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I've heard about the remake of She-Ra Princess of Power earlier in 2018. As a fan of the Masters of the Universe series, it was exciting to hear She-Ra was finally getting a remake.
Fast forward to now, I couldn't find anything to watch on Netflix and decided to see how the new series was. I went into this with a clear mind knowing it was not going to be like the original so I could get an honest outlook on the reboot.
The story jumps right in to everything without Prince Adam/He-Man in the first episode "The Sword Part 1". We learn that Adora is a cadet with Catra and after showing Adora could prove herself in a simulator, Shadow Weaver promotes her to Captain. Catra and Adora sneak out to have some fun and end up in Whispering Woods, where Adora finds her Sword. She touches the sword and she is shown the magical powers of the Sword. Her and Catra escape without the sword and retreat to the Fright Zone, only Adora can't stop thinking of the sword. Adora sneaks out and back to the Whispering Woods where she runs into Glimmer and Bow who are also after the sword. Glimmer and Bow capture Captain Adora but only for the three to be attacked by a creature. Adora gets the Sword and chants "For the Honor of Grayskull".
The positives of the series:
It's great that She-Ra has finally made her come back after almost 30 years of being hidden and letting He-Man take the lead. When it comes to new audiences, for those who never watched the original show, will probably enjoy this (especially the kids) as it's a fresh take on the series with comedy and animation. With this being said, unfortunately, there is more bad then good.
The negatives of the series:
The characters are almost all there, except Kowl and Loki which Kowl is shown as a pillow in Glimmers room in Episode 3 and Loki is shown as just his face on Madam Razz's fan in the same episode. The characters are completely re-worked to try and fit an original style but it's more horrifying than good. Glimmer and Bow are the perfect example of this as Glimmer is now fit to be PC as a plus size girl and Bow is colored washed for the PC era. Bow is also more of a comedic relief doofest than being a strong rebellion character. Princess Mermista is also colored washed in episode 4. They even went as far as changing Imp to make him look like a baby rather than an imp. Shadow Weaver is no longer mysterious looking and Madam Razz and Broom are now back seat characters rather than having an actual purpose in the series. The only character to pretty much look the same and has almost the same concept design is Hordak himself, but he does have some tweeks too.
Let's talk about Adora/She-Ra herself. Adora/She-Ra, alot of reviews state she looks like a man, which is kind of hard to picture until Adora transforms into She-Ra during her animation stage. Adora tries to be a strong character, which I think she could on her own without other characters, if we were talking about her as an original series. Sadly, she's very passive, whiny and weak. She is written to only understand things when other characters explain it to her. She-Ra's transformation is lackluster compared to her origins. When the original She-Ra transformed, you knew something was about to go down. This version looks like a Japanese animation transformation where it happens fast with no greatness added. She-Ra's new design ditches the high heel boots for regular boots, she grows taller, adds shorts under her skirt and a tierra rather than a crown/head piece. Which it's also unknown why after her transformation she looks possessed with blue eyes rather than her normal eye color. She-Ra also lacks the powers she did in her predecessor, such as the ability to communicate with creatures, have strength, her ability to transform her sword and her trusty steed, Swift wind lacks the ability to talk.
When it comes to voicing and story, a lot of the time it can be cringey with bad writing or lack of talent. Earlier episodes have a little more seriousness to them while later episodes are more cartoon comedy like. The storyline between Glimmer and her mother Anjelica is kind of annoying as well, showing the daughter wants to disobey mother's orders and mother is upset while daughter gets mad at mother and then tries to prove herself. Another issue is that all the characters seem to be teenagers going through teenage problems compared to being adults. As for the story in general, it's not really entertaining as it's processor. Each episode is about recruiting a Princess who has left Bright Moon with some generic robots or creatures with no excitement. It's also unknown why the creators decided to expose Adora's identity as She-Ra to every character in the series, when her identity is suppose to be hidden that she is She-Ra.
The opening theme song is also weak, but that really doesn't say much for the original either. The picture at the end of the opening credits also embarrasses the series by showing each character is a happy, laughing face rather than warriors.
The shows concept seems to be focused on Friendship and women empowerment, which really strays away from what She-Ra really was in the 80's. The friendship is fully overloaded in each episode to remind you, they are all friends on a constant basis. The fact that the series creator didn't utilize the other characters and just focuses on Glimmer, Bow and Adora/She-Ra is lack of writing skills on their part. The Great Rebellion was about a group of rebels who worked as a team to defeat the evil Hordak, knowing they were all friends and not over injected into each episode. Each character received enough time in episodes and made returns in future episodes, where this series only seems to show them for one episode and a cameo in another. When it comes to women empowerment, the series seems to mock this by making the characters more whiny and in need of assistance from She-Ra only. The women fail to stand tall and show equals to men as the original series. The original series had each character show that they were strong in their own ways and never let the fact that if they were up against a man character, they could stand their ground. In the new series, the characters seem to say "We can take this on" only for a few seconds in the battle, they say "We need She-Ra". Which sometimes, Adora is already transformed into She-Ra and it just skips the animation of her transformation.
There also used to be something to learn from each episode of She-Ra and He-Man, but this series has nothing to offer in the way of learning. It's filled with a lot of political correctness that young viewers would not understand. It's another thing the creators missed on opportunity to help kids learn something from each episode but instead injected it with political correctness hoping that's what children would take from each episode. There is definitely a lot of missed opportunities for this to happen in the series.
Overall, for me, the series was a bit painful to watch. Not because it's going up against the original but because it did a very rushed job to get She-Ra back out in the world. As mentioned before, the series has a lot of missed opportunities and negatives compared to positives. If Netflix decides to renew it for a second season, it might be good for the series creator to take a look at what's wrong and try to correct it for the next season. If they focus less on the PC aspect and just write a simple cartoon series, they might have a chance to revive the series in a good way. As for season 1, I'm giving it a 3 out of 10 for the reasons listed above.
I would hope that you take my review in but be your own judge on the series.
score 3/10
jillrefan1986 14 November 2018
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw4459016/ |
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22-11-2019 10:28:38
