Oh man, remember when feature length toy adverts that you actually had to pay to see were all the rage? Obviously I’m teasing a little as using a motion picture event to hock playthings to kids is something that quite happily occurs even today; but back in the 80s it was on a whole other level as animators and toy companies had no qualms about playing dirty to stand out from the crowd. Obviously the most notorious of these was Transformers: The Movie; a film that thought nothing of slaughtering an entire generation of beloved characters just to bring in a new toy line regardless of the childhood trauma it caused, but while a lot of its peers didn’t go quite so far, the Care Bears, My Little Pony and G.I. Joe still were happy to put characters at risk in order to send kids hurtling into the nearest Toys R Us. Sitting somewhere in the middle of the pack was the extravagantly titled He-Man And She-Ra: The Secret Of The Sword (no simple sticking of “The Movie” on the end of the title for them, nossir), that not only sought to sell more plastic figures, but hoped to launch a whole new wave of sword swinging, evil fighting heroes – for girls.
On the distant planet of Eternia, while slumbering in what must be an incredibly drafty Castle Grayskull, the Soceress awakens to find a glowing sword that opens a previously sealed door leading to some sort of swirly portal. Naturally, the first thing she does is summon bowl-haired fasionista, Prince Adam, and his courage-free pet tiger, Cringer to casually walk through it with no knowledge about what’s on the other side – but after appearing safely, the pair find themselves in another dimension in a world of Etheria.
Starting their mission to locate the owner of the jewelled sword, Adam and Cringer soon discover a sense of deja-vu when they learn that this world is also having issues with a skull-faced despot as the villainous Hordak and his evil Horde of colourful henchcreatures are looking to crush a rebellion of peasants and rule the land. Teaming up with Bow – possibly the only man in the universe dressed more provocatively than he – Adam and Cringer join the rebellion hoping that their superpowered alter-egos of He-Man And Battle Cat can help turn the tide. But upon meeting a whole new wave of action figures – sorry, freedom fighters – He-Man soon discovers that the jewelled sword belongs to Adora, Hordak’s defiant Force Captain, which raises some rather pertinent questions.
The main ones are: who is Adora and why is this human woman Hordak’s captain of the guard when his inner circle is literally crammed with bug-eyed mutants, scorpion women and a Leech man with lips plumper than Janice’s from The Muppets? But as He-Man/Adam learns more about Adora, it seems that she, Hordak and his old enemy Skeletor were all involved in a conspiracy that stretches as far back as the birth of Adam and Adora.
Maybe I’m still sore over the fact that my parents never took me to see this when I was a child, but I have to say, while Secret Of The Sword has a surprisingly complex back story, it does rather pale in comparison with some of the other animated toy movies that surfaced at the time. Say what you will about the bloodthirsty antics of Transformers: The Movie, but at least it felt like an actual movie as the animators furiously ramped up the scale, got celebrity voice actors involved and blasted our ear drums with a soundtrack full of fist pumping power ballards to really sell the experience. Hell, even G.I. Joe: The Movie enlisted the likes of Bugess Meredith and wrestler Sergeant Slaughter to punch up their cast and delivered real game changing stakes as the obscenely bloated cast battled each other incessantly. In comparison, Secret Of The Sword just feels like a really (really) long episode and while the filmmakers have managed to (mostly) avoid the series’ habit of ruthlessly reusing animation, there’s no real clue that you’re watching something slightly more epic than you’re average, Saturday morning installment other than the fact that the size of the cast have tripled.
It’s pretty savvy that we use Prince Adam to be our guide in a whole new world – I say whole new world, but Etheria and Eternia look pretty fucking similar to me – and piling on a bunch of retconing that reveals that Adam and Adora were twins separated by a spot of baby-napping works far better than it has any right to (did King Randor and Queen Marlena just search for about three hours and then just move on?). Better yet, the notion that Skeletor is Hordak’s former pupil means that the film can shoehorn in He-Man’s nemesis too, even if old bone head does seem like a massive after thought. And yet, while the universe opens up a little bit beyond the realms of reused animation and end-of-episode lecturing, it’s all a bit drab despite featuring a talking, nervous owl/koala creature with rainbow ears. The plot frequently goes nowhere and simply doesn’t have the stakes you get from suddenly murdering Optimus Prime in front of a horrified pre-teen fanbase; and worse yet, it all starts to feel noticably repetitive, even if you’re a fan.
However, wading through this nostalgia onslaught as an adult means that lots of Secret Of The Sword proves to be unintentionally hilarious. While we wonder why Adam feels the need to keep up his secret identity bullshit in a dimension who has no clue who he is, there’s something of an amusing spark between the pink pastel-clad Prince and the fresh from gay pride look of Bow (or should that be Beau?) which decidedly feels like both might something of a clash of swords later, if you know what I mean. Elsewhere, scatty, pink-haired Glimmer decidedly feels like she’s got lost Olsen sister energy and the mixture of the hairy backed monsters and stiletto wearing femme fatales in Hordak’s camp starts to feel weirdly like you’re in an alternative lifestyle club from the early 80s. In fact, the camp energy of the whole thing proves to be so overwhelming, you feel that this attempt to win girls over to the Masters Of The Universe toyline only instead gave closeted children something of a much needed lifeline.
While the nostalgia proves to be as strong as a haymaker from the power twins, Secret Of The Sword just can’t shake free of its episodic trappings as it hogpiles on new characters while barely giving them any time to properly register. Why does that witch have a Jewish-American Queens accent? Why is the flying broom she frequently stradles sentient? How does Hordak turn himself into a phallic shaped drilling machine? Seriously, who dressed Bow? All these questions simply hang in the air as Adam and Adora transform into their evil banishing alter-egos for the umpteenth time and you further wonder why they don’t save themselves the effort and just remain as He-Man and She-Ra for the entirety of the adventure.
Understandably infantile, yet dripping with nostalgia for those of us in the proper age bracket, Secret Of The Sword hasn’t aged quite as well as some of those other shows-turned-movie efforts. However, if you’re in the mood for rippling muscles, girl power and Skeletor bemusedly uttering “Wut!?”, He-Man And She-Ra might kick start some warm memories.
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