Blackstar

Blackstar was a fun fantasy adventure cartoon that I always looked forward to watching on Saturday mornings. I wanted escapism, brave heroes, cool weapons, goofy sidekicks, and random weirdness. Blackstar delivered! I loved it! Blackstar had everything I wanted from an early 80's Saturday morning fantasy cartoon and more. You just can't beat a brave hero traveling through a black hole to an unknown universe who is armed with a cool sword, rides an even cooler looking flying dragon, is aided by a sorceress and a shape shifter, and battles the villainous Overlord in a strange magical fantasy world filled with all types of impossible creatures (Air-Whales?!) and other assorted weirdness. It was a perfect recipe for enjoyable Saturday morning escapism. Blackstar was fun!

Blackstar was an animated fantasy series done by Filmation, who went on to create He-man and the Masters of the Universe and She-ra, Princess of Power. In fact Blackstar seems very much like a warm-up for He-man; the combined science fiction/fantasy atmosphere of Sagar would be reborn in a new form in He-man's Eternia, which would end up getting developed a lot more deeply because He-man ran for something like 130 episodes and Blackstar ran only 13. I last saw this series in the early 80's, and I still vividly recall it with wonder. It was a true epic fantasy. I highly recommend it if you can find it on video somewhere.

An astronaut, John Blackstar, has been sucked through a blackhole and stranded on the mysterious planet Sagar, where he teams up with the native group of Trobbits, Klone, a shape changing dragon man, and Mara the Enchantress, and with the power of the Star Sword to defeat the Overlord who wishes to take over all of Sagar. Not to be confused with the Bowie album or Mos Def/Talib Kweli colab, this Blackstar was released in 1981, just two years before its spiritual successor He-Man. Any who know of He-Man will notice the plot of Blackstar (including a split sword with two halves of power) was copied over for the later series, which was created by the same animation studio Filmation. Blackstar draws from many before it, namely John Carter of Mars and Buck Rogers, but definitely has its own "children's cartoon" classic subtleties. The series only aired for a single season before being re-syndicated continually, causing a toy line to be created 2 years after it originally aired in 1983. "Wait... we can make a children's TV show to sell children's toys!?" realized the execs, and quickly formulated He-Man with the goal for bring 4-8 inch plastic models into the homes of children everywhere. As a big fan of He-Man, I had to check out this progenitor eventually, as it lead to many of the greats, but as the first step in a mediocre to begin with genre, its still not that good of a show. If you're someone who would already flip on an episode of He-Man, She-Ra, Transformers, or similar and haven't seen this, then I would highly recommend it, but for the rest of the world, you can likely pass.

I remember watching this show as a kid. And it was one of my favorite show. For years been trying to look for it and finally saw it at a Fry's three weeks ago and purchased it. The package contains 2 DVDs with a total of 13 cartoons. Not bad for like $14 which equals to a little over $1 per cartoon.

So far I saw like 8 shows and it was OK. Notice a lot of "repeat animation" like when the dragon is swooping across the screens or the pink creatures running away.

One thing disappointing is looking at the titles, there would be no "ending" to the series. Similar to Pirates of Dark Water where the series were canceled before the 10th stone was found. As the previous comment were true, the 1st episode does not have a "beginning".

Another thing I notice is that somehow every time I watch one of the cartoons, it makes me sleepy. Don't know if you guys feel the same. But at least I get a good nap after watching it.

On its face, "Blackstar" is nothing more than a second rate pastiche of iconic IP's like "John Carter", Flash Gordon" and "Buck Rogers". Had that been its only virtue, it would've been buried under the rubble of pop culture obscurity decades ago. But, like Frank Stallone, "Blackstar" has a famous brother. In this case, his name is He-Man.

A few years after "Blackstar" ended its one season run, Filmation Studios released "Masters of the Universe". After the government relaxed rules regarding the use of animated series as promotional tools for toy lines (in exchange for the 'toons providing a "In today's episode we learned"... message tacked on at the end), toy companies sought out studios that could create daily or weekly animated series that would act as an organic promotional vehicle. The first of these was Mattel Toys' "Masters of the Universe" aka "He-Man".

The toy line was released in 1982 and became a massive success. One year later, the cartoon followed suit, and together they became a juggernaut for the next half decade. Seeing this, second-tier toy company Galoob decided to try and get in on the act and licensed Filmation's earlier series, "Blackstar". The results were what you'd expect. The cartoon, which had been off the air for two years, did not create any appetite for the toys, and so the line quickly fizzled out and ended up at yard sales and in land fills across America.

So why do I go into all of this? I guess I'm bored. Kind of like when I watch "Blackstar". To be honest, it's not a terrible cartoon. The voice acting is exactly that of "Masters of the Universe", featuring most of the same players. The animation here isn't quite as vivid, but it uses the same techniques and recycles more than a Green Peace member. To be sure the music isn't as good as "Masters of the Universe", and while it has a (relatively) more serious tone, it lacks the humor and fun camp that makes "MOTU" still an enjoyable watch; albeit in small doses.

In the end, this is a series that I found far more interesting to research than to watch.