He-Man & The Masters of the Universe – Volume
Two (2002/BCI DVD)
Picture:
B- Sound: B- Extras: B- Episodes: B-
He-Man and the Masters of the
Universe: Volume 2
(2002) is more of the same great content that was found in Volume One, but definitely continues to kick up a notch. Contained on this 3-Disc set are 13 more
episodes from the First Season of
the series and continues to tell the tale of Prince Adam as he fights the evils
of Eternia as the powerful He-Man. In
this volume Skeletor is closer than ever to Castle Grayskull and is willing to
destroy or overthrow any powers that stand in his way. Skeletor in the second half of Season One desperately attempts to
overthrow the Sorceress in his plight to gain the power of the Elders. Many new faces appear in Eternia in this set,
both good and evil, and the lands will never be the same. As this season’s tensions build to
catastrophic levels the Snake Men appear in Eternia and Skeletor becomes more
powerful then ever as he assembles the Council of Evil. The series is definitely not your 1980’s
He-Man and manages to take an already great concept to the next level with an
infusion of darkness and strong continuity.
The new
level of edge and character development that the 2002 re-imagining He-Man brought
to the table is admirable and something that not many updated series are
successful with. A good series that can
be watched again and again.
The
technical features of this 2002 remake are adequate, but surely aren’t the
masters of the DVD universe. The picture
continues to be in good shape in its 1.78 X 1 Anamorphic Widescreen (thank God not
Full Screen) and maintains solid, bright colors throughout with the few issues
that existed in Volume One (reviewed
elsewhere on this site) being totally absent and now having a nice deep,
cinematic quality about it. The sound is once again nice in its Dolby
Digital 2.0 Stereos, but this reviewer would have liked to have heard a more
booming surround presentation as He-Man shouted out his battle cries. The
sound does have a better motion to it this time around.
The
extras are nice and offer fans a lot to look through; something BCI Eclipse has
always been good for. This set offers up
many features, presenting fans with ‘End of Episode Morals’ (not seen previously
in the USA broadcasts), 2 Full Episode Commentaries, 3 image galleries, behind
the scenes footage with the voice actors, 3 full episode animatics. There
once again are some DVD-ROM enabled features to view the 13 original
scripts. The set is a slight downgrade in the area of extras because
there are not as many commentaries, but still awesome. The set also once again gives fans a little
bonus by including two Art Cards by well known comic book artists. For this set, artists Joshua Middleton and
Sean Galloway lent their talents to creating the art cards. There is also
a nice little insert booklet that describes each episode and extra for those
interested.
BY THE
POWER OF GRAYSKULL! This series is
awesome…
- Michael P. Dougherty II