She-Ra intro, 1x01-02
Feb. 15th, 2019 05:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jedi_of_urth posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
tori_reviewsSince it seems the Agents of SHIELD reviews are a project that I’m taking very seriously and therefore slowly, I wanted to have something else a bit less involved that I could do shorter reactions to. I would like to pick up the pace on the AoS reviews, but my thoughts seem to take a while to get in any kind of order, so something lighter is the order of the day for this side project.
It needed to be something I hadn’t seen before, otherwise reactions turn into reviews and we have the same problem. I wanted to start with something smaller, 10-20 episodes, and while doing that maybe only half-hour episodes. I don’t want to have a ton of preconceptions going in, but I also wouldn’t mind doing something that’s a bit higher profile; so a bit of a balancing act. Aiming for something that might have things to react to, but not something I’m likely to write a lot about each episode.
Which is how I landed on ‘She-Ra and the Princesses of Power.’ It’s something I can bring a dispassionate view to starting out as I have no stake in the present debate surrounding that show. Maybe I’ll end up really liking it, maybe I won’t but I’m not coming in with a lot of baggage. In spite of being approximately the right age or it, I didn’t grow up with the old cartoon and a lot of the arguments against it sound misplaced to me. However I am not a person who considers representation and diversity as a mark of quality and as those are primary things I see praised I don’t know that I’ll end up agreeing.
But I must remind you and myself that I am definitely not in the target market for this. I’m curious what the fuss has been about and hopeful that I’ll be entertained by the product. But neither being in the young demographic nor the nostalgic one, however I end up feeling about it will be only so useful as a guide to others.
She-Ra 1x01: The Sword Part 1
Well...I don’t hate it. I don’t like the animation; it might grow on me, but it’s definitely not working for me yet. As usual with a pilot, I’m not making too many snap judgements about characters or tone, but I’m not sold on any of it yet either. It’s serviceable, and probably better when viewed by a younger audience than by me.
I’m willing to be proven wrong in this, but I feel like it’s struggling with character ages relative to audience viewing. Because they seem like whiney, annoying teenagers, but that’s not the common wisdom when writing teenagers for a children audience. They’re still too much treated like children to appeal to young kids’ power fantasies of teenagers being almost adults. They’re kind of grating to appeal to an older kid/teenage group. And they’re too childish to appeal to an adult audience. So we’re not off to a great start here.
This is the middle of the pilot story though, so again, best not to judge too much. But my first instinct kind of remains that it’s confused in what audience it wants to appeal to. We’ll see how that develops I guess.
She-Ra 1x02: The Sword Part 2
That episode was better than the first, I’m a little more interested to keep watching. If I were watching week-to-week instead of this not-quite binge I don’t know that I would make a point of sticking with it, but I might keep it in mind to come back to when I could binge it.
I still don’t like the animation. I don’t know if it’s actually bad or just not my thing. It is part of why I don’t usually consider myself an animation fan because I’m pretty hard to please in terms of the animation itself.
I still don’t really like the characters, but they were less annoying this time. I think it’s helped by having them off on their own. They’re still a bit childish for my tastes but there’s fewer options to display annoying teenage traits.
One feeling I’m getting from this ep, that I’m not sure if I like or not, so not only do we have to see if I’m right but whether I end up being okay with it if I am; is that they’re trying for an Avatar vibe. You’ve got a team of three young characters wandering around trying get somewhere and do some good on the way; with Catra as kind of the Zuko. It’s not a bad recipe clearly, but I’m not yet sold that it’s going to work here. I especially have some doubts about the She-Ra state; Aang didn’t have to solve everything with the Avatar State, in fact he couldn’t and shouldn’t, but this is titled She-Ra so this god mode will probably get more play, and that’s...not the best idea I don’t think. Obviously I’m not writing it off, but that’s where my head is.
It needed to be something I hadn’t seen before, otherwise reactions turn into reviews and we have the same problem. I wanted to start with something smaller, 10-20 episodes, and while doing that maybe only half-hour episodes. I don’t want to have a ton of preconceptions going in, but I also wouldn’t mind doing something that’s a bit higher profile; so a bit of a balancing act. Aiming for something that might have things to react to, but not something I’m likely to write a lot about each episode.
Which is how I landed on ‘She-Ra and the Princesses of Power.’ It’s something I can bring a dispassionate view to starting out as I have no stake in the present debate surrounding that show. Maybe I’ll end up really liking it, maybe I won’t but I’m not coming in with a lot of baggage. In spite of being approximately the right age or it, I didn’t grow up with the old cartoon and a lot of the arguments against it sound misplaced to me. However I am not a person who considers representation and diversity as a mark of quality and as those are primary things I see praised I don’t know that I’ll end up agreeing.
But I must remind you and myself that I am definitely not in the target market for this. I’m curious what the fuss has been about and hopeful that I’ll be entertained by the product. But neither being in the young demographic nor the nostalgic one, however I end up feeling about it will be only so useful as a guide to others.
She-Ra 1x01: The Sword Part 1
Well...I don’t hate it. I don’t like the animation; it might grow on me, but it’s definitely not working for me yet. As usual with a pilot, I’m not making too many snap judgements about characters or tone, but I’m not sold on any of it yet either. It’s serviceable, and probably better when viewed by a younger audience than by me.
I’m willing to be proven wrong in this, but I feel like it’s struggling with character ages relative to audience viewing. Because they seem like whiney, annoying teenagers, but that’s not the common wisdom when writing teenagers for a children audience. They’re still too much treated like children to appeal to young kids’ power fantasies of teenagers being almost adults. They’re kind of grating to appeal to an older kid/teenage group. And they’re too childish to appeal to an adult audience. So we’re not off to a great start here.
This is the middle of the pilot story though, so again, best not to judge too much. But my first instinct kind of remains that it’s confused in what audience it wants to appeal to. We’ll see how that develops I guess.
She-Ra 1x02: The Sword Part 2
That episode was better than the first, I’m a little more interested to keep watching. If I were watching week-to-week instead of this not-quite binge I don’t know that I would make a point of sticking with it, but I might keep it in mind to come back to when I could binge it.
I still don’t like the animation. I don’t know if it’s actually bad or just not my thing. It is part of why I don’t usually consider myself an animation fan because I’m pretty hard to please in terms of the animation itself.
I still don’t really like the characters, but they were less annoying this time. I think it’s helped by having them off on their own. They’re still a bit childish for my tastes but there’s fewer options to display annoying teenage traits.
One feeling I’m getting from this ep, that I’m not sure if I like or not, so not only do we have to see if I’m right but whether I end up being okay with it if I am; is that they’re trying for an Avatar vibe. You’ve got a team of three young characters wandering around trying get somewhere and do some good on the way; with Catra as kind of the Zuko. It’s not a bad recipe clearly, but I’m not yet sold that it’s going to work here. I especially have some doubts about the She-Ra state; Aang didn’t have to solve everything with the Avatar State, in fact he couldn’t and shouldn’t, but this is titled She-Ra so this god mode will probably get more play, and that’s...not the best idea I don’t think. Obviously I’m not writing it off, but that’s where my head is.
