Animation fans there are alot of reboots out there and not all of them are any good but one of the ones that somehow managed to make the old fans angry and yet pull in new fans was She-Ra And The Princesses Of Power. Now sadly i'm not going to be taking a look at an episode from that show because that wouldn't be that fun for me so instead I chose an episode from the original show because i've never seen this show and so join me as I review what is technically the first episode of the show "Duel At Devlan" enjoy classic and current animation fans.
The plot of the episode is a small town is being threatened by helpers of the evil Hordak and so She-Ra has to help them out. To say that the episode is pretty might on story would be a huge understatement since it's pretty bare bones but from what I can gather alot of animated shows from the eighties were the same so I can't really knock this show for doing what other shows were also doing but it is still an issue and it's one that bugged me a little bit as well since there was no reason given as to why I should care about the characters or want to see them succeed.
Starring in the episode are Melendy Britt as She-Ra/Princess Adora and Kristala's Mother and George DiCenzo as Bow , Dylamug and Darius. Also starring in the episode is Linda Gary as Glimmer and Madame Razz and producer Lou Scheimer being credited as Erik Gunden for some unknown reason is here staring as Swift Wind/Spirit , Dylamug , Sprag , Sprocker , Broom , Devlan Villagers and Horde Troopers.
Now this is something that I wasn't quite sure how to handle because alot of the guest characters don't get alot of screen and alot of the main characters barely get any dialog and so i'll do my best to judge the acting for this episode. I honestly feel that the acting in the episode decent it was honestly hard to judge the acting in this episode for the reason that I stated before but based of what I saw the acting was decent at best.
Now I cannot find who did the animation for this show or this episode but I do know that Filmation did animation and produced this show so i'm going to assume that they did the animation for the episode as well as the show. Speaking of the animation for an eighties animated TV show it was OK I can't say that it was good because it really wasn't but given that this show was made to sell toys there's alot more effort in the animation then what was needed.
The animation also looks really cheap which I get was what Filmation was known for doing but they didn't have to make it so obvious. How you know that the animation was done on the cheap is that there are times where you cannot see a characters move moving or the fact that they have She-Ra flying on her horse so that they don't have to animate backgrounds there's all of these little things that tell you that the animation was done cheaply and it's stuff that really isn't needed in my opinion.
Now I know that i'm going to get some flack for saying this but after just one episode of this show I can tell that it's more fun to watch then She-Ra And The Princesses of Power was. Simply because this show knows that it's campy as all hell and has fun with it where as the reboot is more concerned with trying to be a serious piece of art that it forgets to be fun and i'm someone who enjoyed the first season of the reboot but couldn't get into the other seasons.
I will admit there are somethings that the reboot does better then this episode did lack the fact the reboot put alot of focus on the story which this episode didn't do. That for me is a good thing because it means that I have a chance to care about the characters and to get invested in there adventures and while I was invested in this episode I wasn't concerned about the characters because I had to reason to be which is always a bad thing.
Now I personally refer to this episode as the first episode of the show because there was a pilot movie released called He-Man And She_Ra The Secret Of The Sword which was the first five episodes of She-Ra: Princess Of Power edited into a feature film. Even tho this film has the first five episodes of the show in it for many people this was just a film and nothing more with "Duel At Devlan" being the official first episode.
There was one character which really annoyed the hell out of me and he / she / it is only screen for around a minuet and it's the character of Loo-Kee. That character is only there to tell the audience what the moral of the episode was and nothing more but the character has this really annoying voice and it is so freaking obnoxious and is honestly just a pointless character since he adds nothing to the episode or the show as a whole.
Now even tho there is some action in this episode given that it's a kids show the action isn't a big part of the episode. Which yeah actually makes sense since like I said it's a kids show but with that being said there is some action and it's exactly as OK as you think it would be , I can't really be to hard on this show since it's a show made for kids and for a kids show the action I felt was pretty good and was entertaining to see.
Overall this was a really solid episode it was really fun to watch and it's an episode that I can see myself going back to and re-watching. This episode isn't perfect by any means but from what I can gather the issues that I had with this episode also extend to the show but there's a chance that I could be wrong with that , I can also say that this episode is more fun to watch then the reboot is as such the episode gets a 6.5 out of 10 from me.
Guys and girls all the the images for this review were gathered from either the official Greyskull wiki fandom page which is home to all things He-man and She-Ra and Google Images. I hope that you did enjoy this review sorry I couldn't get that many high quality images but you guys have to bare in mind that this show was made in the mid-eighites that said tho if you don't use either of the websites that I mentioned then I will force you to watch the Masters Of The Universe live action movie for several freaking hours.