tanked itself through shitty writing that damaged the world, its characters, and even the brand. Seriously, look at the views for the 1st teaser for Revelations (close to 10 mil I believe) and look at the views for the trailers for Revolutions (roughly half a mil each). They shot themselves in the foot in a way that is becoming far too common in entertainment these days.

Then there was Netflix's CGI show which was surprisingly okay. I think I would have liked it better if they had made these characters decedents (a mix of both spiritually and biologically) from the old characters. It would have been easier to accept Sokka-at-Arms and things like that. Also, some of the writing was a little messy, especially for the handling of Ram Ma'am's character. That said, the show at least stayed true to the spirit of the original by, you know, focusing on He-Man and Skeletor as the main conflict. Skeletor in this show was particularly entertaining, even if I've never been a fan of the whole "Keldor is Adam's uncle" thing from the mini-comics. They managed to blend in references to the old show without it being a member berries fest, and do things in a way that felt fresher and new without being off putting, achieving the goal that NA had back in the day. And oh hey, King Randor wasn't a raging asshole, He-Man was a hero, and Skeletor was a competent villain, and they were able to give Evil Lyn and a race swapped Teela time to shine too. Its almost like you can achieve your little diversity without treating the male characters like shit or something. Whoa! It was a generally entertaining and fun kids show that I could see myself getting attached to back when I was young.

Honestly, the reason the CGI show probably didn't make it is because the backlash to Revelations cast such a large net that people probably skipped it purely out of spite. I know I almost did.

So if I had to rank the reboots, I'd go

1. 2002-2003
2. CGI Netflix
3. NA
4. (HUGE FUCKING GAP) Revelations

So yeah, He-Man has struggled a bit since the days of the original series. There was something so pure and genuine about that old show that nobody has been able to replicate. I don't even know how to properly describe it. What I can say is that the 2002 series, CGI series, and even NA at least tried. They didn't always work, but they tried. Revelations feels like a malicious attempt to dishonor He-Man and now they find themselves in panic mode trying to get people to comeback for Revolutions and they are throwing everything but the kitchen sink at it. Oh look, its Granamyr! Oh and Teela gets the Snake Armor! Oh and the Horde is here! And here's Gwildor! And we got Keith David and William Shatner...yeah fuck off I don't care.

 

[Overly Serious]

The thing is I think Mark Evanier underestimated his own writing. Eric is not an example of "the complainer is always wrong" by any means.

Well it wouldn't be the first time that a creator's creations triumphed through writing despite themselves. Rorschach sprints to mind as a character that the creator apparently hated but was so well written the character had an effect unintended.

 

[Morethanabitfoolish]

I think I would have liked it better if they had made these characters decedents (a mix of both spiritually and biologically) from the old characters.

If I were to place money I'd bet the Netflix She-Ra show nixed that, given there was a precursor She-Ra to the one in the show. Conceptually it's a nice idea, them taking up the mantle of those who went before, but having an entire cast in the shadow of predecessors is tricky writing and combined with another doing something similar recently it was likely an overall no.

You could do something quite interesting in the universe with either the Snake Men or the Horde being the big bad historical evil and the Masters being a universal term applied to a coalition of good and evil that united to fight against them with their actual personal misdeeds lost to history. While some names are hard to sell as team good guy (yes Evil-Lynn, looking at you) it helps with people like Duncan being known as Man At Arms. They're sort of of titles or super hero IDs rather than names.

 

[RX-78]

Kevin shit has been noticeably quiet about the latest season, and when putting that next to the sheer volume of damage control Mattel has done in every press release leading up to the January 25th premiere, I cannot help but wonder if those rumors of him being taken out back and given the treatment by goons are true. So far the leaks/credible rumors all state that Teela's relationship with sheboon-at-arms was torpedoed, so that's one victory.