Trailer Masters of The Universe – Official Trailer

[bloodtide]

Orko got really political during the pandemic and they don't need the media remembering that by including him in this movie.

Guess he was pro mask? I kinda remember almost seeing his face in one episode

 

[Morrus]

Was he in the trailer?

Why are you asking me what is on the trailer you watched?

 

[bloodtide]

Why are you asking me what is on the trailer you watched?

I did not see him

 

[M.L. Martin]

This. I read Flint Dille's book, The Gamesmaster, and he talks about this exact thing with regards to G. I. Joe. So long as they included the characters and vehicles and whatever else was being released in the next line of toys, the people making the cartoon had near-total carte blanche to do whatever they wanted (notwithstanding broadcast standards and similar content guidelines).

The idea that "the cartoons were just commercials" is very reductive.

Filmation had even more freedom than that on He-Man and the Masters of the Universe--so much so that Mattel could only 'make suggestions', and Lou Scheimer had the right to ignore any of their suggestions. It's why Stinkor and the Bashasaurus (prototype name: "Ball Buster") didn't show up despite all the other 1985 characters and toys appearing by the end of He-Man's run, and there's reason to believe he vetoed King Hiss as well. They also had ownership rights over their original characters that meant that when Orko got a toy, the copyright on it was assigned to Filmation rather than Mattel. Indeed, part of the reason that the 1987 movie feels so different may be that it's a direct license from the toy line, not from the cartoon.

She-Ra was such a collaboration that 20 years later, Mattel had to rely on some workarounds to do Filmation versions of some characters for the Classics toy line, and that's why DreamWorks was able to do the NetFlix series with little to no Mattel involvement.

 

[Morrus]

I did not see him

Well you’ve answered your own question. .

 

[MGibster]

Not gonna lie, I low-key hate this. The cartoons were created and designed as 22 minute commercials for the toys... with ad blocks built in to show commercials for other toys and breakfast cereal.

Sometimes the truth is ugly.

But that's also what drove the cartoons to develop so much of the lore that future adaptations relied on. Almost every new toy had to be represented by a new character that uncovered a new corner of these settings... which made them vibrant and textured in ways that a lot of children's properties never got to be.

Here's another ugly truth. While I have fond memories of those 22 minute commercials, I find them absolutely unwatchable today. I tried sitting through an episode of Thundercats when they started airing on Cartoon Network around 1999/2000 and I couldn't get through a single episode. I used to run home from school in 4th grade to make it home in time to hear "ThunderCats are on the move / ThunderCats are loose!" I finally understood why my mother hated that show so much.

The cartoons from my childhood were terrible. Cartoons produced in the 90s and 2000s were much better.

 

[Kaodi]

So the story is He-man abandons his world, skeletor takes it over....and He-Man sits on Earth eating avocado toast?

I think it is more, "Adam is sent away as a child, eventually finds his way home as an adult, then becomes He-Man" . Like, they literally show him reminiscing over the drawings he made of his home as a child.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I think it is more, "Adam is sent away as a child, eventually finds his way home as an adult, then becomes He-Man" . Like, they literally show him reminiscing over the drawings he made of his home as a child.

He explicitly says in the trailer he's been trying to get home all this time. It's a stretch to say he abandoned anything.

 

[GreyLord]

Sometimes the truth is ugly.


Here's another ugly truth. While I have fond memories of those 22 minute commercials, I find them absolutely unwatchable today. I tried sitting through an episode of Thundercats when they started airing on Cartoon Network around 1999/2000 and I couldn't get through a single episode. I used to run home from school in 4th grade to make it home in time to hear "ThunderCats are on the move / ThunderCats are loose!" I finally understood why my mother hated that show so much.

The cartoons from my childhood were terrible. Cartoons produced in the 90s and 2000s were much better.

I'm kind of the opposite. I was already older and my kids were watching things in the 90s and 2000s. I didn't even see Thundercats until it was on Cartoon Network in the later portion of the 90s at night and absolutely loved it. Didn't require kids to even want to watch it! It was like one of the more D&D cartoons of the time even!

Perhaps it's because it instantly reminded me of Rankin/Bass movies of the late 70s and early 80s (The Hobbit, Flight of Dragons, Last Unicorn, etc). Found out, it was by the same people.

I actually enjoyed the cartoons from my kids era of growing up (as a Parent you want to, or at least I wanted to, watch what they watched to make sure it wasn't something bad for them...etc). Some I enjoyed more than others (for example, I wasn't so much a fan of Scooby Doo, though one of my kids was a huge fan), but overall, I think I enjoy cartoons. They definately got better the older I got, and today you have some spectacular animation at times (for example, the He-man Revelations/Revolutions Cartoon...which I watched with grandkids!).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

And guess they don't have the rights to Orko?

The original movie? Orko was too deemed expensive to do the FX for in 1987. He isn't separate from the rest of the IP.

Budget was also the reason for using mostly real world settings plus one interior Castle Greyskull set.