Masters of the Universe
Hey, Do You Remember...?
Christopher Schrader
4.8 • 676 Ratings
🗓️ 31 January 2014
⏱️ 99 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
By the power of Grayskull... it's the ultra-bizarre Masters of the Universe movie! Chris, Carlos, and Donna all watched the He-Man cartoon and played with the toys when they were kids, but these characters and their lore didn't stick with them the way other properties from this era have.
Chris and Carlos remember being fairly bummed out by this 1987 live-action adaptation and its glaring disregard for some of the show's more iconic elements, Donna didn't even know it existed, and all of them were left pretty confused after revisiting it.
Topics include: how the tight budget and restrictions from Mattel left the filmmakers with their hands tied, why so many new characters were created for the film while fan-favorites were sidelined, the vague and impossibly murky mythology of Eternia, the irritating decision to make two teenagers the focus of the story, how the first Thor movie delivered a more successful version of the same premise, why He-Man's costume just absolutely does not work in live-action, and much more!
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, do you remember Masters of the Universe? |
| 0:07.0 | Hello and welcome to Hey Do You Remember, a show where we reminisce about a movie or TV series we grew up with, then take off the rose-tinted glasses to see how it holds up today. |
| 0:31.6 | I'm Chris. |
| 0:32.5 | I'm Donna. |
| 0:33.3 | And I'm Carlos. |
| 0:34.3 | And today we're revisiting Masters of the Universe. |
| 0:52.9 | Thank you. And I'm Carlos. And today we're revisiting Masters of the Universe. Skeletor and his army have taken control of Castle Grey Skull and imprisoned the sorceress. |
| 0:57.8 | Soon, a portal known as the Great Eye of the Galaxy will open in the throne room, |
| 1:01.9 | and Skeletor plans to harness its power in order to become the master of the universe. |
| 1:07.5 | I'm going to be honest, I've seen this movie several times, and I'm still not sure what I just said is accurate. |
| 1:13.9 | Nevertheless, there's one thing standing in Skeletor's Way, a resistance force led by the mighty He-Man. |
| 1:19.8 | And just when you think you're about to settle in for a feature-length sci-fi fantasy adventure set amidst the war-torn runes of attorney, the filmmaker step in to remind |
| 1:28.3 | you, that shit's totes expensive, y'all. So we're going to set 90% of this hunk of shit on |
| 1:33.2 | boring old earth. How's that sound? Unlike the first live-action Ninja Turtles movie, |
| 1:38.5 | Masters of the Universe was not released at the height of the property's popularity. In |
| 1:42.9 | 1987, sales of Mattel's |
| 1:44.8 | He-Man toys were dwindling. Interest had peaked two years prior, and the film was intended |
| 1:49.2 | to help get them flying off the shelves again. Canon films, the studio behind the picture, |
| 1:54.0 | were in a similarly desperate spot, and this movie was part of a grand plan to save themselves |
| 1:58.6 | from bankruptcy. At the time, they also held the rights to Spider-Man, and they believed that the profits |
| 2:03.5 | from this film would not only provide them with enough dough to make a He-Man sequel, but to also |
| 2:08.3 | get Spidey's first feature film into production as well. With two successful franchises set up, |
... |
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