He-Man And The Masters of The Universe: Volume 1 DVD review

Posted by Jeffrey Harris on 03.25.2008

By the power of Greyskull! Your DVD player has the power!

He-Man And The Masters of The Universe: Volume 1

Film

The Masters of The Universe started in the 1980's with an action figure toy series created by Mattel. In a means to help sell the toys came the animated series from Filmation. And thus the He-Man And The Masters of The Universe animated series was born in 1983. For kids in the 1980's including yours truly, the He-Man action figures and cartoon were a massive phenomenon. The series ran for over a hundred episodes and was where superstar writers such as J. Michael Stracynski (Creator of Babylon 5, Jeremiah, and long time Amazing Spider-man writer for Marvel Comics) got their start. The series would later be spun off into the She-Ra Princess of Power animated series and toys as well, focusing on He-Man's twin sister, She-Ra.

In the fantasy action/adventure series, the young Prince Adam of the kindgom of Eternia from the planet Primus was granted the sword of Greyskull from the benevolent and powerful Sorceress. With the sword and a magic incantation, Prince Adam becomes He-Man, a muscle-bound superhero that battled the forces of evil and Snake Mountain led by Skeletor, his arch-nemesis and one of the all time classic super-villains to come out of the 1980's.

In the late 80's and early 90's, after the original series had ended, Mattel gave another shot at re-launching the toys and a new show was made, The New Adventures of He-man. The show was a success but not nearly the level of the original. And it would be over a decade before we would see He-Man again.

In the early '00's, Mattel decided to get back into the action figure game. They had recently acquired the services of the Four Horsemen, toy sculptors who formerly worked for McFarlane Toys. Not only that, Mattel attained the master license to make action figures for the DC Universe including Batman, Superman, and the Justice League animated series. As such the powers that be decided to give He-Man another go. The Four Horsemen re-designed all of the classic characters from the series, making them look much cooler and appropriate for the current era. Mattel would then commission Mike Young Productions to produce an animated pilot as a means to help sell the figures. And then the pilot turned into a series, which was picked up by Cartoon Network and began airing for the Fall 2002 season. Thus, the new He-Man and The Masters of The Universe animated series was born.

Looking back, the original series doesn't hold up very well and it is pretty silly. The new show has a much stronger serialized storyline and gets much deeper into the origins and facets of the MOTU characters that was never explored in the filmation series. While many of the characters are the same, Prince Adam is still He-Man in secret, he actually has a more compelling internal conflict. The young Adam wants to prove himself as a warrior, but when he's forced to become He-Man, Teela feels Adam is a coward, and Adam's father - Randor, King of Eternia - is disappointed with him. The only ones who know Adam's secret are Duncan/Man-At-Arms, Orko, and Cringer/Battle Cat. This time around, Cringer can't talk. And you know what else? Orko is cool. I don't care who hates Orko, he's a great character in this show. And goodness gracious the show actually makes He-Man and Prince Adam look different! Besides that voice actor, Cam Clarke does a great job of distinguishing the voices for both characters.

The show's definitely not a mature, adult show. There's no killing, and during the battles there is lot of flipping and sword spinning in lieu of cutting, and there are no really heavy, mature themes. However, the show does play events a lot smarter than the original. This was unfortunately a route GI JOE wouldn't go down with its re-launch with a new animated show in Sigma Six. In the episode Mekaneck's Lament, the story actually addresses Mekaneck's feelings of inadequacy because all he can do is . . . stretch his neck. That's cool.

For the new series it would only get a shorter second season of 13 episodes before it got the axe from Cartoon Network apparently due to weak ratings. That really sucked but more than anything, it was nice to see this property get such a strong update, and hopefully it will one day get one again.

The DVD boxset for volume 1 includes the first 13 episodes of season 1 of the show. The pilot movie for the series is divided here into a three episode format complete previous episode recaps. The series starts off very strong by showing the origin of Keldor, the man who would become Skeletor, as well as being the half-brother of Randor, the man who would become King of Eternia. This would in fact make Skeletor He-Man's biological uncle. This was an element from the original MOTU mini-comics that came with the original action figures in the 1980's. From there the show jumps to sometime later in which the peace Eternia currently enjoys is shattered by the new lord of evil, Skeletor, who invades and kidnaps Randor. Man-At-Arms would then take Adam to Castle Greyskull to introduce him to the Sorceress, as Adam is the one prophesized by Greyskull's Council of Elders to become He-Man. The Elders in fact charged Randor to become Eternia's king at their leave. The Elders' transcended their forms and hid their power in Castle Greyskull, and most likely the sword of Greyskull itself.

Video

All the episodes are presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen. The animation and design look for the show is very impressive considering the only other action/adventure cartoon show Mike Young Productions had only done before was the Voltron: The Third Dimension series. The character designs in the series are also very faithful to the character re-designs by the Four Horsemen, who were the architects of the look of the characters for the new Mattel series.

Audio

Audio for all of the episodes runs in 2.0 stereo sound only in the original English language track. Audio and sound mix sounds very clean for the most part. The show has a great score and theme music composed by Joseph LoDuca, who did the music for the Evil Dead trilogy as well as the Sam Raimi Hercules and Xena TV shows. The score is definitely one of the best parts of the show with a great, epic, cinematic sound.

Extras

Volume 1 of He-Man and The Masters of The Universe released by BCI Entertainment comes in a three disc digipack style packaging. It has a clear plastic slip cover with the logo and He-Man with Battle Cat on the front so where it slips over the digipack it looks like He-Man and Battle Cat are standing in front of Castle Greyskull. The back of the slip cover has Skeletor and Panthor so it looks like they are in their Snake Mountain lair throne from the back of the digipack case. Inserts include two mini-poster size art cards. One is by artist Ben Templesmith with Evil-Lyn, Skeletor, and Trapjaw. The other is by Dustin Nguyen with Masters He-man, Mekaneck, and Roboto. The back of the cards give profiles for their respective artists. Also inserted is a booklet for DVD volume one of the show, which features episode summaries as well as interesting factoids regarding the series as well as an overlook of what is on the discs and the extras. As for special features, the DVD boxset contains the following:

• End of Episode Morals
  
• "World of He-Man" Highlight Show
  
• Extended Video Commentaries
  
• Audio Commentaries
  
• Episode Animatics
  
• Image Galleries
  
• Scripts for Episodes 1-13 (DVD-ROM feature only)

Disc 1 has optional audio commentary tracks on the first four episodes of the series by director, Gary Hartle, writer Dean Stefan, and producer Ian Richter. Episode 7, Lessons, on Disc 2 also has an audio commentary with the aforementioned crew members as well as Larry DiTillio. DiTillio was one of the original writers for the first Filmation He-man series in the 80's as well as She-Ra, Princess of Power before he would work on such other shows as Beast Wars, Bablyon 5, and Murder, She Wrote. All the commentary tracks are good, and the crew members all have a good sense of humor and really feel gratified to have worked on the show as well as talking about giving the storyline stronger connections with certain plot elements and fleshing out the characters in ways the original series never did. Unfortunately the audio quality on the commentary is for crap, and sounds very muffled and doesn't have the clear, pristine audio quality that most commentary tracks tend to have.

Save for the three part pilot of the series, all of the episodes of the show feature new End of Episode Morals which are very much in the spirit of the original series. The morals are a quick 30 second scene in which the heroes preach kindness or believing in your friends. These were never aired when the series was broadcast on Cartoon Network. You can kind of see why since they don't really add much to the show and they are a little silly. But it's nice to have the extra footage added into the episodes for this release.

The majority of the rest of the extras lie on Disc 3. For the Animatics, you can watch the three part pilot in its unfinished, animatic format which is the storyboards and line art edited together with the voice actor tracks, but there's no music or finished animation yet.

The "World of He-Man" is a 25 minute clip show in which He-man narrates the world of the series, Eternia, as well as the heroes and villains all featured in the first season including Mossman, King Hiss, and the Snake Men. Nothing on Hordak though. The only thing new in this clip show is He-man's narration, but it's a good refresher for the rest of the season as well as the lead-ins to season 2.

Also on Disc 3 are three Extended Video Commentaries. These are variations of the audio commentary tracks from episodes three and four on Disc 1 and episode 7 on Disc 2. These feature video of the creators from the commentary as well as views of the actual series animation with corresponding storyboard shots. They are called "extended" because the creators continue their discussions past the end of the episode giving some more information and footage not seen in the original commentary tracks.

Rounding out the extras on Disc 3 are several image galleries. One features character designs and profiles for the heroes of the series, giving some interesting background info. the show doesn't directly divulge. The other galleries feature background art and rough character art.

The 411: He-man and The Masters of The Universe is definitely one of the better re-launches of a beloved animated and/or toyline property from the 1980's in recent years. Unfortunately the series would last only another 26 episodes with the second half of season 1 and a 13 episode season 2 featuring King Hiss and the Snake Men. Which is too bad because we finally could've seen a really cool, badass animated version of Hordak in season 3. That said, this show is a great update with some solid voice acting and modern animation of these classic characters, which Hollywood plans on re-introducing itself with a new live action movie that will probably be nowhere near as good or respectful to the original material as this show.

Final Score:  8.0   [ Very Good ]