Masters of the Universe (1987) - S10 E74

All aboard the Battle Cat! Dan and Sarah don their Power Swords (which look suspiciously like oversized letter openers) to champion another cinematic misfire! On this day, we tackle the 1987 cinematic flop, Masters of the Universe in another instalment looking at movies that flopped at the box-office!

Join us as we take on our first Dolph Lundgren movie and give a standing ovation (from a safe distance) to Frank Langella’s Skeletor.   

Here is just a little of what you can expect from us in this episode:

• We’ll be dissecting the film’s box-office failure and try to understand why it didn’t connect with audiences.
• The film’s adaptation from the Mattel toys, comic books and cartoons of the 1980’s.
• How Masters of the Universe could have contributed to the downfall of Cannon Films.
• We find out which characters were invented entirely for the 1987 movie and which characters were lifted directly from the MOTU toy range.
• Sarah wonders how laser guns are powered.
• We bring up Matte paintings again (possibly a running theme in this season).
• Who’s the MVP in Masters of the Universe? Clue – it’s not He-Man!
• Is Masters of the Universe (1987) kind of underrated? Or is it just rated?

So, if you’re looking for a Masters of the Universe (1987) podcast or are fascinated by movies that flopped hard, look no further! Take off your cape, lay down your cosmic key and step into our cave of cinematic chat.

Season 10 runs until May 26th with 10 episodes this time

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hello and welcome to Shoot a Hostage with me, Dan, and my partner, Sarah. We're a movie podcast who talks about a different film each week based on a theme. We do swear and we do spoil the featured movie, so only ever listen if you've seen the film or you don't care too much about spoilers. If you're a regular listener, you can just skip forward until you hear the intro music cuz you've heard all of this before. But if you are new to the show and you do enjoy what you hear, there are a couple of things you can do to help support the show. Firstly, make sure that you're subscribed. on your podcast player so you get notified when new shows drop on Mondays. Uh you could rate us five stars on Spotify, which couldn't be easier. You just hit the star icon below the show's artwork. Or if you have a spare few minutes, we'd love it if you could submit a review wherever you listen. Uh make sure you come follow us at ST_Pod on social media. We are active on Instagram, threads, and Tik Tok. And lastly, the biggest thing you can do to help is tell a friend about the show. So that's about it. That's enough preamble from me. over to me and Sarah for this week's episode. We have the power. You are full of beans.

(00:01):
I'm full of something.
Yeah, you've just finished work. I wasn't expecting this much energy straight out of the gate.
I've been on such like high energy this whole week that it's going to be impossible for me to calm down. So, you you've got that to look forward to tonight. Just buzzing around.
Excellent. I can't wait.
Um, but also I am very excited because today we're talking about Masters of the Universe.
Mhm. M
one of my alltime childhood childhood childhood favorites. Um see I'm so excited I can't get my words out. I hope that's not a common theme throughout the episode because it will take me 3 weeks to edit. Yeah. Love this movie. Obviously big old flop. That's why it's a part of this season. It's another movie from 1987.
Is it?
Yeah. Which I want to say I haven't checked the spreadsheet but I think it's our most covered here at this point.
Yeah, it seems to come up a lot. What else have we done from 87 then?
Get to the chopper.
Predator
near dark.
Yep.
Okay.
And there's one more.
One more.
Yeah.
Give me a clue.
One, two, three.
Oh, you

(00:22):
dream warriors.
Dream Dream Warrior.
Dream Warriors.
Yeah. Yeah. So, it's it's one of our most, if not the most year that we've covered on a pod.
Mhm. also looking on letter box, you know, when you can sort by year.
Yep.
And then also I sort by my highest rated as well after that.
You are such a like I'm I'm a nerd, but you're like a maths nerd. You're a spreadsheet nerd.
Yeah, you knew this.
I know. It's not a complaint. I'm just pointing it out. It It does amaze me still.
But it's I think in general it's just one of my favorite years as well. Like just looking at the lineup, we've got Robo Cop,
Robot Cop, Robot Cop,
Lost Boy. The Lost Boys was next on my list. Well done.
What else? Got another one on there. Can you name another one
of your favorite movies from 87?
Yeah.
Oh. Oh, no.
We spoke about the director last week.
I was going to say it's got to be a John Carpenter. But was Big Trouble 87 or was that 86?
86 I think that was.
So what was 87? Prince of Darkness.

(00:43):
Yep.
Right.
Prince of Darkness. Also, we've got Pin Head.
Got the first Hellraiser,
of course. Yeah. Untouchables.
Yeah.
Which is is very good. Revisited that recently when we covered Carrie.
It is. It's a really really good film, but it's it's dad cinema to me, so I'm less interested.
Yeah, it is. Um, Space Balls.
Okay. Yeah. I haven't seen it in a very long time.
Yeah. It's been a while for me, too.
My childhood was more about blazing saddles than Space Balls, if
I'm honest. When they fart around the campfire.
Yeah. My dad thought that was hilarious. He laughed more than I did, and I was a child. when we watched it.
It was hilarious though. What a what better team up is there?
It's Yeah. Universal humor, I suppose.
Um, Evil Dead 2.
Yeah. Excellent.
I Yeah, I don't really care.
Beverly Hills Cock 2. Um, Inner Space.
Inner Space. Okay. Yeah, that was Joe Dante, right?

(01:04):
Yes.
It's It's funny because I feel like I watched that a lot when I was a kid, but It's these days it's one of the Dante films that I'm less versed in.
Okay. It's probably my favorite Dante movie
because of Martin Short. Yes.
Yeah. Um The Running Man.
Okay. Is that getting a remake?
Yeah. I believe it's shooting or has wrapped filming in the UK. Directed by Edgar Wright.
Oh.
So I imagine that'll be out at the end of this year if not early next year.
Okay. Who's Who's the running man?
Um guess who's flavor? of the month at the moment. Who's in everything?
Glenn Powell.
Yeah.
Are you kidding?
No.
I'm so sick of his face.
I like him, but part of me is like, really?
I don't know. With now or I
Oh,
yeah.
Yeah. Classic.

(01:25):
Classic. The Gate.
I love The Gate.
I love The Gate so much.
I know you do. Um, one more movie that I saw when I was very young and it took me forever to hunt it down, but 3:00 high
is That the one that you made me watch where you to to find out what it was, you had to Google boy um dries underwear in microwave.
Yes.
Was it that one? See, I remember everything you tell me. For better or worse.
Oh no. Yeah. But uh Yeah. But just looking at that list, I'm like I was thinking, you know, we do our end of year shows and we do uh top five.
Oh no. 87 would have been a really hard call.
That would have been really difficult for me. Yeah, strong year.
Strong year. And there's an anomaly.
Disagree. Disagree. I think Masters is an absolute classic.
Look, I love it. You know, I do. We We had this conversation just before recording. For some reason, I was so desperate to own this. I must have bought the region one like 25 years ago.
But it's not good.
I will get into this, but I think it's a bizarre mixture of brilliant and really s***.
Yeah.
And it's it's something odd about it. I don't think there's anything quite like it. I think it there's a lot of things you could compare it to and again, we'll probably get into that.
But yeah, probably like objectively speaking, not the greatest movie,
but nevertheless, it's one that I grew up with and I love.
Having said that, I've never actually owned it myself on any format.
Not

(01:46):
my nan owned it on VHS when I was a kid and watched it with her quite a lot. But during the DVD era, I never had it. I think I probably wasn't prepared to pay out for a region one.
I was going to say like maybe it was difficult to get hold of for a while.
Yeah.
Well, I tended to just sort of go to Blockbusters or we had a local one called Golden Disc where you just get them for like £3 sift through the bins.
Yeah,
I miss those days.
Yeah, me too. But yeah, so I guess I never found it in one of these bargain bins
and just wasn't prepared to pay kind of full whack for it.
But now I have because But now you're a working man and you spent way more than you should have done.
Yeah. I think I spent 30 English pounds on a brand new 88 films um release of it which came out like a couple of weeks ago.
It was well timed. Yeah.
Yeah. But it's gorgeous. It's a lovely release. Just like a nice rigid card case with the Blu-ray and a nice little booklet with pictures of Dolph Lungren without any pants and a cape. Um yeah, it's great. I I really love it and I and it was it was a few quid and sometimes we get these special edition ones. I thought it is a movie I love. It's one from my childhood and it's very close to me like close to my heart and I thought yeah I'll treat myself. I'm very glad that I got it. It's going to look very nice on the shelf I think.
Well, that's the main thing, isn't it?
Yeah. Yeah, it is. And it aligns as well. It's not like it's it's it's slightly wider obviously, but it doesn't
girthy release.
It's the ones that poke out like that my f****** Casino Royale there. Look at the state.
You don't Do you even like Casino Royale?
Yeah, it's it's the only Bond film I do like.
Oh, right. Okay.
I mean, I do I do like Skyfall. I think it's well made, but I would rarely watch it. Casino Royale I just think absolutely brilliant.
Which was the one you had two copies of?

(02:07):
It's Quantum of Solid.
And you don't like that one? No.
Why? Why do you own two of a film you don't like?
I just I accidentally bought two copies, you know. I think it was a music magpie. and they were a pound, I think, and I accidentally must have just pressed quantity times two. You would think they'd go, "Who's buying two copies? Oh, it's Dan again." Is it
the same person who keeps ordering the incorrect Spider-Man movie?
Yeah. So, Master Universe, possibly one of the first movies based on a toy rage.
Yeah, I guess so. Which is crazy because now Mattel are seriously all about this. movies, aren't they?
Yeah, obviously Barbie was a huge success for Mattel
and I didn't know that they were run by Will Ferrell until that movie.
Yeah. Yeah, that was um Canon.
Very good. Obviously a cannon films classic and uh one of the movies that actually bankrupted the the company. This one
did it.
Yeah. Between I think
why why why could that be?
Between this and Superman 4, I think was what ended that company. me pretty much. Um,
well, they were still around.
Yeah, there was probably some lag. There were probably things that they were working on that maybe were made or were nearly finished and then that someone else bought the rights and then it took a while and lawyers and all of that stuff. So,
but there was like new cannon films into the '9s and stuff though. They didn't they didn't fully go away.
No. No. I don't quite understand what happened there, but I do know that this between this and Superman 4 would because I think they bought the rights to Superman 4.
Mhm.
Just to the Superman movies and and produced for.

(02:28):
They had the rights to Spider-Man as well.
Yeah.
And they were told they had to make a Spider-Man movie before 1990
or the rights would expire and
I'm still waiting.
There's somewhere in the universe that cannon films version of Spider-Man exists.
And I think that was meant to be directed by James Cameron if I remember correctly.
Seriously?
Yeah.
Okay.
And it obviously would have been between I guess where Where was James Cameron in in the late 80s? He was uh in California presumably. He wasn't in a in a submarine at that point.
I was just going to say like if if he made it now, it would be some sort of aquatic Spider-Man.
A quiet man.
Yeah,
that doesn't work. No, can't.
Uh yeah, bizarre, but would have been interested to see it. Definitely. And I think from what I heard, they had began building sets for the Spider-Man movie.
Okay.
And when they kind of ran out of money, they decided to repurpose a lot of those sets, I believe, into the movie Cyborg, the Vanam Classic.
Yeah, I read that as well. And and some of the sets from from this, I think.
Oh, okay. I mean, it would make sense. The sets in this some of the sets in this film are remarkable. I I'll say I love some of it
and then some of it is terrible.

(02:49):
Yeah, some of it is um moving on. Um The throne room's pretty cool.
It's It's amazing. Yeah, it's great.
Apparently, that was like the biggest set that existed in Hollywood in like over 40 years, I believe, because they knocked through two sound stages
and different levels and you just look at it and all the kind of the marble and stuff and it's it blows your mind. Why did they run out of money? I can't imagine
on the one set that looks good.
Yeah,
I do like how much thought went into to that though cuz um I feel like I'm getting ahead of myself but the fact that they sort of said they wanted the throne room to sort of represent good and evil
because it belongs to whoever's in power and power can be both good and evil.
Yeah,
depends whose hands it in. I I I don't know. I respect the the thought patterns and
they clearly kind of cared about what they were making. It just didn't all translate to the screen,
which is one of the reasons why it's such a fascinating movie to talk about. One of the reasons why I wanted to include it in this lineup. This is the first movie that I've chosen for this season.
Mhm.
Next week it's back to you. We'll find out what that is.
But yeah, just before we get on to the kind of the the look of it, did you I mean, would you have seen this in the late ' 80s when it came out?
Yeah, it wasn't a cinema job. No,
it was a VHS job, but yeah, I was um I was watching this from pretty young.
Me, too. I I want to say that it was perhaps a premiere on the television. at Christmas. I've got quite a vivid memory of like an image of myself playing with a Do you remember those little TV things that were like a sort of a computer game and you had little BBs and you would fire them out at like a gun range type thing?
No.
Okay. I I wonder if I could Google that and figure out what that was. But for some reason, I remember myself playing with one of those and this was on the background and it just sort of captured my attention.
But having said that, I I think I was pretty big into the Masters of the Universe cartoon and toys when I was a kid.

(03:10):
Okay.
I think it it it began slightly before my time, but the reruns were were just on forever. So, I'm pretty sure I was big into that. Possibly the first kind of Saturday morning cartoon thing that I would have been into.
It was definitely before turtles were a thing.
So, what came first?
Because there's been there's been a movie obviously comics, a toy line, a cartoon. What was it? Was it the toy line that came first then?
Yeah, it was the toy line that came first. And I think what happened was they came up with an idea for these toys.
Somebody in a boardroom somewhere was just like, "We need this male action figure that's only wearing underwear and has a blonde bob."
Yeah.
But is super ripped.
Yeah. Yeah. I uh I think that Some of the inspiration was from Conan the Barbarian.
Yeah, that makes sense.
But because it was for children and because they wanted to sell toys to kids,
they didn't want to replicate the level of violence that is in Conan. I mean, Arnold punches a horse in that movie. You can't. He-Man can't be doing that.
No. Friend to the animals.
Yeah. Friend to Guildor.
Guildor.
Gildor. Yeah. The toys were first and I believe they began to produce just like a mini comic,
right,
that they included with some of the toys. Oh,
okay.
And that I guess offsh shot into regular size comics. And then the cartoons, I believe, came along shortly after. And it all kind of tied in together. Obviously, one thing markets the other. So, it's pretty genius. And it was huge.

(03:31):
Yeah.
Absolutely enormous for a while. And I remember having some books and certainly some of the toys. I definitely watched the Shirra spin-off as well. When I
Shir,
she was supposed to be in the movie. Right.
But they didn't have the budget for a lady.
Right. Okay. They had the budget for a first feature credit of Courtney Cox, though.
Yes. I'm guessing she wasn't paid a tremendous amount of money.
I'm guessing not.
Straight off the back of that appearance in the uh Bruce Springsteen music video.
Yeah. Yeah. Uh so I I think it was big business for a couple of years. And I think one of the reasons that possibly Masters of the Universe the movie didn't do very well is that the level of interest in the toys and the and the cartoons had perhaps started to die off at that point,
right?
Maybe in the U I mean the UK I think it was probably still pretty strong. We were still getting a lot of reruns of the cartoons and stuff and I certainly would have been watching it at that time but perhaps by 87 it had already peaked. Um so that could be part of the reason why it didn't do very well at the box office.
So you don't think it's that it's not very good?
I think that's part of it,
right?
Um I think that's definitely part of it. I think it's Interesting to think about. I think there are many parts to it.
So, how much did it make? Cuz it was what, 22 million budget? Well, I don't think it was intended to be 22 million budget. I think it ran over.
Right. Okay. Okay. I The reports I saw was 22 million, but I didn't do much research other than going thanks Google for that 22 million result and writing it down.
Yeah. So, it made a grand total gross profit of negative5 million.
Wow. Wow. Yeah, it lost it lost it lost 5 million quid. It grossed 17 million, which I think is really weird. Like it's
Well, it's not that weird considering the we've already talked about its competition that year.

(03:52):
That's true. Yeah, of course.
There was a lot of other stuff to go and see.
Yeah, I suppose as well like last week we spoke about The Thing which didn't do very well and perhaps some of that was because of the huge success of ET and they were released around the same time.
That's the only alien movie anybody was interested in. in that year.
Yeah. And and everyone was going to go was going to see with now and I when Universe was out
naturally. Yeah. Cuz the the audience has such a massive crossover.
Yeah. Everyone loves Campbell Carrots, don't they?
They love He-Man and also Richard E. Grant.
Yeah. Who doesn't love Richard E. Grant?
I love Richard E. Grant. He's making some interesting choices of late. I'm fully behind it.
He's great. I think perhaps some of the other part of it being a flop are well the fact that Mattel and Cannon agreed to go 50/50 on a budget.
Okay.
And I believe Canon just ran out of money and couldn't do any more. They couldn't market it. It's I think it stayed in cinemas for like a week or two, but like early screenings really I think so.
So it just didn't have the
might behind it of a of a you know Warner Brothers or whoever was producing movies or Buista or whatever it was. in the 80s.
It was It didn't have that backing.
So, I I think had it had a bigger marketing push, it probably would have done better. So, it may not have smashed it, but 17 million does feel low for a movie like this that's that was based on a really popular toy line. It does feel bizarre and there are many reasons why it definitely flopped. I don't think I saw this at cinema. I would have been too young. Um, it definitely was on a TV, I think. But had I been
certificate?
Uh, it was PG.
PG PG. It's a strong PG.
I was going to say, yeah,

(04:13):
there's blood in it.
I think maybe maybe that's one of the contributing factors as well. Maybe there was some confusion over who it was suitable for.
Yeah,
cuz I to me this sort of sits neatly in a very very niche category alongside films like Flash Gordon.
And I don't think that's for children necessarily. So, I don't know. May maybe maybe that was part of it as well.
Yeah, possibly. it there. There were a couple of movies in the 80s that are kind of you would think if you just look at the poster it's kind of a kids film, but there's they're they're much darker when you watch them.
Dark Crystal is a is an example
that I'm thinking of which has something in common with this movie.
Does it?
Yeah. The writer David Odell who wrote this movie also wrote The Dark Crystal.
Did he?
Okay. Interesting.
I love the Dark Crystal.
I know. I know you do. Which is what made me so interested when I found that out. I thought I'd mention that. I'm glad that uh I found a point to mention it naturally. Also, Supergirl.
Okay.
So, I mean, that was rubbish, but I did enjoy that when I was a kid, but looking back on it now, I think it's kind of unwatchable now I think about it.
It's not good. It's not good. What was the actress called? Was it um Helen Slater?
Yeah, I think so.
Yeah, I know why you liked it then.
I mean, I did watch it a lot when I was a kid.
Yeah, but Yeah. Um, so yeah, no money for marketing. Probably a bit too late. Dolph Londren was I mean he was not really a thing back then. He

(04:34):
he had a bizarre beginning to his career.
So I don't know a huge amount about him outside of
Universal Soldier,
right? Yeah.
Sergeant Andrew Scott.
Okay. He threw grenades.
He was a punisher.
He was a punisher. Yeah.
One of many.
89 was that? Yes.
I keep meaning to give revisit that. You know, I remember my uncle having it on VHS. Well, I haven't seen it since probably 1992.
I haven't seen it in a while. It's not great.
I don't I don't really remember it enough. I I think someone got like a a spade in a chest or something if I if that's what
that sounds vaguely familiar. Yeah,
maybe I'm thinking of Commando
which also shares an actor with this movie.
Okay, you're testing me. am
can I get a clue?
Uh, female
Chelsea Fields.
Yes.

(04:55):
Okay. Okay,
that was easy.
Yeah, there were there too. There were a couple more females.
You know, it's not Corny Cogs.
I know. Yeah. Christina Pickles.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Who played Monica's mom in Friends?
Yeah.
How strange.
Yeah. Bizarre.
I didn't I knew I recognized her when we were watching it, but I couldn't I couldn't place her for a while.
I didn't put that together at all. It was only when I was doing my homework that I saw that Yeah, Dolph Lungren. I mean, he was nobody's favorite actor in 1987.
No,
he had a really weird start to the to his career. It's not something that he set out to do to become an actor. He was uh he was a he's an intellectual. He was studying engineering, MIT, super smart guy. He was a karate, what do they call him? Person champion.
I don't know.
He did karate at people. and uh and he was a bodyguard and he was like really super buff so he got into the bodyguard business.
Okay.
Became a bodyguard of Grace Jones.
Oh wow.
Yeah. And then they became an item.
Okay.
And then his first credit was in A View to a Kill which Grace Jones was in. So you know I wonder how he got that role.

(05:16):
And then I guess it's off to the races after that. It would have been Rocky 4 after a view to a kill.
Oh yeah of course
in I want to say 85 Rocky 4 is
you would know that way better than me.
Well, it's the one where Stallone punches communism. If you can change and I can change, we can all change. You know, he solved it. He solved it.
Yeah.
Yeah. So, it would have been if you to kill Rocky for who do Who do we get for He-Man? It's Ivan Drago clearly. Who else?
Yeah. His English still wasn't very good at that point though, was it?
No. And um you could never tell, could you?
Well, Apparently they when they when he was cast, they'd planned from day one to have a different actor dub his lines,
right?
But apparently Dolph Lungren had it written into his script that he was allowed like three chances to dub his own lines. So that's why some of it is a little bit shony. I think from what I can gather anyway, a lot of it is sort of
from on the day and the other parts are dubbed which is why it seems a little bit strange at times.
Right. Okay. It does make sense. I mean, I mean, it's Dolph Lungren is not the most interesting actor in this film, which is another reason why probably it didn't work for a lot of people. It's called Masters of the Universe. The star of the show is He-Man,
but as it turned out, the star of the show was Guildor,
Skeletor. Frank Langella was absolutely brilliant.
I hate Guildor.
I love Gildor. I think he's great.
I think he's grotesque. I think he's absolutely just disgusting. I know that's a strong words. Those are fighting words, but I said this to you the other day. I feel like I remembered hearing somewhere because obviously in the cartoon it was Orco, right?
Yeah.
Um I feel like I remembered reading or hearing somewhere that they replaced Orco with Guildor, like this new character because the budget didn't extend to effects that would make Orco believable.

(05:37):
And I looked into it and that was right.
Yeah, you are you are right cuz you said that to me and I was like, I'm not sure about that. took the more cynical perspective which was they just wanted a fresh character to make toys of.
But that's also
which was also right. Yeah. It was one of only three toys they made off the back of the movie.
Well, they had um I think the original intention Mattel was like, "Put all of our characters in the movie. We want to sell all of these toys.
Budget things, you know, you can't do all of those. CGI is not a thing yet."
No.
Um
clearly.
Yeah. So, what they did is they had a they they found a a compromise. They they they put them main characters in the film and then they also invented some new characters and they went to Mattel and went we can do some of the main characters and get some of your main characters in here but why don't we invent some new characters and you can sell some more toys to which Mattel went yes please give us some money was one of those characters that they created uh Carg
Car
Cog is it Carg with the big hair
looks like Gwen Shamblin
yeah that's it
I'll try and do a side by side on Instagram cuz it's it really made me laugh
yeah bl was a new
character played by Anthony Del Longis
and
he did a lot of the stunt work, didn't he?
He was Langela's stunt double in the final action sequence. Yeah.
Right. Okay.

(05:58):
And the weird lizard helmet guy was also new, I think.
Right.
But Beastman was was from the cartoon and the toys.
Yeah.
You have the four mercenaries there. Three of them were new.
I believe the characters were integrated into the wider universe. post movie
or even Guildor.
Yeah.
Oh god, I could I could barely look at him.
Have you ever seen a film called a a a gnome named Norm?
No.
Also known as Upworld in the UK.
Never heard of it.
Oh, maybe I'll maybe I'll do like a series of pictures.
Yeah.
For this show and I'll post them on Instagram cuz honestly Guildor sort of looks like an Ewok f***** a gnome named Norm and then somebody put the baby in the microwave for a bit.
Okay.
Hideous. Absolutely disgusting.
I was just just dying for for Guildor.
I just heard you. What? What's he done?
I don't know. I don't know. Maybe there is some trauma connected to that

(06:19):
connected to that character. But
you like the garbage pale kids.
I would rather look at a garbage pail kid.
No.
Like the worst ones.
Genuinely.
I disagree. I couldn't couldn't disagree with you more. At least like at least Gildor's funny and he's
he's not though.
I think he's funny.
I hate him.
I was going to share. I was going to share. Played iconically by Billy Barty who gets second billing.
Well, that makes sense cuz he is kind of second secondary main character. I mean,
well, Frank Langela is surely.
Well, he was a bigger name for sure.
Yeah,
I think Yeah, I guess. Skeletor.
I I think like I I am a big fan of buildor in this movie. I think he's pretty he's MVP for me.
No,
but Frank Langela, there is no denying how I think he's brilliant in this. I think he captures the essence of Skeletor perfectly and you can tell that he really is. He cares and he put work into this.
So, you think Gildor is the MVP over Franklin?
I think I Guild is my favorite. Okay. But I it's maybe it's like kind of equal. I think Guild just makes me laugh more. Langela is like when you're a kid terrifying and when you're an adult like he's why is his dialogue strangely good whereas He-Man's is very terrible.

(06:40):
Well, apparently Frank Langella wrote some of the lines himself for Skeletor. He was like super into this.
Yeah. I think his kid was very much into He-Man.
Yeah.
And he was like, "Well, I'm going to do this to make my child happy."
Yeah. I mean, they they gave a s*** about this movie. This is what I was saying earlier. Like there's um Shakespeare Ian connection. Hang on, I've got this in my notes somewhere. So, he um there's a line where he says, "I'm not in a giving mood this day." Which is straight from Richard III.
Yeah.
Or Richard I I if you're a League of Gentlemen fan um and Meg Foster used Lady McBth as her inspiration for Evil Lynn. Like there was a lot of thought that went into this.
It's it that's a thought that occurred to me. It's very Shakespearean type language. Yeah.
I didn't realize it was directly influenced from that. Langela really cared He I I think the only actor that Gary Godard directed Gary Godard only directing credit by the way.
Okay.
Um
did this like simultaneously give him a career and end it in one fell swoop?
I don't know. I I think he got this job because he had directed a live uh version of Conan the Barbarian.
Right. Okay.
Another Conan connection. I think like a Universal Studios. And that's what got him this job. I believe he he went back to that. I I'm sure I saw somewhere in his IMDb credits that he was directing like a Jurassic Park live show or something in the '9s. So, I bet there's
I bet there's a bunch of stuff that he's he's done, but he just never returned to the the feature,
right?
The feature side of things, but given the stress that he must have been under, and I've heard from the cast that you he took a lot of that on his shoulders as well and didn't necessarily want to burden other people with that.
It must have really affected him. But yeah, Dolph Lungren was the only actor that that he inherited. Everyone else, he had a say in in who who to cast
that he inherited.
Yeah, he

(07:01):
he's still in his care to this day.
Yeah. So, but everyone else, he kind of had a a hand in the casting process and not least Frank Langella. He went out to bat for Langela. I believe the studio
were kind of resistant because Yeah, I
Langela leading man at that time. He must have commanded quite a salary. I dare say he was probably the the highest paid actor on this on this film.
I hope so.
I think he probably was. And I think because he would have been so relatively well paid compared to the other cast. The studio were like, "Well, he's behind a mask. Do we really need to pay for Frank Langello?"
Oh, right.
But apparently got And I can sort of see where they're coming from.
He was the last person cast, wasn't he?
Oh, was See, I didn't I didn't I didn't know that. So, okay. But I I sort of see where they're coming from as a as a money person myself.
However, I think the absolutely correct decision was for Godard to dig his heels in and say, "No, we need him. We need an actor of this skill and stature to be able to make Skeletor interesting and and like kind of believable. He's this weird Shakespearean over-the-top actor with a skull prosthetic on,
but you do by his character. He's for a kind of run-of-the-mill I want to take over the world in a universe and I want all of the power and everyone shall submit to me like a really
generic
generic two-dimensional villain character. He does bring more depth to it.
Yeah, he's definitely got a certain gravitas.
Yeah, and particularly with some of the close-ups
where his eyes are darting around.
I think he just acts the s*** out of this. I think he's fantastic. And I don't think I fully appreciated that until this watch. I definitely found him terrifying when I was a kid.
Did you?
Yeah. I mean, I would have been four four or five,
but yeah, it's it's kind of a scary movie, I think, for for a kid.

(07:22):
But that's that's kind of what I was saying earlier. Like, should it have been a PG?
It was it was definitely they could have pushed it a bit more and maybe made it a 12.
I think it was definitely a weird kind of area for it to be in. It's not quite a kids movie. It's not quite an adults movie. So, that is probably a good um a good point you made. Uh part of you know who's this for? Who we marketing this to?
Kids don't like it. Adults don't like it.
It's for 40 year olds with the nostalgia blinkers on. It turns out
in 2025 going what an underrated masterpiece this is. No one's saying that. I'm saying that, but you're not saying that.
I look I think it's great.
Yeah,
we I've already said up top I I really enjoy this movie. I also think it's kind of crap. In a lot of ways,
it's just it's just one of the most uneven movies I think I've ever seen.
Yeah. Yeah. It It sort of lags for a while as well. Like a lot happens,
but then there are scenes where it looks like a lot's happening, but nothing's really happening. If that makes sense.
Give me an example.
All of the stuff in the flabby middle,
it's definitely Yeah, I would agree that once you get off Eternia and you come to Earth, it definitely starts to sag a bit there.
Yeah,
there are good good moments.
Like, oh, look, Gildor's eating barbecue ribs.
I can do without all of that stuff.
Why do they put this food on these sticks? So, Tila doesn't know what bones are.
Yeah, apparently.

(07:43):
I mean, she's a woman, you know. Was that the implication there?
Yeah. Weird.
Well, she should know. Her place is in the kitchen.
Yeah. Well, I don't know. I don't think I don't think this movie is particularly um misogynistic. Do you think so?
Um no, probably not.
I just think it's badly written.
I think I mean like
in aside from Langela's dialogue, which he wrote himself,
Shakespeare did.
Yeah. Yeah. Old Bill. Big Billy.
I think He-Man is a total himbo.
So I don't necessarily
What What does Hmbo mean?
Like a bimbo, but a male one. Okay, that should have been obvious. Yeah.
Yeah, the clue was in the name.
Um I don't know. He's not
Look, I like Dolph Lungren, but maybe it's in the performance.
I think he's cool.
Like when I I was so shocked when I found out how smart he is. Doesn't he have like a doctor or something?
Yeah, he's a certifiable genius, I think.
Crazy. Um and I I I don't know. When I found that out like maybe 15 years ago, I sort of went down a rabbit hole cuz I was like, who is this fascinating man?

(08:04):
Yeah. So, I do think he's like he does seem all right from the little I do know about him, but he's not a very good actor is what it boils down to.
Yeah, particularly in the early days 100%. Like, he's not
even now.
I think he's Listen, he's not going to win an Oscar.
No,
but I think
but he might win a Rzzy.
I think he's way better now. Like, if you I mentioned Universal Soldier earlier,
I mean, that's not a movie where you need particularly strong dramatic performances, but he's a very good villain in that. He's a very larger than-l life, colorful, interesting bad guy in that film. And the between that five years, five, six years between Masters and Universal Soldier, there is a world of difference. If you watch them side by side,
you I mean, you never mistaken Dolph Lungren for anyone else because a very remarkable looking person, but his acting style definitely developed. But, like I say, I'm not saying that he's going to win any Oscars for being a dramatic actor, but he definitely got better. That's what I'll say.
I find it interesting that I read somewhere that um he said that this movie was his lowest point as an actor.
So, I can only assume that quote happened before Expendables 4 was made and that he's changed his tune now.
Yeah, I'm guessing when this came out, huge flop. Probably for a good 10 years. People ragged on this film. They hated it. But I don't know. From what I hear, when you know when we posted our schedule on Patreon, people Matt commented and said, "It's watchable."
It sure is.
But like, but you see other people online and and and they do there is love for this film.
One of my friends on Letterbox gave it five stars,
right? But that's what I mean. I I I don't know if if you saw this for the first time now. I don't know if you would be in that kind of camp. I don't think I don't know if I would. I think I would still really enjoy it.
Do you?
But I don't think it would. I mean, this is a four-st star movie for me. I think it's great, but I don't know if it would be that if I watched it for the first time now. It might be just like it's really good in places, but really s*** in other places. It's a three star movie or two and a half or or something. I don't know. It's definitely a nostalgia factor for me.
Yeah. I think personally without that sheen of nostalgia, I would think this was Pony. And I think that's something that's going to be a recurring theme this season.
Even in some of my choices, like without without that nostalgia, I think they're not necessarily great films.

(08:25):
Um, did they deserve to flop? Maybe. Who knows?
Some of them definitely did.
Yeah. But, um,
yeah, I don't know. It's not in his defense. It probably would have been a miserable shoot, right? Like his English still wasn't great.
He's prancing around on set wearing a f****** I don't know some sort of metallic Y pants Y fronts. I don't I don't know what's going on there.
The weird chest piece thing
the harness it's very leather daddy like there's not a lot of dignity in this in this role.
There's definitely no dignity in this role. No.
So I I kind of get it from his perspective because they'd always plan on making a sequel and apparently I I read conflicting things in a couple different places but I did read that he was a approached during the making of this, like before this had even come out, and said, "Do you want to sign up for a second one?" And he just went, "No."
Right.
Uh-uh.
Yeah. I I can see where he's coming from. I mean, like you say, walking around primarily night shoots in pants and a cape and a sword. Holding that sword must have been really hard work as well.
Yeah. And wasn't it like a five month shoot?
Yeah, something like that.
It was a long shoot. And like you said, I think at least a couple of those months were night shoots, which must have been freezing just uncomfortable.
Yeah, I I think it was pretty hot at the time, but yeah, certainly at night it would have been pretty cold. If you're just walking around wearing metal pants,
like if two months of my life my circadian rhythm was f*****, I'd have been a living hell to be around
in fairness without the outfit choice. That aside.
Yeah. Well, what do you think of the look of He-Man in this then? I know it must have been really uncomfortable for uh Dolph me I'm mates with If we go way back, me and Big D. Yeah.
Right.
Um, what do you think of the look? Because there were a few drafts, a few stages of the development process where they came up with ideas and Mattel poo pooed them and they really wanted it to resemble the cartoon and the toys more.

(08:46):
Right.
I think it it it's quite similar to the toys, but it's slightly different.
And he doesn't have that
the Bob.
The Bob. Yeah. He has a mullet.
He doesn't have that Karen haircut.
Yeah.
Um, what do I think? I don't really know. I think it must have been humiliating for the poor guy.
Yeah. Well, certainly that. But what about the costumes in general?
Pretty uneven.
Yeah,
I'll say that. I It's really hard to say. And again, it's sort of looking back with the benefit of hindsight and comparing it to more modern cinema. Like, we're used to sort of team terms of I I guess the closest comparison would be superheroes these days. And they tend to look like a cohesive unit, whereas none of these characters look like they have even met previously
or were for the same from the same sort of background, planet, whatever.
Yeah.
Yeah. Just wildly inconsistent.
I would say that that's that probably applies to this film in general is wildly inconsistent. Like I said, one of the most uneven movies ever made.
Yeah.
I I think quite actually quite like the costumes in in this film. I think aside from Robert Duncan's tie with his leather jacket
and um James Tolken's big brown leather Mac thing that he's wearing, I think the all of the attorney
Yeah. Pop guy who's from Bats of the Future and Top Gun, the world's blinkiest actor.
Um I I think the costumes are actually quite good and and definitely going back to Skeletor Again, I think his look is absolutely brilliant. I think they nailed that.

(09:07):
I'll agree with that. And Evil Lynn looks pretty cool as well, but then I'm sort of biased because I really like McFar.
No, I mean, I liked Evil Lynn as well.
I'm sure you do.
I I have a bias because she's in, you know, stuff like They Live, which I love.
Oh, all roads lead back to John Carpenter, don't they?
They really do. Yeah. Particularly when you're talking about something from the 1980s.
Yeah.
Um Yeah, Evil Lynn. Big awakening for me when I was a child.
Um,
those eyes, man.
Yeah, piercing piercing eyes, but
super super uneven. Some of the costumes are good. Some of the costumes are terrible under human characters anyway, who I think
are largely unnecessary anyway
and totally forgettable.
Yeah.
Why do we care about her dead parents?
I couldn't tell you. And that's that's part of it that that f**** me off in this movie as well is why are we doing this with the dead parents? Like The fact that you go from Attorneyia at the start of the movie and you get that wonderful big throne room like you say across two studios, multiple levels, marble, big screens in the background like rear projection
the the Skeletor and Evil Lynn and their costumes. Then you go to Earth
and it's a beige kitchen with some Burger King product placement.
It doesn't really compare.
No, it doesn't. And I think the same is the same is with the dialogue. You get the the great stuff of Langela And then the terrible stuff with Dolph's script that he had to say. Dare say that some of it probably was performance, but he his dialogue wasn't very good either. So, you know, try and make that sound good. I don't know how you would do that.

(09:28):
I think even if you go also look at some of the lighting in the film. Okay.
They do quite a lot with practical lighting. Particularly, I think when the uh evil Lynn arrives at Earth, when the mercenaries uh fail their first mission, evil incomes.
They do a bit with like neon lights, the blues and the reds, good and the evil, if you will. You know, it's very subtle stuff going on.
Bisexual lighting.
Yeah. Um, so and a lot of that looks very good. They wanted to really enhance the movie in that way. And I I watched the commentary with
director Gary Godard and he half the movie he was talking about the lighting. So, it was bound to be a point I was going to bring up. But it you really notice it like when Evil Lynn arrives and you got the blues and the reds and the the light bouncing off of the characters and then you go back to that beige kitchen and it's just a horrible flat lighting situation and
possibly somewhat by design because you're trying to convey the the convergence of these two worlds, but it doesn't it still looks s***, you know?
Yeah, I can understand that from a thematic perspective, but it doesn't translate brilliantly in a in a visual way.
Yeah. And I I kind of You know, as as as poorly done as some of it is, I don't think it's anyone's fault really. It's a fact that they ran out of money and they they were on a tight schedule. They were losing light and they came up with practical solutions like put in some practical lighting so we can light up the scene. Um, and then let's completely rewrite the final the final fight because they ran out of money and they couldn't shoot it, right?
They came up with a really good workaround. So,
I don't blame anyone. I think that It's remarkable that say what you like about this film. If you think it's terrible, that's absolutely fine. And I'm not going to fight you on that cuz it's probably objectively not great, but I think it's remarkable that it turned out as good as it did
as coherent as it did. Certainly.
Well, I don't know if I'd go that far, but yeah, just some of it. It just blows my mind with with this particularly the Skeletor stuff and the transport, the ships that they're on. Going back to the Eternal his stuff. Matte paintings, which is something we spoke about in the last episode
and will continue to come up this season.
I didn't think about matte paintings. I suppose it would have been inevitable in a movie from this era, but I didn't think about it in relation to this movie until the very first shot is a matte painting.
Yeah.
And it's just I love it. It's
It's magical.
It is magical. And it fits with this as well because it's that fantasy world based on a cartoon and then you get the credits and then you get the Conti score that kicks in. And I think the score is that's another thing about this. I think the score is absolutely brilliant.
The stuff that's not a direct ripoff of Star Wars. Yeah,
it's it's like a hybrid of Star Wars and Superman.

(09:49):
I'll be honest, that's one of the things I dislike about this movie is some of the Star Wars stuff is particularly egregious. I think some of it because they thought that was a good way to make money.
It would not surprise me if some of those decisions were Golden and Globus because just from the limited amount I know about those two um or even that they maybe overpromised what could be achieved on the the budget they had.
Oh, were they the Cannon guys?
They Yeah, they ran cannon at that point. Um Israeli Cousins, I believe.
Okay.
And they had a pretty successful run for a while.
I feel like I want to watch a documentary about cannon films. One must exist somewhere.
There is one from about a decade ago.
I need to see it.
Yeah, me too. But um yeah, some of the some of the Star Wars ripoff stuff was kind of it sounded like workarounds rather than
uh intentional because you've already mentioned like Mattel were pretty strict about their the conditions that they had. One of which was about the violence.
Obviously, you've already mentioned that, but they specified that um He-Man was not allowed to kill anybody on Skeletor's army stormtroopers, robots,
what they were meant to be. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. They were they were protecting their brand. Like you say, they didn't want He-Man to kill or injure any living creatures.
Yeah.
Which I I don't think is that uncommon cuz I know Apple are like notorious for
never letting bad characters in TV and film use one of their phones or products. which is potentially a real spoiler for movies.
Yeah, it is. It is. Specifically this uh season of The White Lotus.
I hadn't thought about it. Okay, I will now.
Yeah, definitely. Like you say, it was that was a workaround to have He-Man not kill anyone.

(10:10):
Mhm.
But I mean, there's a way to You don't have to do it exactly the same as Star Wars, do you?
They were black stormtroopers.
Yeah.
Oh, they're not They're not storm troopers. Why are they look like storm troopers. No, they're black and their heads are slightly bigger.
The helmet's like not quite the same shape.
Yeah.
Yeah, I do think they look cool, but it's it's definitely derivative of Star Wars. Like there's no denying that. And I think actually one of the taglines for this movie during its short marketing run,
it's this year's Star Wars.
It's the Star Wars of the 80s, which blows my mind because there were movies Star Wars movies out in the 80s.
Where was Jedi out? like 83 or something.
That's a really bold choice to use that.
Yeah, it was
loud and wrong.
Yeah, but the score definitely is the main part of of the sound and the score of this movie is somewhat derivative of Star Wars and Superman, but that doesn't mean that I don't like it.
The first half certainly, it sort of seems to change a little bit around the halfway mark.
There's a lot of score in this. There's and I think
is the score of this film. is something that I think about all of the time. Is it?
Yeah, it really is.
This is your Roman Empire.
What's he thinking about? Bill Conti, Master of the Universe 1987 score. Absolutely it is.

(10:31):
Uh yeah, something I think about quite a lot. And I think Ki is one of the greats.
He obviously Rocky is the big one that he's known for.
Yeah.
Karate Kid, which is another one of my favorites.
And also Masters of the Universe. But he um I think he he worked very hard on this and there's lots of cues and lots of different themes for everybody used throughout at different points to conjure up different feelings and
yeah
to kind of move the story along and serve as context. And I think it really works. I don't think this movie is as successful
to me um without that score. I think the score is something that re always enhances a picture but in this case I think is particularly important. And was it a couple of months ago when I insisted I I procured a a copy a DVD copy of Bushwacked?
Yeah.
From eBay. And uh you hadn't seen it. I hadn't. I was like, "Well, you have to watch this."
There was a gaping hole in my Daniel Stern knowledge.
Yeah.
But there was there was a part in it where the score went and I went, "Hm, that sounds like a cue from Masters of the did a verse. I looked it up. Sure be it. Bill Conty did the score.
Of course.
And like you're always the accent person. You can always pull out people's accents.
You're the score guy.
I'm the score guy. Even if I don't know what it is, like I've definitely heard that somewhere. But that particular one, that's one. That's one that is playing in my head once a week.
Um, and I guess because I watched it so much as a kid and it's just kind of in there. I mean, obviously I would have been going around with my hands in the air saying I have the power and then after that going
when you weren't pretending to be Robocop, of course.
Yeah. Turning my body before my head. Yeah.
Which you definitely don't still do.

(10:52):
I definitely not I don't know. I don't I don't do that.
I have a question for you.
Okay.
How long is 61 Chrommons? Because that's how long it is until moonrise about halfway through this film. So, I'm just wondering what the the kind of the timing is of this movie. How long is 61 Chrommons, do you think? Assuming this is all in real time.
Yeah.
About 32 minutes. I have no idea. I don't know.
Yeah. I don't know.
A chrome on. Yeah, we we did briefly discussed that when the film was on.
Yeah, we did.
I love it when movies just invent their own measurements.
Yeah, they they said a thing as well. They said a term something parseek eon and I googled that and that is actually a real thing like like measuring
with a distance in terms of va well vast distances you know like over a 100 miles.
Yeah.
Yeah. So that that was real but maybe cromons is real. I don't know. Someone write in. Don't write in.
We could Google it.
We could I did Google it.
I think a chrom is um a type of donut.
What flavor donut is it?
Um maple bacon.
Okay. Bacon flavored donut.
Yeah. That's bold.

(11:13):
Maple bacon. That goes.
Okay.
I would eat that if it was vegan bacon.
I was on Deliveroo the other day and I did see a a donut burger.
Oh, no. That might be pushing it.
Yeah, I agree.
Did it have pickles on it?
I don't know. Maybe.
No. Veto.
Yeah, it sounded weird. It was a bit too weird for my kind of taste buds. I've got a I've got another question for you.
Mhm.
So, Guildor MVP If you say so.
Genius, inventor, locksmith,
yeah,
can't remember noises.
No,
there's the part in a film where the cosmic key, which I'll go back. Actually, another good thing about this is props, or that particular prop, I think, is iconic.
I think there were a few of them.
Yeah,
cuz they kept breaking,
right? There was a lot of moving parts, so that would make sense.

(11:34):
I had to have people on set to fix them every time they broke. Um, so at some point there are two cosmic keys. There's the one that Skeletor has and there's the prototype that Guildor has.
Yeah.
The one that Guildor has gets damaged and he says, "Well, we can't get back home now because the it's erased the tones. We're f*****. We can't go anywhere." And the tones determine what point in the universe you you land in.
Mhm.
And the tones are always d wherever you want to go.
Yeah.
You go from Eternia to Earth, the tones are D. And if you want to go from Earth to Eternia, the tones are D. So, are they the only tones that exist and you have to think where you want to go?
And why didn't you remember those tones?
I think it's possible that I'm overthinking this.
Oh, for certain.
But there is also a line of dialogue where Guildor says to Paris from Star Trek, "You're a song maker.
Are you a master song maker? We have song makers on my planet. Well, how does that work then? Because if your race can't remember tones, how do you have f****** song makers?
It's all just jazz. It's all freestyle jazz.
No, it probably f****** is jazz, isn't it? And Gord's planet.
They never have to remember it cuz it's different every time.
Yeah,
free form. Oh, I've got a question also.
Go on.
Um, they talk at length about not being able to track the keys, but then all of a sudden they can track the keys.
That's a very good point. The first half of this movie, Skeletor, Evil Lynn, the mercenaries, find the key. Where is the key? Courtney Cox, have you seen the key? No, it looks like this. Oh, yeah, I have seen it. Um, Paris, where is the key? I'm not telling you. I put this collar on. Oh, well, this Well, I can't say where it is, but the policeman took it from Top Gun. You might have seen Top Gun. He's the guy that blinks a lot.
It was pretty big.

(11:55):
Yeah. It's pretty big. Maybe they'll make a sequel one day. I don't know. Um, yeah, you're you're absolutely right. They put the collar on Paris. Where's the key? I don't know. But a policeman took it and they go, "hm, we should be able to track it from the air."
Yeah. Why? Why now?
So, this whole thing was unnecess if you can track it from the air. Why couldn't you just get to Earth and just track it from the air?
Yeah. Why weren't you already doing that half an hour ago? Yeah.
Or 0.61 kry points ago. Sorry. They spent way too many chrommons trying to find this key by asking people when they should have just tracked it from the air from
not made of chrommons.
Come on.
Cromons is money.
Put that on a t-shirt.
Yeah,
it's our first merch drop.
I was going to say if we did any merch then that would absolutely be the first thing we did. Another thing that struck me as odd. Right. There's another good interesting prop, something that e evil Lynn has. There's that part in at the middle of the movie when Mega Foster goes to Earth to try and write the the mistakes of the mercenaries and try and track the key before they track it from the air. But she's got that really interesting bit of kit where she just holds that screen up and she can see the past.
So, do you see where I'm going with this?
I do.
Why don't you just follow the key? Well, why don't you just follow those people? I don't know.
Julie's a f****** melt.
Julie's an idiot. hat.
Her dad I mean her parents are dead, right? The reason that her parents are dead in this movie is so that she can think that her mom is alive all of a sudden.
Her mom who's actually Chris Pine's mom
in real life.
In real life.

(12:16):
Really?
Yes.
Oh, Lady Pine.
Yeah.
Mrs. Lady Pine. Yeah.
All right. I didn't That's interesting. I didn't know that. Yeah. There's that weird scene, isn't there, where Evil Lynn is impersonating her dead mom.
Yeah. and she says, "I'm really sorry we had to fake our deaths because we're spies or something equal to that."
And she's like, "All right, then.
This is not little Nikita." Like, "What the f*** was that subplot about?"
Weird.
She's an idiot.
Yeah. It's It didn't make any sense. It was stupid. And that's one of the things that I just That's one of the things that this movie could have been great. It could have been genuinely great.
And even though I love it and It's very important to me and I enjoy watching it still now. I'll still put this on all the time. It just says things like that you're like why? Like why couldn't we have been a bit smarter with the writing?
I think for me that's part of the enjoyment though. Like 50% of this movie
they clearly went to great pains to get right and then the other 50% of the movie just felt like they were going close enough.
Yeah,
that'll do.
Yeah.
Like the f****** Tesla spacecraft that's silent.
Yeah. Love that bit. She's like, "It's it's literally behind you." Pantomime moment.
Yeah.

(12:37):
Oh, it's behind you.
That was um when Skeleosaur appears on Earth and he does his speech at I was going to say Superman at He-Man.
He uh that was his first day of shooting Ledger, I think.
Was it?
Yeah.
Yeah. That's just after the um the hoverboard sequence, isn't it? Which is definitely not riffing on Back to the Future cuz this is a totally original concept. Absolutely. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, I do love Skeletor. I think that scene's great as well. I just feel like as a child, Skeletor was definitely a theater kid.
Yeah,
he's so big.
Yeah.
I wonder if if I mean, I don't I don't know who else could have played this role, this skeletal role at that time,
but I couldn't think of anyone that could have done it better back then. We've already spoken about Angela and his kind of enthusiasm for the role. He I think interestingly we spoke about uh Dolph Lungren's lack of clothing.
Mhm.
And um his exposed body iness from from what I heard Langela actually wanted
more skin on show. He apparently he was quite buff at the time and was like oh and and you go back and you look at the the cartoon Skeletor has like a skin tight suit on and he's quite uh he's quite jacked as well
for a skeleton. Yeah.
Come on. Doesn't make any sense. It doesn't. It really doesn't. But apparently that's what Langela wanted apparently. And he was kind of a bit disappointed when he got more a more sort of gown situation. But I think the the final look ended up brilliant. I think the look of him is is really great and scary for a child.
Yeah. The only thing that bothers me, so his face is a skeleton and you can sort of see the indentations where the teeth would be that go into his cheek, but he's also got teeth in his mouth.
Yeah.
It doesn't make any sense. Explain it to me. I mean, I didn't notice that. That's not something I was looking at. Well, not until you pointed it out anyway. So, thank you for ruining one of my favorite movies.
You're welcome.
Well, that's not something I saw. But yeah, but again, just going back to how on the one hand brilliantly made it is, and on the other hand, how unusual it is and not terribly great in some places. And I think a good example of that is the final fight. I enjoy the the final fight. I I do I think it's I think it's for me built up enough goodwill and I think it's good enough. I I I think now that I know the story behind it, I can see the I can see how kind of tacked on it feels.

(12:58):
Does it change your opinion knowing that it wasn't actually Langela?
No.
No. It Does it change yours
a little bit? Maybe.
I think I don't know. I I just kind of assume that whenever there's a an A-list actor in a role and there's a fight scene, it's not usually them. Even if they say it is, it's probably not unless it's Kiana Reeves. And obviously, we touched on it earlier, but they at that point when it come came to shooting the final battle sequence, their aim was to do one of the greatest sword showdowns of all time across multiple levels, across this really interesting set, this throne room. And because they ran out of money, they just didn't have the time to do that. They literally said to Godard, "You've got one day."
Oh my god.
You've got one day to shoot as much as you can.
And he he shot as much as he could.
And then I think he managed to convince some people to come back a few months later to shoot more of the fight.
Okay.
Anthony the longest stepped in for Frank Langela. I guess Langela was probably on another project by that point. And they managed to shoot what ended up being the final sequence. Now a work a really genius workarounds that Godard came up with is when they clashed Skeletor's staff with He-Man's sword, the power went out,
right?
And then that's how they got around the I'm guessing by that point maybe they weren't on that big set anymore.
Ah, okay. Yeah.
So, they had to shut the lights off. They filled the room with smoke and then put some red lights on and then it's just close-ups of Dolph Lungren swinging his sword around.
I've got another question.
He-Man's famous for his sword, not a euphemism. But he uses a gun.
He does. He He does love a laser in this.
Why has he got a gun in this? And also, what are the guns powered by?
Lasers.
They're laser guns. What are any laser guns powered by? Is this the first time you're questioning laser guns?

(13:19):
Do they have to plug them in and recharge them every now and again?
I expect so. Yeah.
Plugged in at the point next to Langella's spaceship.
Gary, you got a USB? My laser's run out. It's got 5%. I feel I've got about 31 chrommons left on it.
That's not what a chroma is, Dan.
Yeah, but I I don't know. I think the the work around they came up with I think works well enough. I now as an adult, I can see the joins in it. But I still think it's quite good. I think he was god the director was very creative with the workound and what he was given. I think he did his absolute best and I quite like it. I still like that end sequence. I still find it entertaining enough.
I think there's been enough action at that point.
Yeah,
I don't really want it to go on much longer. I think the very like the wrap-up scenes I could do without
I was going to say, how do you feel about like this the silly Julie happy ending wearing I don't know like a 60-year-old woman's night gown?
Yeah. No, I hate it. But I hate the I hate those characters in general, the Kevin and the Julie characters.
They're just a bit dull.
They're just nothing and they're completely unnecessary.
Yeah.
I just feel like
a song maker.
He served a purpose.
Yeah. He was in that van, remember? He was playing that living in a box jet.
Two two real songs in this, by the way.
Yeah.
Living in a box

(13:40):
and
Purple Haze.
Oh,
what?
Yeah.
We can't afford to shoot a final action sequence, but we bought the rights to Purple Haze for some reason.
There was some imaginative accounting done on this movie. movie.
It's nuts. It's so But that's just going back to the just It's so uneven. Like the purple I don't know what you pay for Purple Haze in 1987, but it can't have been cheap.
No,
it's just a weird choice.
Agreed. Agreed.
So, at this point, I had kind of planned to ask you, who would you cast in a reboot?
Okay.
But there is going to be a reboot.
Yes. Next year. 26 is slated for release.
How do you feel about that?
I'm pretty am I excited?
I think on the basis of this movie, I'm kind of excited having expressed my love for it. But in all reality, it's probably going to be a bland CGI fest generic piece of s***.
Potentially. Potentially. I think um yeah, it does sort of depend on what tone they're going to shoot for.
Yeah, I think it has the potential to be good. And like all things things do, but my cynical brain is I just I don't want the CGI. One of the things I love about this is the practical solutions they came up for the costumes and the props and the designs. And you Yeah. Okay. We can't have battlecat in this, but we can get a weird little guild war creature in it who looked great. Despite
rather battlecat,

(14:01):
they had a cow in the forest. Remember?
That's true.
For some reason, they had a cow in a forest
next to a fast food restaurant.
Don't question it. Just don't question it.
Yeah.
Um, do you think the right-wingers are going to boycott this movie?
Why?
On account of He-Man's name being a pronoun and his gender?
I never I I never use pronouns. Uh, yeah, I think um, let's not get started on the the politics because we'll be here all night. But it is interesting. What do they What do they call He-Man then? What do they call Sheirro? What do they call f******
gestures vaguely?
Yeah.
But yeah, I do think there's potential in a reboot.
Definitely.
But I would very much like them to go in a sort of camp comedy direction. I think that's what this property needs. If they go too pfaced, it's going to suck. Calling it now.
I think they're they're going to go for the superhero kind of situation, aren't they? Where there's big action set pieces with some quips. It's It's going to be I I would love it to be more than that and have more character and it could be great. I don't know. I I'm pretty encouraged by the cast and the cast is
the cast looks pretty good.
Who's he ma'am?
I don't know the
say Glenn Powell.
I can't deal with it.

(14:22):
Yeah, it's um an actor that I'm not familiar with, but he's called Nicholas Galitzine.
Oh, I think he's English.
Oh, okay.
Oh, no. I don't see that. No, I don't. I don't care for that.
Okay.
Unless he doubles in size between now and then.
Definitely not with steroids. Definitely not. He's just going to eat loads of chicken.
Yeah. He's going to eat clean and hire Chris Hemsworth's personal trainer.
Yeah. Who's also not on steroids.
Yeah.
But looking at the other cast members, Miranda Bacharin as sorceress.
Yeah, I like that.
Allison Brie as Evil Lynn. I think that's brilliant casting.
Yeah, I like Allison Brie. I'm struggling to see that if I'm honest. But I do like her. I have faith.
Okay. Idris Ela Man at Arms.
Oh, I like that.
Me too. I think I think that's the first one that I heard actually and was like that's really that gruff weathered seen some action
really uh has the presence and the gravitas uh to be like a really strong supporting character.
Yeah. Doesn't look like he's wandered off the set of Dad's Army.
Odd choice.
Yeah. Always follow your nose.

(14:43):
Yeah.
Um, do you know who's playing Skeletor?
No.
Oh, no. I do. I do. Oh, no. No. It's Jared Leto, isn't it?
Yeah.
Oh, no. No. My hope for this film is just dimmed.
That's the one thing that disappoints me. What? The first point being, why are we casting Jared Leto in stuff even even though the movies that he's in are mostly f****** flops? What into the last lately like a movie that's done well MorbiiUS which shatter the bed
um the the the
I don't know I can't f****** name another
the others that were clearly really memorable.
Yeah, but he's he seems like he's a terrible person.
Yeah,
he's I don't enjoy his acting. Not Is he good in anything?
He can be. He can be but like
Panic Room I quite liked him in
20 years ago.
He hasn't been panic Room Jared. for 20 years now. He's House of Gucci. Jared Leto,
that's the movie I was trying to think of.
We just We're done. I'm done.
But we're still casting him. We're putting him in Tron 3.
No. Close the door on that man.

(15:04):
I know. The only thing that I can think of is cuz he's he's in that band, isn't he? He has a band.
Yeah.
And I'm assuming that they have a lot of fans and a big big online following.
I can only imagine that that's why he keeps getting cast in things even though he started a cult. and he didn't know that COVID was happening for all that time. He's still getting cast in. I don't get it. On the plus side, he'll be behind a bunch of makeup in this. So, there is that.
Yeah. But like when I think of Jared Leto as a villain, I think of Suicide Squad.
Oh.
And how much he stunk up that movie. I mean, it was bad movie anyway.
It's a terrible movie and he was the worst part of it.
Yeah. Which is saying something.
Yeah.
Um, so I Yikes.
Who do we swap Letto out for in in the reboot? Let's let's not go through the whole cast, but who could we speculate on for Skeletor in this? I
Glenn Pow.
Yeah. Bring back Lungren. Make him Skeletor.
Oh, I don't know who's quite who's like a lean actor that that could for some reason my mind went to McConn.
I don't love it.
I'm annoys me.
All right. All right. All right. What about um Robert Patterson?
Oh yeah. Okay.
Okay. There you go.
Yeah. He's fun. He's fun as hell. He would have so much fun with that role.

(15:25):
I' I've found out the answer.
Go on.
It's Nicholas Cage.
Yeah. All right. You win.
He's good at playing skeletons.
Yeah. Is he?
Yeah.
Okay. Yeah. All right. That's the Unless you've got a better answer. I think that's
There isn't a better answer. I agree. But I'd cast him in anything. What else is there left to say about this magnificent movie that we haven't said already?
Um, don't say goodbye. Say good journey.
Good journey. Say good journey and do a hand gesture, but you can make up the hand gesture.
Yeah, it can it can change.
Sometimes they like wave their hand across their forehead. Sometimes they just hold their palm out. I mean, sometimes they fist bump and say, "Good journey."
Sometimes they got a finger up the ass and they say, "Good journey." Doesn't matter. You just do whatever you want. Change it on a whim.
That's the beauty of it. We're Italians. We're pretty flexible, man. We can do whatever we like. And we're not going to judge you for it.
Mhm.
Good journey.
But get consent first.
Always get consent for. I think He-Man would be a big get consent person.
I reckon so. Yeah.
Yeah. He's a very um

(15:46):
Is he woke?
Wholesome character? And I would like to think he's quite woke. Yeah.
Yeah.
I was really excited to watch this film. I was dead excited to receive that lovely 88 films copy that that we got. I will watch this continue to watch this very often. I'm thrilled that we've gotten to speak about it. I'm assuming that you've never covered it before. No,
because it's not obviously it's not a horror movie. Um despite it having some horrific elements.
Um
not in the traditional sense.
Did you ever envision yourself having a discussion about Masters of the Universe?
Um no, probably not. But I'm really glad we Good.
I Me, too. I'm I I was desperate to cover this at some point. I think it was always something I was going to get to. This felt like the right place in Fox. It's We've spoken about it being a massive disappointment in the box office and we speculated on some of the reasons that may have been.
Mhm.
Um I don't know what other theme I could have gotten this into really. Dolph Lungren, if we could do a Dol
I'm not doing an entire season of Dolph Lungren.
We could do the Baller. No way.
Universal Soldier. And he's probably done other movies.
If you say The Punisher, there's probably about three movies that people think of before the Dolph Longren one,
including War Zone. Yes.
Which is underrated.
Was it very Stevenson?
Yeah.
Yeah. Exactly.

(16:07):
Great movie that is.
It is. Yeah. Directed by a woman.
Yeah.
Um Yeah. I I think this movie's toilet,
but I genuinely love it a lot, and I think it's a really really fun time.
Um and I hope Guildor burns in hell. Oh, you're so hard on my guy.
My guy.
Billy Barty, innocent. Completely innocent. Guildor Horrific.
73 in this movie, by the way.
He was Look,
and they're shoving him in the river. Head first in a river.
Yeah, he was a He was a good sport.
Yeah.
But whoever created that mask to like jail 10,000 years dungeon.
So, I'm thinking of Halloween.
No way.
Costumes.
No. If you're Gildor, I'll be He-Man.
Evil Lynn and Skeletor.
Which one's which though?
I'll be Evil Lynn. Let's swap it up.

(16:28):
Okay. And I'll have two sets of teeth.
Yeah. Yeah. And start shouting Shakespearean lines at me.
However,
we're moving on.
Yeah. Sadly, we're our discussion of Masters of Universe must come to an end at some point. And uh we're moving on to episode three of Flops next week. Mhm.
Back to my choice.
Back to you. So, please, please tell us what we're going to be talking about next week.
All I'll say is damn the man, save the empire.
Oh, no. Go on. What is it? It's Empire Records. Yeah, of course. Join us for Rex Manning Day.