Arrow spent 8 seasons telling a grounded, darker story of Green Arrow, with plenty of easter eggs and references for comicbook fans, while never truly embracing the full iconography and essence of the character, like Oliver's often-teased goatee. Many gritty reboots also serve as prequels to their source material, using the iconography that made the source material popular enough to warrant a reboot in order to draw in old fans with the promise of a fresh take on a familiar story, while carving a vastly different narrative that avoids ever turning its main character into what longtime fans are actually there to see. Sure, the innocent tone of the cartoon, its goofy dialogue and many, many PSAs are gone, but the characters remain the same, the world is largely the same, and the hopeful tone is still there, but Revelation has something no ‘80s cartoon meant to sell toys ever had: continuity and consequence. But rather than shamefully hide its influence and pretend the '80s He-Man cartoon never existed, it relishes in that nostalgia and assumes the audience either grew up owning all the He-Man toys and watching the cartoon on Saturday mornings or is at least a fan of Lord of the Rings adult animated fantasy shows like Castlevania. The new adult animated show by Kevin Smith does follow many of the tropes of the gritty reboot: it kills major characters, has bigger stakes, a more dangerous tone than the original, and a darker color palette. But where most gritty reboots try too much to distance themselves from the original to appeal to new grown-up audiences, Masters of the Universe: Revelation proposes a different approach- being a sequel first, and a reboot second. One of the biggest Hollywood trends of the past 20 years is the gritty reboot, the idea of taking an established franchise, usually one that was originally meant for young audiences, and repainting them with a darker palette and enough violence and mature content to sell the idea that this is not your daddy's X.
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