You’d be forgiven for not even noticing that Part 2 of Kevin Smith’s Masters of the Universe: Revelation dropped on Netflix earlier this week, because the second half of the first season hasn’t generated anywhere near the levels of debate that the opening batch of episodes did.
That’s probably a good thing, when furious fans of the He-Man mythos review-bombed the animated series after it made wholesale changes to canon, and things got so heated that Smith even went out of his way to actively troll the haters for getting upset over something as trivial as a female protagonist.
In an interview with Thrillist, Smith opened up on the vociferous backlash to Revelation, and he revealed that it broke his heart to see the so-called ‘fanbase’ greet his stab at the property with the same vitriol that greeted Rian Johnson’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
“A lot of people were dismissive, but at the root of it, yes, I’m sure there were some people who were just jumping on a political bandwagon. But you had some cats who were legit like, ‘This was my childhood, and you did sad things to all of them.’…I’ll be honest with you. I had nothing but enthusiasm right up to the moment the episodes dropped. Because honestly, I didn’t think we screwed with anyone’s childhood. I thought we honored it. If you know the Mattel source material, this thing is so crazy true to what was created years ago. Which, by the time you get to the second half, you see what we were going for. I honestly felt like, ‘Oh man, any kid who’s ever loved Masters of the Universe who’s an adult now is going to love this.’
I knew there were going to be some people who were like, ‘It ain’t for me,’ but I never thought we would make people unhappy. In the way that I sat by the sidelines and watched people react to The Last Jedi and thought, ‘Man, people really take this stuff seriously!’ I suddenly found myself at the epicenter of something like that and it was heartbreaking for me because I honestly thought we were giving people the ultimate Masters of the Universe, so it was a bummer.”
The comparisons are nothing if not apt, when both Masters of the Universe: Revelation and The Last Jedi were widely praised by critics for bringing something new to an established franchise, while the gatekeepers let their dissatisfaction be known. Fortunately for Smith, though, it seems to have been pulling in decent numbers in on Netflix, so more seasons are a virtual guarantee at this stage.