The 80s was a decade known for its immensely popular and very commercial action cartoons
that dominated children's entertainment.
Thundercats, TMNT, Transformers, Voltron and He-man are just a few examples that have stayed
present in our minds even 30 years later and are still instantly recognizable to children
and adults alike.
All of these shows were created with the intent of marketing toys to young boys, and all of
these shows have had at least one reboot since the 80s.
EVERYONE knows those names... but another name you might only barely recognize, if you
remember it at all, is SHE-RA.
She-ra was an action cartoon for girls made to build off the success of the very male
dominated show He-man.
Whereas there are a long list of boy-oriented cartoons and many of them have been remade
or rebooted in the last few decades, there are very few actions cartoons for girls from
this period and very few cartoons for girls at all that have been rebooted.
There's my little pony and powerpuff girls and... uhm... my little pony, my little pony,
aaaaaand my little pony.
yeah....
But now it is time for She-ra to join the mighty ranks of 80s action cartoons getting
a reboot and /I/ just so happen to have been given full access to the first season of the
show so I could provide a review for all of you lovely people.
I’m Hailey and this is my spoiler-free review of the first season of She-Ra and the Princesses
of Power!
I will admit I don't have too much experience with the original She-Ra cartoon, but from
the few episodes I watched for research on this video, it seemed pretty standard for
its time.
Like He-man, transformers, and Voltron, it was a long series of episodes with very limited
motion, very little plot progression, and a formulaic approach to its story telling.
Aside from the first few episodes, the final few episodes, and perhaps one or two in the
middle, nothing serious ever really happened on these shows.
If I got anything wrong with that summary please forgive me, as I didn't have time to
really watch all 95 episodes of the original series.
Like many of the reboots of these 80s cartoons, the story telling in 'princesess of power'
focuses a lot more on overarching plots and character arcs that make things change from
episode to episode and season to season.
Like the original series, the show is about Adora, an orphan girl who was being raised
to be a member of 'the horde'.
Alongside a few friends, she trains to become a captain and eventually defeat the evil princesses!
Does this sound a little backwards?
Weellllll that's because it is.
You see Adora one day stumbles upon a magical sword that turns her into the magical warrior
She-Ra, one of the princesses of power.
Through this transformation and the experiences following it she quickly realizes that shes
been fighting on the wrong side all this time and begins to aid the princesses in their
rebellion against the horde.
As far as I can tell, this is where the similarities between the two shows end, besides all the
returning characters of course.
What's great about a reboot like this is that it takes a very simple premise and turns it
into an important character defining trait to push the plot forward instead of holding
it in place like the original.
In the original She-Ra never seemed too conflicted about fighting the horde as they were very
explicitly evil, while in this reboot she is very much aware that she is fighting her
family, her roots, her old identity and where she comes from.
This really parallels the journey a lot of us go through in realizing that our parents
aren't always the great heroes we thought of them as kids.
She now realizes that she was on the wrong side when she was training to fight for the
horde, but that doesn't make fighting them exactly easy for her.
Adora's transformation into she-ra is amazing.
Unlike shows such as Sailor Moon its more than just a costume change.
The power makes her bigger and stronger and is a bit similar to the 2002 reboot of the
series which saw a more typical looking teenage boy transforming in to the hulking figure
of He-man.
As She-Ra, she is a lot more confident and a lot more powerful, but this doesn't make
her invincible.
As She-Ra she is still very fallible, both as a fighter and as a character.
Almost every episode we find ourselves meeting a new princess.
And even then, there are times where a whole bunch have to be dumped on us at once since
there are just so many.
The original show had a lot of princesses as well...
like a LOT A LOT, so I suppose this makes sense.
Don’t kill me for saying this guys, but there's a lot of diversity in these princesses,
and they come in all shapes and sizes and colors.
This was less common for human based characters back in the day because toy companies wanted
to use the same mold over and over again but with different hair styles and colors to make
mass production easier.
But in this reboot, there's a princess for everyone...
whether you are black or white or... purple..?
I definitely need to mention Glimmer, as she becomes one of She-Ra’s closest friends.
I mostly found her interesting due to her powers and her family.
I did however find her relationship with her mother a bit weird.
Yes, fighting a lot is something mothers and daughters can do, but for some reason it came
off more as an older sister fighting with her younger sister than the mother-daughter
relationship it is supposed to be portraying.
Then there is Glimmer’s best friend Bow, who as you might be able to tell is not a
Princess.
His interactions with Glimmer were some of the best in the show, and I definitely look
forward to learning more about him.
The princesses introductions and plots are sometimes interesting, however, I am happy
to say that some of my favorite characters are actually a few of the villains.
When Adora left the horde to fight against them her place was taken by Catra.
She and Adora have a very interesting rivalry that stems from the fact that their boss,
Shadow Weaver, always preferred Adora over Catra.
Things turn into a game of cat and mouse, where Catra is constantly trying to prove
her worth and bring Adora back to the Horde.
We learn a lot about the relationship between these two, and I was surprised to see just
how fleshed out it got since this is only the first season.
This show is very good at taking your expectations of a character and completely turning them
around.
A large part of that comes from each of the characters being complex and not entirely
evil, or in some cases not completely good.
Morally grey areas are explored in the show, and sometimes the place a person ends up is
solely because the character found it the more convenient place to be.
Overall, this show is clearly trying to be much like other cartoons of today where it
touches on very mature topics like colonization and genocide.
It gives the show a sincerer and more mature feel to it that both old fans and new ones
can appreciate I think, but despite these positive changes the show is still very far
from perfect.
To be honest, I was not always completely engaged with the show.
Yes, the concepts and characters presented in each episode were interesting, but it was
a show that took me a few days to finish.
Whereas with a new season of Voltron I can finish in one watch.
I’m sure a lot of this has to do with the fact that this is season 1 and I am just getting
to know the characters, but this is definitely a show you might only want to watch a little
at a time.
The show did open with a two-parter which was great and full of action.
But after that I felt the story slowed a bit as we were required to meet each main princess,
most of which got a whole episode dedicated to their introduction.
I enjoyed most of these episodes, especially Entrapta’s who is one of my favorites, but
it only made me wish that we could follow them MORE instead of having to see a new princess
every half hour.
Like a lot of animated reboots, these characters are a lot younger than their original counterparts.
I’m sure this is to make the characters more relatable, allowing to them to focus
on stories about growing up, which works really well with Adora realizing she was on the wrong
side for much of her young life, but what is the problem with having adults as the main
characters?
Superhero shows do it all the time!
Adults definitely have relationship issues, and they can still go from nobodies to something
much greater.
This was showcased in the original She-Ra show, and I just wish more shows would focus
on this.
I suppose the desire to have that teenage angst in the show was just too much to resist.
I’m looking at you Glimmer.
I love you and your family’s history but get it together girl!
The style of the show is something that has been heavily criticized by both new and returning
viewers, but I find it quite charming, or at the very least a much better version of
Marvel: Uprising.
The backgrounds especially were very beautiful and the details they add to it really make
you believe that the land of Etheria ivs a magical place.
The style did however clash with the tone at times.
As I mentioned before, the show does delve into deep topics, not to mention there are
some very intense battle scenes, and the art style sometimes just hindered that by making
it seem too soft during gritty moments.
For those who are wondering where He-Man might be in all of this, I had the same question.
The stories of those two were very intertwined in the 80s show, in fact heman and shera are
TWINS, so for him to be completely absent is puzzling.
As far as I know the rights to He-man do not belong to dreamworks, so this show has been
developed independently.
While the show is not my absolute favorite I can clearly see that a lot of heart was
placed into this reboot.
It seems a lot less like a remake of the original story and more of a second draft of an idea
that never really got the attention it deserved, which is something that can be said for a
lot of reboots from the 80s, as opposed to the teen titans and ben 10 and power puff
girls reboots that really just took already relatively serious ideas with highly praised
storytelling and... destroyed them.
utterly and entirely.
However if you truly are a fan of the original She-Ra in every single aspect of the series
and are not comfortable with seeing it be different in this incarnation, then this show
may not be for you.
But if you have enjoyed many of the cartoons that have been released in the past decade,
particularly the retellings of things like transformers or voltron, you will most likely
enjoy this show, and will be looking forward to the second season, just as I am.
This show is definitely not playing around, and there is no doubt it is an action show,
and it is not afraid to show violence even if it is marketed towards girls.
Despite being a netflix show it is intended to make most of its money through action figure
and merch sales.
I am very curious to see how well it can market itself through a streaming service.
Thankfully the action figures are pretty good, even better than voltrons so far, and other
merch such as the shirts are looking pretty great too.
Only time will tell.
She-Ra will be on Netflix on November 13th!
Thank you guys for watching another review video!
Please feel free to check out my Castlevania and Dragon Prince reviews if you enjoyed this
one.
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Along with reviews the channel is going to start doing video essays, and we will be posting
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Have an animated day!