Masters of the Universe: Revelation is bringing back Eternia in style.
Kevin Smith has been hard at work for years on this hotly anticipated sequel to the 1980s cartoon, creating it in collaboration with Castlevania‘s Powerhouse Animation. We recently got our first look at the project with some awesome stills showcasing the redesigned characters, which bodes very well for the show. A full trailer is coming soon, too, and Smith is already hyping it up. Speaking on a recent episode of his podcast, he also explained his key inspirations when writing the series, saying:
“For our incarnation of Masters of the Universe, Revelation, it leans on every franchise that you love. There’s a lot of Star Wars in it. There’s a lot of Lord of the Rings in it, there’s a lot of Marvel movies in it. But it’s all the ingredients, the chief elements of Mattel characters that you know and love. … But the DNA has baked into it, a lot of satisfying other franchises that I loved. So, in my head, I’ve crossed over with all of them.”
He went on to elaborate about how this will work, hinting that eagle-eyed fans might notice some moments directly inspired by his favorite franchises.
“We cherry picked feelings, set pieces, arcs, things like that…If you’re gonna do a thing, do it right. “Call it homage, call it theft, but there’s a lot of other great stuff at the root of our Masters of the Universe: Revelation. … If you had all those action figures for our Masters of the Universe, you’d be able to play them in almost any adventure. They’re interchangeable with many different magical franchises, superhero franchises.”
We don’t know too many specifics about the story Smith will tell, but there’ve been hints that it’ll focus on the adversarial relationship between He-Man and Skeletor. It’s confirmed that we’re getting episodes devoted to fleshing out the bad guy’s motivations, so he should be a substantially more complex character than we’ve seen before.
The voice cast is also worthy of note. Chris Wood and Mark Hamill are playing He-Man and Skeletor, with support from Alicia Silverstone, Kevin Michael Richardson, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Kevin Conroy, Henry Rollins, Tony Todd, Phil LaMarr, and Jason Mewes.
There are indications that, like Castlevania, Netflix greenlit a second season long before the first one was complete. A big clue was that Hamill returned to the studio to record further Skeletor dialogue in late 2020, so the inaugural thirteen episodes are likely to be just the opening chapter in an epic Eternian tale.
Personally, I’m expecting the trailer for Masters of the Universe: Revelation any time now, so watch this space for more.