"The Dragon Invasion" Official Episode Review Thread

[carlo]

Hey guy's,

Happy Monday and it's time for another classic EP review. This week is "The Dragon Invasion". One of my personal favorites. Let's hear all your comments on this great classic ep. any scene pics from this ep would be much appreciated.

Someone could post some pics from this ep, it would be nice. If i find them, i will. Thanks.

Carlo

[manny]

the dragon invasion

well this is one of my fave classic eps as well

skeletor and beast man use the dragons in an evil way and use them to keep heman and his warriars away from greyskull so that skeletor and his army capture it and enslave it and try to learn the secrets. what happens in this ep is really well written and has wonderful action. also teamwork is also used very well by heman and his crew.

all the prominant good guys are in the ep teela manatarms heman sorceress the queen and king orko rammy and battlecat the only one who wasnt was stratos at least i dont remember him.

skeletor had beast man evillyn trapjaw and jujitsu in his only appearence


well of course the dragons were also big in this ep how many were they and how were they used is also very good

well my ep rating is 10

[Thatman]

Was that really Jitsu's only appearance???

[carlo]

Originally posted by Thatman95
Was that really Jitsu's only appearance???

Yep, this was Jitsu's Only appearance! and with only 1 line!

As for this EP, it Rocked! lots of Action throughout the whole episode. Great lines from beastman and skeletor.

Beastman " What makes you think you can Always order me around"?

Skele " THIS! (his staff) NOW MOVE! and then his Famous classic laugh! FREAKING AWESOME! loved it!

this is one of my favorite skele ep's..his is one freaking MEAN ass villian, he does not put up with any CRAP from anyone, especially the sorceress. Love the action at grayskull. The sorcercess is working her butt (sort of) here. Her powers that is. Fighting off the dragon pearls and evil-lyn's power combined against hers. I really like it when she uses lots of her magic powers especially in this ep. Great animation of her powers fighting off the tremendous powers of the dragon pearl.

another great line from skele...."TROUBLE! , I'll show you Trouble Sorceress".

and of course jitsu is in this ep, with only one line, poor jitsu. hey, at least he got his 2 minutes of fame! or was it 1 minute??

then at the end skele getting the sorceress powers and growing triple the size of he-man...awesome!

A perfect 10 ep!

carlo

[Merman]

This has to be one of my favourite classic MOTU episodes. The first thing that strikes you is that this episode takes place entirely during night-time. Under the famous Filmation purple sky. Naturally,this adds to the atmosphere.

Skeletor finally hits upon a good plan to take over Castle Grayskull and this time he actually manages to get inside. That alone makes the episode worth watching in my view.

And the dialogues are amazing as well. Who can forget the scene where Skeletor's face appears over Castle Grayskull? I loved the scene mainly because its one of the few times when we see He-man totally helpless and Skeletor in complete control.

[Sinnertwin]

This episode stands out in my mind for three reasons:

1. Great lines, esp. on Skelly's front.

2. Giant Skeletor at the end. XD

3. The funniest line ever:

"That was the hardest dragon I've ever rammed!" - Ram Man



-Sinnertwin

[Zioloeth]

What to not say?

If you only gonna watch 10 He-Man 1983 episodes, this one is a MUST-SEE!

[Jason]

I love the Episode. Only time with Jitsu and I like the part where Adam starts to transform and the Dragon hits the wall and falls on him but he still transforms.

[He-Ant]

Good episode. I thought that Skeletor and the Evil Warriors would take over Grayskull...not! But the dragons working together taught the children all about teamwork.

[Lulu-Berlu Reg]

"He he he... You have trapped the Sorceress in a Dragon Pearl !"...

Classic...

[The Champion of Light]

"Dragon Invasion" is one of the best capture-the-castle episodes within the He-Man series and Michael Reaves' finest! Its great seeing all of the warriors come together... also, Jitsu's ONLY appearance(but I think there is a strong resemblence between he and Mishi from "No Job too Small"). I love the dragons as well! Its really hard to find any fault with this one...

[He-Fan]

Chris here...

It's not one of my absolute all-time favourites, but I still think "The Dragon Invasion" is a very enjoyable episode. Showing dragons on Eternia I think somehow makes it seem more magical and adventurous and the whole episode I think is very well done. I wouldn't have said it was up there with episodes like "Teela's Quest", "The Problem With Power" or "Into the Abyss", but it's definitely a fine episode!

Take care...

[carlo]

this one is awesome

[shigsy2003]

Howdy

This episode is another classic and why not with it being from the writer (Michael Reeves) who wrote the best D&d episode, The Dragon's Graveyard.

This is has lots of great action, a cool twist in the transformation sequence, a good array of good and bad guys and the only appearence of Jitsu. I like the fact that Grayskull is Skeletor's if only for a brief time, although when he fights He-Man as giant Skeletor he does one of the worst jobs of it ever.

Great episode...9/10

Chris M

[Spacedust]

I didn't get around to putting up a new review thread this week, as I was busy starting college, but found a few more old review threads that I hadn't added my comments to. (Actually, I was lining up this episode as this coming Monday's new review thread, so lucky I double checked to see if it had already been done!)

"The Dragon Invasion" is an exciting early adventure of the classic series. It is typical of the early episodes in that it is very action-heavy and features a large number of characters, both Heroic and Evil.

There are some great Beast Man lines in this episode, as we see him plotting to one day overthrow Skeletor, something that faded into the background somewhat in later episodes.

The scene with Orko multiplying himself into four is fun. It seems like padding, until the scene's message of cooperation is used to solve a problem at the climax of the story.

There is a great variation to the normal He-Man transformation scene when we see the shadow of Adam raising his sword. The way the debris falls on him, and we overlap to the standard jawbridge-of-Grayskull-transformation is a bit cheaply done, but it makes a nice variation on the standard sequence none-the-less.

Possibly the most immediately notable thing about this episode is the one and only cartoon appearance of Jitsu. Although not referred to by name in the episode, in the script he was called Chopper, the figure's prototype name. The character only has one line in the entire episode, and sounds more French than oriental to me!

There are some very good shots of the Heroic Warriors in transit mid-episode, with He-Man on Battle Cat, Stratos flying, Teela and Ram Man on Sky Sleds (which the Ram Man figure was incapable of doing!) and Man-At-Arms driving the Battle Ram.

The ending to Act I is terrific, with Skeletor and his cronies inside Castle Grayskull, protected by a force-field, and Skeletors laughing face appearing over Grayskull's skull, as on the opening credits.

The only thing I did wonder, if Skeletor was finally inside Castle Grayskull, why didn't he go about harnessing it's power? He just seems to stand around. But that's a very minor niggle with an enjoyable episode.

There is one shot, with Man-At-Arms and Ram Man with the dragons, and Stratos landing that always looked weird to me. Stratos and Man-At-Arms are full size, but Ram Man is TINY! I think they were going for perspective, with Ram Man being further away, but it just comes off as looking wrong. This shot was used in the Panini sticker album, and always bothered me even as a child.

The scene with the dragons lining up outside Castle Grayskull is brilliant, and quite memorable.

Skeletor's line, "Too bad about the others, but at least *I* escaped", is a great one for showing that old bone head cares about no-one but himself.

He-Man saving Skeletor from falling off the side of Snake Mountain is a very early example that He-Man will use his powers to protect and save anyone, even if they are evil.

All-in-all, a very exciting, enjoyable early episode. I give it 9.5 out of 10.

[Blue]

Love the action at grayskull. The sorcercess is working her butt (sort of) here. Her powers that is. Fighting off the dragon pearls and evil-lyn's power combined against hers. I really like it when she uses lots of her magic powers especially in this ep. Great animation of her powers fighting off the tremendous powers of the dragon pearl.


carlo

I agree! I do love this action sequence, and I especially like the circular shield the Sorceress first uses to hault Evil-Lyn's onslaught.

Of a personal geeky note, I once went to a now defunct 80s cartoon convention where Rich Chase was showing He-Man cels. He displayed the one of Jitsu, and said this character only appeared in one ep. He asked some other He-Man fan what ep it was, and she said she didn't know. To this I immediately declared "THE DRAGON INVASION!" with far too much excitement. I think everyone at the podium stared at me for a minute before the cell talk continued.