May 18, 2020

What would Make a great She-Ra show in my eyes:

I've criticized the recent Netflix experiment during its run. Some people claim it's an unfair criticism because I'm not gay. Others just call me a bigot because I've called out the bullshit argument of using "minorities" ,"fat people", "LGBTQ" as criticism shields. Others simply try to apply 2020 values to a 1980s cartoon to call their subpar 2018 toon superior. Being a "good gay show" does notnecessarily mean a "good She-Ra show". But that's not why we're here today.
We're here to discuss what would make a Great She-Ra show for me:

-Respect the source material:
The biggest problem with the Netflix experiment was that Noelle Stevenson took a massive dump on the source material, chaged it beyond recognition and made something completely different whose only similarities to the REAL She-Ra is the names of the characters.

To my understanding, She-Ra's origins are currently in a murky situation. Since She-Ra and He-Man are different IPs with shared elements and some of those are Mattel property, there's a slight issue here. Hence the Experiment had to use a He-Manless origin.

IF POSSIBLE, the He-Man's twin sister origin should be used. If that is not possible, have Grayskull be the name of the first owner of the sword. Just so the Transformation  phrase makes sense. Also, no time displaced First One baby Adora, please.

The Evil Horde is Evil! The core members should NEVER defect from the Horde. The only one who plays both teams is DoubleTrouble... who is not a genderfluid lizard monster.

Despite having support from Different kingdoms, the base of the Rebellion is The Whispering Woods.

As long as the core aspects of the universe are treated woth respect, there shouldn't be any issues...

-The War for the Etherian Liberation should be the main focus of the show: 
The show should aim to inspire girls to feel empowered. That even in tough situations, girls can get things done just as well as the boys. Teamwork, friendship, tolerance, and acceptance. All of these MUST be done under the main story arc, which is: the Etherian Rebellion stands up to fight evil Space Nazis. Sleepovers, Proms, Beach episodes should NOT BE PART of the series. While relationships among characters MAY DEVELOP, they are NOT the focus.
You could get a scene or two with say, Josh and Glimmer sharing a potato salad or Bow and Adora put in an awkward situation. Perhaps Sea Hawk and Crimson Rose's very Macho handshake lingers a bit too much, but it will not be beaten over your head so you can ship them.

Also, being capable of having the Good guys LOSE battles. It is a bit boring if the good guys are going to win in the end. You can't always win, is an important lesson to teach, just like, despite knowing you're going to lose, you HAVE TO DO THE RIGHT THING.


-changes to the characters must be justified with story reasons and not to fill PC check boxes.
Muh Diversity is not a reason to change a character's race, gender, or sexual orientation.
For example, want to make an Asian Glimmer, well Bright Moon better be turned into an "Asia-like" country. Want to make Mermista a "Pacific Islander", better have a Pacific tribal look to Salineas. If not, then you can Add a character of a different race, but there must be some justification. If you want to add more black characters, then there must be an area in Etheria, where the population is predominantly black and they'd have some cultural symbols, attire, markers, signifiers that these characters would have in common... just as every region would. In the example I used, I mentioned black characters. I'm not asking for African tribal designs on every black characters. I'm asking for a sign that can Identify them as members of a certain culture or creed:
 a different example to see if you can catch my drift:
Faithful Catholics are known to carry rosary bead necklaces. Jewish men wear a Yarmulke. So on, and so forth. Maybe Netossa wears a shoulderpad, whose crest has some significance on her land. Others from her land may have the same crest in other items of clothing.
Just like Brightmoon has a lunar motif. I lnow the Netflix experiment played a little bit with this, but they played it a bit too safe.

This idea is to expand the lore of the world and "ground" the characters on a more "realistic" world... (as realistic as  you can get on a world with magical Princesses fighting Space Nazis)

Need an interracial couple for a story use Netossa and Spinnerella... or have some new characters.

-once the tone of the series is set, it shouldn't be drastically changed without reason.
Personally for a She-Ra cartoon I would go for a middle-of-the-road tone. By that I mean that it wouldn't be as light as the Filmation cartoon nor as dark as Game of Thrones. Maybe as dark as Young Justice. By drastically changing in town I'm referring to something like in Teen Titans  (the early 2000s one) where you had some serious episodes and some incredibly silly episodes intertwined.

If for some reason an extremely light tone episode is required, frame it as Bow singing a ballad about said events after they happened. Like say rescuing the village of Thaymor  Bow would sing anout the event while embellishing details  to make it fit the song format. The idea is to justify within the story this change. Unlike the Experiment's  "D&D" episode, that retells the same segment in different styles hey do you have to tell the one single story in that more than slightly different tone. Similar reasoning would apply if a dark and more somber tone needs to be used, although the method to justify the change in tone would have to be different. Maybe the darker retelling is from a horde Cadet reporting to their superior.

The idea is to not to Blindside the viewers completely with an episode that doesn't not the style of the rest. Like going full wtf with a Prom Episode, a Beach Episode, or the Jazz Lounge Episode.

-Story is the master, everything else is secondary:
It's not a difficult concept. The show is not a soapbox to discuss social or political issues. It doesn't mean that they can't be dealt with, because you totally can. The issue is that they are NOT the main focus. The focus is on Adora's Hero Journey (and redemption) as well as the people of Etheria joining together despite Race, Gender, Nationality, Creed to fight the Evil Space Nazis. Not a platform for the showrunner to expose their views.

-At the end of the day, this is a 22 minute toy ad:
We can desire to make the best story ever and the most kickass She-Ra series, but if it doesn't fullfill Mattel's prime directive, it's not worth it for them.  That of course means, parts reuse and homogenous body types. I said TypeS Now, because the characters don't NEED to be confined to one male and onfe female body type. And yes, before anyone asks, obese bodies are not being considered.
Why? The kids don't want them.

For the females, I'd  say:
Petite, Athletic, buff. For example: Glimmer and Adora would be Petite. Mermista would be Athletic. Huntara and She-Ra would be Buff.
For the males we'd have Thin, Athletic, Buff, and Large.
Modulok and Josh would be Thin. Mantenna, Bow and Sea Hawk are Athletic. Crimson Rose and Grizzlor would be buff. Leech, Horde Prime would be Large.
If we were to asign characters to certain bodies.  I'm not going to go in full detail because this is just giving a general idea nothing set in stone but more difference between each body type could be acquired by different overlays.

Basically the notion is to design the characters in a way that can be easily translated into toys which was something the Experiment forgot.


For the people involved to be hellbent in delivering the BEST SHE-RA SHOW THEY CAN MAKE... and some humility:
I want to see some passion for She-Ra by the people involved. I don't want to see any of the people involved talking smack about previous versions (and that includes the Netflix experiment) I don't want to see them talk how they're going to make the X-est show ever! All I want is to hear them talk about the great responsibility handed to them, that they're trying to make the best She-Ra show possible and that they hope we enjoy it as much as they enjoyed making it. In fact, if we don't hear about the showrunner, the better...

Holy crap, I didn't expect that this would've gotten this big... but I'm mildly passionate about this.

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