It's hard to pin down if Part 2 is an improvement or deterioration compared to Part 1 as while it never gets as painful to watch as its predecessor, it feels more groanworthy.
The most noticeable improvement is Teela's personality, gone is the whiney womanchild who you'd question ever deserved the promotion "Man in Arms" and in its place is a lady who rolls with the punches and does what needs to be done. While herself Teela is more bearable, the plot's favouritism towards her is not, suddenly gaining magic powers because her mother happens to be The Sorceress. Now you can argue that Adam also is granted power as He-Man but he had to make the sacrifice of being the fool and seen lowly by his best friend and father, unlike lucky Teela.
Speaking of Adam, he is definitely the highlight of the part, having the ability to turn into He-Man taken from him along with now seeing the consequences of his death in the world of the living after the bliss of Preternia. When he was on screen, I was engaged, genuinely rooting for him to come up top! And he was not the only stellar performance either, Man-in-Arms, Queen Marlena and even King Randor showed both maturity and genuine badassery!
Unfortunately, the villains were not so lucky in characterization with Skeletor going from a fun villain on a power trip after gaining He-Man's power to a shallow He-Man obsessed loon along with Evil-Lyn's and Beastman's character arcs destroyed in the middle of the part because the plot said so, which is particularly bad in Evil-Lyn's case as she becomes the second most important character of this part.
And for more minor characters, well I feel like Part 2 feels more disrespectful than Part 1. In the first part, minor characters got time to shine and if it's their time to go out, they go out with a bang! Part 2 on the other hand, is much more interested in shock value, taking out characters unimportant to the plot in an attempt to pull heartstrings, which doesn't make angry at the villains for inflicting such fates but angry at the writers for making characters victims of cheap writing!
I will give credit the plot less confusing than Part 1's nonsensical journey but the hand of the author is too visible in Part 2. It does give some epic scenes, most noticeably in Cleaved in Twain and Comes with Everything You See Here along with the heartwarming interactions in Reason and Blood but it also makes characters prevent things even when they logically should not have the power to do so and throws away predictable but promising ideas to subvert audience expectations, so the very visible railroad of the story is a mixed blessing.
I guess the more you like Part 1, the more you'll dislike Part 2. And since I both loved and hated Part 1 at the same time, I both love and hate Part 2 at the same time!
Part 2: Better yet worse than Part 1 (Spoilers for Part 1)
It's hard to pin down if Part 2 is an improvement or deterioration compared to Part 1 as while it never gets as painful to watch as its predecessor, it feels more groanworthy.
The most noticeable improvement is Teela's personality, gone is the whiney womanchild who you'd question ever deserved the promotion "Man in Arms" and in its place is a lady who rolls with the punches and does what needs to be done. While herself Teela is more bearable, the plot's favouritism towards her is not, suddenly gaining magic powers because her mother happens to be The Sorceress. Now you can argue that Adam also is granted power as He-Man but he had to make the sacrifice of being the fool and seen lowly by his best friend and father, unlike lucky Teela.
Speaking of Adam, he is definitely the highlight of the part, having the ability to turn into He-Man taken from him along with now seeing the consequences of his death in the world of the living after the bliss of Preternia. When he was on screen, I was engaged, genuinely rooting for him to come up top! And he was not the only stellar performance either, Man-in-Arms, Queen Marlena and even King Randor showed both maturity and genuine badassery!
Unfortunately, the villains were not so lucky in characterization with Skeletor going from a fun villain on a power trip after gaining He-Man's power to a shallow He-Man obsessed loon along with Evil-Lyn's and Beastman's character arcs destroyed in the middle of the part because the plot said so, which is particularly bad in Evil-Lyn's case as she becomes the second most important character of this part.
And for more minor characters, well I feel like Part 2 feels more disrespectful than Part 1. In the first part, minor characters got time to shine and if it's their time to go out, they go out with a bang! Part 2 on the other hand, is much more interested in shock value, taking out characters unimportant to the plot in an attempt to pull heartstrings, which doesn't make angry at the villains for inflicting such fates but angry at the writers for making characters victims of cheap writing!
I will give credit the plot less confusing than Part 1's nonsensical journey but the hand of the author is too visible in Part 2. It does give some epic scenes, most noticeably in Cleaved in Twain and Comes with Everything You See Here along with the heartwarming interactions in Reason and Blood but it also makes characters prevent things even when they logically should not have the power to do so and throws away predictable but promising ideas to subvert audience expectations, so the very visible railroad of the story is a mixed blessing.
I guess the more you like Part 1, the more you'll dislike Part 2. And since I both loved and hated Part 1 at the same time, I both love and hate Part 2 at the same time!