Olesker's Thread: "You've Got Questions, I've Got Answers"

[Jun-Yor]

So I just started watching New Adventures and my brother said you had a thread, so this is awesome! I did have a few critiques and questions. This is about the show in general, and not you, per se. If you can speak about any of it, it would be fantastic! Sorry for being all over the map.

1) I love the camp and morality of the series was held over from the Filmation series. I am very OK with this. I loved 200x and needed to watch the original a few times to understand the approach of the old series, but coming off of that, it was great this series maintained that same spirit. Well-done!

2) I "get" what you were trying to do with Skeletor. Some were calling him Fire Marshall Bill and such, but in spirit he's just another take on the scheming and manipulating he would do otherwise. It was a different take, and Alan Oppenheimer certainly set the bar, but this Skeletor did the job adequately. His laugh I'd like to forget.

3) This series had a Thundercats vibe from me: Great theme animation, lower-quality animation in the series itself. Like a MOTUC toy, you can have the best minds on it, but it only takes bad art and paint to throw off a great concept. The colors were very muted and drab. What a shame.

4) Shuki Levy and Haim Saban did the music. Interesting take but a rare misfire IMO. It doesn't grab you like it does for the old series, She-Ra, and Power Rangers.

5) Master Sebrian (sp?) and his vernacular. It is such a put-off. I get he's a clerical figure and all, but that "power of the good and the way of the magic" was very heavy-handed and had an almost religious undertone. I know he was speaking in prophecies and such, but he reminded me of speaking Bible verses. It literally accurate, but it's a very unappealing style of spoken word. I hope that makes sense. It is especially weird given he's a "future" character, not that there's future speak. I will say I am glad they didn't use slang, or verbiage of the time.

6) The lack of his shield...again. Once again his sword deflects beams. Why not his shield? Was this animation taboo?

7) I see the new joke characters are these Scientists. I get their function. I also see why folks don't care for them. I understand them, however. It sounds odd, but the negative talk about how bad this series was made me pleasantly surprised how much better I thought it would be.

8) I have much more to watch, but how deep does character development go? So far Flipshot and Hydron seem kind of interchangeable personality-wise. I do know Slush-Head has a romantic partner and Mara and Crita get battle-ready costumes.

9) The production...maybe the music...it seems bland. Nothing grabs at you. It seems very "Canadian". If you've seen the 4Kids Sonic X series or GI Joe Sigma 6, you understand. No memorable or signature music. The color palette is very muted and drab as well. Neither helped the series.

10) Who designed the characters and weapons: Mattel or the animators?

11) Is the Mark Taylor on this series the same as the Mark Taylor who did toy designs on the vintage line?

12) What do you think of the MOTUC figures of the NA characters this far? Any you'd like to see personally?

[Heeeere's Olesker!]

Welcome to the thread. I hope you continue to enjoy NA. You may find this Masterscast interview -- in which I answered a lot of behind-the-scenes questions about NA -- to be interesting. http://masterscast.com/?p=46

Now to your questions and observations:

5. You're correct about Master Sebrian speaking in a Biblical manner. If you'll read my "Primus' identity to be revealed" thread -- and it's kind of fun to read the posts beginning-to-end in order -- you'll have an understanding of why he does so. http://www.he-man.org/forums/boards/...rimus+Revealed For a long time orgers had been speculating as to what Primus really was -- Earth at another time, Eternia at another time, etc. So I think we had a lot of fun with this thread that finally revealed Primus' true identity.

As for Sebrian, it's true I occasionally inject theological matters in a subtle way in my work and he was a vehicle for this. It's never my intention to foist my views upon others, and I always want to be respectful of other's belief or non-belief. So that's why I try to be subtle rather than heavy-handed. I also feel the Bible offers great stories and that they can work in other areas of entertainment as well, proven aptly by the Star Wars franchise. I get that you find Sebrian's manner of speaking it "unappealing", but bear in mind that that's your subjective opinion, which you are certainly entitled to and which I respect. But I've had many other fans that found it appealing.

6. Could you please clarify this question?

8. NA's character development, as you'll see when you watch the rest of the series, goes extremely deep. I've always felt that the best entertainment is character-driven -- i.e., what do characters think, what compells them to act as they do, how do they feel about each other? To me this makes them more relatable and makes viewers care more about them when they are in jeopardy than they would if the characters were simple one-dimensional creatures going at it in battle with each other. To put it another way, we may not be able to recall scene-by-scene what happens in each Star Wars fim, each Rocky film or each Spider-man film, but we that like those films can sit down and write chapter and verse on Han Solo's personality, Darth Vader's, Rocky Balboa's, Apollo Creed's, Spidey's. This is because of the depth of their characters created by the writers. It's characters, imo, that drive the dramatic thrust of a series, so my work is always character-driven.

10. Great question. The two waves of main characters -- e.g., He-man, Skelly, Slushhead, Flogg, Hydron, Flipshot, Sagitaur -- were designed by Mattel. Mattel, however, gave me the latitutde to develop some of my character, which I did with Sebrian, Grot, Drissi, Caz, the scientists (regrettably) and my personal favorite, Crita. In those cases I created and described the characters, just as I did with many of the characters that appeared in only one episode. In those cases the artists at KKC&D took my descriptions and did renderings of the characters.

11. The Mark Taylor you refer to is not the artist. Mark, now retired, was a television executive who began his career at DIC Entertainment and then moved to Jetlag and Columbia/Sony before becoming VP and General Manager of Nickelodeon for a long, long run. He's one of my oldest friends in the industry, a true gentleman and an inspirational producer. http://www.awn.com/news/people/mark-...imation-studio

12. I love the MOTUC NA characters. The Four Horsemen are geniuses, and I rarely use that term. I would be thrilled to see Crita become the next NA MOTUC character.

So I just started watching New Adventures and my brother said you had a thread, so this is awesome! I did have a few critiques and questions. This is about the show in general, and not you, per se. If you can speak about any of it, it would be fantastic! Sorry for being all over the map.

1) I love the camp and morality of the series was held over from the Filmation series. I am very OK with this. I loved 200x and needed to watch the original a few times to understand the approach of the old series, but coming off of that, it was great this series maintained that same spirit. Well-done!

2) I "get" what you were trying to do with Skeletor. Some were calling him Fire Marshall Bill and such, but in spirit he's just another take on the scheming and manipulating he would do otherwise. It was a different take, and Alan Oppenheimer certainly set the bar, but this Skeletor did the job adequately. His laugh I'd like to forget.

3) This series had a Thundercats vibe from me: Great theme animation, lower-quality animation in the series itself. Like a MOTUC toy, you can have the best minds on it, but it only takes bad art and paint to throw off a great concept. The colors were very muted and drab. What a shame.

4) Shuki Levy and Haim Saban did the music. Interesting take but a rare misfire IMO. It doesn't grab you like it does for the old series, She-Ra, and Power Rangers.

5) Master Sebrian (sp?) and his vernacular. It is such a put-off. I get he's a clerical figure and all, but that "power of the good and the way of the magic" was very heavy-handed and had an almost religious undertone. I know he was speaking in prophecies and such, but he reminded me of speaking Bible verses. It literally accurate, but it's a very unappealing style of spoken word. I hope that makes sense. It is especially weird given he's a "future" character, not that there's future speak. I will say I am glad they didn't use slang, or verbiage of the time.

6) The lack of his shield...again. Once again his sword deflects beams. Why not his shield? Was this animation taboo?

7) I see the new joke characters are these Scientists. I get their function. I also see why folks don't care for them. I understand them, however. It sounds odd, but the negative talk about how bad this series was made me pleasantly surprised how much better I thought it would be.

8) I have much more to watch, but how deep does character development go? So far Flipshot and Hydron seem kind of interchangeable personality-wise. I do know Slush-Head has a romantic partner and Mara and Crita get battle-ready costumes.

9) The production...maybe the music...it seems bland. Nothing grabs at you. It seems very "Canadian". If you've seen the 4Kids Sonic X series or GI Joe Sigma 6, you understand. No memorable or signature music. The color palette is very muted and drab as well. Neither helped the series.

10) Who designed the characters and weapons: Mattel or the animators?

11) Is the Mark Taylor on this series the same as the Mark Taylor who did toy designs on the vintage line?

12) What do you think of the MOTUC figures of the NA characters this far? Any you'd like to see personally?

[Sanguijuela]

I can't speak to the UK. It's possible that there was an early release because of their popularity in the mini-comics, but I really don't know. All I can tell you is the sequence in which they were presented to me and Mattel's request regarding which characters they wanted the most emphasis on.

There were differences between the UK and the US in terms of the names of the characters, so there are likely to have been other differences too.

By the way, in case you haven't listened to it, check out the Masters Cast podcast interview with me. It's must-listening for NA fans and will answer a lot of questions as well as give you some behind-the-scenes 411. Here's a link: http://masterscast.com/?p=46

Thanks for bringing this to our attention. I hope to get a chance to listen to it this weekend.

[Invicta]

I was wondering. When the animation was planned, did the early concept meetings have "Dare son of He-man" or "Skeleteen son of Skeletor" discussions? Was the main cast always He-man and Skeletor from the beginning, from what you can remember?

There seems to be some speculations, as apparently Mattel has dug concept of "Skeleteen" from some internal documents. Apparently Dare son of He-man was the very original concept for NA, but I wonder if these things had been ironed out when you got involved?

Here is discussion about the subject:
http://www.he-man.org/forums/boards/...he-late-1980-s

[Heeeere's Olesker!]

Neither were presented to me by Mattel. The main cast was always He-man and Skeletor from the beginning of my association with the project.

I was wondering. When the animation was planned, did the early concept meetings have "Dare son of He-man" or "Skeleteen son of Skeletor" discussions? Was the main cast always He-man and Skeletor from the beginning, from what you can remember?

There seems to be some speculations, as apparently Mattel has dug concept of "Skeleteen" from some internal documents. Apparently Dare son of He-man was the very original concept for NA, but I wonder if these things had been ironed out when you got involved?

Here is discussion about the subject:
http://www.he-man.org/forums/boards/...he-late-1980-s