Mar 1, 2016

It Came from the Toy Chest: 34 years later and we get a He-Man who can hold his sword aloft

I know that NA He-Man and Laser Light He-Man did it first, but this is the first Vanilla He-Man to do it.
I kinda caved in and bought a Filmation He-Man... Mostly out of it's Filmation He-Man.

Do I need to explain who he is?

I mean this is the House of rants where a LOT of topics are He-Man related. So let's get cracking on the Most Powerful Man in the Universe.

Before I start the actual ratings part of this review/rant, I must bring the box into attention:


Cardboard Mailers are a thing of the past, so pray that the USPS, or UPS are gentle with your package.

Instead, we get a closed gate of the Jawbridge WITHIN THE OPENED JAWBRIDGE ITSELF!? Sloppy, sloppy! Once we remove the slip cover, we see He-Man in all his glory... BTW the I HAVE THE POWER pose is wrong! Do they even Filmation!? Behind He-Man's Plastic prison, there's a nifty piece of art from within the Castle...
Turn it to the back and PUT THE SLIP COVER BACK ON!!!
That He-Man Art is Awful! Whoever traced that should be fired immediately! That Right thigh has a huge Tumor and does not resemble anything close to a normal thigh's anatomy!

Enough about the box! Let's tackle the figure itself! Well, there is ONE MORE THING you can do... It makes for a somewhat nice display...



Mantenna: Mattel used to do Ankle rockers right!
Articulation
He has Normal MOTUC Articulation for the most part. The new additions are the ankle rockers and the hinged wrists.
Mine has Loose ankles... The forwards to back swivel. The side to side rockers are tight... Ugly, but functional. The saddest part of this is that the sculpt itself tells you how it should be fixed.One good thing I can say about them is that they INCREASE the range of poses that you can do with He-Man... 5.0*
*=(Mostly out of functionality. The ankles are not aesthetically pleasing, seeing that they have done it better before.)

Oh yeah! I forgot! the scabbard on his back has an Articulation point!!






Paint and Sculpt:
This is a mixed bag for me sculptwise. Paintwise is easy, Less paint applications, less chances to screw up. The sculpt, man! Where to begin with... I know Filmation Accuracy! This figure FAILS HORRIBLY AT IT, BECAUSE MATTEL USED A HALF-ASSED APPROACH!!
The Classics Body is a bit TOO BEEFY for Filmation Accuracy. It also has more defined Muscles and visible nipples that were not on the Filmation version. Add to this the fact that He-Man's Waist is WIDER than his belt and his legs are wider than the fur trim on his boots. It creates some sort of "Muffin top" effect on his legs and waist.
To make matters worse, this more detailed body CLASHES with the Underdetailed "cartoony" parts. The Hairsculpt looks half-finished with an unnatural smoothness on top and a moderately detailed bottom. The fur trim on his boots looks more like Slime Globs than fur. Same thing can be said about the Loincloth...
BTW if this is supposed to be "Filmation Accurate" then, it should have been UNDERPANTS!! I regret to say this but FourHorsemen YOU HAVE FAILED THIS HE-MAN!! I blame Brandon Sopinski's "Make them compatible with Classics, but full filmation" dumbass idea... Hell! Even the scabbard fails at being Filmation accurate...
2.0

Accessories:
Failed Filmation Power Sword (same as the one from Flogg but this time UNPAINTED) and a Stand... For the Power Sword and the Sword of Protection. If it seems familiar, then you've seen The secret of the Sword... or The Sword of She-Ra recently. I feel that Mattel missed an opportunity here. He-Man's Grappling hook (the one he pulls out of his underpants!!) is the MOST Filmation Accessory that you could give to a so-called Filmation He-Man... Where is it? Well, they didn't give us one! The stone stand for the swords is nifty, but that's more of a Horde thing.
3.5

Overall:
He-Man gets a 3.5 as his final score. My main issues with him are the Ugly Articulation in the ankles, The newer pieces not matching the older parts (ill fitting boots and loincloth.) While I dislike the underdetailed parts on this body, does not mean that I dislike them in general. I like the DCCollectibles Batman line BECAUSE to make the Cartoony looking characters they MADE NEW Bodies. What Mattel did for this sub-Line is the equivalent of taking the TDKR Batman Upper body and put it on DCUC Legs to create a BTAS Batman.

But back on topic to He-Man: Had Mattel gone a different route and make this figures in a whole different scale or gone TRULY FULL FILMATION without worrying about compatibility with Classics, MAYBE I would have liked them a bit more.
Here's a side by side comparison of the Filmation He-Man next to my Classicized Filmation He-Man Custom. I definitely prefer the custom because it has the Filmation Elements, but still fits in Classics... Now here's a few pics of various combinations between my custom and the official Mattel Figure.

Had the head been slightly more detailed, then the Middle pic would have made my Ultimate He-Man...






Only the Filmation Harness
on my custom
Filmatiom Head
and Harness
 on my custom
Custom head and Classics
Harness on Filmation body






2 comments:

  1. I have to say that while I've been a completest on MOTUC, I'm really glad I skipped this subscription. I think the only figure I'll truly regret not getting is Evil Seed since he looks so different.

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    Replies
    1. I'm getting Skeletor (if the site allows) for the sake of symmetry. The rest, I can skip. Hopefully the Friendly Neighborhood Asian sellers will have Chokey the flasher at a reasonable price!

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