By Jim McDermott
Writer/Director Kevin Smith introduced his Masters of the Universe: Revelation co-writers and co-executive producers Teddy Biaselli and Rob David to Comic-Con Thursday, quipping, “I’m happy to report because of the SAG strike I’m the most famous person here.”
While the panel served up a number of teasers about the upcoming Masters of the Universe: Revolution season 2, together with the addition of Keith David in the function of recent villain Hordak, the subject Smith appeared to maintain returning to was fan animosity over season one. “I’m super proud” of the new season, Smith stated, after displaying an enormous battle scene between He-Man and his allies and a now-glow-in-the-dark-and-able-to-embiggen Skeletor. “But I was proud of the last one too and the internet told me I shouldn’t be.”
He adopted up by noting that when he was requested whether or not he wished to host a panel, he requested, “Does it come with Kevlar?”, earlier than quipping that after the scene we noticed, “He-Man gets killed, actually they all get killed and Teela replaces them all.”
And that was the first two minutes.
While Smith maintained a sure playful detachment all through the panel—having made greater than a dozen movies and his share of bombs, the man’s no stranger to hostile followers—it was onerous to disregard his ache over fan reception to the first season. When Biacelli started his feedback on the character of He-Man in season two with the quip, “Contrary to rumors…He-Man is back,” Smith instantly responded, “To be fair, He-Man never left. He was like, absent for three shows. But we don’t do a show called Masters of the Universe and kill off the main guy. He was gone for a moment, but never gone. He was in every episode we did of Revelation.”
Later Smith recalled the course of by which he was introduced onto the present by David and Biacelli. “The only thing I ask is that you treat the characters with dignity and respect,” Biacelli advised him. “Just play them like it’s Shakespeare. For once I’d like to see someone treat the characters like classical characters, not just toys.”
And their ardour clearly touched Smith. “To sit here and listen to them speak about these characters with child-like wonder,” he stated, inviting the crowd to provide them a hand.
But when David responded in type, saying “Right back at you, you are a joy to work with. Everybody on the entire team—the writers, all the animators at Powerhouse, everybody at Mattel—they adore Kevin,” Smith couldn’t assist responding, “It’s the audience that doesn’t enjoy Kevin.”
Even at the finish, Smith couldn’t appear to let it go, asking all these in the viewers who beloved the present to clap—a request which received fulsome applause, however in no way the entirety of the room. Then he requested anybody who didn’t like the present to applaud, saying it was advantageous, the three of them might take it. “You fucking liars,” he stated to nice laughter when nobody applauded. “I took a lot of shit online. Somebody better clap right now.”
Despite the way it may learn on the web page, the high quality of Smith’s feedback by no means felt like defensiveness. More than as soon as he advised the viewers the writing workers had taken fan complaints significantly. “We didn’t stick our heads in the sand about the folks that were not happy. A lot of people would like to, but there was a lot of nuanced hate. There were people who legitimately did not like the direction, they didn’t like what we did with the characters.” The new season, he promised, very a lot tried to handle what individuals discovered lacking, like massive battles between He-Man and Skeletor. “To some extent you’re all like coauthors,” he stated. “Remember that. If you don’t like Revolution, it’s your fucking fault as well.”
People chuckled once more, if politely. And, weirdly, that was type of the vibe all through most of the panel. Earlier on, the crew posted an image of Chris Wood, who performs He-Man/Adam. This is often a second wherein the crowd cheers. But although the occasion was in an enormous room with 1000’s of individuals, at first, actually nobody reacted.
And even after a couple of began to clap, the response was mild. It was so surprising that Biaselli stopped speaking about the second season path of Adam/He-Man simply to speak about simply how a lot that they had beloved Wood and the issues he delivered to the sequence.
In the second that silence appeared to feed the panel’s want to handle viewers considerations with the present. “We are temporary custodians of this brand,” Biaselli stated close to the finish. “We love it, we hope that people saw that there was love in there. If you didn’t, someone else will be the custodian and they will do something else. Something as great MOTU is bigger than Rob, is bigger than me or Kevin, and it’s going to live on and it’s going to have many iterations.”
Later, although, I questioned whether or not the viewers’s silence was truly hostility or simply disinterest. The solely reveal that the crowd reacted strongly to was the information that William Shatner and Mark Hamill had been going to have scenes collectively. Looking round I didn’t see a single cosplayer both, which for a universe with this sort of historical past is fairly shocking.
It made me surprise, had been many of those attendees viewers of the new present at all? People have questioned what the impact of Hollywood not displaying as much as Comic-Con can be. Could a part of that be a whole bunch and 1000’s of individuals displaying up for issues they really didn’t care about with the hope {that a} quippy well-known movie director may entertain them? Could or not it’s that nobody reacted or clapped not as a result of they hated the present, however they didn’t realize it, or didn’t care?
At the very finish of the panel, Smith identified that there was an eight-year-old lady in the entrance row who had been sleeping for 20 minutes. Waking her up, Smith had her introduced on stage and requested her if she can be prepared to hoist He-Man’s sword and say his well-known line to finish the panel. As he talked to the lady, she chewed gum and stared at him with the type of devastating boredom that solely a toddler can serve up. Her total method was so disinterested Smith kidded that she reminded him of working with Ben Affleck.
Ironically, this was the one second the total viewers absolutely received into the panel. (This, and Smith’s double-entendres about simply how onerous the workers was going to service their followers in season two.) Clearly, that is what they got here to see, somewhat little bit of the Kevin Smith Hollywood circus.
And as for Masters of the Universe: Revolution or the quantity of affection that Smith and so many others have so clearly invested in it, and the pinch they really feel at having their efforts not appreciated (or relying on who you ask, simply not succeed), nicely, that’s too dangerous, too, I assume.
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