Agreed. I don't mind rule bending or even breaking if it is done in clever and imaginative ways but the egregiously "off" story elements in Revelation come off as lacking in ingenuity and the writers are leveraging the "Wow, cool!" factor and emotional manipulation to excuse lackluster writing.
Yeah it comes off like we didn't feel like explaining why this happens in terms of the old narrative. So it just does.
I am still digesting part 2 so there's a lot going through my thoughts on Revelation. I do like quit a bit of it despite my criticisms. I really like how Adam's heroism is emphasized by what others say about him, especially Duncan. I am not disagreeing with people who criticize Revelation for putting emphasis on Teela but I will say that when push comes to shove, the writing clearly shows Adam as a hero in the truest sense. He may not get the most script or screen time but he gets a fair amount and what time the character receives counts significantly. I'm glad the writers "get" Adam and don't make him reprehensible in some way, as often happens to heroic characters in newer iterations.
I think Revelation is Adam the best depiction of the character. Revelation might get some things wrong but Adam is perfect in my mind. In every depiction of the franchise I am counting the seconds till he transforms but Smith really did a Superman thing and made Clark Kent the character.
Seeing Horde Prime animated with a close approximation of his MOTUC design has been a dream of mine since 2012. Princesses of Power was a good showing personality-wise with the narcissism, but nothing beats cyborg Space Satan. I also agree on the New Adventures material; I believe they integrated it fairly well in the MOTUC bios.
Not only do I think he's the best take on the character of Prince Adam, I feel like he's just plain the best character in this show.
Finished it this morning and, for the most part, I liked it. The second half went quite a ways towards redeeming the first half of the season, at least in my opinion. Still not enough He-Man for my liking, but damn did he ever kick ass when he showed up. There were some bullshit moments, like pretty much everything involving Andra, especially the ending, but at least there was some redemption for the asshattery of some characters in the first half of the season. Some characters got right shit on though. Like seriously...Fisto and Clamp Champ were treated really poorly. I will admit to shouting out "Fuck yes!" in the last episode though when a certain character finally showed up.
Teela leaving the castle is in keeping with the whole premise of Smith’s plot. That there is no grand design. The power is just that, power. If that’s in fact the case then the rules really wouldn’t apply. The most logical explanation would be they were constructs to keep the Sorceress from going all power-mad, like Evil-Lyn. This gets laid out when both Skeletor and Evil-Lyn receive the power - there is only power. And almost all powerful weapons in real life are surrounded by protocols. Not necessarily because they are terribly difficult to use. But rather to keep the wrong people away from them and the well-tempered rule-followers near them. So Teela saying fuck the rules, makes sense. They aren’t real, they’re safeguards. It also makes sense with the entire premise of the franchise. If you had to follow all these rules to obtain the Power then why try so hard to keep Skeletor out? He’d never be able to steal the Power because he’d have to adhere to the rules that prevented him doing anything. Like Smith’s take or not it does make the most sense. Don’t get me wrong I think it creates a gapping problem with the story going forward that needs some fixing. But I disagree this is lazy writing to empower Teela. It makes complete sense within the existing constructs of MOTU.
Yeah I think the serpent killing Zoar is what has me interested. Even with the twist ending I feel like the real threat to Eternos is the Snake-Men. If the show makes it that far, they’d be the 3rd and final act. The killers of Zoar = most dangerous.
It also makes me wonder if they might deal directly with the Snake Men right away during the second season to keep the plot a little more grounded to Eternia while building up The Horde on the side for a season after that.
So I get that Zoar is like the creator God in this cosmology and the serpent is probably an adaptation of Serpos, but what's with the ram? Like, besides the obvious of tying in with the head of the Havoc Staff.
Smith smokes a lot of weed. Well I can only assume Zoar is the source of magic on Eternos. I am also assuming the Havoc staff is the Goat’s head. Why and for reason I do not know. Goats don’t mean fuckall for “evil” or chaos other than some bullshit association with Baphomet. Which is some made up nonsense so King Philip could murder the Templars and steal the money they stole from the Holy Land. Wait maybe it is evil lol. I don’t know goat skulls look cool AF and I assume that’s about the only reason it’s in the franchise so Smith better get creative.
Well that would explain why the first vision felt like someone was on drugs... If the head of Havoc Staff was made from the Primordial Goat's head I think that would be cool. But with Part 2 deciding to canonize at least parts of the prequel comic via Lyn's backstory and the presence of the Orlax, I suspect Smith went with the staff being the skull of one of those demonic goat men from Skeletor's home dimension. Or, since those comics don't seem entirely canon, maybe the Primordial Goat's skull became the head of the Havoc Staff at some point.
In this series all it takes for something to not happen is a woman saying no. More seriously, I would have liked some explanation for what happened there. Even better if they made Spoiler: last episode Evil Lyn sacrifice her life to save Orko, then it would have been easier for me to accept her as redeemed.
Then we wouldn’t have gotten this stellar Spoiler Lyn redeemed design, it’s simple but I think it’s the best design in Part 2 Also she was not in control of herself Beastman made that pretty clear.
Great point! It fits as foreshadowing for a future season as well as possibly representing a cyclical struggle between the Snake Men and Eternia. If the Revelation writers use the original MotU Snake Men lore as a basis for the Revelation iteration, then I see Zoar representing Eternians, the serpent/Serpos representing the Snake Men as invaders from another realm/dimension/universe, and the Goat representing Skeletor as an interdimensional interloper, possibly a rogue agent of the Horde. The vision of Zoar, Serpos, and the Goat could also symbolize the plan for a 3 season Revelation map. Each animal represents the major players (Eternia, Skeletor/Horde, and Snake Men). Season 1 encompasses a Skeletor and Evil-Lyn led antagonist threat. Season 2 would be centered around a Horde led threat. Season 3 would be the Snake Men and the series finale.
Yeah that’s what I think they are doing. Another thing that I didn’t get with the Second Part is they really focused on He-Man and Teela being a team in Part 1 and I just assumed it would be repeated in the culmination of part 2. Remember all the hand-holding moves? But in Part 2 they each resolved their adversaries in their own way. But they never did it as a “Team.” I feel like they held back some stuff that had to be played out. Clamp Champ, Fisto, Teela and Adam actually being a team. Whatever the fuck happens with Preternia? There are a lot of unresolved and things that didn’t quite come together. Especially the He-Man and Sorceress dynamic. The more I think about it the more I see an inevitable Season 2 and 3. And the Skeletor<Horde<Snake-Men looks like the arc too me. Guessing either Teela, Skeletor or Hordak will inadvertently free them from Snake Moutain in the final battle of Part 2. And I bet money on King Hsss poisoning Teela in that arc. And of course they need to tie it all together with King Grayskull flashback. I wouldn’t be surprised if they resurrected Preternia in the final season.
It came off to me as the writers trying to demonstrate that Teela is "bigger and better" then those that came before her. But since she does nothing to earn it it just falls flat.
