MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE (1987)

[Psycho Circus]

A movie that's not that bad, but not that good.

Just want to give praise to this film, even though it flopped and is dismissed as an awful movie.



Masters of the universe is one of the first films I can ever remember watching from my childhood, along with Big, The Goonies and Beetlejuice. As everyone knows it based on the cartoon and comic book strips of He-Man, which in turn was made as a marketable version of Conan for little kids.
I will always remember the first time I watched this film and I absolutely loved it to bits! Skeletor (Frank Langella) has taken over Eternia and is trying to harness the power of a "magic key" that will aid him in his plot to dominate all the galaxies. However, He-Man (Dolf Lundgren) is there to get in his way. Anyway, a small battle takes place and He-Man and co meet Gwildor (Billy Barty) who has one of these "magic keys" leading to the heroes escaping to Earth. Once on the unfamiliar planet and having lost the key, He-Man comes to the rescue of Julie (Courtney Cox) who has found said key. Skeletor sends his minions to find the key and to kill He-man, ultimately leading to a big showdown and dramatic finale.

I always used to love the sound that key made, that screwed up progression of synthy notes was really wonderful to me as a child.
I loved Skeletor and his horde of mutants, Frank Langella makes this movie! He is a great actor and I have seen him in many varied roles over the years, but this is his best. He is so into character and backed by great make-up costume, he really makes Skeletor scary. The Skeletor from the cartoon has always seemed camp to me with a bad voice-over but Langella is rasping and larger than life. Dolf Lundgren is wooden. I don't expect He-Man (if he were real) to be a good, diverse actor anyway.

Teela always reminds me of Tommy Lee from Motley Crue...



I did finally buy this on DVD this year and I did cringe a little bit (battle scenes are awful), but it was still good and it took me back...

Originally this film was supposed to be entirely based on Eternia, but the film went vastly over budget and they had to keep shutting down production all the time for various reason. They then ran out of money. There was also supposed to be a sequel, thus explaining the moment at the very, very end of the film. That was canned, due to the cost and admitted failure of this feature.

I know people who didn't grow up with this hate it, but I look on it with cheesy fondness.

Does anyone else really love this movie??

Here's the link to Andrew's great review: http://www.badmovies.org/movies/mastersu/

[dean]

Count me in as a person who loved it.  It was painfully 80s [who pretty much defeats a bad guy with a keyboard?] and the whole 'at earth' idea was a bit silly, but not too bad a plot point really.

Plus it had that bald cop guy whose name I can't remember, but every film I see him in he has a shotgun.

So yeah, overall a fun movie that I found so silly it HAD to be fun.

On the sequel, I think they took the screenplay and tweaked it slightly and made it into Van Damme's 'Cyborg 2'. [or was it Cyborg? I can't remember]

[Psycho Circus]

Hahah, James Tolkan played the cop yeah, an I've never really seen him without a shoutgun either!

The scipt for the sequel did become the first Cyborg film, starring JCVD.

[Jack]

I thought it was okay.  I remember enjoying the animated show at the time, and the movie was, well, they took the characters and had some fun with them.  Don't know why they had them come to Earth, would have much preferred it if they stayed on their own planet. 

[Psycho Circus]

I prefer this to the animated show, looking back on that, I thought it was poorly drawn and the character's voices always grated on me. Skeletor is a million miles better in the movie version.

The whole film was originally set on Eternia, but buget and studio problems prevented this, so the script had to be changed and all the final scenes were rushed.

The only other thing that I was dissapointed with was that there was no Cringer or Hordak.

[BeyondTheGrave]

Childhood favorite of mine too. Haven't seen it in awhile and remember a scene here and there but I always liked it.

[Neville]

LOL Dolph looks like straight out of a gay porn movie with that outfit. I remember the film being rather popular back in the moment of its release, at least that season. Didn't bother hitting the theatre, back then I was pretty much uninterested in movies, and didn't even like the action figures or the TV show.

[Torgo]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgmY361ffGk

[HarlotBug3]

The character design for both the original cartoon (which is far worse than I remember it, btw) and this glorious mess were fantastic. I'm really very surprised to know that this movie flopped, though I suppose it likely botched that tightrope between being too scary for parents to take their kids, and not purient enough for teenagers to take themselves.

That chick from friends was in it?!  Sweet Jesus