EPISODE 120 - Masters of the Universe

[Bomtron 1]

I just finished listening to the "Masters" episode and it jogged my memory on a key character in the movie. As a kid I remember being confused that the court magician, Orko from the animated series, was dropped in favor of the lesser and completely unrelated Gwildor. I never understood why they replaced one of the most well known characters with this gnome guy. It turns out that, obviously, Orko would have posed some very difficult technical and financial challenges because the cartoon version has no face and no legs. He's just a hat, eyes, scarf and shirt floating around. I suppose this is a satisfactory answer to the replacement of Orko, but it doesn't explain why they decided to replace him with Gwildor. I suppose it gave them the opportunity to sell a new character's toy to children.

 

Also, I remember listening to a recording of Revenge of the Nerds on audio cassette that my cousin made when I was a kid. Was it sad or clever?

[DanEngler 5249]

I am 100% in favor of the gang writing and starring in a sequel to Masters of The Universe BUT ONLY IF the plot revolves around a quest to save Gwildor's people from disaster, and He-Mantzoukas greets them by saying "What's up, Gwildos!"

[WEdidITagain 458]

June's dad suffers from face blindness, guys.

[pscudese 701]

Damn! June bringing the heat!

[Cockney Mackem 514]

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

 

TATIANAAA!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

[pscudese 701]

By and far this is one of the best episodes. When are we gonna see some gifs of june's face on cicilian's body in sunshine?

[Protoman 117]

 

Murphy is pretty feminine-looking in the movie

[SlidePocket 707]

 

and wasn't Kirstie Alley great in this.

 

 

That was not Kirstie Alley as Evil-Lyn, that's Meg Foster of "They Live" fame.

[jarrycanada 2483]

 

That was not Kirstie Alley as Evil-Lyn, that's Meg Foster of "They Live" fame.

 

I know, I was being a smartass. but when I did watch the movie the other night it did make me look her up to check if it was Kirstie Alley. because i would of sworn it was her.

[jarrycanada 2483]

 

Murphy is pretty feminine-looking in the movie

 

someone had to do it. LOL

 

 

he really looks like june here,

[klemjohansen 748]

Anybody else notice that the warehouse from the battle scene has a neon sign out front that says PIZZA backwards? Was the warehouse specifically designed to store pizza toppings?

 

It was a real missed opportunity to raise the stakes a little. A laser blast causes a box of toppings to explode. "Not the pepperoni! Pepperoni is my favorite!"

[klemjohansen 748]

Other random-ish thoughts about this incredible movie:

 

At 33 minutes in, how did the microphone stand catch fire? Was it a wooden microphone stand?

 

The little monster commander guy was everybody's favorite. Between his hair and Dolf's, they could have called this Mullets of the Universe.

 

What teenager looks at a cylindrical device found in a cemetery and doesn't instantly think "oh, a bong!" Actually, The Key is really the Stanley Cup Trophy from the year 2150.

 

Skeletor is a Travolta-style face toucher.

 

 

Why are they putting Burger King trash into the sink? Maybe we'll wash out these paper cups to use later, guys. We're very environmentally conscientious.

 

How is it that Enternian blasters that can cut 1"-thick steel but can't penetrate hollow-core wooden doors?

[AlisdairEdwards 0]

I love June's idea of them flying next to the plane, but it should cause the crash in an ironic twist.

[Joven 373]

Anybody else notice that the warehouse from the battle scene has a neon sign out front that says PIZZA backwards? Was the warehouse specifically designed to store pizza toppings?

 

It was a real missed opportunity to raise the stakes a little. A laser blast causes a box of toppings to explode. "Not the pepperoni! Pepperoni is my favorite!"

 

As the rifftrax for this I watched pointed out, the sign was just there to show that the movie was asinine (assi9).

[Scary_Mirage 32]

Why is Frank Langella (Frangella?) in this movie?!?

 

Frank's son was a MOTU fan, and after asking him various questions about Skeletor, agreed. So like Raul Julia in Street Fighter, but it actually worked.

 

Incidentally, Frank says in interviews that Skeletor is his most favorite role in entire career... and he did not even receive a Best Actor nomination. ROBBED!

[Scary_Mirage 32]

Oh, small correction. They talk about hoverboards in this episode ripping off Back to the Future 2. It's the other way around. MOTU was released in 1987. Back to the Future 2 was shot and released two years later in 1989... and incidentally, in BTTF2 the hoverboards are manufactured by Mattel, the MOTU toy company! Perhaps they are Robert Zemeckis' subtle hommage to MOTU...

 

 

I found it odd that the only member of the "advance group" to get punished by death when they returned to Castle Grayskull was Saurod, especially considering he was the only one of the four that never spoke a word... maybe it was just too expensive to keep that weird throat sac pumping, because sadly that seemed to be the most impressive special effect in the entire movie.

 

Mattel had approvals on everything in this movie and refused to have any exisiting toy characters killed. The new characters of Blade, Saurod, and Karg were originally the director's idea. He convinced Mattel they could make new toys for them. I think they made figures of Blade, Saurod, and Gwildor.

[GottaLoveTheGute 41]

I just finished listening to the "Masters" episode and it jogged my memory on a key character in the movie. As a kid I remember being confused that the court magician, Orko from the animated series, was dropped in favor of the lesser and completely unrelated Gwildor. I never understood why they replaced one of the most well known characters with this gnome guy. It turns out that, obviously, Orko would have posed some very difficult technical and financial challenges because the cartoon version has no face and no legs. He's just a hat, eyes, scarf and shirt floating around. I suppose this is a satisfactory answer to the replacement of Orko, but it doesn't explain why they decided to replace him with Gwildor. I suppose it gave them the opportunity to sell a new character's toy to children.

 

Also, I remember listening to a recording of Revenge of the Nerds on audio cassette that my cousin made when I was a kid. Was it sad or clever?

 

I don't know if it's sad, but I listened to Naked Gun on cassette back in 1989.

 

Ok. It does sound kind of sad.

[ChunkStyle 1160]

This is unrelated to the movie or the podcast episode. But it happened to pop up on Reddit last week and seemed too good to not share considering the subject matter.

 

[PlanBFromOuterSpace 3138]

 

Murphy is pretty feminine-looking in the movie

They should do an episode on "Sunshine", or any of Cillian Murphy's films, where the "guest" is June, and she discusses the making of the film as though she were in it.

[Hot - Slunch 772]

Lots of middle of the road people and farmers have planes in rural areas i.e. Montana, Alaska, etc. It's more economical than driving for some.

 

However I doubt that's the case for the family in the movie. Still it's not just super rich people with cruddy small planes.

[Servo Academy 16]

Kinda lazy for Barty to just re-use his Figment voice.

[StoopidChris 16]

Corrections and Omissions

 

There was one fantastic, "Airplane"-eqse joke right after Courtney Cox was hit with the Skeletor poison. As Kevin was trying to remember the melody that would unlock the key, he gets frustrated by the score which brakes the 4th wall in the form of a loud-speaker that's blasting John William music in the middle of the night to no one in particular.

 

And just after that, Gwildor yet again mentions "song-writing masters" by asking Kevin if he qualifies as one for simply being able to remember a melody. This leads me to believe that at least the people of Eternia, if not most of the universe, are musically inept, and human beings are basically among the 1% of the audible arts of the Cosmos. "The Chicken Dance" brings down the house at Castle Greyskull.

 

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.

So that's twice she broke the 4th wall? Is Teela the actual Master of the Universe??

[WayneMiller 37]

The documentary is "Electric Boogaloo: The Wild Untold Story Of Cannon Films", and is a checklist of HDTGM movies for the next decade. Anyone would want them to do "The Apple" or "Ninja III: Domination", or "Superman IV: The Quest For Peace", or "Death Wish 3", the list goes on, and on....

[Scary_Mirage 32]

On that note, a HDTGM connection: 1987 was the year that killed Cannon with three very high budget films, starting with the previously-reviewed film Over The Top. At $25 mil, $12 mil of which went to Sly's salary. Over The Top lost money ($16 mil domestic box office), and Cannon was banking on Masters of the Universe, Superman IV, and Spider-man to save it. As we all know, MOTU and Superman IV failed so hard, Spider-man production was canceled.

 

There are a number of interesting what-ifs with Masters:

 

Universal was originally interested in the movie, but would only give a budget of $15 mil, so Maetel went with Cannon.

 

If Masters had been financially profitable, Masters of the Universe 2 would have been made, and it would have been ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE. Likely direct-to-VHS, Masters 2 was set to have a budget of $4.5 mil, with B-film director Albert Pyun (of the direct-to-VHS 90s Captain America film) and starring surfer Laird Hamilton recast as He-Man. The plot was going to take place on Earth -again- and have He-Man pretending to be a football player attempting to stop Skeletor, who diguises himself as a evil industrialist named Aaron Dark and is destroying the Earth's environment. The costumes and sets were prepared for this film, and Cannon had announced it, but ultimately they scrapped it and instead recycled the costumes and sets for Pyun's film Cyborg, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. Masters 2 would have made for a truly brutual HDTGM experience!

[SevenDollarsWorthofHoobastank 226]

Ever since I can remember first seeing this movie when it first came out, I've always hated Gwildor's greasy, melty, pizza-cheesy face. I'm quite sure it turned me off of pizza for a good 5 years or so.