Netflix’s ‘Masters Of The Universe: Revolution’ Writer Tim Sheridan Writes Off Critics Of ‘Revelation’ As “Trolls Who Didn’t Really Care About It”
Spencer Baculi
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Apparently still salty over the fact that audiences at large did not lavish the series’ Teela-centric attempt at narrative subversion with the praise he felt it deserved, Netflix’s Masters of the Universe: Revolution writer Tim Sheridan has revived the tired claim that those critics who took its predecessor Revelation to task over its story were nothing more than “trolls who didn’t really care” about the classic IP.
Brace yourselves, because what follows is one giant mess of contradictions and historical revisionism.
A writer on both of Kevin Smiths’ dances with the He-Man franchise, Sheridan offered this defense of Revelation‘ creative blundering during a January 29th appearance on the pop-culture-centered interview podcast World Balloon with John Siuntres.
Asked by the show’s eponymous host if, “For [Revolutions], was there any thought of ‘Alright, well is there a way that we could write this to bring back anybody that was disappointed in [Revelation]?”, Sheridan recalled in turn, “I gotta tell you, I was there, and that wasn’t what was – those were not the marching orders and that wasn’t what we were thinking.”
[Time Stamp: 00:28:57]
“I think, and you see, as you’re referencing, markedly there is a different reaction to Revolution than we saw to Revelation,” the writer of DC’s Alan Scott: The Green Lantern Vol. 1 explained Siuntres. “Some of the reaction for Revelation was from people who aren’t really fans but wanted to make a lot of noise, they had a political agenda, or whatever, there was some of that. But there were also legitimate fans who were looking for one thing and they felt they got another thing – at least in the first five episodes, the second five episodes is kind of a little bit more of a traditional take.”
(Though Sheridan claims to have held some empathy for those “legitimate fans” who felt betrayed by He-Man’s sidelining, it should be noted that this is the first time anyone on the series’ production team has referred to audiences who felt this way in any sort of ‘positive’ light. As such, the question remains as to whether he actually felt this way at the time of the series’ airing or if this is nothing more than an attempt to extend an olive branch to unhappy fans by publicly signaling a de-escalation in the rhetoric used to dismiss their complaints.)
“But I think what you have to remember is that what we were trying to do was take 40 years of disparate versions of the canon and try to come up with a thing that felt like a natural extension of it,” he continued. “And I think – Kevin’s original title for the show was Masters of the Universe: End of the Universe, and the reason for that was because he felt, and I think he was right, unfortunately we had to go through it with Revelation to get to Revolution, but it was about deconstructing the whole thing and reminding us why He-Man is so important, and why Skeletor is so bad, and why He-Man’s friends are so important to him and to the universe. We needed to go through the deconstruction and then rebuilding of that in order to have Revolution.”
To this end, he posited, “That’s what Revolution revolves around now, is the dynamic of all those relationships that we were able to sort of earn back I think in the first season.”
“I think a lot of long-time fans would be like well you didn’t have to earn anything back for me because I already felt that these were the relationships,” he argued. “And I know, yes, that there are a lot of people who feel that way but there were a lot of casual fans too and a lot of new fans who came in and I think we needed to start the way we did, It was always going to be shaky ground, and we knew that from the beginning.”
(But didn’t he just say that they were trying to come up with something that felt like a “natural extension” of the series’ various canons? Seems counter-intuitive to make such a series with the aim of appealing to new and casual fans.)
However, unable to actually admit that those upset with Revelation‘s treatment of He-Man were completely valid in their complaints, Sheridan then punctuated his above thoughts by declaring, “What we weren’t expecting, I think, were the trolls who didn’t really care about it, who wanted to make noise about it, clickbait stuff and everything – that was the thing that took everybody by surprise, and it got conflated with the legitimate criticisms of the real fans and unfortunately those things were very different, and they had different intentions behind them.”
“The good news is you’re not seeing a lot of that stuff for Revolution, and the stuff you do see that’s kind of like naysayers are people who just didn’t get over the Revelation thing and want those clicks again,” he ultimately accused in conclusion to his answer. “I think you’re seeing a real genuine reaction from fans, a real positive reactions.”
Masters of the Universe: Revolution is now streaming on Netflix.
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