Written by TAKE the CHALLENGE!
How many people in this fandom can say they watched one episode per day… 130 Episodes in 130 Days… until they completed the entire 1983 Filmation Cartoon Series “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe“? Join us and be one of those legends!
Today’s Episode is:
The Shaping Staff
| PRODUCTION NUMBER | EPISODE TITLE | DIRECTOR | WRITERS | PREMIERE DATE | RE-WATCH-A-THON DATE |
|---|
| MU2 | “The Shaping Staff” | Lou Kachivas | Paul Dini | September 29, 1983 | Nov 28 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Synopsis: Evil-Lyn and Beast Man get their hands on the Shaping Staff, a wand with great power. They cast spells on He-Man and all of his friends in order to take full control of the kingdom. | |||||
CLICK HERE to Watch on YOUTUBE (or watch it embedded below):
OUR THOUGHTS:
A tale of two halves, this episode begins stronger than it finishes. While often fun, Faker's debut feels shoehorned and ill-conceived and the misspelling of "Grayskull" on King Randor's map can be a distraction. (6/10)
Comment, Review and Discuss below:
Tomorrow’s Episode is: “Disappearing Act”
For we who like in the UK, Greyskull is spelled perfectly! 😉
7/10
This episode is a fan favorite although there are lots of hand waiving needed to get through it like why are they so trusting of Magestra when she came from Orko’s demon dust? Why didn’t they transform King Randor into something else? Any Eternian Guard can walk by and see that cell and see the King in there. How can the Sorceress be tricked so easily? The fun still outweighs the silly. I liked seeing the royal dungeons and Prince Adam’s bedroom. Orko as a cricket was hilarious. So was the Teela Frog with long eyelashes. Faker still needed a better origin than Skeletor thinking him up and the next second he exists. Its too bad he never got one.
This classic episode gets an excellent rating from me. 9/10
@admin so you had a problem with Faker?
I was just chatting about this on Instagram. Yep, Faker’s origin felt hasty to me. With no prelude Skeletor said “I will make another He-Man, an evil He-Man, called Faker!" And then he pointed his finger and *pop*, suddenly has a villain as strong as He-Man.
The better option (to me) to the Shaping Staff storyline was to continue to make the staff the focal point and use the staff to change Skeletor into an evil He-Man, to lure the Sorceress out of the Castle.
But… with that said… I still really like the episode and I love the first half! 🙂
Very good episode. It was a shock for me to see that their Faker was not blue like mine, but I ended up getting why pretty soon.
8/10
Are you going to create a new thread for every episode? That is 130 threads. Why not have a single dedicated thread for the re-watch-a-thon, and simply update the title for each new episode?
The same thing happens with other news items as well. Every update gets published as a new thread, rather than posting it in its existing discussion thread. It creates a lot of redundant threads with hardly any engagment in them.
Overall, it is definitely worth the consideration (appreciate the feedback!) but in this case… if we just look above… often we don’t mention the episode by name in discussion points, so if it was all merged in one thread, no one would know what episode someone is referring to (especially with late reviews).
The good news is years down the road, this epidode schedule will be modified into a traditional episode list, and these threads will remain connected to their respective episode pages, allowing future reviews to be added down the road. 🙂
5 stars. Great episode that stays exciting throughout. Fakers origin is rather silly (why not use the shaping staff to make him?) but otherwise great plot, great stakes and great fight scenes. You can tell this is an early episode because beastman and evil lyn are far too loyal to skeletor at this stage .
@mrskeletor Beast Man did laugh when Skeletor was being chased by wolf bats. I like that part. lol
This one is a classic. Evil Lyn’s magician disguise is great and super cute. It’s funny she went with her original hair color though we don’t get that reveal for a while. Beast Man’s food obsessed Randor impersonation was funny. Obviously they don’t eat well at Snake Mountain. I like him and Lyn teaming up though, especially since it’s referenced again in Revelation along with the Shaping Staff and tricking the Sorceress in the same way. It’s goofy fun and I’m here for it.
I agree with most everyone here. While it’s not without its faults and it’s far from a perfect episode it is a classic hall of fame episode. 8/10
Imma be real, I know many people (mainly non-fans) see Orko as one of the many insufferable 80s toon sidekicks akin to Snarf, but nah I get he’s supposed to be the kid viewer stand-in character and rather find him cute.
Cringer on the other hand, I’m sorry I just can’t stand. He’s the annoying one that I thank god whenever he turns into Battle Cat. It seems the showrunners of 200x knew this and took away his voice in place of the most stock cat SFX ever, but it’s an improvement nonetheless. Tolerable in Revelation/Revalution (though I don’t remember him doing that much). Still need to watch the rest of 2021 Netflix but he’s voiced by David Kaye so immediate win.
I said this about the last episode but for some reasons at certain points in these earlier episodes Evil-Lyn looks a bit more fluidly animated compared to everyone else. I don’t know why specifically her.
Pretty good episode. I know they wanted to do more with Faker but sadly never did. A shame.
Okay I know y’all won’t care but I’m gonna bring it up anyway, as soon as I was reminded that this is the Faker one-off episode and as a massive Sonic fan, a robotic doppelgänger of the protagonist with the name Faker always brings two iconic scenes in the franchise to mind for me.
“I found you, Faker!"
“Faker!? I think you’re the fake He-Man around here! You’re comparing yourself to me? Ha! you’re not even good enough to be my fake!"
“I’LL MAKE YOU EAT THOSE WORDS!"
“You might know everything I’m going to do but that’s not going to help you since I KNOW EVERYTHING YOU’RE GOING TO DO! STRANGE ISN’T IT?"