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Okay, let me start by saying I am an 80s baby. I grew up on He-man and She-ra, and the whole collection of early Filmation Masters of the Universe stories. (Hell I’ll admit I watched –and fast forwarded through-the horrible He-man live action movies.) So for those wondering about my thoughts about this trailer, I’m going to admit that I’m coming at this from an older woman who grew up with the character and played with the toys.

That being said, some things I noticed about the trailer.

So we open on a forest with a bit of a sleeping beauty motif. This actually correlates into the idea that Adora is actually wake sleeping, as in everything she’s known to be true is a lie and she’s now waking up to the fact. Thus we have the whole Sleeping Beauty like moment of her wandering the woods being pulled to the voice of the sword.

As for the sword’s voice (they’re calling it the Hope light or some such) well that’s the Sorceress from Castle Grayskull, the keeper of the swords and the person who is connected to giving her and Adam their powers. But yeah, this moment is clearly a nod to sleeping beauty in a lot of ways. You know, the whole witch lures her to the spindle, only in this case it’s a good guy.

So we then get the sword being used as the view point for the trailer, which on the one hand, awesome. On the other, it has me making a face because it obscures a lot of details one can get from the scenes, and makes some moments more blurred and not that great looking.

Adora calls out “Who are you? What’s going on?” while moving through the forest leaves to the sword. Now the thing is you would think that that’s connected to what’s going on, but clearly this is two bits of dialogue from the first episode. Namely the tone of voice in that trailer with those two lines.(It’s important to note this is not being said in the scene where she’s moving in the forest.)

“Who are you?” sounds like she’s scared and unsure of something. This doesn’t jive at all with the moment when she sees the sword. So either this is after she finds the sword and is freaking out about it talking, or this is after she meets Bow and Glimmer. My guess is it’s the latter, because it would be more “What are you?” if she was talking to the sword.

“What’s going on?” sounds more like she’s confused than anything else. So clearly whomever she’s speaking too isn’t someone that she knows and is unsure of what’s happening around her. While this could be connected to the sword scene, I’m not really sure.

The next scene shows the sword and, interestingly enough there are three prominent circles on the sword. Usually circles indicate a few things. The first and most obvious in this case could be the idea of different worlds or dimensions or planets. Eternia (Home of He-man) and Etheria (Home of She-Ra) are twin planets, just like the twin royals Adam and Adora. There’s also the third planet which could be earth, which connects to the idea that their mother came from there.

Secondly, it could be indication of them being twins and their connection to Grayskull. The last would just be a connection to the words that the sword speaks, which is the idea of restoring the balance.

Next Line comes from the Sword, “Balance must be resorted.”

This indicates that there’s something going on here where Hordak or Shadow Weaver is causing issues there in Etheria where the balance is broken up and needs to be fixed. This probably has ties to Grayskull and the filtering in of magic that exisits in both locations.

Also the sword, again referencing sleeping beauty, is stuck in a twisted set of vines, that could be like the thorns.

Adora finds the sword and it’s glowing and tells her “You do not yet realize the power you have.” Which indicates that, like most magic girls, she’s again asleep on her true destiny in this case and needs to find a way to access that power to help others. This is seen when we see Adora staring in shock at the sword that in before her.

“The time has come to show you your destiny.” Says the sword, with the blue jewel in it mirroring Adam’s red jewel, which was used in the show as connection to their yin and yang personalities and way of fighting. The fact that we even reference a destiny indicates that, yeah this is the Sorceress of Grayskull, if not in name then in personality. There was a prophecy of sorts in the old Masters stories, and I think they’re still going with that here. Though again, been a while since I watched it fully.

“You’re not making any sense, I don’t understand.” Adora says, which makes me think that we’re going to see a form of the Sorceress before her (better have her in the Owl costume she normally wears). This means to me that either we’re hearing her talk to the voice of the woman, or she’s talking to Glimmer and bow later, which would explain the whole moment when it looks like Adora and Glimmer are arguing from the First looks.

“You will.” From the voice. Which makes me think that the voice is either directly talking to her from the last line, or this is in regard to something else.

Then we get to see a transformation of Adora to She-ra, from her feet up, which seems to be a nod to some of the Pretty Cure series. (Though they go from middle down then up.)

What caught my attention is that there seems to be some frame drops or it’s not fully rendered or something because it seems off somehow. Like something was cut. 

Also that is most defiantly a sailor moon reference with the crown and the jewel, and yes, it is a prism, though I would have thought red and gold light would have worked better here.

So punch leads to breaking gold leaves which leads to gauntlets. (Again more from Pretty Cure here. Not sure which one, but I know someone did the whole gauntlets thing with their arms at one point.)

And finally we get her saying, though I don’t know why she has to scream it? My guess is that something bad is happening and she finally gives in and shouts it and throws it up in the air thus the change. Personally I would rather have her not screaming it.

You can also see a shadow version of Castle Grayskull in the background. Another thing of importance, the two swords have a connection as they were once used by one person. Can’t remember if they were split up, or they were two in the first place. 

Now, over all it’s an interesting trailer, but I’m not a fan of how they are using the sword to frame this, and not showing anything of the other characters. Also as I said, the animation with the transformation is a bit off, but I’m sure that any girl that’s young will like it. Hopefully it does well enough that we get a He-man to be connected to it and the two can fight as siblings.

Voice acting seems good, for what we got, but I’d again like more in there for the characters and to hear them.

She-Ra is she-ready! 

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