Do we just live in Ready Player One now?

Oh don't give me that look, there're like
twelve people on the entire planet and two
of them have the same dumb haircut.

Finally, after thirty five years we're finally going to get some closure on the fate of a magic kingdom so legendarily populated by idiots that no one ever put together that their blonde, mop headed muscle-bound prince was also secretly the blonde, mop headed sword-wielding hero who only showed up when the aforementioned prince was unexpectedly called out of the room every time monsters or robots or whatever attacked. Yup He-Man and the Masters of the Universe is going to be a thing again for some reason.

And get this, because time is a flat circle and all of this has happened before and all of this will happen again, the director of every movie teens in the mid-90's loved but maybe don't hold up so well today, Kevin Smith, is the revival's executive producer and show runner.

I actually like Kevin Smith, but for real, maybe
don't revisit Chasing Amy. It's...uncomfortable...

I even found the Xenial website,
though I'm no closer to understanding
what it is they sell. Or do. 

Did...did I just blow your xenial mind? Huh? What's a xenial? I'm glad I pretended you asked. I mean, this shit's not going to explain itself. Xenial is not, as the name would suggest, an anti-anxiety medication nor is it a cloud-based technology partner that is going to help you grow your online brand and-oh shit, it actually is one of those. Now that we're all just making up new nonsense words, I guess we were bound to end up with homographs every now and then. Where was I?

Right xenial. It's a generation. Xenials is a new, made up word to describe people like me who were born in between 1977 and 1983 and who don't quite fit neatly into the millennial category. Yeah, it's another dumb and meaningless term used to arbitrarily classify people based on what generation someone is born into.

From the people who brought you youtube videos of
kids confronted with obsolete technology. 

On the bright side, whatever post-millenials
are called will be able to take advantage
of Manhattan's soon to be lower rents.

I say it's dumb, but I'm kind of glad a term exists. I mean, I will be goddamned if I'm going to let myself get lumped in to Gen X. The characters on Friends with their gigantic New York apartment that they somehow paid for working just one job-and wasn't Joey a failed actor? Anyway, they were Gen X. We xenials meanwhile will be swimming to our retirement jobs at Amazon fulfillment centers to pay off crushing medical and student debt long after the Gen X'ers are dead. Which brings us back to He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. Doesn't it?

Doesn't matter. What does matter is that Smith showed up Power-Con which is, somehow, Comic-Con but just for She-Ra and He-Man. There he announced:

Eternia-ly? Oh Kevin you're better than
 this...wait, you are better than this, right?

"I'm Eternia-ly [sic] grateful to Mattel TV and Netflix for entrusting me not only with the secrets of Grayskull, but also their entire Universe...we pick up right where the classic era left off to tell an epic tale of what may be the final battle between He-Man and Skeletor...this is the Masters of the Universe story you always wanted to see as a kid!"

-Kevin Smith, expertly intoning

the marketing copy he was handed

I was going to make a joke about Tom
Cruise being too old to be a fighter pilot,
but holy shit, does he sleep in a coffin
full of his native soil or something?

So to be clear, this isn't a reboot or a reimagining like the new-ish She-Ra cartoon, but a straight up continuation of the blatant toy commercial we all remember so fondly and hazily. And I think that's super, but I can't help but wonder if everything really needs to be a re-tread of something else. Like, The X-Files came back, Top Gun 2 is for some reason a movie that exists even Captain Picard is getting a new show. Veronica Mars, Twin Peaks, Terminator 6 which is also somehow Terminator 3b. It's like movies and television are just eating themselves.

The little girl represents film and TV
producers and the flakes are, let's say,
Riverdale and season 3 of The Crown

Which, whatever, I don't want to be one of those people who bemoan that creativity is dead, I mean, Hamlet was a remake, so who am I to kvetch? But there is like a lot of stuff to watch. There are literally not enough hours in the average human lifespan to soak it all in. And sure, no one should, but like too many kelp flakes floating on the surface of the fish bowl, we're just going to keep eating until our stomachs burst. Our media stomachs? I guess. Look, it's not the best analogy.

I guess what I'm getting at is why in the midst of such a glut of-uhh...and I'm sorry, but I hate this word, content-why anyone feels the need to squeeze in another revival? Is it that there's such an emphasis on profitability that it's way safer to go with something that has a built in fan base and rely on nostalgia rather than risk money and resources on new, creative-huh? Why...why are the people in suits laughing at-was it something I...said...

"Congratulations! And it only took, what, your entire life to catch on?"

-Content creators