- Orko
He-Man and She-Ra: A Christmas Special is the second most popular Christmas special to be mocked, ridiculed, parodied, spoofed, and critiqued on the internet. Even with a sense of childhood nostalgia, this hour long program is just a confusing speed-fueled toy catalog for girls. Yes, I really do mean for girls.
Eternia is celebrating Christmas, wait no, I mean the birthday of the non-messiahs Prince Adam and Princess Adora. While Adora's crew and some unfortunate Masters of the Universe do their best interior designing, Adam and Man-At-Arms are constructing the Sky Spy. The Sky Spy is a giant rocket ship that is supposed to secretly do surveillance on Skeletor except it looks like a generic shuttle and has no stealth abilites. The much loathed Orko appears to wacky his way into activating the Sky Spy. Then Skeletor sees it flying and suddenly has an orgasm to have the Sky Spy for himself. Sky Spy, Sky Spy, Sky Spy. Seriously, there is a Christmas drinking game to be had with this special.
After a brief altercation between Skeletor and the super-powered twins, Orko and the Sky Spy teleport to Earth. The annoying troll lands in a snowy environment where he then has to rescue two screaming paralyzed brats from an avalanche. The two kids Miguel and Alisha wanted to get a Christmas tree, which they somehow did without an axe or parental supervision. The two Lou Scheimer proxies then decide to explain about the origins of Christmas but thankfully a dissolve wipes them away. In order to rescue Orko (Why?) and the Sky Spy, She-Ra and her "caballo luchadore" Swift Wind have to talk to their mermaid friend, Mermista. Then those three have to get a crystal. But to get the crystal, She-Ra has to defeat a monster. Then some barely transforming robots dubbed Monstroids capture them but they easily escape. Then Orko brings the kids to Eternia (Why??). Then the smog monster Horde Prime sends Skeletor and She-Ra villain Hordak to capture them since they brought the deadly virus known as Christmas spirit. Then the kids sing a truly horrible song about love and joy. Then a giant phallic helicopter steals them and Orko. This random puzzle of a script sadly continues, crashing and burning many important characterizations and keeps pushing in more characters then quickly sending them off.
To bring up one of my favorite films of this year and unfortunately compare it to this, He-Man and She-Ra is very much like the opening scene of Toy Story 3. It is a boy's strange playtime with his toys except he only has a few so he uses his sister's. The vast majority of the cast are from She-Ra's universe, with each of them getting pointless moments and lines. The Masters of the Universe are actually slaves to the background with only He-Man, Man-At-Arms, and a largely silent Teela given anything meaningful. All of the new toy displays are cute and have cuddle appeal, except for the cruddy Monstroids which are later easily destroyed by the Ewok-like Manchines. On the villains' side, they are all She-Ra's light-hearted opponents except for Skeletor.
Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Skeletor wasn't always a bad-ass tyrant that jaded fans always see him as, but he did bring some menace and the occasional intelligence. This special, however, delivers an absolute emasculation enema to the skeleton freak. Skeletor turns into an emotional wuss who can't accept letting his hostages suffer or to leave a dog-computer-thingy to die in a blizzard. He becomes their guardian, savior, and friend. He smiles. He becomes the patron saint of character assassination. Under the false guise of the loosely defined "Christmas spirit", Skeletor loses his mystique and aura. His screeching cry of "I don't know what's coming over me!" says it all. The screenwriters try to remedy it at the end by saying it will only happen once a year, thus negating all of these developments in a lazy manner, but the damage is done.
He-Man and She-Ra: A Christmas Special can be enjoyed only as a goofy crossover than as a real Christmas special. Apparently Christmas, according to the script, is all about being a nice person than anything else so as to tie with the moral lesson at the end. It keeps saying love and joy over and over again but doesn't explain it. They could have further explored the separated relationship between the twins or the strains between Adam and his father or have another reunion between Teela and the Sorceress. Instead, you get a new checklist of toys to beg for and another lame teaching of ethics.
TOMORROW'S ENTRY: A special All-American task force must save Christmas from terrorism.
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