This week, Marc, Darren and Paul crack open Masters of the Universe (1987), the live-action fantasy adventure inspired by the iconic He-Man franchise.

Not seen it?

We'll help you decide if this fantasy adventure is your kind of movie — completely spoiler free.

Seen it?

We reveal things you may have missed, the details you didn't notice and uncover the hidden layers behind the film.

🎬 Masters of the Universe (1987)

PART 1 – The Nutshell – If you haven't seen it

A spoiler-free breakdown designed to help you decide if this fantasy adventure is your kind of film and worth your time.

We explore an imaginative fantasy adventure packed with unforgettable characters, larger-than-life action and a unique blend of science fiction and sword-and-sorcery that has entertained audiences for decades.

We'll help you quickly understand the tone, style and experience of the film, from its ambitious world-building and practical effects to the action, humour and spectacle that made it a memorable part of 80s cinema.

By the end of Part 1, you will have made a decision!

PART 2 – The Unboxing – If you've seen it

What Did You Miss?

The things you missed, the details you didn't notice, and the hidden layers behind the film.

The lads reveal things you may have overlooked, explore the filmmaking choices hidden beneath the surface and uncover the details that are easy to miss, even after multiple viewings.

Paul's Facts of the Day

Behind-the-scenes insights including:

• The surprising story behind the film's production
• Frank Langella's unforgettable performance as Skeletor
• Budget challenges that shaped the finished movie
• Fascinating casting stories and production secrets
• Hidden behind-the-scenes facts that helped bring Eternia to life

Hate It or Rate It?

Marc, Darren & Paul submit their scores and Masters of the Universe takes its place in the Legend League.

PART 3 – Listener Lounge – All about you!

The Lobby

Your emails, questions, comments and stories.

Question of the Week

What is the greatest toy based on a movie?

Got a great movie question?

Send it in and you might hear it featured on the show!

Next Week's Movie

Paul reveals his choice for next week's movie.

Listen Now

https://2ly.link/24tPI

League Tables

The Legend League

Every movie we've featured and rated on the podcast.

https://linkly.link/2Bfcv

The Listener League

See how we rated the movies chosen by our listeners.

https://linkly.link/2Bi9I

Join the Conversation

Voice Message:

https://linkly.link/2FuSQ

Email: [email protected]

Socials

Website:

https://www.moviesinanutshell.com

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/moviesinanut

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/moviesinanut

Your Hosts

Marc Farquhar

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/marcfarquhar

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/themarcfarquhar

Darren Horne

LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/thedarrenhorne

Paul Day

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/pauldaylive23

Music & Sound Effects

Main Theme

TV Show Intro Logo

https://pixabay.com/sound-effects/musical-tv-show-intro-logo-185797/

Music Bed

Protofunk

Attribution Code

"Protofunk" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Cinema Projector

Kakaist

https://pixabay.com/sound-effects/technology-cinema-projector-314492/

Swoosh

Trading_Nation

https://pixabay.com/sound-effects/film-special-effects-transition-fleeting-121419/

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

What's it called?

Aldorf.

Walter.

I don't know what it was called.

It's really annoying.

Waldorf.

Come on, get on board here.

It's like you weren't even paying attention.

Mark, we're old.

We're in our 40s.

You can't pronounce them.

I can't remember them.

That's true.

I do struggle pronouncing them small victories.

She does.

No, we're heading in the right direction.

It's like, am I the master of the universe?

No.

Keep working.

God.

Hello and welcome to Movies in a Nutshell with me, Marc Farquhar, myself, Darren.

Horn and I, Paul Day.

Here's why you should tune in every week.

We help you make better movie choices on films you haven't seen with quick spoiler free breakdowns to help you decide if they're your kind of movie.

And we help you get more from the movies you have seen with things you missed and details you probably didn't notice.

Plus there's movie facts, trivia and behind the scenes stories.

There's also your chance to choose the movie.

So grab some popcorn and let's crack open this week's movie.

Welcome back, gentlemen.

Here we are, masters of the universe.

I'd be 10, I would be 6.

83.

4.

I think somehow in my head this has always been one of my first cinema trips.

But then I feel the more I think about it, four's quite young to see this.

There's no way.

So I think I just saw a trailer.

That's what it was.

And it was so memorable.

And it was like, oh my God, he man is on the big screen.

So I always.

Yeah, another cartoon.

Yeah, yeah.

I always felt in my head this was the first kind of big cinema trip I had.

The more that's why I always think the age throws me on this one because of that fact.

What's it, what's it?

What's the genre of this?

Fantasy.

Fantasy adventure.

Yeah, fantasy adventure is good.

Like some of my all time favorite movies.

It's like Conan.

Also like Star Wars ET Hell comes to Frogtown.

Well, before we go any further, let me just say this is the nutshell where we will break the movie down spoiler free to help you decide if this is your kind of movie and if it's worth your time.

So what's the nutshell of this movie then?

What's it About Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles legend.

Back to the future.

Wow.

What's it about?

It's about a evil man.

Well, we think he's evil.

He's called Skeletor, which suggests a little bit of sounds.

Evil, moral ambiguity.

Who wants to become the master of the universe.

There, I said it.

And he man is trying to stop him.

That's kind of what it's about really.

You see, Eternia is this far off place that exists between darkness and light.

And it's based on the he man action figure.

It's very like binary.

It's very just good versus evil.

The good people are good, the bad people are bad.

There's no gray kind of in between.

Kind of.

Oh well, you've got some good points.

And there's no one breaking from faction or changing saha.

No villains with a heart of gold, heroes who are scoundrels.

It's just ain't no good bad.

And that makes sense because it's based off like you say, a toy line which was action figures and things which got turned into a TV cartoon.

Yeah, that's the way it went around.

It was a cartoon was made as an advert for the toy line.

So a lot of this will depend on the nutshell is one of them where it's like.

It depends on maybe your age and your reference points as to the cartoon and stuff.

So I'm assuming a lot of people will be going back to this because of the new one, even though they're not.

Oh yeah.

I would very much hope people revisiting this but.

Or looking at it for the first time.

Even though they're not actually related, they're not comparable really.

The new one is probably more like the cartoon because the technology now exists to make the cartoon more like budget.

Is there and the cartoon's still going.

Is there wasn't there was a remake.

Didn't Kevin Smith have something to do with the cartoon?

Did Revelations or something a few years ago?

Yeah, I watched that.

That was really good.

I liked it.

They do keep doing like new versions of it in terms of animation.

Yeah.

So it's still current.

I don't know how big it is because obviously, you know, I'm a grown ass adult, so I'm not watching.

There's bits of this reminded me of Indiana Jones in terms of the artifact getting into the wrong hands and the control of power and good and bad.

And all very Temple of Doom as well in terms of its kind of production design.

Skeletor's Palace.

And there was a bit of Star wars in there.

It was.

Yeah.

And the effects guy, is it Richard Edlund?

It was Richard Edlund.

So he was like from the Star Wars ILM school as well.

So this was him kind of starting off on his own a bit more.

Very like Labyrinth.

Yeah.

With a little creature guy.

What's it called?

Aldorf Walt.

I can't what it was called.

It's really annoying.

Come on, get on, boy.

Here.

It's like you weren't even paying attention.

I'm not good with names.

I feel like we've lived this and he's just like, I watch this movie,.

We're old, we're in our 40s.

You can't pronounce them.

I can't remember them.

That's true.

I do struggle pronouncing them.

But Gwildor was kind of based on a character in the cartoon called Orko.

And everyone's always like, why didn't they put Orko in it?

Well, Orko flies around and in a magic hat and you think this is the 80s.

How the hell are they going to do that with a puppet?

So they made Gwildor as a bit of a standing character, I suppose.

And it's built billed by Billy Barty who's in stuff like Willow and he talk like this.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's very of the very old school.

Well, what else have you got in this movie?

You've got laser battles, magic powers, strange creatures, cosmic technology and Courtney Cox.

Courtney Cox.

A very young Courtney Cox and probably one of the most iconic villains of the 80s.

Oh, Skeletor's still legit.

Like he's got some great social media accounts where he's just giving out sass.

He's a kind of a bougie, not sure what that word means, kind of queen who just is an icon.

He's an iconic character.

Till next time.

Then he runs off.

Yeah, he does.

I've just seen like captions of the comic where he's actually swearing and it's hilarious.

Just telling he man to off a lot of the time.

So who we got?

We've got Do Lungren who's just come off the back of Rocky for.

Yeah, Bill Conti did the music on this link to Rocky.

Yeah, he did.

He did the Rocky scores.

Yeah, or he did the main ones, I think, didn't he?

The main shoes.

And you've got Frank Langella who's playing skeleton.

Frank Langella is a heavyweight actor who also does absolute trash sometimes you see like Frost vs Nixon and stuff.

Well, he did this because his kid Likes he Man, which, you know, I'll tell you the facts later.

A noble effort.

You've got like almost a serious actor versus Dolph Lundgren, who was kind of the height of his power and obviously mega ripped to play he man.

That's what you do in fantasy.

That's how we get obviously Ben Kenobi, played by Alec Guinness.

Who?

Who?

The bad guy in Flash Gordon.

Oh, Ming the Merciless.

Yeah.

Another big actor though, right?

Max Von Sydow.

Yes, yes.

Yeah.

No idea who that is.

He's Ming the most scored it.

We just said.

Clearly that.

Clearly this element of fantasy is right in your wheelhouse.

So much so I do not have a meet.

I had Flash Gordon meets something.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Tails.

There you go.

But the original 90s one, not the remakes, because the 90s one was more awesome, tacky.

The live action ones.

Yeah, Yeah.

I can't find him.

Anyway, I keep wanting to watch them because I keep seeing like the later ones and then be like, I want to go back to the pure one.

Yeah.

Well, I almost feel like this is Conan versus Back to the Future almost as well.

Or something like that.

Yes.

Like Conan wandered onto the Back to the Future set and.

Yeah.

What should I do here?

I'll just hit stuff with my sword.

Yeah, yeah.

What kind of watch is this, Darren?

I'm kind of much like Natalie and Brulio.

I'm kind of torn because it could be a Friday night popcorn and beer movie for sure.

But I also think this could be a really nice Sunday morning under the covers with your family, because you've got young kids and they can run and kind of jump under the covers and just have a morning coffee, watch it with your kids, laugh a little bit at it and with it at the same time, like it's a.

It's a charming kind of family film and it's dark.

But they did that in the 90s for some reason.

They.

They did comic book movies?

Yeah, the 80s they did.

They made like dark versions of comic book movies.

I'm not really sure why they went that way, but it's a common thing they did.

And I remember I recorded this off the TV at Christmas and Cliff Richards was always on the start of the vhs singing Mistletoe and Wine or Savior's Day or something like that.

Then it goes to the cb.

This is a deep cut for the older listeners probably, but they cut to the Broom Cupboard, which was this kids TV show back in.

Andy Peters, back in the 80s 90s, Andy Peters and Philip Scoville and all these guys.

And it cuts from.

Oh, that's Cliff's new single.

And now we're going to watch Masters of the Universe.

Cut to Dolph Lager and Frank Langella in the Masters of the Universe.

And I still remember that.

So every time I transition.

Yeah.

So when I hear that song, that Christmas song of Cliff, it just makes me want to watch.

I'm gonna watch Master of the Universe right now.

It does.

Whenever anyone says Cliff Richards, I just think of the Young Ones.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Living Doll.

Oh, no, Cliff.

So, yeah, that's slightly random, but, yeah, it's kind of a holiday movie and all the.

What Darren said it is a classic good versus evil.

Yeah.

Superhero movie.

Really fantasy epicy.

Star Wars.

Yeah, there's definitely a bit of all that in the mix somewhere.

Thank you, gentlemen.

That takes us into part two, the unbo.

Spoiler territory ahead.

If you hadn't seen the movie and we've helped you decide that you do want to go watch it, we recommend you go do so now and come back, because from this point forward, there will be spoilers.

So in the unboxing, we have what did you miss?

Where we reveal things you may have missed even if you've seen the movie many times.

Paul has his facts of the day, and then we round it out with Hate it or Rate it, where we each give a brief opinion, score out of 10, and we see where it lands on our legend league.

So you.

Your choice, Darren.

So I'll go up to you for what did we miss?

So I'm not sure it's as clear as I think it is, but there's an element of, like, determinism or chaos theory within it.

There is this element of kind of how you can change your destiny or whether things are predetermined a little bit.

And there's also.

There's a kind of subplot where Courtney Cox's parents died at the beginning.

I don't know why I'm laughing.

Why are you laughing at that?

That's the serious undercover.

It is.

Wow.

Didn't realize it was a comedy.

There's everything in this film.

Everything.

The scene reminds me of Gremlins when, like, that's how I found out my father, the fount of Christmas isn't real.

Phoebe Gates.

And it's like, you know, that was my fault because if I hadn't.

If I hadn't got, like, blown off the beach and went and hung out with my boyfriend, my parents wouldn't have got on that plane.

And it's Kind of like a very Sliding Doors moment.

But I'm not.

That kind of sets up at the beginning, but I'm not sure it follows through.

The only reference that is is when that evil Lyn pretends to be a mother.

Yeah, that evil Lyn.

Other than that.

That evil Lyn shows some respect.

Evil Lynn.

That's what I said.

No, you said that evil then.

As if, you know.

But that's the only sort of payback, callback to that original thing is because.

So we know that that's her mum, but who we know is dead.

So, like, what's going on here?

Yeah, but the journey is.

It's all about the journey.

And then at the end, when, you know, they come, we're in spoiler zone, right?

Yeah.

When, you know, they take.

They send them back in time.

That's the big crescendo that it all ends in, because they've gone back in the past and the parents are now alive.

Sorry.

Oh, look at his smile.

He's.

Yeah, he's getting emotional just thinking about it.

What did we miss, Darren?

So another element that I quite like is.

What's that song where it's like, know when to hold them, no one to fold them.

Know when to walk away.

Know when to run.

You never count your winnings when you're still at the table.

Very good.

That line is the theme of this film, I think.

There's so particularly.

I mean, there's a lot that happens early.

Early on where Evelyn will say something and Skeleton's like, no, we don't have it yet.

And it's like every step of the way, she'd be like, oh, we're celebrating.

He's like, do we have he man?

Or whatever it is.

And it keeps going.

And at some point, even she wants to.

She wants to celebrate small victories.

She does.

No, we're heading in the right direction.

It's like, am I the master of the universe?

No, keep working.

God.

And then there's a bit where, like, I think Blade says she's mine and then goes to get her.

No, you haven't.

Like, don't say stuff.

Haven't you learned anything from Skeletor?

Don't celebrate or say stuff until you have other things.

It's funny how he.

He just cuts her off, though, isn't it?

Like, my Lord, we have.

We have the key.

Do you have he man?

He got away.

Well, get on with it, then.

It's like, don't be bragging until you've done that.

You don't do jobs by half Basically, give me everything, because there's loads of bits where it's like, I've got the key and then like a claw will grab it and pull it away.

I don't have the key.

There's a lot of.

There's like a lot of Choco Brothers.

To me.

To you.

You have it.

No, you have it.

Oh, I'll have it back.

No.

Yeah, now you have it.

Other than that, it's.

It's just pure kind of good versus evil.

And about how I think, to a certain extent, absolute power can corrupt absolutely.

And there's then an element of the loneliness of being almost God.

Oh, that's just occurred to me now.

So being like the pinnacle, so skeletal, is like the most evil or the top of the pyramid worshiped by his followers.

And he man is.

It's not very clear in this, but he's like, overly powered as a human.

Very, very strong.

Kind of like the Hulk in non green form.

And Skeletor drops this line where he basically asks he man something like, is the loneliness of being good equal to the loneliness of being evil?

And I was like, fuck, dude.

Skeletal skull, deep.

That's Frank Langella's line as well.

Yeah, philosophical.

Philosophical.

I mean, that's.

That's.

Yeah, that's deep.

Like skeletal.

You.

You're a little poet.

Are you a poet who got kicked out of art school and now just wants to invade Poland?

Like, what's going on here?

Heavy as the crown.

Yes, exactly.

And remember, he doesn't want him dead.

I want him.

Broken.

Yes.

Broken.

Yes.

I can't turn him.

He's quite clever.

He's like, I can't turn him into a martyr.

I need to make him my slave.

Before, when I was in the band, before we dispersed, that was one of the.

That was gonna be the album.

Oh, this album's gonna be heavy as a crown.

Ah, it's.

What about, you know, the weight of being in, like, it's the thrill of the chase, but once you're at the top, then everyone's after you.

Yeah, that's true.

Is it better being the underdog after all?

That's it.

Yeah.

I always want to be the grand vizier, the power behind the throne.

Thinking of Jafar, I don't know why.

Yes, that's who I want to be with the parrot.

Yes.

So fashion sense.

No, not really.

I had nothing more.

I think that was.

That was the key Things you also may have missed this.

Is this me?

Evil in this film walks too fast.

Like, even when Skeletor's introduced He's like,.

No, no, no, no, no, he's not.

What about when he arrives in that massive vehicle in the street?

He parks like four miles away and he's like, he's still coming.

And goes back to the action.

He's still coming down the street.

Goes back to the ashes.

How far away is he going?

How slow is he going?

Takes him forever to get to where he's supposed to be.

In the vehicle.

Is he walking?

Yeah, but he's in the vehicle when he's walking.

They're like.

And then Evil Lyn does the same.

It's like, you can't be threatening if you're walking fast.

Slow down.

Darth Vader doesn't walk like that.

Show some respect.

He kind of does that famous scene when he marches into the ship at the beginning at Lord Vader.

He marches quite fast.

Maybe he's got more sass.

Maybe he's got more.

Or maybe he's aura farming.

See, I'm down with the kids.

I learned this language.

Aura farming.

Yeah.

Is that what Skeletor's doing?

Yeah, I think he is nice.

If you are a young person, if you are part of the Generation Z.

Am I using the correct use of aura farming?

And was Skeletor or a farming.

I like the way you called it Generation Zed.

You.

You kids in generation his.

His generation.

You have to use full words, no abbreviations.

You.

In our chat the other day, you put a clip of someone.

A film reference referencing a film.

Yeah, that was a lush.

Actually it was his show.

It's parking recreations referencing Inception.

I love it when movies do that.

And that's what I was going to say that happened in here.

When did he references?

Oh, it's like Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Yes.

I love it when stuff does that.

Because it makes wonder if that's why you put that in.

Because like you said that and I was watching the film and that was born my next scenes that I saw.

I was like, wow, that's.

Yeah, I do.

I'm a big fan of when they do that.

They tend to do it in like fan baity stuff.

Like again like Kevin Smith movies we were talking about last episode.

Or they'll do it.

Like if someone's in the movie and it's one of their other movies, they'll sometimes do that, don't they?

Yeah, yeah, totally.

That's quite funny when they do that.

Yeah.

So yeah, that's kind of all I got.

You pick up anything?

Mr. Strickland was in there with a shotgun.

I knew you like?

I was expecting him to say it, James.

I was like, oh, it's him.

Because he looks the same.

It's only a few years after Back in the Future.

Then he pulls a shotgun.

I was like, here he is.

That's it.

Yeah.

I knew you to get a kick out of that.

It's so random that he's in this.

It's as if they're like, we want a bit of a back to the future vibe.

Who can we get him?

I thought he was good.

Oh, he is.

He's great in it.

He's also in Top Gun as well.

He's in a lot of other stuff.

Those are the big movies you're known for.

But that was.

That was one of my.

What did you miss him?

Skeletor having the exact location where they are, but, like, when he.

When he landed, it took him like an hour to get to where they were.

Well, I think Darren, he's aura farming.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I saw visions when I was a kid of like, you know, if you're walking down the street, you're like, what happens if a portal opens right now and Skeletor comes out with his giant, massive ship?

What else did we miss?

I think what.

What a lot of people miss, and this is kind of more of a backstage thing, is everyone moans about the fact that it's not quite like the cartoon.

And the first time I watched as a kid, I was probably the same, because in the cartoon, I don't know if you guys have seen it.

Of course.

That's why I'm the moral man that I am today and not a scoundrel.

Because in the cartoon, they used to give a lesson at the end.

Yes.

Remember, Walker made a mistake, but he really should have told parents first.

That's right.

They always used to have a moral cop.

But also in the cartoon he plays, it's.

There's a dual role thing, like Clark Kent, Superman.

So he's.

He's Prince Adam, and then he raises the power of the sword and then he becomes he man.

Yeah.

And no one can suss out it's the same guy because he's he man and he's Prince Adam.

And they don't include that in this film.

He's just he man.

So a lot of the kids were just like, what's this shit?

This isn't the cartoon.

He also has a big tiger y cat called Craner who turns into battle cats.

Yes.

Which was like the toy everyone had.

And again, he's not in this film, so you can see why the Kids might have seen it at the time and be like, this isn't like they.

Missed out some of the iconic villains.

Like Beastman's kind of okay in this, but he was a kind of a legend in the show.

And they miss out.

Like Merman, they miss out Rahman, who's one of the good guys.

What I was going to make, though, is they didn't have a massive budget for this.

It was 22 million.

Yeah.

So it wasn't massive.

Yeah.

So everyone's expecting them to do this, but they've gone, oh, how can we do this without.

That was quite evident.

Like.

Like anything with galaxy or universe, I expect it to be in the galaxy or universe.

This is.

Oh, we haven't got the budget.

Let's just put it on Earth.

Yeah.

For context.

Return of the Jedi, which was like 84.

It's about 44 million.

So you're doing half the budget of Jedi.

So all the people going like, oh, this isn't quite.

It's like what they managed to achieve on the budget they had.

And even when I watch it last week for this, I'm like, yeah, they achieved quite a lot in that budget, to be fair.

And the fact that they put it in Earth made it make sense.

But it's in the story thing.

They never really gave movies like this a big budget back then.

Like, they.

People.

I think about this a lot because until Lord of the Rings came, fantasy was a genre that was like just low budget.

It was things like Beastmaster and Crawl and Conan and stuff like that.

And this was canon.

So canon did things like Superman and Supergirl, but ended up going bankrupt because.

Yeah, but they also did American Ninja.

Oh, yes, they did.

And Masters of the Universe.

But, you know, they've got Bill Conti on this.

They've got some top things.

They've got Richard.

Richard England.

Sorry.

You'd expect more time spent in Eternia.

Yeah.

And I think that's why people were disappointed.

But if you take all that out of it, like, if you want the cartoon in its actual form, that's what the new film's kind of been able to achieve.

Because you've got all the effects where you can do Cringer and you can have Ram man and you can do all the effects that make it work.

Fisto.

Fisto's in it.

Yes, he's in the new one.

And they maybe make a few jokes because the new one is a lot more light hearted.

It almost takes the piss out of itself in a Guardians of the Galaxy type.

But when you watch this one, it's so.

I use this word a lot with all the films, but it's like tangible.

The amount of work that went into making the sets and the key.

And when you are on Attorney Skeletor's makeup.

Skeletor's makeup, the actual effects, when they have activated the key, the stuff above, it was really good for the time.

Yeah, yeah.

But even that set, you know, to have that set with the Castle Gray School with all the different.

Another thing I meant to say is, you know, what is this, 87?

But there's a point where they're describing how the keys work.

And he says, oh, well, the universe is made of music.

And so in order to go between reality, is they playing an instrument, basically, which is basically kind of like Bill and Ted's.

This also has a slight Bill and Ted.

It does, it does.

But the whole.

That music is the thing that can.

Makes the universe work and can save the world and stuff like that.

And you've got a shootout in a music store with Strickland from Back to the Future.

I mean, what more could you want in a movie, really?

But I also think there's a bit of family in there and friendship because you've got Teela and a dad and he man.

And they were quite close together.

It's like this.

I like the banter between them.

And again, this is stuff that I've grown up watching, so I might just be watching this through purely nostalgic eyes, but I do like the banter between them.

And Teela's kind of feminine, but she's also tough with it as well.

And there's a bit where she looks at the camera pretty much straight to.

It goes Woman at Arms and keeps shooting.

And you're like, hey, this could have been taken out of a modern film.

We always go, oh, there's no strong female characters.

It's like, I used to think she was a strong female character back in 87.

Yeah.

And I like the relationship she has with her dad.

And Gildorf, you know, he.

He's meant to be a bit annoying, I think, but he's the one who kind of shapes the story and is the key to it all.

So I just think sometimes people judge it harshly because it wasn't the cartoon on the screen.

And also I saw the people complaining that it's not he man, but it's not called He Man.

It's called Masters of the Universe.

So it's not.

It's not.

It's not built around pushing He Man.

It's about the Ensemble cast, because he's not in it that much.

There's huge long scenes where there's no he man involved at all.

No.

And as much as I love the duality, and that's part of the reason I love the cartoon, like, with Clark, Ken and Superman and Adam and the change and all that.

As much as I love that, if you look at that in this film, you go, yeah, they didn't really need that.

And even in the new film where they have that, they kind of take the piss out of it a bit.

Like, oh, where has he gone?

You know, how is he changing it, the he man?

So it's like, yeah, we take that out and we just have him a bit more like a Conan character.

And he's the champion.

He doesn't really do a lot until the very end, the final battle.

It's also a movie where it's not sword and sorcery, it's sword and guns.

Yeah.

Put your sword down, pick up two pistols.

Yeah.

Indiana Jones style.

Forget all that flying about.

Just shoot him.

He deflects it with his sword and stuff.

Some of the lasers, anyway.

Thank you, gentlemen.

That takes us perfectly into Paul's Facts of the Day.

There must be some for this, Paul.

Yeah.

And some of them I'm just gonna do off the top of my head because I have listened to the audio commentary with the director on this one.

So you've seen this movie a lot of times.

Yeah.

This is from when you were a.

Kid, right through to now.

This is one of my childhood favorites.

So they did a competition.

Let me just make sure I do get this right.

Yeah.

So there's a.

The toy company that produced the original he man toys ran a comp test, and the grand prize was to win a role in the he man movie.

Okay, that's a pretty cool concept.

Pretty cool contest.

But the idea was they were gonna do it when they were filming on Earth and the kid was gonna be in that bit.

However, by the time.

Because the production was under a great deal of pressure to finish it and under budget, Gary Goddard, he'd already finished the shooting on Earth.

So they were back in Eternia, and there was no real role for this kid to be in it.

So the kid was a guy called Richard Sponda.

So in one scene, there's this pig boy who hands Skeletor his staff.

Do you remember this, like, when he walks in?

Okay.

It's like a very quick scene where there's this, like, kid.

It's like a pig boy.

It's described because he's wearing a mask and he just hands Skeletor his staff and.

Yeah, that was the kid winner.

Wow.

They were like, okay, we need to figure out.

I'll put this kid in the film.

How to shoehorn him in.

So it's this.

Yeah, this is one of the well known, not well known stories, but this is one of the big facts that people often talk about.

It's like, what's Pig Boy got to do with anything?

He just gives him his stab.

It's like, never see him again.

He's the competition winner.

And apparently the kid had a bad reaction to the glue as well.

That stuck on the.

Just to round off his experience.

I don't think he had the greatest time.

I was going to be an actor.

Not anymore.

Not anymore.

And I did laugh because there's kind of a cameo of a Pig Boy in the.

The new one.

And I'm like, oh, okay.

See what they did there?

So there is that.

Okay.

Frank Langello went on record in an interview saying playing Skeletor was one of his favorite roles.

And his young son was a huge fan and he'd run around the house shouting power by the power of grace call.

So he just took the film for him, really.

But Langello was promised full approval over Skeletor's lines.

So he rewrote several of them.

One of them being the.

The one you said before.

That was pure Frank.

Meg's Foster's eyes are naturally blue gray.

Yeah, she's seen they live as well.

Oh, recognizable.

Yes, I forgot about that.

But she's naturally got them tiny pupils and she's been casting many sci fi fantasy roles because them.

And jokes that she appeals to casting directors because she brings her own free special effect with her with demise.

So maybe that's.

Where was she and they live.

I can't remember.

Yeah, I can't remember either.

But potentially an alien if that's.

I don't think she was.

But I can't remember the context of what she's in.

There was also a big thing around Dolph Lundgren because he still didn't speak a lot of English at this point.

And it was written into his contract about him doing his own voice.

But first he was sounding a bit too foreign.

So.

So they really, the producers were really fighting because they just wanted to dub him over and have like an American voice dubbed over the top.

Thankfully, he had like, I think it.

Was intense English lessons.

I'm not reading these, I'm just doing them off top of my head.

But say he had Four times to do it in his contract, or four attempts to do the voice.

To do the.

The voiceover.

Because apparently the one he did on set probably wasn't.

Overdubbed himself.

So he overdubbed himself, which they sometimes do in a lot of productions anyway.

But he finally.

He got it on the last one and they were like, you know what?

Let's.

Let's stick with that.

So pure lung.

Luckily, he didn't have too many lines in this movie anyway.

No, exactly.

Frank Langella wanted Skeletor look more like he did in the cartoon.

So he was highly involved in the makeup process.

And initially he had a full headpiece, but Langella had made it smaller and smaller until his face and expressions come through.

And he also wanted to work out how he could show his body.

But the director objected, saying he didn't want Skeletor to be sexy.

No, evil and scary.

Evil and scary.

And Dolph Lundgren does most of his own stunts in the movie.

There's lots more facts.

But I'm just gonna leave you with this one.

This one's my favorite fact because he talks about it on the commentary.

So again, I'll do this off the top of my head.

So where it gets to the bit where they're having the final duel, he does the.

I have the power, don't they?

And then they both cross staff and sword, and it kind of cuts to this flash and then all the lights go down in Grayskull.

So the reason behind that is power cut.

Well, we can think that kind of.

They turn the lights off.

But basically that was all they had of the film.

What do you mean?

So they shut production down.

So at one point they got that shot where the clash.

And that was all they had.

They didn't have an ending of the film.

They didn't have the final jewel because they pulled the money.

They pulled the thing and said, okay, you're done.

And the directors like, yeah, but I haven't got the end of the movie.

He's like, he done.

It's fine.

So they eventually let them film the sword fight bit.

And he talks about on the commentary, it was like.

So we literally had like a day or two days to go in.

So we got this idea of having a color wheel so we didn't have to light the whole set.

We just went in and did the bit.

So there was a point where it went from that scene to that bit and there was nothing in between.

And then he had to kind of beg for a bit more.

So that's how tight the budget was on the film.

There was actually times where they were like, are we.

Can we complete this?

Or are we just going to have to budge it with some kind of weird cut to the end?

Yeah, there you go.

Making movies in the 80s.

Fun kids.

There we go.

There you go.

There's loads more.

There's loads more.

There's stuff about, you know, Beast Man's teeth being big and, you know, getting caught in his mouth and things like that.

But, yeah, I'll let you look them.

Look them up.

Thank you very much.

That takes us on to hate it or rate it.

So it was Darren's choice, so I'm gonna go to Darren first.

Yeah, this is a mess, but it's.

It's kind of a noble mess and it's not anyone's fault.

There's some really great talent in this, but Canon had this kind of.

They were kind of a studio that were in it for the money and they had this weird finance system and they would, like, take out loans and then they had a set amount of time to make the movie and try and remake their money.

And something happened.

I think there was a couple of flops that came out.

I think Superman 4 came out and that flopped.

And so the finance companies got twitchy and I know we need our money.

We need our money.

And then started cutting the budget.

And even on the pitch, they had the vision of the movie is like a 40 million, 50 million movie, and then they had 22 million.

So then they had to start cutting and stuff.

And then they had to be like, well, we'll shoot some of it on Earth then so we can get rid of all these locations.

So it's not really their fault.

And they'd cut the marketing budget from 8 million to 2 million, I think.

And they were confident it was going to be a sequel because they had.

They started building the sequel, they started sets for it, and then they were like, we ain't going to do this.

So instead they shot John Claude Van Damme movie Cyborg on that set in, like 24 days.

That's the kind of mentality of the studio.

So it's a mess.

It is totally a mess.

And it doesn't have battle Cat, doesn't have all the cool characters that we like.

It doesn't have the Adam into he man thing.

There's no.

Like, we grew up because it was a moral story and we would learn what it means to be a good person through he man.

He was.

He's not just that he was strong.

He was good and there's none of that.

There's no lesson to be learned.

Like the post credits scene should have been.

Remember kids, if your parents have died and you see your mom down the corridor when you're in the middle of a battle, run away, go outside.

Courtney Cot she nightmare.

But I did, you know I do.

So I have some nostalgia because you know I've actually watched it when I was younger and it is a bit dumb.

It is like if you get a bunch of musical theater kids and they run through the wardrobe department and then start running around like it's all just a little bit like.

What's the word?

Like prancy.

As they move floaty scary monsters being like oh, I'm looking for like.

Like it's almost like the Child Catcher and Cheetah.

Bang bang.

Like children, where are you?

It's like he man, where are you?

I'm going to find you.

So they're hiding under the stage.

Yeah, exactly.

It's dumb but and I mean this from the heart, there's some hot women in this movie and me as a 10 year old so I can't be.

If I saw it at the cinema would have seen it on so video would have been what, six months, 12 months later.

So I would have been like 11 on TV when I was 12.

Yeah.

This shape, this was a sexual awakening.

This Absolutely.

I mean let's face it, Tila brought in yoga pants.

I mean that's one of the things I wasn't going to say this because.

Because you know I was attracted to this women when I was much younger.

Obviously they're younger than me now.

But someone said the issue is is that Tila's wearing too much clothes and she is like he man is wearing basically nothing.

But Tila would be showing off her legs and her arms and stuff and she's fully clothed, still fit as Courtney Cox is adorable and she's young or wide eyed and innocent.

That's she's sweet but also evil.

Lynn.

It's where it's at.

Like that definitely had an impact on me as well.

So I very much approve of the hot women.

But the sorceress wasn't hot enough.

I remember crushing on the sorceress in.

The TV show so the Sorcerers.

This is a fact I meant to say but didn't Is who plays Courtney Cox's mum in Friends.

Oh nice.

Yeah, yeah, that's the actress who plays so at the end where she's like Julie, here is the thing to Eternia all I can think of is oh my God.

Is this some kind of parallel world where the sorceress becomes Monica Geller's mum in Friends?

Yeah, I meant to say that one.

Sorry.

Nice.

Other than that, you know, I liked.

I like the bit when he man gives Courtney Cox a gun.

He's like, here, protect yourself.

He's like, yeah.

He sees a in attorney where it feels like there's less sexism.

You know, you can be.

It's second in class.

A fight for survival.

Get on with it.

Yeah, it's like, you know, you must be a warrior.

You're.

You know, we're all warriors on it.

On you.

So there's a lot to like.

And I definitely have nostalgia.

It isn't done well.

And I can forgive it because it was a shit show of a production and they didn't go into it for the right reasons, I don't think.

Or I'll have the budget or had.

The budget for it.

So a noble effort.

And, you know, some of the special effects are amazing.

And, yeah, it's.

It's solid.

I don't know.

I don't think it's above a fight.

Well, guys, you gave weight in a five.

What the.

Did I enjoy it?

I got bored after hard once the novelty had worn off.

Oh, come on.

What?

So I'm gonna go, like, 4.7.

It always goes lower than you think.

He's gonna go.

I'll go over to you, Paul.

Yeah.

I can see all of the flaws.

I can see all the reasons people trash on this movie.

And you know what?

I don't care.

I could care less what they all think.

This, for me, was up there with.

I saw this probably before Star Wars.

This was my Star wars for a long time before I then saw Return the Jedi or whatever I saw first out of the Star wars trilogy.

Can I ask if you.

Because they pick a weird part of the plot because there's no backstory and stuff.

Do you think they should have explored a different area, like how he man became he man or how the Grayskull became.

Because it's assuming a lot of prior knowledge.

Yeah.

Like this feud between the two of the good and the bad already been going on for a long while.

How'd that begin?

Where they first meet and cross paths?

That's true.

And I feel like there's all that there.

But they literally saw Back to the Future in ET had no budget and went, you know what?

What if we can just squeeze that in the middle somehow and just have them fighting on Earth?

That'll save the budget.

But the shootout in the Music store.

That was wicked when I was a kid.

And, yeah, it's a mess, but I still think there's some great tension in there.

So when they're in the throne room, it's going to be a trap and you're like, it's going to be a trap.

And then they all match in.

Like, as a kid, that was terrifying.

Skeleton, like, yeah, you know, they're gonna get away or whatever.

But as a kid, you were like, how the hell is he gonna get out of this?

And to be honest, Frank Langella, yeah, scared the crap out of me, but yet in a compelling way that when I watch it today, he still scares the crap out of me, but in such a way that I'm like, he is just tearing up that scenery.

So just for Skeletor's presence alone, it's like, I just freaking love it.

Gave the vibe to me that he, man and Skeletor were brothers.

I think a hawkless layer vibe that.

That would have been cool that they just chose different paths.

Yeah.

And.

And there is, like, you say there's lots of different angles they could have taken or recreated the cartoon in a better way.

It's ridiculous that they bring the parents back at the end.

Oh, come on, that's good.

No, it's ridiculous.

Surely did you know, it's like, they're back.

Kevin, was it a dream?

No, I have the part.

No, it's great.

Yeah.

Fuck everyone else's parents who've died.

But, yeah, Courtney Cox, you can have yours back.

Well, you know, they helped them save the two years.

It's fine.

But, yeah, just Frank, when he's all like, oh, thank you for that bit of philosophy.

Sorceress needs to spend a dick to the source.

That's quite funny.

You know, there's the laser whip.

Come on.

And then there's the sword fight and the actual.

So where you're going to go about five, aren't you?

I'm going well above five here.

I can not.

Come on.

This is like you saying eight.

I think I am saying eight.

Nice.

I think I am saying I was tempted to go even higher because, you know, you like.

No, it's how it makes you feel.

It's like I could watch this film all day long because it just takes me back.

But like the bit where he's on the hover bike things and the chasing through the street and then he smashes through the window and that was like.

Highlander or Highlander 2, I think.

Well, anything where there's a giant sword and the flying on Hoverboards and like Centurion.

Bring him to me and all that stuff.

And then there's the burn that's like oozing puss.

And it's like, oh, no.

And the.

Cool that down.

And then Strickland catches up with them.

I don't know.

I just freaking love it.

It's great.

You'll give it 8.

I'd give it an 8.

No.

What year did it come out?

87.

8.7 It.

Let's go.

8.7.

And.

Yes.

I've just lost half of it.

There's a weird bit about the pro vegetarian thing as well.

Like, oh, these people are barbarians.

They eat animals.

Yeah.

There's some really stupid stuff in this.

Like.

And he's talking to the cow and.

It's a chicken wing.

Product placement.

Yeah.

There's some bizarre stuff.

But you know what?

I just.

I just love it.

It's great.

Yeah.

There you go.

Frank Langella pushes it right up there for me because.

Come on, Skeletor, right.

You're gonna have hated it, but God,.

No, I. I quite enjoyed it.

It was.

I agree, it was a bit of a mess.

It was a bit.

The low budget of ness of it, like, for me made it less as well.

I was expecting a bit more grandiose.

Yeah.

Because of the name and what I vaguely know of the.

Of the franchise.

I think that's why people crap on it so much because.

Yeah.

So I was a bit disappointed at first about that.

But then I actually quite liked the earth setting like that.

I think they did.

They did well with what they.

What they had.

And I wasn't so keen on the key.

The music article.

I was like, really?

But you're a master music craftsman.

It was a Japanese synthesizer.

I just have these.

When they came up with this, I just have them in a meeting.

3 O' clock in the morning.

I've got an idea.

We play musical notes.

That's how we travel through time.

Yes.

Everyone around.

That's a great idea.

Let's do that.

It just kind of seemed a bit cobbled.

Bit cobbled together about this.

But I did.

I did enjoy it and I love Skeletor as a bad guy.

I think he.

He's.

He brought.

There should be more Skeletor in this world.

Like as a.

Explored as a character in.

Have his own sort of spin off.

Yeah.

He's a good character.

Frank Langella is still going.

Let's bring him back.

Because in this movie, like, a lot of less is more.

So you don't know much about the Character.

See him that often.

And also like.

He.

Man.

You don't really see him either.

He's not really.

Until the very end.

He doesn't really do a lot.

He shows up.

He does a couple of fighting.

But other people are doing more than he's doing.

Doing all the legwork.

And he just shows up and then he disappears.

It's part of the team.

Where is he?

Man.

We haven't found him yet.

He evaded us again.

So it's just like.

Yeah.

It's just a bit messy.

But I did all.

I did over and quite enjoy it.

It wasn't.

It wasn't too bad.

So I'm gonna give it a 5.8.

That's fair.

That's fine.

Had this one line I haven't said on my notes where it's basically about a girl wants to break up with a boyfriend.

Nearly dies.

So doesn't.

That's it.

That's the nutshell.

I like it when we do that.

We should.

We need to do more of them.

The comedic nutshell.

That's what we need at the end rather than the factual one.

Yeah.

Exactly.

That was man on Fire, wasn't it?

Denzel Washington Wants to Die Dies.

The spoiler nutshell.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He got what he wanted.

It's a happy ending.

It's all right.

I mean there are plenty of movies go into production making the script up as they go along.

Like Casablanca did that.

Die Hard did that.

You can make it work.

I mean.

But the music in itself.

When nostalgia hits you in a certain way.

And we've talked about this before.

Just the music itself.

They never really hit the heme.

It was like dun dun dun dun dun dun dun.

He man.

He was that she was.

I think you've gone on a different thing.

Well.

We don't want to get copyright hit anyway.

So we can.

We can't sing these too close to the thing.

That was a Shira music.

I think that was Shiro.

You're thinking.

But yeah.

No.

It's a shame they didn't like tie in.

Which they've done in the new one.

The tie in a bit of the Masters of the Universe theme tune into.

Into the Thing.

Didn't she.

Or had to have a guy with a mustache who had a bow.

I think it was called Bo.

Yeah.

Pretty much.

I think so.

I used to watch both of them as well.

Yeah.

That was cool.

When he man and she Ra would give you a moral lesson together.

Yeah.

Yeah.

When you had a team of episodes.

Yeah.

And they would like finish each other's sentences.

We.

We did have hot characters in the 80s and 90s in animation.

I don't know if they do that.

I don't really obviously watch cartoons now.

Thundercats.

Yeah, obviously Dungeons and Dragons.

I was always.

I mean obviously Diane was gorgeous, but I always liked the girl who could go invisible.

Yes.

Now this is bonus content right here.

I agree.

I think it would be fun to just take established characters.

They take the in betweeners, let every girls dive into Dungeons and Dragons.

The in between is in Dungeons.

Oh yeah.

They should let you in charge of these movie studios though.

Jay would be the knight.

What's his name?

Oh yeah, with the shield.

I think Darren should be the creative director.

Definitely completed it, mate.

Oh yeah, yeah, he's completed GTA 6 already.

Okay, so that gives it a total of 13.8.

Which put in 68th out of now 77.

That's harsh.

Where is it?

So it's so it's just above Wicked and Solo.

A Star Wars Story.

That's ridiculous.

Absolutely ridiculous.

Outnumbered, Outclassed is more like it.

He's the one that scored it at lowest, so it's probably his fault.

Yeah, but I thought like it was going to be kind of going a midpoint.

I thought it'd be higher than that.

I thought it would be mid.

You weren't in the giving vein this day.

So what episodes might be a good follow if you've just.

If people just finished listening to this, what would be a good follower?

Probably Labyrinth, I would say.

Yeah, that's a good call.

Back to the Future or Big Trouble?

Little China.

That's a good call as well.

Yeah, we probably should have put that at the start of the meads here.

That's a good call.

But I didn't like Big China at all.

But I quite enjoyed this.

So there we go.

Okay, so that's what we thought.

That's where it landed in the Legend League.

But we'd love to know what you think.

So if you send us a message, let us know your thoughts and we'll read them out on the show.

Okay, that takes us on to part three, which is the listener lounge.

In the listener lounge we have the lobby where we have your questions, your stories and your comments.

Then we ask our question of the week and we finish by revealing next week's movie.

So in the lobby, Darren, this one's for you.

Multiple people have messages in just to let us know that Velocirapasta 2 is official.

The trailer is out and it's coming out very soon.

So I've got a feeling our July or August listener choice is going to be requested.

A lot.

Is the people who've wrote in to tell us this by any chance, Darren?

Students, some of them.

But there's other people as well.

Obviously just general listeners are going make sure Darren knows that this is coming out.

That's fine.

I thought I was going to get for not liking project Hail Mary because.

Oh, yeah.

Please write in if you've got more.

Yes.

Just in case you're wondering, I've got the synopsis of it right here.

Darren Velocipasta.

2.

2.

Doug and Carol travel to the port city of Milan where they have to solve a series of murders committed by a sex maniac killer at an Italian fertility festival.

And Soviet spies Interpols there, too.

That actually sounds quite good.

It's not going to be though, is it?

Have they made it as good as that sounds?

There we go.

I just thought I'd let you know.

That sign is up.

That takes us on to this week's Question of the Week, which was sent in by Sarah Story.

She simply asks, what is the greatest toy to ever come from?

Movie.

Oh, to come from a movie.

That's a good call.

I was gonna say turtles, but was that the other way around?

Oh, well, the cartoon.

They did the toys.

Oh, okay.

I've got an answer.

This, for me, just from my own childhood, it was saying movie, not TV show, though.

Yeah, movie.

It's kind of related.

So I'll let TV go.

Show goes.

It's a question.

Well, in the sense.

I grew up on the Ghostbusters toys, of course.

So Ghostbusters had the real Ghostbusters cartoon and then the toys all came from that.

But getting Ecto 1 at Christmas, the year I got Ecto 1 was the greatest Christmas of all time.

I had the Back to the future DeLorean.

It was like a.

It was about.

It wasn't.

It was massive, but it was.

It was decent size, but it had all the moving parts.

Oh, nice.

And he opened the door and made the sound.

And I probably didn't look after it.

Didn't realize what I had.

I wish I'd kept that.

I looked.

I kept it in the box.

Oh, yeah, those things.

But you gotta play with it.

Yeah.

Of course, I was only.

I was only.

I was quite young, but if you get this adult, you're like, I ain't touching that.

That's staying right where it is.

Yeah.

I watched videos of someone else playing with one Mine's staying in the box.

So I guess the other obvious one is Star wars, isn't it?

Yeah, Star wars is going to be the most iconic.

Yeah, it's a lightsaber.

Star wars is one of those things where you can be a grown ass adult and want a full size stormtrooper in your bedroom or lightsaber in your bedroom and stuff.

But I did more mask, so I'd like Boulder Hill I didn't like.

I got Rhino at one point, but that was kind of dull.

But I liked him.

I think there's one called Gator, which is like a 4x4 that a speedboat would come out the front and he would fight Havana, which I think was a bike with a side car that would go into the water.

Master's pretty cool.

That's cool.

That is cool stuff.

I'm just, I'm just having a flashback to one of my best friends.

Him and his sister had an older brother who had so much Star wars the toys.

But it used to always be in the loft.

And then on this one magical weekend, they got it all out and he had everything.

He had the Millennium Falcon, he had Daggerberry.

We just went and we played for like two whole straight days with all these things and then it all went back in the loft again.

Childhood memory.

Great day.

Good question, Good question.

I like that.

So this week's question, just as a recap.

What is the greatest toy to come from a mov movie?

You can email us hello.com or send us a message or we'll put it on our socials as well.

You could get, you could get a toy of.

Is it Marv from Sin City being electrocuted?

Can you in the electric chair?

Vaguely remember that when I used to work in a comic shop.

Also used to work in a comic shop.

We need a resume on here.

Yeah, yeah, we do.

CV Kathy's comics in Plymouth.

I don't think it's still there.

Oh, no.

And B and Q and a garden center.

That's the same thing.

Okay.

So yeah, that is the sweetest question of the week.

That takes us on to the final act of today's episode, which is next week's movie.

And it's over to Mr. Paul Day.

It is.

And I've been mulling this because we've just done kind of the boys toys of Masters of the Universe and the.

The frat party of Waiting.

Yeah.

We did Bear to Prey though, a few episodes ago.