I was debating whether or not I should actually do this, but with the release of Kevin Smith’s Masters of the Universe: Revelation Part 1 on Netflix, I have some thoughts. Those thoughts are mostly going to deal with the fan reaction to the show and Kevin Smith’s reaction to the fans. Before I go any further, I want to preface this by saying that I’m coming at this from the perspective of a fan. I’m not necessarily a fan of the He-Man franchise, but a fan of cartoons, TV shows, and movies in general. The reaction to the launch trailer of Masters of the Universe was fairly well-received if memory serves. The actual fan reaction to the show itself is brutal with a 30 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and an even worse 1.9 on Metacritic. It’s absolutely savage. There are positive audience scores out there, but the negative ones completely outweigh the positive. I wanted to watch the show myself before commenting on the Kevin Smith vs. the fans controversy. What did I think of the show? It wasn’t bad. I liked the animation and art style, and I felt that some of the story choices were ballsy for a show like this, but the voice acting was not great, and other story elements just weren’t that great. I would honestly that the show is more average than anything. But a lot of people didn’t feel that way at all. In a lot of the reviews that I saw, people had accused Kevin Smith of lying to the audience about the show and pulling a “bait-and-switch.” YouTubers like Geeks + Gamers, Clownfish, and others all piled on. Kevin Smith in turn, lashed out at his critics, accusing the fans of being fake and not actually understanding the source material.
The thing about being a fan of something is our passion for the particular subject, be it a movie, video game, or a book. If we really like something, we do whatever we can to make sure other people know about it. At the same time, when someone doesn’t like it as much as we do, we have a tendency to lash out and accuse the naysayer of being negative for the sake of being negative. It happens all the time, it doesn’t matter what the medium is. On the other side of the coin, if there’s something we hate, we tear it to shreds, but when somebody likes it when we don’t, then they’re called a “shill” or servant of whatever production studio that produced the thing. With fans, it’s almost always all or nothing, very little in between, and that presents a serious problem, because when there’s pushback, any and all civility is thrown out the window. It becomes a mud-sling contest. This situation with fans against Kevin Smith is a prime example. Should Mr. Smith have been more straight-forward about what he had intended to do with Masters of the Universe: Revelation? Maybe, but that doesn’t give people the right to personally attack the man and call him a liar. How do you think that somebody like Kevin Smith would react? Do you think somebody like him would take that lying down? It doesn’t matter if he didn’t fully represent his product. Calling him names and accusing him of stuff is counter-productive. Kevin Smith is clearly a reactionary kind of guy, and he reacted. Not smartly, but he reacted, as would anybody trying to defend their creation. But the problem with Kevin is that he responds by accusing the fans of not being real fans and just trying to stir up trouble. Kevin Smith is a film-maker. He should know better than to engage the fan-base on that level. People have opinions and some of them are going to be very strong. He needs to learn to take it on the chin and keep on truckin’. But he doesn’t, and that’s getting him into trouble, and because he won’t shut up, it’s going to cause damage to Mattel and the Masters of the Universe brand.
Would you want to be partnered with a film-maker that’s more than willing to go toe-to-toe with the fans that made your brand what it is? This is toxicity feeding toxicity making more…toxicity. It’s a vicious cycle and it demeans everybody involved. I’m not going to go out there and say that I haven’t done some of that, because I have. We all have. And before somebody jumps in with the whole “woke is broke” bullshit…just don’t. Anybody who uses the term “woke” instead of constructive criticism should be ignored. It’s a term that’s been misused by both the left and the right, and is a convenient term for when you don’t want to explain why you don’t like movies or shows with messages. I will not take you seriously if you use that term. It’s okay to be a fan of something. It demonstrates a passion for certain topics or movies or whatever. It’s something to be celebrated, actually. I’m a fan of a great many things, but I’m also not a fan of others and that’s perfectly fine. Having a different perspective for a discussion can be healthy and invigorating. There’s nothing like a good debate to get the juices flowing. But when the fandom starts crossing over into mud-slinging, people need to be aware of how far they’re going. The moment you start calling somebody names, you’ve lost the argument before it even began. I’ve had to learn that the hard way. So, who is to truly blame for this situation: The fans or Kevin Smith? If I had to point fingers, it would be at both sides. It sounds non-committal, I know, but the situation isn’t as simple as some people would have you believe, and it’s not something I’m really prepared to dive further into. These are basically “surface” thoughts about the whole thing.