TVSquad

Mattel and Warner Brothers will no longer be working together on a big screen adaptation of the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe franchise. John Stevenson is still on to direct, but thankfully, Joel Silver has left the project (I still haven't forgiven him for his lies about Alan Moore).

The Masters of the Universe 1987 movie is still a guilty pleasure of mine (early Courtney Cox. Yum). Of course, the classic 1980's cartoon is where J. Michael Straczynski got his start before moving to bigger fish such as Babylon 5. The best big-screen adaptations usually happen when fans, or at least people who understand the source material, become filmmakers (the best examples are the Batman and Iron Man franchises). I didn't get the impression that this was happening with the He-Man movie.

Given the sheer volume of remakes that are happening, I wonder if this movie is even necessary. Do we even need another He-Man movie?

Just in time to tax refund season -- because you can't use the money for things like gas, food and basic survival -- comes the newest Barbie releases from toy giant Mattel. They're the Star Trek Barbie dolls -- three dolls that represent Kirk, Spock and Uhura. Okay, that's neat. But, there's just one issue...

See, these dolls are not designed after the original Star Trek cast from the 1960s. These dolls are modeled after the stars that will play those iconic characters in the new and highly anticipated Star Trek prequel coming out in May. Each doll comes dressed in the Starfleet outfits that are familiar to fans of the original series and carries a phaser (Type II model) and a communicator.

The cost for the dolls...forty-four friggin bucks a piece! Don't worry, because you have until the end of April to save up before they are released to Wal-mart, walmart.com, and Barbiecollector.com. Get them while they last before someone sells them on eBay for triple the price.

Cartoon Network Enterprises announced recently it had signed a license deal with Mattel to create toys based on its animated series for the 6 to 11 age group. What this means is that in 2007 we'll be seeing new toys and games hit the shelves based on shows such as Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, Camp Lazlo, My Gym Partner's A Monkey, Powerpuff Girls, Ed, Edd n Eddy, The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, and The Life and Times of Juniper Lee. Relationships between Cartoon Network and other toy manufacturers will remain unaffected. I don't buy toys for myself anymore, obviously, but since I have nieces and nephews in this age bracket the news caught my attention. Foster's will be the first show to have its toyline launched, and I'm curious to see what kind of action figures they come up with based on those characters.