She-Ra and the Princesses of Power is an American animated streaming television series developed by Noelle Stevenson and produced by DreamWorks Animation Television. Like the 1985 Filmation series She-Ra: Princess of Power, of which it is a reboot, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power tells the tale of Adora, a teenager who can transform into the heroine She-Ra and leads a group of other magical princesses in a rebellion against the evil Lord Hordak and his Horde.
The series premiered as a Netflix original program on November 13, 2018. Its fifth and final season was released on May 15, 2020.
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power received critical acclaim, with particular praise for its diverse cast and the complex relationship between She-Ra and her best friend-turned-archenemy Catra. In 2019, the show was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Kids & Family Programming, as well as a Daytime Emmy Award at the 46th Daytime Emmy Awards.
Plot[]
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power is set on the planet Etheria and follows the stories of Adora and Catra, orphans who were raised to be soldiers in the Horde. They are part of an evil army led by Hordak, a tyrannical despot who dreams of conquering the planet. One day, after getting lost in the woods, Adora finds a magic sword that transforms her into the legendary Princess of Power, She-Ra. Realizing the Horde is actually evil and has been inflicting suffering on Etheria and its inhabitants, Adora decides to join the Rebellion in the fight against the Horde. She helps rebuild the Princess Alliance, a league of kingdoms ruled by other magical girls that once all opposed Hordak. However, Adora's newfound allegiance to the Rebellion pits her against Catra, her former best friend, whose feelings of betrayal and abandonment twist her personal ambitions and lead her to become Adora's mortal enemy. Much of the show centers around their conflict.
In the first season, Adora helps reassemble the Princess Alliance, which successfully defends the rebel stronghold of Bright Moon against the Horde's assault. Meanwhile, Catra rises in the ranks to become Hordak's second-in-command.
In the second and third seasons, Hordak attempts to build an interdimensional portal which will allow him to contact his creator, the warlord Horde Prime. Catra activates the portal even though it threatens to tear the planet apart, and rebellion leader Queen Angella sacrifices herself to stop it.
In the fourth season, friction arises between Adora and her friend Glimmer (Angella's daughter and the new queen of Bright Moon) when Adora learns that her sword is the key to an ancient superweapon inside Etheria. When Glimmer attempts to use the superweapon to win the war, Etheria is pulled through a portal, becoming vulnerable to attack by Horde Prime's armada. In order to prevent the weapon from activating, Adora destroys her sword, losing access to her She-Ra powers; in the confusion, Glimmer and Catra are captured by Horde Prime.
The fifth and final season follows Adora's journey to liberate Etheria from Horde Prime's reign. Adora rescues Catra and Glimmer from Horde Prime's ship, rediscovering her She-Ra powers in the process, but in the meantime Horde Prime has subdued much of Etheria with his mind-control capabilities. The princesses and Catra work together to disable Horde Prime's hivemind and stop him from accessing Etheria's ancient superweapon. In the end, it is Adora and Catra's love for each other that enables She-Ra to destroy the weapon and save the universe from Horde Prime's tyrannical reign.
Development[]
Development and production of the series began concurrently in April 2016. Showrunner Noelle Stevenson initially pitched it to Netflix on the assumption of creating only one season, but in November 2018, she explained that "we now have four arcs of 13 episodes done". She-Ra is created using traditional animation, with the exception of some computer animation for "complicated machinery". The animation is provided by South Korean studio NE4U.