Excuse Me While I Talk About He-Man For A Bit...

In 2002, when the new "Masters of the Universe" cartoon came out, many fans of the older series were excited (myself included, despite the low probability of seeing very much of it for myself, as I didn't and don't have cable).

When my older brother (previously mentioned here), who did have cable at the time (as I understand it, the place he's living in right now is really hard to get service for), brought over a tape of a marathon showing of the first part of the series, I got to see more of it than I rather expected. Someday, I suppose, I'll see the rest, when I have real money and buy the whole darned series for myself.

It's a good series, all in all, as the more violent and slightly more grown up cartoons of the era it was on the tail end of often are; engaging if often a bit pointless. It's actually, I think, less pointless than a lot of those, partly thanks to its roots in a show so strongly dedicated to being wholesome it practically invented the cheesy moral segment spot. (Certainly, if you Google "moral segment" [with the quotes], the first thing you get is a reference to He-Man stuff.)

But ultimately, there's a glaring, gaping flaw in the series itself, or rather, a deficiency compared to its Filmation cousin.

The world of Eternia, as it exists in the 2002 series, is derivative, kinda boring, and excessively new.

The world of Eternia, as it exists in the Filmation series, is original, entertaining, and incredibly old.

I shall use, as an example, Castle Grayskull, the most important edifice in the universe (both literally and figuratively).

In the '02 series, Castle Grayskull has been there, seemingly, for a rather long time, for no particular reason. It's just a big, ugly old castle. It just so happens that it was chosen, about twenty years ago, to house the secrets of the universe and stuff.

In the Filmation series, Castle Grayskull is unspeakably old. Who built it? Nobody knows, it's too darned old. Why did they build it? We can't be sure, it's too darned old. It might have been built to house major secrets of the universe, that might have come later, or something else entirely. While the "too darned old" excuse for not knowing stuff about it is a bit of a copout, it's a legitimate reason, and we know that, if there's time travel, there shouldn't be an excuse for why it's not there in the past. It creates a sense of real history.

In the '02 series, Castle Grayskull is based partly on medieval, partly on ancient Egyptian architecture. This nonsense mishmash is topped off (or bottomed out) by some weird physics-defying stuff such as the ancient cavern full of crystals underneath the place.

In the Filmation series, Castle Grayskull barely can be said to have architecture at all. The darned thing looks like it used to be-or maybe still is-alive. The entrance is a frikkin' mouth, for crying out loud! Did the castle grow out of the ground? Did some giant, disturbingly manlike being die here? We don't know (it's too darned old), but the building never looks like they were copying great architecture-they were inventing it.

Moving away from Grayskull for a moment, Filmation was great at making weird psychedelic stuff to stick into their cartoons. Was it because they were all coming off of the decades-long highs of the '60s and '70s? Was it because they were prone to bad dreams? We don't know, they're too darned-wait.

As an example of that, some of the weirdest visuals I've ever seen can be viewed in the season one Filmation episode, "The Taking of Grayskull." It's like watching the flotsam of a digestive tract, while they ride past on a conveyor belt, and go through a cave full of membrane-snake monsters... You kinda had to be there.

Believe it or not, it was awesome.

-Signing off.