The Greatest Skeletory Ever Told
Dec. 10th, 2009 01:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vovatI noticed that the Nostalgia Critic did a review of the He-Man and She-Ra Christmas special. I haven't yet watched his review, but I found the special on YouTube, and thought I might want to get in my own two cents first. I remember watching He-Man occasionally as a kid, but I don't think I've ever seen this before. Since these cartoons take place on another planet, it's kind of weird that they'd have a Christmas special, right? Well, I don't know. The Whos live on a microscopic world, and they celebrate Christmas. So do the Flintstones, who were supposed to have lived some time Before Christ. Really, I have to give the He-Man special credit for explaining why the planet Eternia would have an Earth holiday. While decorating for a birthday party for He-Man and She-Ra, the Queen comments that it reminds her of preparing for Christmas back on Earth. This becomes relevant to the plot when Orko, with his typical tendency to screw everything up, accidentally launches Man-at-Arms' spy rocketship into space and flies it to Earth. Personally, I blame Man-at-Arms for building a ship that starts when you break a lever. Anyway, it hardly takes any time at all for Orko to reach Earth, which presumably means that either Eternia is actually quite close, or that this ship that was apparently never intended to leave the atmosphere is capable of exceeding the speed of light. At least the Ninja Turtles cartoon tended to use trans-dimensional portals when a plot involved interstellar travel.
So anyway, Orko meets two children, who tell him about both the religious and secular aspects of Christmas. The cartoon seems to want to avoid being too specific about the former, however, as the only part of this discussion shown onscreen simply has a kid mentioning the wise men following a star to Bethlehem. Man-at-Arms transports Orko and the kids to Eternia, where the natives decide it's an excellent idea to start celebrating a holiday from some other planet. In fact, the very presence of the kids brings Christmas Spirit to the planet, and this terrifies Horde Prime. Under his orders, Skeletor captures the kids, but the Christmas Spirit causes him to change his mind and save the children at the last minute. If it's that simple, how come people still do bad things on and around Christmas? But then, we ARE talking about Skeletor, who talks about being evil a lot more than he really does anything. I have to imagine that the poor guy really didn't have much choice as to his lot in life, having a skull for a head and all.
By the way, has it ever been revealed what Orko actually looks like? And how does She-Ra's horse fly in space? Also, couldn't Eternian and Etherian zoologists come up with better names than "Snow Beast" and "Beast Monster"? Then again, when one of your superheroes is "He-Man," perhaps lazy naming is to be expected. But anyway, while I could go on nitpicking this eighties cartoon for some time, I have to say that it WAS fun to watch.
So anyway, Orko meets two children, who tell him about both the religious and secular aspects of Christmas. The cartoon seems to want to avoid being too specific about the former, however, as the only part of this discussion shown onscreen simply has a kid mentioning the wise men following a star to Bethlehem. Man-at-Arms transports Orko and the kids to Eternia, where the natives decide it's an excellent idea to start celebrating a holiday from some other planet. In fact, the very presence of the kids brings Christmas Spirit to the planet, and this terrifies Horde Prime. Under his orders, Skeletor captures the kids, but the Christmas Spirit causes him to change his mind and save the children at the last minute. If it's that simple, how come people still do bad things on and around Christmas? But then, we ARE talking about Skeletor, who talks about being evil a lot more than he really does anything. I have to imagine that the poor guy really didn't have much choice as to his lot in life, having a skull for a head and all.
By the way, has it ever been revealed what Orko actually looks like? And how does She-Ra's horse fly in space? Also, couldn't Eternian and Etherian zoologists come up with better names than "Snow Beast" and "Beast Monster"? Then again, when one of your superheroes is "He-Man," perhaps lazy naming is to be expected. But anyway, while I could go on nitpicking this eighties cartoon for some time, I have to say that it WAS fun to watch.
