Dreamworks working on a She-Ra Show?

SDCC Exclusive 200X She-Ra has rooted hair, soft good
fabric cape and a comb. Could this be what's in store
for a future She-Ra line?

Apparently this claim has reared its head again, after being shot down by Mattel a year or so ago. Now, Dreamworks has purchased Classic Media - the entertainment arm that held the rights to the He-Man and She-Ra shows. With Dreamworks making such a move, it's inevitable that hopes and theories are going to come about - putting properties like She-Ra back into the limelight again.

At the recent Masters of the Universe and Thundercats convention Power-Con/Thunder-Con, Ian Richter, a producer on the 2002 Mike Young Production He-Man series, said that Dreamworks had "big plans" for She-Ra. This is a pretty general statement, but now that it is out there, fans are frothing at the mouth to see this form into some sort of reality.

Girls brands are doing better than boys toys. Brands like Barbie, Monster High, Bratz, Tinkerbell and others are running strong. I don't see a She-Ra show or DTV happening without a toy brand, or other merchandising effort - one always builds up the other. So Dreamworks, and possibly Mattel, are seeing that returning MOTU to retail is probably best done with the She-Ra brand at this juncture - and she will work best on DTV.

Principle figures from the Tinkerbell toy line

Think Tinkerbell - who has a strong series of beautifully-done DTV movies (4 released, 2 upcoming) and a supporting toy line to go with it. This is the perfect model for She-Ra. If she builds up a following, and does well in the DTV market and merchandising realms, then she could possibly expand to television OR test the burgeoning internet TV market, and release an ongoing series directly to Netflix or Hulu (who have both been expanding by producing original programming).

With Tinkerbell doing so well, She-Ra's tone has no need to go fluffy and funny like other brands. Tinkerbell is all about adventure, and Tinks herself is pretty tomboyish. She-Ra's tone DOES have to be balanced - it can't go too far, or be too edgy. Perhaps He-Man and Hordak's roles are scaled back - He-Man has a more Bow/Ken connection to the brand, and Hordak plays a sort of "Emperor Palpatine" role to Etherian Horde Leader Catra. The brand can still have its connection to MOTU, but it is IMPERATIVE to put the She-Ra brand front and center, and make it more independent than it ever was. More characters have to appeal to the girls market, but at the same time perhaps have an "IN" for boys (or at least older collectors who are less likely to be swayed by rigid gender lines).

Right now, there is no true news as to what is going on with Dreamworks and She-Ra - there is no official press release, or dependable news article stating this. The aforementioned is just a likely scenario of the direction the She-Ra brand can head. Hopefully, Mr. Richter has some weight at Dreamworks, and can bring his "off the record" statements to a reality that many fans have been waiting to see for more than 20 years.

3rd Party Toy Makers & MOTUC

Masters of the Universe Classics, or MOTUC, has become a robust line with 94 released toys - including action figures, beasts, vehicles and display stands and weapon packs...and there's more to come! This exclusive online collector-grade toy line has been around since late 2008 - so it's going into its 5th year of existence. By ALL standards, MOTUC is a VERY successful line. One of the great things about this toy line is its versatility - it doesn't take much to create a new character with existing parts and imagination. Collectors and customizers alike have produced some awesome results in using existing parts, and even creating new parts, to create a character based on existing mythology, or a totally new character.

Transformers, the behemoth toy line managed by Mattel's rival Hasbro, has experienced an unprecedented boom in 3rd Party companies that provide product offerings that Hasbro just doesn't seem to be willing or able to provide - yet fans and collectors are frothing at the mouth to get them. From weapons, to alternate heads, to extra accessories, to sticker decals, to entire figures, and even play sets, Transformers 3rd Parties are rivaling what Hasbro can produce - in some cases, the 3rd party products are superior or more revolutionary to what Hasbro has released.

This 3rd Party trend is no stranger to Masters of the Universe...

I'd say that the MOTUC product line is relatively young compared to the Transformers products that have constantly been on the retail shelves for more than ten years. The TF 3rd party experience has evolved with Transformers over the years. In parallel, MOTU 3rd party "companies" are organizing and growing, but they're relatively young as well. The 3rd party trend with TF has experienced a significant boom in the past couple years - it's just been a matter of organization on the part of those small "companies", and the obvious success of selling such sought-after "custom-made" items. I think with MOTU, many of the folks who are capable of providing 3rd party goods and services are slowly discovering the potential of the market. If MOTUC is around long enough to support continued 3rd party growth, I suspect we will see expansion beyond already-produced alternate heads and weapons, and actually get armor sets, full-blown figures, and perhaps even beasts, vehicles and playsets.

There are already budding outlets for 3rd party Castle Grayskulls, but I've heard some rocky news on those fronts...waiting lists exist and are quite lengthy, so obvious mass production and distribution issues must be overcome, here's an example: http://www.facebook.com/pages/On-Deadly-Ground/353030601395875

Manta Raider by Rudy Obrero & Joe Amaro

We've also seen the first 3rd party vehicle getting pushed. The Manta Raider offers great potential for quality 3rd party products to come:  http://geek-news.mtv.com/2012/03/08/manta-raider-custom-motuc-vehicle/

There's great potential for 3rd party companies in MOTUC - I just think the entities that are capable of filling the rolls are not ready yet if you get my drift. All sorts of logistics need to be worked out if you're going to step in this roll and provide products to a large buyer group.

My Toy Collection

Here are some rough video shots of the 200X NECA Snake Men, MOTUC and vintage POP aspects of my toy room:

Collecting the She-Ra Toy Line

I consider myself a toy collector, in particular an action figure collector. Due to trying to be more responsible with my budget, AND the simple fact that I've simply run out of space to display figures, I've slowed down on collecting. I will admit that I've reached a sort of saturation point in some areas, and just have no interest in collecting right now >>cough<< Transformers >>cough<<. Being a 30-something shiek-geek, I have a focus on figures based on 1980s properties - in particular: Masters of the Universe MOTU (which started it all), Transformers, Thundercats, Princess of Power, DC Comics figures and Voltron. One of the boldest collecting moves I made in recent years was to collect the principle vintage Princess of Power toy line. My goal was to collect a bulk of the line, whilst shaving off some of the more erroneous product like variants and accessories.

The Princess of Power Toy Line:
My collecting efforts actually started back in 1985 when my mother "smuggled" the She-Ra action figure to me. Being that She-Ra was a "doll", my father would not have been too thrilled with seeing me comb She-Ra's hair with her little pink comb. But I had gone to the theater to see "Secret of the Sword", the animated movie that depicted He-Man searching for his long-lost twin sister She-Ra. My He-Man collection was already unrivaled by any other toy line I was collecting at the time, and it only made sense to have his sister as part of that collection.

Unfortunately, She-Ra was the only figure I would get out of the POP line...until I was in my 30s. Now in my 30s, collecting figures was going a bit slow - I did have some focus on Transformers, but each year would produce product that I became less interested in. And then, Mattel decided to release revamped figures based on their vintage MOTU toy line - MOTU Classics. When I discovered that Mattel planned to incorporate the MOTU spin-offs Princess of Power (POP) and New Adventures of He-Man (NA) into this new MOTUC toy line, I became even more intrigued (by this point, I had a good-sized collection of the rebooted 200X MOTU toy line, and wasn't really motivated to collect yet another reboot of He-Man figures).

The idea of being able to collect POP figures that were designed for contemporary audiences was exciting! Waiting for Mattel to release these figures (about 1 to 3 a year spread out randomly over several months) was a bit much for me to tolerate. SO, I decided to satiate my thirst by going and collecting the vintage line...

8/15/2009:
Purchased She-Ra's Dress to complete my old childhood figure.

1/02 - 24/2010:
Purchased MOTU Classics Adora, POP Frosta, POP Sweetbee, POP Mermista, and POP Castaspella

2/7 - 15/2010:
Purchased POP Bow and POP Double Trouble

3/3 - 31/2010:
Purchased POP Swiftwind, POP Catra, POP Entrapta, POP Peekablue, MOTU Hordak, POP Clawdeen, POP Angella, POP Glimmer

4/14/2010:
Puchased POP Perfuma

8/15/2010:
Purchased MOTU Classics She-Ra

9/21/2010:
Purchased POP Crystal Castle

12/19/2010:
Purchased MOTU Horde Troopers x2

Are You OK with Bow Replacing Sea Hawk?

As Teela and He-Man were destined to be love interests, I always thought that Bow and She-Ra would be the same. Bow was essentially the "Teela Equivalent" in the Princess of Power toyline - maybe that's why the writers at Filmation wished to avoid the predictable route by creating a non-figure character to fill the role.

Granted, both the He-Man and She-Ra shows spent most of their time avoiding the romance theme, but enough insinuation was done to solidify the idea that Teela was He-Man's love and Sea Hawk was She-Ra's. I always thought that was wrong - especially when Bow is listed as "She-Ra's Special Friend" in the toy line.

Now with Bow's bio being released for the MOTUC line, it seems more likely that he will finally take his place as Adora's official love interest - especially with the fact that Sea Hawk is unavailable to the MOTUC storyline with him being a Filmation-exclusive character.



How do you feel about this?