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In Episode 24 of the Tales Of Eternia join OptimusSolo and TFG1Mike as they continue their trek through Eternia. This week we start Season 2 of He-Man and the MOTU!! Finally!!! So for episodes first up is The Gamesman, then we find The Rarest Gift of All, and finally we must find a way To Save Skeletor! all in this exciting journey through Eternia. BY THE POWER OF GRAYSKULL WE HAVE THE POWER!!!!
Geeks:
Kevin “OptimusSolo” Thompson
Mike “TFG1” Blanchard
UNLEASH THE MOTU GEEK IN YOU!!!
Welcome back! It is so good to have the POGS podcast back again. After all, it’s going to be a long journey to get to the CN MOTU series. :)
The Gamesman – He should be called, “The Lamesman.” Ah, just kidding. This being a Paul Dini episode, and the only one of season 2, I expected more. I was bored by this one. The “monster” wasn’t very terrifying and the voice they gave him, and his lines, were just cringe-worthy. The DVDs makes mention of the “expensive” animation for the scene where He-Man lifts the gate, which he throws at the monster. I know it takes several frames of animation to produce just a few seconds of action, and it was a good sequence, but really? How expensive was it? Lou was paying the animator to work on the series, despite how much they produced, I presume. So why it mattered how many frames it took to produce, except that it may have involved more materials, is not clear. This is a plot we’ve seen in the series where someone tries to capture something or someone. Wasn’t there a circus-like ringmaster character that wanted to capture and enslave He-Man in season one? I don’t fault it for that though. But, like Kevin, I fault He-Man keeping a portal open with sheer strength. And there were other issues. Weakest of the three episodes today, for sure. Rating: 2 Orkos
The Rarest Gift of All – My favorite episode of this week’s selections. I went into it with low expectations knowing it was a runaway episode. Several things kept this from being just the same old tired episode about a character running away. First being the interactions and journey of Cringer and Orko. Without Cringer there, I do believe this would have been a boring episode. So kudos to the writer for realizing that having them together would strengthen the story. The creature was decent. I didn’t like the snaggletooth, but it was otherwise okay. The power it had to absorb powers was a great device, and it helped showcase the strength of each character’s power…as well as the weakness of Orko’s. I seem to recall that in earlier episodes Orko’s magic wasn’t entirely prone to failure though. But I do feel they changed that in later episodes as the series progressed. Rating: 3.5 Orkos
To Save Skeletor – It was good seeing so many characters team up, but I didn’t feel the monster here was a threat either; I know you both felt the design of the character was a weakness here. I did like the Jabba/Princess Lea reference in Grayskull though. The monster is sitting atop the throne in Castle Grayskull and he has the Sorceress wrapped around his tentacle. Also, a half transformed Sorceress? Eww. That wasn’t pretty. And I also liked that we get more interaction between Teela and Evil-Lyn, who showed some affinity for each other in an earlier episode. However, I expected more given the title. I was hoping for more focus on just He-Man and Skeletor. It was entertaining enough, but because of the issues in this one, particularly the poor monster design, I’m going to rank this one average. Rating: 3 Orkos
Good to hear your thoughts as always – Hope you are continuing to enjoy watching the episodes as we make our way through the series!