Masters of the Universe: Revelation Review

Credit to: Mattel Television, Powerhouse Animation Studios, and Netflix

Well… That Happened.

Oh boy. Welcome back to The Wolf Den y’all. Today, we’re gonna be talking about Masters of the Universe: Revelation, a pretty controversial series. This is gonna be a pretty short article today, talking about the pros, the cons, and of course the final thoughts. I’m sure that you all can tell by the tone of this opener, that I am not pleased with this series. Now, I won’t be giving away any story spoilers or anything like that because this is still a brand new project, which was released only a few days ago. Now, let’s just jump straight into it.

Pros

I won’t lie, there aren’t many pros. I’ll be as honest as honest can be, so I will give credit where credit is due. The first pro, is the pacing of the story. It moves very smoothly (even though I wasn’t a fan of the story), it’s not too slow, and it’s not too fast. It uses the proper amount of time to explain things to you as clearly as possible, so I do appreciate that. I enjoyed the fact that you were never rushing this series. It used its time as well as it possibly could, by giving us action when we needed it, giving us humor when we needed it, and giving us emotional scenes when they were needed. The characters in this series help move the story along, even though I don’t much care for some of them, but I do admit that all characters were given a fair amount of screen time. The character of Teela is given the main role here, and there actually is quite a bit of character development that goes into her. I do admit, that I’m not super familiar with the He-Man series because it’s before my time, but I dedicated some of my down time as of late to watching the older series just to get an understanding for this new series. Plenty of things are beyond me, so I can’t comment on certain things about this series, only how I perceived certain things as a brand new member in the He-Man audience.

With that being said, I absolutely love the action. This universe definitely needed an updated series to really show how well it can perform in this modern day and age, and with this new style of animation, the action has only improved. I found myself rooting for the villains though, I’ll be honest. They personally interest me more than the heroes just because of their wild designs. Seeing them fight the heroes and obviously lose to them didn’t matter to me, because their powers and fighting styles were just fascinating to see in this really cool animation style. Speaking of animation style, this series just looks awesome. The visuals here are just amazing, and I really love the art and the character designs. The world building is phenomenal too, as there’s a bunch of cool castles and fields and forests to admire here, so that was cool to see. I honestly didn’t connect much with any of the characters here, but I can definitely say that they were all very unique from one another, and they all had some pretty interesting dynamics.

Yep, those are all the pros. Pacing, art, and action. That’s extremely lackluster, I understand that completely, but that’s genuinely all this series offers. Now, here’s the cons.

Cons

Ugh, where to start. I honestly can’t believe how little regard is given to the character of He-Man himself (Prince Adam for those who don’t know). He’s essentially sidelined by Teela, which I just… mm. I honestly don’t understand the reasoning for it, and this series fails miserably to show us why also. The character of Teela is honestly just a generic character who’s meant to become this powerful woman that replaces Prince Adam, which I have no problem with her becoming a powerful character, but to replace He-Man himself? Stop. This is an undeniable trend to forward a female character’s development to become the new lead, and it’s annoying. Honestly, I wish that female characters were given more respect. I’m tired of the “the hero’s gone, now you have to take their place” trend. Teela’s a legacy character that should’ve been given her own character arc while respecting He-Man himself. I won’t explain how she sidelines him, because it’s a major spoiler, but what I will say is that it’s pathetic. I love Kevin Smith (executive producer and creator), but this was undeniably bad. I’ve always thought of him as a super famous fanboy that shares reasonable critical opinions as other serious fans of specific series and movies, so I thought he’d do this series justice. After watching all of the episodes (twice actually), I was just disappointed. I wanted to see He-Man and friends take on Skeletor and his goons in this brand new anime style, and I was instead forced to care more about Teela. Don’t get me wrong, Teela is a character I wanted more of, but not like this. This was bad. Bad, bad, bad.

Another HUGE con of mine, is the story itself. I found myself yawning and getting bored constantly. I did say before that the pacing was great, and it is, but that still doesn’t mean that the story itself was any good. Honestly, I cared more about Cringer (Battle Beast) more than I cared about this entire story. I think Skeletor had a pretty cool development, but the overarching story is honestly just so uninteresting. They use the character of Teela to drive her as a strong, independent woman who’s suddenly forced upon us by ignoring the character of He-Man. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE when franchises introduce characters that are of a different ethnic background than we’re used to, or when we actually get gay/lesbian characters. It’s so different than what we’re used to, so I appreciate it when it’s done, but when you use a character that fans are already used to as a certain way, and then turn them into something completely different, it’s honestly extremely annoying. The story is written in a way that’s meant to support Teela as, like I said, a strong female, but I picked up that they tried to make Teela seem like she’s a lesbian character. I can’t understand why it was so hard to just write a brand new story that respects Teela as Teela, and He-Man as He-Man. The story honestly just didn’t work, because they don’t do a good job at respecting these legacy. I honestly think I’d rather watch the live action Masters of the Universe with Dolph Lundgren. What I wanted was to see Teela and Prince Adam become a badass pair of lovebirds who take on Skeletor in this awesome looking adult-ish version of a classic children’s show. This had so much potential to be great, and it was instead used to disrespect both Sheela and He-Man. This was such a godawful time.

Final Thoughts

This sucked. That’s all I can say. Honestly, like I said before, I’m not a massive fan of this universe because this isn’t familiar territory to me, but I feel so bad for those who’ve been waiting on this series. I know how that disappointment must feel, because me personally, I was suuuuper let down by the Star Wars sequel trilogy, and I was extremely excited for it. I’m so sorry for all you He-Man fans, because this was terrible. If you haven’t watched it, go ahead and watch it to form your own opinions on it, but be warned, you’ll regret it. What a shame. Anyways, let me know what you all thought on my Twitter and Instagram if you’ve already watched it, and make sure you follow me on both platforms to stay updated on my future articles. This has been The Wolf Den.

1 Out of 5.