He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, the classic series from the 80's (not the most recent one from four years ago) has recently come out on DVD sets and the last one is almost out. Now She-Ra Princess of Power is making her way on DVD, making me so happy since there will be no new series. The Secret of the Sword is finally making its way and included with top five episodes chose by fans presumably through He-Man.org who is mentioned on the DVD and was intrical (sp) in getting it to DVD. I had to get this! The boxart is astonishing and quality of artwork is flawless. The jacket features She-Ra holding her sword and Hordak, the main villian-the head of the Horde on Etheria.
She-Ra was a spin-off of He-man, almost everything had a cunterpart: He-Man had Eternia while She-Ra had Etheria; He-Man had Orko, She-Ra had Kowl (a talking owl-like creature) & Madam Razz (a Jewish caricature) & her talking broom & the Twiggits; so on and so on. The Secret of the Sword was the five-episode introduction to She-Ra and was turned into a motion picture that actually went to theaters in Spring of 1984--I don't remember, I was one years-old! Anyway the movie on the DVD is actually not great in quality, it probably wasn't restored. And watching it, it is disorientating since it is actually five seperate episodes meshed together. The audio commentary is just awesome done by Filmation creator Lou Scheimer, writer Larry DiTillio, Director Gwen Wetzler and Cringer/Battle Cat/ Skeletor/Swiftwind voice actor Alan Oppenheimer. Alan makes a delightful skit between Skeletor and his 'son' and also Merman's voice.
The Best of She-Ra makes me just want to buy the boxset coming in October, because I can't remember all the episodes and want to see them so badly. The DVD boxset includes two giant art cards, the two I have were drawn by Brandon Peterson and Joe Chiodo and include She-Ra versus Catra, Scorpia versus Frosta and Lookie hidden. The DVD even includes a supposedly never-seen before I Have the Power music video including very few new footage, sheet music sing-a-long and talk from the writer of the song--Lou's daughter who sang it too and also a 20 minute long documentary with others who help make the show. What gets tiring is how much they say they meant it to be a feminist show and how much they wanted it to make it for little girls when I already knew their comments online about trying to make She-Ra 'not a lesbian' and how 'Catra should have been the main villian' which contradicts Larry DiTillio's comments about how empowering it was that She-Ra was part of an rebellion trying to overthrow the authority--Horde. The idea behind the rebellion was that since He-man was the sheriff in Eternia, they wanted to turn the tables and have She-Ra fight aganist the authority, the dictators.
Overall: A-
