The Best Of She-Ra – Princess Of Power (animated/with “Secret Of The Sword” theatrical feature film)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: C+ Film/Episodes: C+
It had
been so long since I had seen what little I had seen of She-Ra – Princess Of Power that I could not remember if she was
just a hardened clone of He-Man like
Xena to the Kevin Sorbo Hercules. Instead, she was more in the Isis/Wonder
Woman mode of retaining all her femininity while still being more than
formidable in battle. The Best Of She-Ra – Princess Of Power
is a clever new set that combines a feature film release with five fan favorite
episodes.
After the
live-action He-Man feature two years
away, Secret Of The Sword was
released in 1985 as pretty much the last TV show (animated or otherwise) ever
cut form a TV show’s episodes and released theatrically. The now-defunct VHS and Beta videotape
formats went to war by then and that practice that had been going on since the
early 1950s was rendered impractical, even for TV shows having their episodes
turned into artificial TV movies.
In many
ways, the show had a little more latitude than He-Man because it was not so interested in the next mystical
wrestling battle, so the writers had to be cleverer and not isolate the more
feminine female audience. “My, how times
change.” The artwork is certainly the
equal, again like its male counterpart, looking better than this critic
remembered. Male viewers should not
write this off as if it were fluff with swords, because this is better than you
might think or remember if you were their in its first broadcasts.
The 1.33
X 1 image is in decent shape for its age, though it is just a tad off in the
feature film print and a tad better in the episodes, but not quite as
impressive (for whatever reason) as compared to the He-Man set we looked at. The
feature print is obviously a generation down by simply being a cutting together
of a few shows, but it is not bad considering that. Filmation was determined to compete in the
1980s and they succeeded well enough, especially against the influx of Animé.
The Dolby
Digital 2.0 Stereo is not bad for its age, has no surrounds, but is pretty
clean and clear. Unlike the episodes,
the feature film was issued with old analog Dolby A-type noise reduction, but
again, no real surrounds. Either way,
the show was recorded well enough that one could see how it would be just fine
at the time for a simple Dolby A release.
Extras
include a nicely-illustrated episode guide & two collectible art cards inside
the DVD case, five episode teleplays in the PDF format for DVD-ROM, Music Video
section, 20 minutes-long making of documentary, trivia/fun facts section and a
feature film audio commentary track with Filmation co-founder Lou Scheimer,
writer Larry DiTullio, Gwen Wetzler and the great actor/voice artist Alan
Oppenheimer. Good extras for an
interesting set.
- Nicholas Sheffo
