EPISODE 120 - Masters of the Universe

[taylor anne photo 11311]

I haven't listened to this episode yet because as soon as I saw a certain name I ran here just to scream...

 

TATIANAAA!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Smigg 1488]

The story of Dolph Ludgren's accent in Masters of the Universe was actually parodied in an episode of Metalocalypse.

 

Dethklok sign on to film a movie named "Blood Ocean" and the band's Swedish guitarist, Skwisgaar Skwigelf's accent is so thick, it makes his lines absolutely unintellegable, forcing the producers to dub his lines in post production.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-byEO6DlrTE

[Herself 107]

Yay, original theme!!!!!!!!

[Scary_Mirage 32]

Hi, I'm a longtime listener, firsttime poster. Thanks for the commentary on the film!

 

I don't understand why Paul said in both the prologue and episode that this movie has been unavailable for a long time. It was released on every major home video format: VHS, Betmax, Laserdisc, DVD, and Blu-Ray. The BR was released in 2013 for the 25th anniversary. In previous episodes Paul and company mention buying used DVDs and Blu-Rays, not just streaming/downloading options. I wonder if physical media is now dead to him?

 

I don't have any issues following this story. Eternia and Castle Greyskull are at the center of the universe and is a nexus for its energy. If Skeletor possesses the castle when the moon is at its zenith, he will be able to get that power and become Master of the Universe.

 

It's said that if He-Man and friends use the key and disturb the gravitional tones, Skeletor's key will locate them (the other key.) I take this to mean that Skeletor gets a lock on the key's current position when it was used only. Likewise, Gwildor needs to punch in a lot of keys to open a door back to Eternia; Evil-Lyn only really needs to press any key to signal to Skeletor where she is.

 

According to the director's commentary, Orko and Battlecat would have been impossible to do well since this film was before the era of CG. Gwildor was invented as a subtitute for Orko.

 

I notice many critize the film for Skeletor's robot troops. Actually, Skeletor does use robot troops in the original cartoon!

[jacobjpierce 0]

I can't believe that no one talked about whether or not the Dark Troopers were robots?!? Every time He-Man hit them with his sword, sparks flew out. We might be able to say that the sparks are from the sword hitting the metal.

 

If they were not robots then we get into a whole other issue I have with most sci fi movies. Characters tend to wear armor for no reason at all. These troops wore armor but they were no protection for sword strikes or blaster fire. Same deal with the storm troopers. Why are they wearing the armor?!? The laser blasts go right through it. If it allowed you to take several blasts then I could see it making sense. Having people wear armor purely for aesthetics is dumb.

[Nerd Paragon 6]

I had to sign up for an Earwolf account because I wanted to make sure this gets mentioned:

 

Recall during the scene in which Grilldoor (Gwildor?), Teela(?), and her Dad (Man-at-Arms) have stolen and are eating the barbeque ribs. Teela and Gwildor have no idea what the food they are eating is, in fact, they don't even seem to have a conception of what meat is, and are appaled to find that they are eating animal tissue. Man-at-Arms, on the other hand, casually identifies that they are eating ribs directly off the bone. Given that what we see of Etenia is largely a barren wastland without much lower animal life (recall their confusion over the cow) and Man-at-Arms statement that in times of war you eat whatever you can, then I am forced to conclude that Man-at-Arms has, in the past, consumed other sentient beings or perhaps even human beings.

 

Also, I loved that Jason recognized Living in a Box which, by the way, was released by the band 'Living in a Box.' That's right, the song is eponymous. I wish more bands were named after their hit song or vice versa. Depeche Mode could have been called 'Enjoy the Silence' or if there was a song named 'Radiohead.'

[talkhard42 10]

In addition to the Masters of the Universe sequel, Cannon Films also had the rights to Marvel's Spider-Man at the time. Director Albert Pyun was set up to do the Masters sequel and their Spider-Man movie, but financial troubles caused those projects to fall through and Cannon to lose the Spider-Man rights. Pre-production was already going on both films and Cannon/Albert Pyun ended up using all of the sets, props, and costumes from these two failed films to make Pyun's film Cyborg staring Jean-Claude Van Damme.

 

Also, I highly recommend checking out the Cannon Films documentary Electric Boogaloo. Not only do you get to see background on the crazy films they made, but their more highbrow work like the Charles Bukowski penned Barfly, Norman Mailer's Tough Guys Don't Dance, and Franco Zeffirelli's Othello. One of my favorite stories from the doc is after the two cousins Golan and Globus had parted ways, they both sensed the Lambada dancing craze sweeping the nation and raced to get their Lambada picture into theaters first. They ended up releasing their competing pictures (Lambada and The Forbidden Dance) on the same day, so whatever audience there might have been was split in half and neither film was successful.

 

Great episode! I really enjoyed it.

[Scary_Mirage 32]

Skeletor's crack troops are definitely robots. A few of them speak, all with the same robotic voice.

 

I do like Nerd Paragon's theory, but we only see one area of Eternia, the desert immediately surrounding Greyskull (aka California desert?). We don't even see the city that Skeletor teleported into and attacked! So it's probably safe to assume there are other biodomes and lifeforms on the planet. Had the film received a budget of say, $30 mil instead of $17 mil we would have seen Snake Mountain and other locations on Eternia. Moving the action to Earth was done to save money.

 

Funnily, Paul and company mention the musical score of Bill Conti (who also did the Rocky and Karate Kid series) ripping off Star Wars, but I thought it sounded more like Superman. But yes indeed, the film heavily borrows a lot from Star Wars, much due to its budget restrictions. Though Skeletor falling into the lava pits of Greyskull seems too similar to Emperor Palpatine's death in Return of the Jedi.

[Lukas Holmes 2287]

 

You guys don't think He-Man is strong? He is definitely strong. He pushed over a statue.

 

 

You made me laugh super hard.

[PlanBFromOuterSpace 3138]

 

Also, I loved that Jason recognized Living in a Box which, by the way, was released by the band 'Living in a Box.' That's right, the song is eponymous. I wish more bands were named after their hit song or vice versa. Depeche Mode could have been called 'Enjoy the Silence' or if there was a song named 'Radiohead.'

I was like 8 or 9 when this came out, and I remember "Living In A Box" being in it kind of blowing my mind, because it may have been the first case that I personally remember of an actual kind of current song that I was familiar with being used in a movie that wasn't specifically MADE for the movie. For instance, it had been out for a while and the video was JUST a video, not something that was cut with scenes of the film. That was the heyday of that shit with Kenny Loggins, El Debarge, and Peter Cetera all killin' it on the soundtrack scene.

[Lukas Holmes 2287]

I'm not going to say Dolph Lundgren didn't have an accent. However, to think that he was speaking "phonetic English," is just ignorant. Swedes start learning English in elementary school as a required language. As mentioned, he's highly educated (he didn't study at MIT) and went to universities in America and Australia, and given those two countries don't speak anything other than English, guess which language he studied in! So, sure he has an accent. Is it phonetic English? No. I'd guess he speaks better English than most Americans.

 

Sorry to vent, but funk all dat!

 

Thanks,

Angry Swede

 

After what he did to the Sklar Brothers, I hope no show ever gets a fact about him right.

[shaquillemacneil 17]

Questions:

 

If Courtney Cox's parents died in a plane crash, why is she so desperate to get out of town BY PLANE? Shouldn't she be all PTSD at the mere mention of a plane rather than desperate to get on one?

 

Also...

 

Is "Monica", Courtney Cox's co-worker at the rib and chicken place, the real hero of the movie? In her brief appearance, she offers Cox some advice (probably related to why she shouldn't worry about her plane crashing), she takes a big bite of chicken, they hug. When they hug, Monica the co-worker doesn't have the common courtesy to put down her drumstick! She's holding it the entire time, presumably smearing that delicious 11 herb grease all up in Courtney's hair. Since this movie made it impossible to root for the obvious protagonist, He-Man, by not including him in 60% of the movie, I'm standing by my assertion that the person who gets chicken grease all over the people she hugs is the real hero.

[PlanBFromOuterSpace 3138]

This episode makes me really, really, really wish that they'd do "Krull". It could have been a nice double feature.

[pogues 18]

What's crazy is that the castle they are in is actually Greyskull, the castle that the Sorcress lives in. I don't know why she had so many evil looking skull motiffs all around because it really does look like it should be Skeletor's castle.

 

Jason's comment about Skeletor looking like Jack Palace had me almost crying. The whole time I kept thinking he looked like someone else haha.

 

The plot of the movie is fairly bland and is just covered in one monologue by Skeletor. Basically he got the key from Grilldor and used it to teleport his soldiers inside Greyskull and quickly took it over. He was going to inherit the cosmic power from the Sorceress when the Eye opened at moonrise (why it opens then isn't said). That's the basic plot. He never mentions that he needs He-man for any of this so I'm not sure why he didn't just kill him when he had him chained up.

[danpinto 17]

Does Paul know about ListenToAMovie?

 

www.listentoamovie.com

 

It's a site where you just listen to movies in their entirety. Maybe up his alley.

[Cockney Mackem 514]

Hi, I'm a longtime listener, firsttime poster. Thanks for the commentary on the film!

 

I don't understand why Paul said in both the prologue and episode that this movie has been unavailable for a long time. It was released on every major home video format: VHS, Betmax, Laserdisc, DVD, and Blu-Ray. The BR was released in 2013 for the 25th anniversary. In previous episodes Paul and company mention buying used DVDs and Blu-Rays, not just streaming/downloading options. I wonder if physical media is now dead to him?

 

I don't have any issues following this story. Eternia and Castle Greyskull are at the center of the universe and is a nexus for its energy. If Skeletor possesses the castle when the moon is at its zenith, he will be able to get that power and become Master of the Universe.

 

It's said that if He-Man and friends use the key and disturb the gravitional tones, Skeletor's key will locate them (the other key.) I take this to mean that Skeletor gets a lock on the key's current position when it was used only. Likewise, Gwildor needs to punch in a lot of keys to open a door back to Eternia; Evil-Lyn only really needs to press any key to signal to Skeletor where she is.

 

According to the director's commentary, Orko and Battlecat would have been impossible to do well since this film was before the era of CG. Gwildor was invented as a subtitute for Orko.

 

I notice many critize the film for Skeletor's robot troops. Actually, Skeletor does use robot troops in the original cartoon!

 

I get what you're saying about CG but people in furry costumes would have been perfectly in keeping with everything else that happened in this film.

[RikkiHo 84]

 

You made me laugh super hard.

 

Especially since pushing over the statue was pretty much pointless. Some crack soldiers that were sort of near the statue fell down. That's it.

 

I also loved He-Man prematurely reacting to the laser whip. He would wince a good 2 seconds before impact.

[capsaicin 0]

Tatiana's a great guest so far

[Scary_Mirage 32]

Why doesn't Skeletor kill He-Man while he's chained up? Maybe because he's secretly in love with He-Man!

 

http://www.buzzfeed.com/adambvary/masters-of-the-universe-a-tragic-gay-love-story#.qtjYDxpbz

[Username Smith 6]

Hi,

I just want to point out that the actresses that plays the sorceress also plays courteney cox's

 

Mother on FRIENDS. What does this have to to with the movie? Nothing really,

 

which is what the film Masters Of the Universe has to do with the actual He-Man lore. Also I think if

 

you just assume that Gwildor has alzheimer's dementia every thing he does make sense.

 

This is one of my favorite episode of H.D.T.G.M. to date!! I was both entertained and frustrated that the lack of HE-Man knowledge. was totally yelling out at the podcast!

[taylor anne photo 11311]

Damn y'all this was an amazing episode!

 

I'm gonna be pretty useless this week since Tatiana.

 

That's it. That's my reason.

[CPiz 232]

Hi Guys,

 

Thank you for another great show!

 

One quick clarification (this is all from Wikipedia, so take it with a grain of salt): Dolph Lundgren actually never graduated from MIT. He DOES have an extensive education, getting degrees in chemistry from Washington State University, chemical engineering from the the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, and a master's in chemical engineering from the University of Sydney.

 

We WAS awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to MIT and was all set to go, but while working as a bouncer in Sydney, he was hired to be Grace Jones' bodyguard, which turned into a romantic relationship. He then decided to move to New York with Jones. There he pursued modeling and acting while working as a bouncer at the Limelight. In New York in the early 80s he hung out at Studio 54 with the likes of Andy Warhol and Iman.

 

Wikipedia and Yahoo Biography say he went to MIT for two weeks before dropping out to pursue acting full time.

 

Again, another great episode. I can't wait to hear what you guys do next.

[MajellaPedersen 0]

This might have been shared already but cracked wrote an article that seems inspired by the podcast. http://www.cracked.com/article_23130_6-true-stories-that-explain-why-famously-bad-movies-sucked.html. Loved the show with Tatiana even though watching the trailer was enough for me.

[ChunkStyle 1160]

I was a little surprised there was no mention of Teela's 4th wall breaking "Woman At Arms" joke. Just imagine how great this movie could be if Skeletor was giving asides into the camera.

[PlanBFromOuterSpace 3138]

This might have been shared already but cracked wrote an article that seems inspired by the podcast. http://www.cracked.c...es-sucked.html. Loved the show with Tatiana even though watching the trailer was enough for me. :)/>

Judging by the article, it just seems based on that video that was also posted in last week's mini ep thread. My "Street Fighter" comments are currently tearing it up on their Facebook feed. All I basically said was that their slowly dying leading man was actually the least of THAT film's problems...