I finally got around to watching the "Power of Greyskull" and found it engaging, enjoyable, yet ultimately disheartening (more on that at the end).
I want to say right out I never had any real exposure to the He-Man toys, series, movies, etc. - good or bad - so I am definitely not coming at this from a fandom perspective.
This docu-movie really kept you interested from the start (even with the annoying background drumbeat which, as others noted, was very bizarre). Basically it was a bunch of middle age to old white guys, with a few women and one black guy, going in to how they first created the toy He-Man for Mattel and then built the whole mythos of He-Man from the comic books, to the television series, to more toys, to the movie, to another series and to more toys. It was really fascinating to get insights as to how the toy industry builds up a brand along with all the related licensing, etc.
What was disheartening, at least from my perspective, was that the whole He-Man concept was purely built on selling merchandise. Some of the talking heads tried to come off about how the storylines were about empowerment ("By the power of greyskull!"). However, it didn't ring true and was merely an attempt to justify selling all this merchandise and shows to young kids. Granted, that is ultimately what "Star Wars" and a lot of other movies wind up doing. But, at least "Star Wars" was an artistic vision of George Lucas, as are Tolkien's MiddleEarth, etc. For He-Man it was about sell, sell, sell from the start. Kind of sad.
I want to say right out I never had any real exposure to the He-Man toys, series, movies, etc. - good or bad - so I am definitely not coming at this from a fandom perspective.
This docu-movie really kept you interested from the start (even with the annoying background drumbeat which, as others noted, was very bizarre). Basically it was a bunch of middle age to old white guys, with a few women and one black guy, going in to how they first created the toy He-Man for Mattel and then built the whole mythos of He-Man from the comic books, to the television series, to more toys, to the movie, to another series and to more toys. It was really fascinating to get insights as to how the toy industry builds up a brand along with all the related licensing, etc.
What was disheartening, at least from my perspective, was that the whole He-Man concept was purely built on selling merchandise. Some of the talking heads tried to come off about how the storylines were about empowerment ("By the power of greyskull!"). However, it didn't ring true and was merely an attempt to justify selling all this merchandise and shows to young kids. Granted, that is ultimately what "Star Wars" and a lot of other movies wind up doing. But, at least "Star Wars" was an artistic vision of George Lucas, as are Tolkien's MiddleEarth, etc. For He-Man it was about sell, sell, sell from the start. Kind of sad.