After the overall negative reviews of Netflix’s Masters of the Universe Revelations, Showrunner Kevin Smith quickly took to social media. Smith claimed the show has been “review bombed” which is the made-up excuse filmmakers and studios give when their product fails. Its weird that they never actually own up to their mistakes, but instead make it seem like the product is being targeted by a handful of negative people with dozens of emails to leave negative reviews.

Smith made a Q&A with a voice actor of the show to explain the direction and reason for a lot of the hate from the show. Smith backtracked over and over again, trying to twist Tweets that he sent and put a positive and misguided spin on them.

Probably the most embarrassing part of the video, was when he cited a conversation with Netflix about the negative comments. Smith stated that one of the higher ups said he shouldn’t worry about the negative reviews. The higher up said that they have 200 million subscribers and only a handful of negative reviews. Well….then why the Q&A? If things are all good and the show is realistically a hit and all the negative reviews are a lie, then there is no reason to address the criticism.

I believe the negative reviews are overwhelming. I believe Netflix, who is a billion or so in debt, needed this show to be a hit. He-Man was a massive part of toy industry in the 80s and 90s. The shows, comics and toys have a massive following still. And us fan boys that grew up with those properties were excited to see a new revitalized version of He-Man.

And since Smith was a “fan” of He-Man, as he continues to claim, then why this misdirection. Why kill off the title character in the first episode? Why center the show around Teela, a character nowhere near the top of fan favorites, and most importantly why lie about it?

Did Smith think viewers of the show will just ignore the fact that he flat out lied to fans before the show debuted. Even during the Q&A, Smith explained how worried he was when leaks came out about He-Man dying and the shows overall direction. Smith kept claiming that leaks were wrong and He-Man is the star and that the rumors of making it about Teela were also false.

Smith is stuck doing damage control desperately trying to preserve his image and hoping that this catastrophe wont effect his upcoming Clerks 3. Is it bad to think that Clerks 3 will fail on its own, but Smith will claim it’s the toxic He-Man fans still gunning for his career after he bastardized their childhood hero?

It’s going to be interesting to see what Smith and Netflix do to try to fix their image. Maybe Netflix will double down saying that the even though the majority hated the show, getting people talking about the product is still good for business. Or maybe Netflix will cut their losses and scrap any sequels like they’ve done with dozens of other shows. Either way, Netflix or Smith will not take any blame for their actions. I imagine Smith will take to social media like many other canceled stars and blame others for their actions. Either way, it’ll be interesting to watch.  

Simptastic Joe