Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I have the POWER...and the DVDs!, July 13, 2005
IT'S FINALLY HERE! I feel like I've been waiting all my life for "He-Man" to be released on DVD...and the day has finally come!
First of all, He-Man has never looked better. I was absolutely thrilled when I picked up this DVD set and saw how cool the packaging was. The cover and interior photos are fabulous, and the DVD set comes with two 4 x 6 postcards featuring "Masters of the Universe" comic book art. It's gorgeous!
Now on to the best part...the DVDs themselves! This is a two-disc collection of ten classic "He-Man" episodes. Fans of the show were actually given the opportunity to vote on the episodes they wanted to include on the He-Man.org Web site several months ago...I'm thrilled that some of my favorite episodes were included! The restoration of the cartoon is amazing...it looks absolutely beautiful, with no graniness at all! The sound is greet, the navigation menus are great, and the bonus features are FABULOUS! In addition to two feature-length documentaries, there's also a sneak preview of upcoming "He-Man" releases. Beginning this fall, all 130 episodes of the series will be released in four special edition DVD boxed sets. I'M SO EXCITED! The only thing that would make me happier is if "She-Ra" follows suit...and I have a feeling it will!
Even if you plan on buying the complete series when it is released, this special collector's edition is a must-have for any fan...and the price is unbelievable! I would have paid a hundred bucks to have my favorite childhood cartoon series on DVD! (Oops...I'd better be careful who I say that to!) Pick up your copy of "He-Man" on DVD today!
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Stand up and be exploited again!!!, October 17, 2005
When I was four years old I was totally in love with He-man. I had He-Man bedsheets, He-Man curtains, He-Man action figures, He-Man play sets, a plastic He-Man sword... you get the idea.
The one thing I didn't have was any He-Man videos, and believe me, I would have bought them. The world loved He-Man, but the world has a short attention span, and gradually He-Man began to age.
But you know how this story ends. Mattel, after 20 years, has finally decided to release He-Man on DVD, just as they are now releasing every TV show you have ever heard of (and some you haven't). I stared, slack-jawed, upon the box labeled "The Best of He-Man". It was the ten best episodes. I knew at once, I had to have it.
Actually, I come to find out, He-Man was fairly revolutionary. It was the first five-day a week children's cartoon, and it was also the first such show run by a toy company. It was perhaps the most genius marketing idea I've ever heard of; design the toys, and then make up a TV series around them. It was little better than having a half-hour long commercial for toys.
But, you see, it worked. I didn't know this at the time; I didn't even know the company that had brought you Barbie was trying to get away with doing something for the boys, which might have crushed me when I was four. I just wanted He-Man.
And now, Matel returns with a possibly even greater genius move. The release of these DVD's was tactful. They knew they had to wait a long time for the generation they had once exploited to stand up and ask to be exploited again, but this time it was even easier. Every Master of the Universe, every single one of us, no longer had to beg our parents to buy us He-Man. Like myself, every single one of us woke up one day to find He-Man staring us in the face, and we remembered what was missing in our lives.
I'm not saying it's perfect. The character's lips never match their voices, and watching Battle Cat roar is downright laughable. Considering this was probably the best they could do in the early 80's, I'm impressed. But the soundtrack, I have to admit, is pretty cool, and that's something I couldn't have appreciated back then.
Nor would I have recognized the subdued incestuous themes when Teela hints at her attraction to He-Man, even though Prince Adam is like a brother to her.
That's not her fault, though. The series also plays host to the classic superman error, where He-Man wears nothing to conceal his identity, and yet his own parents and sister seem unable to recognize him. In fact, all holding the sword over his head really does is give him less clothes.
Which isn't to say their weren't some very mature themes. In one episode, Prince Adam undergoes an identity crisis when he thinks his father likes He-Man better than him. The 60-second moral at the end of that one is that parents sometimes forget to tell their children they love them, but that really deep down they do. That's a lesson we needed then as much then as 20 years later.
In the episode where they need to convince Skeletor to help them fight the evil Dark Seed (who appears to have a bustle sprout for a head), Skeletor continually cries "don't you ever get tired of being a hero. Don't you ever feel like doing something evil." It's totally ridiculous, and yet when he finally lifts his staff to help explode the giant ice ball, everyone cheers anyway.
It's also funny to watch the series creators speak in deadpan about it, as though it were the most serious thing in the world. And yet, I don't blame them. I was a series creator too, or at least I was part of what made the series work. The fans were what it was all about, and the fans are what it is still about now.
And for just a half-hour, I felt like a Master of the Universe again.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The first in a line of good things to come, July 1, 2005
Hi, to those complaining about this DVD being a "best of" disc instead of a season set release, don't worry! You'll get your season sets. Read the news at http://www.he-man.org. They recently conducted an interview with BCI Eclipse about the upcoming DVD release as well as future season volume set releases.
Now about this DVD itself, a 10 best episode release is not all that much to get excited about, but because we will get the season sets down the line I like to think of this 2-disc release as an appetizer. It's also the 10 "best of" release, not just some random hashed together release. Fans of He-Man actually voted in a poll for these episodes to be collected together including myself. The special features are gonna be awesome and there are those two art cards, one by Bruce Timm of "Batman: The Animated Series" fame.
This 2-disc set is especially good if you're not a huge fan of the series, but still like it enough to pick it up. It'll also be a great way to introduce others to the series without intimidating them with volume sets.
And yes, I want She-Ra on DVD as well!! But this is a great start nonetheless.
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