How important those drawings that we saw as children were for us. It was time to tune into our favorite channel, and at that moment, time stood still, and we only had eyes and ears to delight in the hero’s adventures. That ability to transfer ourselves to the magical universe, to fall into the nets of illusion, of enchanted castles and eternal curses, how we were able to let ourselves go and living only for our protagonist, is one of the privileges of the child spectator, which later is difficult to preserve.
Today, in our Nostalgia TV, we are going to remember one of those series that made us live adventures sitting on our sofa, with the glass of milk completely forgotten. It’s about the big ‘He-man and the masters of the universe‘.
Stories of heroes and villains
In ‘He-Man and the Masters of the Universe’ we found a story that referred us to the fight of good against evil. Everything happened in the distant planet of Eternia on which Prince Adam livedson of King Randor and Queen Marlena, the latter originally from Earth, a fact that made Adam half human (something fundamental in many heroes of this type of science-fiction sagas, which immediately win over the public in favor of of the character with whom they feel identified by sharing origin).
Eternia lived under the threat of the evil council, a force commanded by Skeleton, who wanted to take control of Eternia and subjugate all its inhabitants. The forces of good managed to stop the council of evil, enclosing them in a mystical wall, but on the day Prince Adam turns 16, they manage to escape… The sorceress of the castle grayskull He detects this negative force and requests the presence of the prince, because from now on he will have an important mission to fulfill.
Grayskull’s castle, with its mythical skull shape, housed a great power that the evil council wanted to dominate: in the past, the powerful Ancients decided to protect the castle by merging into a single being and concentrating their power in the castle. Prince Adam is the one chosen to collect all that power through a magical sword. As Adam drew his sword and spoke the words that still make our fanatic hearts pound: “By the power of Grayskull… I have the power!”the young man became the most powerful warrior in the universe: He-Man.
So from that moment on, Adam will live a double life and will hide his second identity from his loved ones, a fact that only some characters will know. Nobody knows who He-Man really is, the protector and defender of Eternia and the forces of good. Together with him, the masters of the universe will work, some very powerful warriors who will help Skeletor and evil never succeed in Eternia.
As you can see, like a good fantastic saga, this story had many dramatic elements that built a interesting narrative arc for the seriesdespite the fact that later some chapters of the production of filming had a vertical plot a little more bland and childish.
The characters of the He-Man saga
There are many more characters in this complicated universe: Queen Sorceress, the guardian sorceress of Castle Grayskull; the friendly Ork, the Buzz-off, Stratos or Zodac warriors; or the evil Beast-Man and Mer-Man… a whole amalgamation of characters that grows to delight lovers of this story.
Nor could we forget she ra. Adam has a twin sister: Adora. She is a young woman who keeps within her a fabulous power. Adora is able to transform into She-Ra, the most powerful woman in the universe. She is a feminine reverse of the He-man character, with her virtues and courage, only it is specified that She-Ra does not use brute force, but incredible magical powers. In the He-man series, Adora hardly had any intervention, but, shortly after, she starred in a spinoff that made her the heroine of many girls.
The masters of the universe, some dolls with a lot of history
The birth of this series of drawings that was created in 1983 has, like so many other audiovisual products, a curious story behind. The origin of this wonderful saga was, in the first place, in the creation of action figures designed by the company Mattel. The great toy company rejected the proposal to manufacture the dolls of the ‘Star Wars’ franchise, a decision that it would soon end up regretting.
So much so, that his goal became to develop dolls of that style: courageous, with magical powers, and inhabitants of other planets. Thus was born the legend of Grayskull and the masters of the universe. A controversy arose from this matter, since The creators of ‘Conan’ accused Mattel to make a copy of his character (the truth is that they also have many points in common and the influence is obvious) but, finally, Mattel won the lawsuit and He-Man became a legend.
From there, the star of the character was lighting up more and more. In 1983, this fantastic cartoon series was created that captivated many generations of avid viewers. The series had 130 episodes and several comics were also published. The end of the series was only the awakening to other new products. In 1990 a new series was made called ‘The New Adventures of He-Man‘, in which the hero had to defend the planet Primus.
In 2002, a new version of the series was made, with a more modern look and in keeping with the times. In addition, there are two films about the characters of Eternia: an animated version, from 1985, called ‘The mystery of the sword’ and has both He-Man and She-Ra as protagonists, and a live action version of 1987, in which the role of He-Man was played by Dolph Lundgren. More recently, Netflix gave a lot to talk about with a reboot/sequel to the series with kevin smith as a creator, and a new movie is in the works live action.