Should This Have Happened
Should This Have Happened? is a movie debate show where hosts Nathan "Tater" Salyer and Rob McCallum put sequels, reboots, prequels, and remakes on trial to determine if they deserved to exist. Each episode explores what worked, what didn't, and ultimately answers one question: Should this have happened?
Should This Have Happened
Should Masters of the Universe (2026) Have Happened?
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In this episode of Should This Have Happened?, hosts Nathan "Tater" Salyer and Rob McCallum put the 2026 live-action Masters of the Universe on trial. Did the long-awaited return of He-Man live up to decades of fan expectations, or did it miss what made the franchise special in the first place?
From Eternia and Castle Grayskull to Skeletor, legacy characters, and modern storytelling choices, the hosts break down what worked, what didn't, and whether the film truly understood the heart of the Masters of the Universe franchise. Along the way, they compare it to the beloved 1987 adaptation, debate controversial creative decisions, and deliver their final verdict.
⚔️ Did Masters of the Universe deserve a modern reboot, or should it have remained a relic of the past?
🎙️ Listen now and decide for yourself: Should Masters of the Universe Have Happened? ⚖️
The sorceress knew where she was from, you know, and yet nobody told anybody where he went.
SPEAKER_02Does this reboot sequel work without the original?
SPEAKER_00These cartoons were an escape for things that were happening in their life.
SPEAKER_02He will then just meets him at the front door like he was delivering girl guide cookies, like, hey Nathan. Hey, what? Got a question for you. What's that question? Should they have made Masters of the Universe 2026? Welcome to the show, everybody. I'm your host, Rob McCallum, joined alongside my good, fun loving, retro loving, bleeding all around critical thinking, make me smile kind of guy. Nathan the Tater Slayer. Nathan, how are you doing? I am great. How are you, Rob? I think this is going to be an episode, so that gets me excited. It's going to be an interesting episode. This is kind of maybe not the reason we started the show, but it was right up right up there with the reason why we wanted to start the show because we knew we would talk about this eventually.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think this movie and you know Masters of the Universe in general kind of came up a few times when we were discussing this show. So right.
SPEAKER_02So for all of those of you out there that are not used to what this show is, this is should this have happened in this case, should Masters of the Universe 2026 have happened? This is our continuation culture, our sequelitis, our nostalgia discussion show where we don't just say a movie was good or a reboot or a relaunch was bad. We do a deep dive to see what worked, what germs of an idea anchored the possibility aside from box office of the original film to see what made the sequel exist, what worked, what didn't work, what we wished had happened, what why it didn't happen at all in some cases. And then what made the original film beg for a sequel, or actually did it beg at all. And we kind of just put it on trial.
SPEAKER_00Yes, I think we kind of avoided each other for the whole weekend, so we we didn't discuss this.
SPEAKER_02Now, usually this we're we're talking about a film. Currently it's Monday, you're getting this later the week. We only have opening weekend to go off of. Usually we like to let some time pass, a few weeks, so that there aren't any spoilers. But Nathan and I are such big fans of the entire Masters of the Universe property. We we had to attack this one head on. So a spoiler alert early on. I'm sure something's gonna come up. But I feel like you may have seen it already. Or if you haven't, pause this now. Go to the movie theater, get yourself a fancy popcorn bucket, and then come on back and listen to what we think and see if see if you line up, see if we're in sync or slightly askew from what your thoughts were.
SPEAKER_00Popcorn buckets. I got the battle cat one.
SPEAKER_02Did you? I did. Did you? I uh I got the skeleton one, I didn't buy it. My partner said, I can't believe you didn't buy something. I'm buying this for you as part of Father's. That's that's sweet. Yeah, so I was completely shocked, but you know, I mean, going to the movies is pricey these days, and we went, like I said, I went with my partner, we have our three kids that went. That was a pretty penny as it is. So just trying to watch the ducats, so to speak, and yeah, so that was a very nice surprise of hers to do that. Would what are your thoughts and backgrounds when it comes to Masters of the Universe? Just to give somebody that's listening an idea of where you're coming at before we talk about this movie specifically. So, where do you love and how do you love, and how did you come to know this world?
SPEAKER_00You know, I came to know Masters of the Universe back in '82 when the toy line came out. You know, I started playing with the toys. You know, I think my favorite one was Man at Arms at the time because he was green. I I don't know, green is not even my favorite color, it's probably my least favorite color, but you know, started playing with the toys, and then when the cartoon came out, it was just you know, we didn't have stream, we didn't have on demand, you know. So when that when that show came out, like it was just I I couldn't believe it. Like the excitement was beyond what I could contain.
SPEAKER_02And I'm I see you're still having trouble containing your excitement. I'm still having filmations for time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, just a little bit. I mean, if if you know, if anybody has seen my my wall to the left, probably seen it in another episode or or you know, seen it on other things that we've done, but it the entire wall is nothing but masters of the universe, toys, cells, you know, collectibles, you know, all sorts of stuff. So yeah, I have huge ties to this franchise and and to you know, everything masters of the universe.
SPEAKER_02So on my side of things, T-Man was that defining toy for my youth. It was the very first toy that I really grabbed onto and gravitated uh towards. It was that first fictional world where I learned all the characters, all the places, the settings, and knew all the rules of the world with the magic, how that worked. And I mean, what kid doesn't love to feel like they actually have the power? And if all you have to do is raise a sword and you become larger than life and suddenly a force to confront. Well, that's that's every kid's dream come true to have a little bit of agency in the in the grown-up world. So that was that was everything to me. It took me all the way until Turtles, when He-Man had died out and turtles came in, that I was kind of into something new for the most part. Of course, I made uh The Power of Gray Skull with a few colleagues from up here. This is a documentary that you can find on He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. And our documentary concluded filming, I think, in 2016, so 10 years ago, as of this recording. Oh, wow. And when we were making our documentary on all things Masters of the Universe, we talked about the original '87 film in quite in depth, like a lot of depth. And we did a lot of work on all the various iterations and reboots that had tried to come since then. It has been a very long time since a Masters of the Universe film has come out, 39 years, but it's not like Amazon just decided two years ago to say, yeah, we're just gonna do this. This has been in development for a long time. In fact, I would say that not to get ahead of ourselves into the background, but when we were filming Action Figure Adventures season one in 2019, we were talking to the Mattel people at the booth at PowerCon. And the Knee Brothers, Adam and Aaron, who get screenwriting credit in this one, were at the time set to direct the film. And it was supposed to be a thing for Sony at the time, and then Netflix took it on and then it eventually made its way to Amazon, where it is now. And of course, Travis Knight is the director of the current iteration. But for seven years, this version of the script, or a very close version of this script, is what has been in development. So this isn't like something that just came out of NOR two years ago. It's it's been in the making for quite some time, which I find interesting. And even before that, there were several notable drafts. But let's get to the background, and I can talk about one of those notable drafts because I read it. We'll talk about that in a second. Let's get to the background. Nathan, give me the synopsis, the official synopsis for Masters of the Universe 2026.
SPEAKER_00All right. The official synopsis is a young man on Earth discovers a fabulous secret legacy as the prince of an alien planet and must recover a magic sword and return home to protect his kingdom. Which is not a great synopsis for this. No, but it's accurate. It's accurate, but it's it's you know, it's just I I I don't know. I I feel like that was lacking. I want you to hang on to that thought. Okay.
SPEAKER_02I want you to hang on to that thought. It's now normally when we do these shows, we compare it to a very specific sequel. This isn't technically a sequel, it is a reboot. We can talk about the 87 film. I don't know if that's the synopsis you had pulled as well as a comparison, or if you just have another '87 one as well. Okay, so if you give us the synopsis for '87.
SPEAKER_00The heroic warrior, He-Man, battles against the evil Lord Skeletory and his armies of darkness for control of Castle Grayskull. Which is odd because it all takes place on Earth, which not all of it. Not all of it. Most of it.
SPEAKER_02A lot of it. A lot of it. 99% of it. A good I guess, I think it's what an eight 90-minute runtime, I would say a good 75 minutes takes place on Earth. But those 15 minutes on uh in the desert in California, I mean on in on in eternity, not the sounds, the sound stage stuff for Castle Grace Gull is fantastic. Again, if you love the 87 film, go seek out Power of Grace Gull, our documentary. I think it's on Tuvie. It might even be on Amazon Prime as well. Check it out. I know it's on Amazon Prime. Okay, so you'll get a lot of great behind-the-scenes stuff on that 87 film. Did you pull the synopsis for the filmation cartoon series at all by changes? I did not, but I can real quick if you want me to. Make it up. I would rather let's play the game. If you wanted to make it up, how would you describe the filmation series? Or do you really want to go look it up?
SPEAKER_00I you know, no, I I don't have to look it up. I would say a okay, how would I describe it? Adam, a young, insecure prince, discovers that he is the champion of gray skull, key man, the master of the universe, masters of the universe.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'm just gonna stop you there. I'm just gonna stop you there because he doesn't discover it in the film series. He is he's been secure, he's playing a role. I know he's playing a role. Just like Clark Kent is a bumbling reporter, right? The role put on by Kal Al. You know, there are several episodes where Prince Adam says, you know, I wish I didn't have to act this way so I could get it. Yeah, because he's he's talking about his father. Notably, Prince Adam no more. Anyways, Adam is the defender of Grey Skull. He has a magic sword. When he holds it up and says the magic words, he becomes He-Man. Uh and he's trying to stop the evil forces of Skeletor who want to get his power of Castle Grey Skull. Only three others know his secret: good guys versus bad guys, science fiction fantasy at its best. 130 episodes, folks. It's a new episode every day for several years and in syndication. Spun a sister series, literally, She-Ra, which had 93 episodes. They had a feature-length film, which is part of the She-Ra run as well. A Christmas special also appeared in Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Man, a huge legacy. A billion-dollar toy land, I think, is the important word that everybody should know about Masters of the Universe from the 80s, the original run. And it has since kind of limped on in one way or another. It's never had the staying power of Turtles or Transformers, which seems to have strong reboots every four to eight years. But there was the New Adventures of He-Man in '89 through Deke and Jetlag Entertainment. And then in 2001, Mattel gave it the proper reboot, which is just known as He-Man and the Masters of the Universe by Mike Young production. The Four Horsemen helped come out with an adult focused collector's line called Masters of the Universe Classics that had fans continuing to absorb the culture for a while.
SPEAKER_00Mondo came out with their series of there's Mondo stuff.
SPEAKER_02There, there's there's been lots of Mattel iterations, origins going back to again 2019. There's been comics, there's been lots of stuff. There's been recently new She-Ra, uh, three seasons of a She-Ra cartoon on from DreamWorks on Netflix. Then there was two new shows on Netflix as well. One aimed at kids that's known as the CG show of E-Man and the Masters of the Universe, and then the Kevin Smith Revelation and Revolution Masters of the Universe uh limited series, 20 episodes of that. So there's been lots of stuff for the last 40-50 years, uh but nothing that really captured the hearts and imagination as the toy line and as the original filmation show. I do have some box office numbers to share. Okay. I will say again, this is opening weekend uh for this one, so these aren't final numbers for the opening for the whole run, but I do have opening weekend for the 87 movie. 87 movie uh overall made seven 17.3 million dollars against a budget of 22 million dollars. Now, 17.3 million dollars is just over 50 million dollars in today's money. That's for the whole theatrical run. And on opening weekend, it made 4.9 million in 1987, which translates to about 12.6 million dollars today. And Masters of the Universe 2026 made right around 53, 54 million, it looks like, by the current estimates of Fox Belfast Mojo. So it's even with inflation, it's done better than the 87 film, and that's worldwide. Uh domestically, it's about 50-50 domestically internationally, which I think is a real good healthy number. But let's not forget Mattel and Amazon split the cost of the film, which is rumored to be about $176 million. And I believe Mattel gets to keep all the toy rights, so this cost Amazon $90 million to make. They get the streaming rights, and they're dividing up the box office. So $176 million plus probably another $200 million for marketing. And I haven't seen a film marketed as heavy as this in a long time.
SPEAKER_00It was very, very heavy on the marketing. It was, I mean, like it was everywhere. Too much, I think. Yeah, almost too much. Every time I'd pull up Facebook or Reels or you know, some sort of YouTube, they were you know, they were doing interviews on it. They had, you know, all sorts of different advertising going on. I mean, it uh within the the movie theaters, uh, just the between the posters, the the wall, you know, the wall art, the you know, pop-ups, the you know, concession stand items like the popcorn buckets. You know, I I bought all the pint glasses. Yeah, I know. You know, I mean there was there was quite a bit of marketing. I mean, it almost felt like the 80s, too, with the pint glasses and some of the stuff that they were coming out with. Like some of it felt very reminiscent to to what we experienced in the 80s. And that was that was kind of cool though.
SPEAKER_02I I hate to say it, but there's only two other examples I can think of of a film that was marketed this heavily. These are bold comparisons, but I don't I honestly don't remember a film being hyped as much as this was. I mean, they were doing like sandcastle sculptures and like statues as lightning rods in other countries around the world. Uh except for The Phantom Menace in 1999 and Tim Burton's Batman '89. I don't remember any other film being hyped this much. Maybe Dick Tracy a little bit to try to capture the wave of Batman, but it was like kind of like the year right after. So I don't remember a film that had this much marketing and this much uncertainty about whether it would hit the numbers it needs to at the box office.
SPEAKER_00Right. Yeah, there was there was a lot of uncertainty for that. And you know, I think we're gonna dive into why some of that uncertainty was, but yeah, there was a lot of uncertainty, and I think I think Amazon getting the streaming rights, I think you know, they'll end up making up, you know what they spent on this and more. But yeah, opening box office. I I I I was worried about opening box office, you know. I mean, even for your money, no, it's not mine. No, but I want it to succeed. I wanted it to, I wanted it to be good. I mean, I really, really wanted this movie to be good, you know.
SPEAKER_02Or when I laugh, I should go like this.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so funny. We're gonna talk about that laugh later. Oh, I can't wait. I know.
SPEAKER_02I mentioned there there have been a lot of versions of this this uh story floating around for a while. One I read was written by Justin Marks, who is most notably the screenwriter behind John Favreau's live-action adaptation of the jungle book. He has since worked on a bunch of other projects. He also tried to get a Voltron script off the ground. He made it very far with his pitch and his script. It got complete drafts. There was concept artwork that we saw done. It was basically in the years after Batman Begins, where everybody's like, let's do a darker version, more realistic take on X character, where we see how they come up to be who they are. You remember after Batman begins, we got that's the Star Trek reboot with Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto, which is how Kirk met Spock and whatnot. But the Masters story was very much it's been a while, but it was very much it focused on the relationship. And again, remember, this is the guy who wrote the jungle book. It focused on the relationship between Adam and Cringer and the journey that they were on to try to find the sword of he, I believe, is what is was the MacGuffin of the script. And Man at Arms had been exiled, and much like Liam Neeson trains Christian Bale and Batman Begins, he had to train Adam again like that, and there was very similar scenes. Justin Marks admittedly said during our interview with him that the one thing he could never grasp and handle well in the script was magic users fighting each other because he didn't understand how magic works. Does it deplete you, does it tire you, or is it just constantly like shooting lasers from your hands? And his and his script really show showed that is basically it's a very similar opening where Skeletor and Evelyn basically attack the palace, and Adam has to flee. And I believe he's raised by you know some sort of tribe in the in the woods or whatever.
SPEAKER_00And that's you know, I know that that question has come up a few times after the movie came out was you know, hey, who raised Adam? Because you know you never do get to see his younger years out, you know, once he once he goes to Earth.
SPEAKER_02So oh, what difference does it make? It's not like family is important. We should we shouldn't focus on family at all in a in a story like Masters of the Universe. Who cares about parents and lineage and what what a family means? One of many questions I have about the recent film. But that's one of the other iterations, so very much a like Lone Wolf Mandalorian almost kind of take on things meets Batman begins. It was an interesting read. I can see why they can get put into production. And the story that we kept hearing over and over again from more than one source was it came down to a fateful day where Warner Brothers had the rights. I'm not gonna mention the producer that was in charge, I'm sure you can Google it. And they went in to pitch it, and it was the same day, literally, the same day, I believe, as Hollywood Reporter of Radio had a headline about uh something incredibly misogynistic happening in the entertainment industry, and it said something about key man woman haters, and it was the same day as the pitch for this thing with this finalized draft, and it came and the head of the studio, I guess, came in and said, How am I supposed to green like that when this is today's headline?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's uh yeah, that's that's sad and crazy, you know.
SPEAKER_02And so there's 20 years or so since that happened, maybe 15, but that's kind of that's the kind of take that happens. So sometimes these things don't get off the ground for reasons that have nothing to do with the story, the fan appeal, but it is a very difficult world to to come to life. It's Star Wars meets Lord of the Rings, it's sci-fi and fantasy on a huge scale.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I I I honestly I think they balanced it really well, you know. I mean, you've got Evelyn and you don't oh, so we're oh okay. Well, we haven't discussed this, so um, yeah, I think they balanced it really well. I I felt they did. I've you know, I mean, they didn't they put Orco in at the very end with the post credit scene, which I or not post credit scene, but just at the very end of the the the movie, kind of like the 80s filmation. You know, had they thrown Orco in with the the magic and stuff, I know Evil. And Skeletor had magic, but you know, I mean, it wasn't like they were throwing, you know, you know, fire, you know, from their hands and stuff all the time. So I feel like they balance that magical world really well because I think it would have been very hokey and very cheesy had they they introduced it. Are you worried about something being hokey and cheesy in this film? I was. Well, there's a lot of hokey and cheesy, but I felt like they did. I'm just gonna say it, okay?
SPEAKER_02I'm gonna tell you how I feel about it. Tell me how you feel. And I hope our discussion changes it by the end. Okay. I feel like there were really great intentions going in to make this film. I feel like some of it feels like the extrapolation of playing with my action figures as a kid is that somebody watched what I did and made it a live action film. At the same time, I think it's an entire creation of fan culture and internet culture all together. It's every meme, every possible joke without the sincerity, seriously lacking heart for a lot of it, and putting it up there as if it is the checklist of everything that every Masters of the Universe fans needs or expects to see without the underpinning sincerity of taking it serious. It doesn't have to be dark. You just you don't have to wink at the camera every other scene because all you're doing is taking the error out of what you're building, and I can't get behind something that doesn't have the gravity of something that's a sincere statement. You and they and they set it up several times where I just wish you know people could kind of understand that I want to be more than I am. That's a great theme to pin it on. That's that's the ethos of the cartoon, right? You can be more than you are, and you should do good with that, right? It's very much great power, comes great responsibility, and I think a lot of the casting was great, and there's a ton of great choices, and I think we'll get to in one of our later subjects, you know, the one good idea is one of my favorite ones, that there's a couple that are really good. I just think there's so much fan and internet culture loading this thing down of this film, it should be this, it should be this, it should be this, and it's just like it's it's spit out this machine in the same way that when you type something in to an AI bot or a Chat GPT, you're like, I yeah, that sort of looks like what I asked for, but man, this does not I get why you gave this to me, but have you really read this through and then you tell it what to look for? You're like, oh, good catch. That that doesn't make sense. That's what I felt about this film.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, uh, you know, and I I Now that you mentioned it, Rob. Now that you mention it, Rob, I well, I know and I can see that. I mean, for for somebody like me that has grown up with Masters of the Universe and He-Man and stuff, just like you, I I thought some of the nods and the the memes and the jokes and stuff like that were funny. But here's where one of the problems that I found lies was the first time that I went and saw it, we were sitting down, and you know, people were coming into the theater, and this kid goes, Hey, who's He-Man? And he was asking his his mom, and his mom goes, Oh, I think it's some cartoon from the 90s. Although she's right, it was kind of like she didn't have an understanding of who He-Man actually was, and you know, like the origins of everything that came with it. So I kind of felt bad, you know, for for him not knowing who He-Man was, because I mean I I I want kids nowadays to kind of feel the same way I did, right? And they're not going to, you know. They're not. The second time I went and saw it, I was talking to one of the people that worked at the movie theater, and we were we were talking about the movie, and he was he was a younger, a younger man. He was probably in his maybe early 20s. He I I asked him, I was like, look, let me ask you, we'll get to the the laugh now. I said, when they were laughing at the end when they were doing that like that, I said, Did you understand what was going on? And he goes, No, not really. He goes, I thought it was cheesy and kind of hokey. And I was like, Okay, but you didn't understand it. And he goes, No. And so I told him about the cartoon. And he goes, Oh, he goes, Okay, well, that makes sense. He goes, but he goes, How would I know that from this movie? And I was like, Oh, and that's that was the problem, and and I think you we're gonna get to the standalone test a little bit later. You you hit the nail on the head as far as as far as the internet culture and the memes and fandom and everything. I was like, maybe there was a little too much of it without any context. It it like there is not that.
SPEAKER_02It's called basically self-gratification, yeah. And you know what? You can't make a film just for the fans. You and I know this, and we make documentary films together. Whether it's about Nintendo, whether it's about action figures, we don't just make them for the 10% of people that we know are already gonna watch them. They're gonna be entertained, we're gonna do a good job, they're gonna learn something they haven't learned. It's for the 90% of people that have to come into this brand new. It's for all the partners of the people that are already fans, where they got to bring their significant other and say, Well, watch this action figure show or movie with me, and they think they're gonna be bored to death and be like, oh, this was actually really good. Those are the people we make stuff for, and we do the heavy lifting for them so that it's easily digestible and doesn't cheapen the experience for those that are in the know. The experts can still enjoy it, but it's not self-gratifying. Like this film had to be and needed to be, apparently. The fan base isn't that big for He-Man.
SPEAKER_00No, no. I mean, for somebody like me, like all that stuff was great. I enjoyed it, I really, really did. Like, I enjoyed it, but thinking back about the the actual movie and stuff, I was like, you know, there's not going to be a new fan base that comes in and understands what this is, you know.
SPEAKER_02I mean, the 87 movie had an audience because it was on the heels of the cartoon. Yes. That's why they made it. Yes, it was a billion-dollar brand. People tuned in every day to watch it, and there's the movie. It makes sense from an economical uh point of view. There's a model there that works. This is coming off the heels of you know, some stuff that's been on Netflix that's stream on demand, hoping people that clicked and watched it or bought like a re-release set that their dad or maybe even their grandfather grew up watching.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_02Whole different, whole different thing. Let's jump into the original breakdown. Why did the original work? We can talk either about the filmation series or the 87 movie, because this is obviously a reboot, so it's a bit different from our normal comparisons. Why did the original work? Why why did it resonate then and over time?
SPEAKER_00And did the ending and did the ending actually work? For the for the 87 Masters of the Universe, this was the first live adaptation of you know of He-Man. And I think I I think it worked, I mean I if we're going based off box office numbers, box office it's it's not really a success in the theater, but it became a cult kind of classic, you know, years after, and even till today. I mean, I absolutely love that movie, but you know, being that it was the first live-action Heaven, I I think that's kind of where it worked, but there was a lot of places it falls apart.
SPEAKER_02It doesn't really work, it didn't really have the budget. It's more of a skeleton movie than a He-Man movie. You never saw a transformation sequence, which is kind of like the heart of it all. Right, yeah. But you know what? They played it for serious. The whole thing was serious from beginning to end. This was a fantasy film that had Star Wars-like elements in it. Didn't try to explain how fantasy was separate from the sci-fi, and it worked on that level. They they played it straight. Yeah, you know, did it seem like a knockoff of Stormtroopers? Sure. Did it have some missing key characters? Absolutely. Were there some new characters? Sure, there were. But at its whole, it worked because it took the DNA of good guys versus bad guys, it continued the story of the cartoon and said, here's the next episode where Skeletor actually takes over Gray Skull at right at the beginning, and he's on top now. Now it puts He-Man on his heel to try to come back and save the day. Right. Sound familiar?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So did the ending work for you, do you think, in the 87 film?
SPEAKER_00Uh, yeah. If I mean for me, it it did. I mean, that was what we all wanted to see was He-Man versus Skeletor, you know, seeing Skeletor, you know, transform into, you know, what is he, God in God Skeletor? I forget what they actually call him, but I mean, that was that was great. I don't think that the action was all that great. I mean, maybe for a 10-year-old kid it was fantastic, but you know, going back and watching it again, and you know, that compared to the new one, yeah. I mean, the the the action was lacking.
SPEAKER_02I mean, it was just very much not comparing it, we're just talking about what it was for when it was.
SPEAKER_00Okay. For for when it was, for the age that I was, I think that the action worked, but nah, yeah, that that's that's what we wanted to see was Skeletor versus Heat Man. And we got to see that. And I think, you know, I think ultimately it worked, but you know, and and again, like you said, Frank, Franklin Gela just gave a phenomenal performance through that whole thing. And you know, I I think he was kind of the saving grace of you know of that film.
SPEAKER_02So again, sounds familiar. What I think really worked and resonated with the first film was was the villains, right? You have memorable villains with motivations that you can buy into that are interesting, uh, interesting looking, then then you got yourself a film, right? Because as long, as long as you got that adversarial obstacle that like scratches your brain in a certain way, then then I think you can get behind a hero trying to overcome that, whether you like the hero or not.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_02And I think Dolph Wunger and He-Man is pretty vanilla, you know, it's early on being a superhero, which is pretty much kind of what it is. So there wasn't really much of a template for how to be a superhero other than Christopher Reese's Superman, really, because Batman 89 comes after, and even that's a different kind of ball of wax. So for me, it's all about the villains. Skeletor, it's Skeletor's story, him and Evelyn have a great dynamic, but even his you know, his minions, his evil warriors, Karg and Blade and Beastman, aka Grizzlore, and Sorod, even though there's some new characters, that memorable group is just fantastic. And again, at the time, maybe not a it wasn't Trapjaw, it wasn't Merman, it wasn't you know triclops, which we do get in the new film, but I think they functioned as exactly the same as they did in the cartoon in the source material. And I think Skeletor was completely elevated, and because he's the active character trying to do stuff, and he-Man's more passive as a as a force that's reacting to things, he becomes more interesting to watch, and that's the heart of the film. But I also still think you get a nice triangle between He-Man's Heela and Man at Arms.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_02What kills the original is the love story, the romance between Courtney Cox and Robert Duncan McNeil. It feels like this added on thing. Of course, it's realistic that if He-Man ends up on Earth, we know it's for budgetary reasons, but if he ended up on any dimension, that in Skeletor following him would have an impact on that world. And that fills up a little bit of screen time to explore what that impact is. And yeah, like we've said with other episodes, there's got to be some sort of romance angle. It's not going to be between He-Man and Tila. I'm sure there were studio notes and Mattel notes saying they can't kiss or love or anything like that because it's going to wreck the cartoon. And you know, we don't want to put that idea in kids' heads, so they had to introduce that somewhere else.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_02Which is what I think that solves because it doesn't really act as a window for kids because they're so far out of the kids that are watching it. They're teenagers, right? They're ready to even leave home almost at that point where they are in the film. So the original is flawed, but there is a lot of elements that worked very well. Let's talk about the new one, the sequel, but the reboot in our case. What did this sequel add? What changed? How is it different? Did it learn its lessons, do you think, from the original?
SPEAKER_00So what did it add? Eternia, you know, a fantasy, fantastical world of you know, imagination and adventure. And I think they I loved how they brought eternia into it. There was a few problems with eternia. I I I felt like you the way that they had eternia set up was very much like a small little town with a one four-way stop, and you got Castle Grey Skull on one corner, you know, the palace on the other corner. You you know what I mean. And so you you didn't get to explore like this.
SPEAKER_02You walk in one side, you walk past the bank, the the sheriff's station, the saloon, the hotel, and you're already through it to the other end of town. Felt very weird for this. At the center of the the cosmos, the heart of the universe is eternity, and at the heart of that is Castle Graceville. It's like big, big, big, and at the heart of that is the one street where you grew up on playing floor hockey with your sky sled.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. That was that was a little odd. You know, I was going back and I was watching that, and I was like, I was like, this it just felt like like a gas station on every corner. You know what I mean? It it just it it didn't it didn't it didn't feel right, like you didn't get to travel to Castle Grayscale, you just walked across the street.
SPEAKER_02Well, and this is why though in the 87 film, it's just about Gray Skull. You know, they don't talk about the palace, you hear that the palace has been attacked, I think. But it's a geography, you can't say both places are important and be in both places at the same time, or okay, we've conquered one, it doesn't matter because we gotta go conquer the other one, we gotta go here, we gotta go there. I like I said when I first saw the trailer, I said, Oh, Castle Grayskull actually kind of feels like a church or some sort of monument within the palace of Eternos. It doesn't feel like this separate fortress lost to time and mystery, like it was originally kind of part of the the lore, this mythological, what does it say? I can't read it uh mysterious fortress or something like that of He-Manor. I I can't read the box from here, but it feels very much, it's just in the city, much like a medieval church would be in the center of say Venice or Rome or something like that, like the Colosseum is it's just part of that world, right? And it's not separate, so it's just I'll attack it all at once, but it is just this. You see some other locales, but it's all just kind of wilderness, right? It's preferred Snake Mountain, sort of. Yeah, yeah, I could keep going.
SPEAKER_00No, I think having Eternia in there was, you know, again, what we want to see, but I mean uh there was some flaws with it. I mean, you know, maybe runtime, you know. I mean, you know, we didn't see that much.
SPEAKER_02We saw underground caves, so basically they hang out in Fraggle Rock. We saw inside the one room of Castle Grace Gull, which apparently is the whole thing, especially confirmed by the playset. We saw the throne room of Snake Mountain. Again, huge lost opportunities to explore these iconic locations. Like if you would have said that the power of Graceville is hidden somewhere within the castle, which has always kind of been the shtick, the skeletor's got to make his way through it to find it. And can He-Man stop it, much like the Ghostbusters got to travel 22 floors to the top to get Zool, or you know, if Key-Man, who seemingly can go from Fraggle Rock to Snake Mountain and two dissolved scenes in a montage across the desert where he's walking, and then disappear in the throne room, like walk in from the bottom, make his way all the way up. Don't know if there was any obstacles whatsoever, because you know, he Evilin just meets him at the front door like he was delivering girl guide cookies, like missed opportunities, missed opportunities.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, I I can see that's a missed opportunity, you know. Again, you know, do we really need to see all that though?
SPEAKER_02I mean, I think it'd be a lot more interesting than some of the stuff we did see. Maybe, possibly, yeah. I again, you don't have to go bigger, you just have to do things better.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_02Right? Like people have been talking about Castle Graceful and Snake Mountain forever, and the thing with movies is sometimes you only get one chance to make them. Wouldn't you love to have seen some sort of realized version of Graceville on screen? Think about the 87 film. You get to see a lot of Graceville on screen, and sure, it's mainly just the throne room, but what a killer throne room. Right. Right? You get this long runway, you get these giant chasm pits where the maybe that power of graceful is underneath, you get this awesome kind of eye-opening universe, throne room area, and it was designed as you would find in our documentary Power of Grace Fell, go watch it now. But it was designed for an epic sword fight at the end that didn't take place because there's lots of different levels, very much like an Arrow Flynn Robin Hood kind of thing. But even though it was never utilized for that, you can see the attention to detail. And Pixel Dan, Pixel Dan, our good friend who we've talked to before and featured in some of our content, got to go visit set of of this film, got to see the production design sketchwork, and there was some really cool Castle Gray's Gull stuff that would have been nice to explore a little bit more than what we got on screen. Yeah, that's the world building we need. I mean, they they mentioned Avion at the end. Great, could have been cool to start somewhere like that, could have been cool to start somewhere else, just so you have a scope of the world, not just one horse town. Right. So your big thing was they they added eternal. What else did they add?
SPEAKER_00I think the action in the in the movie, I thought the action and the characters were absolutely fantastic. Trapcha, I mean, he he was a badass in this. You know, uh Beast Beast Man, he he was fantastic. I thought, I thought, you know, even though he was just CGI and you know, they didn't do you know prosthetics and makeup on on a character for him, you know, he was all CGI. I thought he was fantastic. Jared Leto as Skeletor. I know multiple people had told me I'm not gonna go see that because of Jared Leto. And I was like, you're missing out on a performance because I thought Skeletor, you know, in 87.
SPEAKER_02But that wasn't really that different, though, right?
SPEAKER_00No, and that's what I was about to say. That that, you know, I know in 87 Skeletor was kind of the, you know, he stole the show, but you know, I I thought what they did with him as far as his, you know, his demeanor and how he was very much kind of this insecure buffoon, but yet still powerful. I thought they they did a very good job at yeah, at that.
SPEAKER_02Uh yeah, well, we can debate whether they handled that well or not. When you when it comes to the characters, it was nice to see because technology allows more accurate representation of the classic characters. I but I don't think that everything had to be a darker, more adult, grittier version. Trapjaw, you know, while it was great that he had dialogue, you know, didn't have to look the way that he did. It could have looked different, right? Maybe not as menacing, maybe more family friendly, maybe easier. I mean, I know the kids that we took were a little freaked out by some of that, and I have no problem scaring kids when it comes to the movie. I think that's kind of what excites you a little bit. I was excited by Return to Oz and the Dark Crystal when I was a kid. But it just doesn't feel there's something missing with him. It doesn't feel like it, it's real, it feels almost too fantastical or just made up, right? You get to see a little bit more about Trapjaw when Man at Arms rips his jaw down and you see the cybernetic implants there. But if he would have looked more like you know, you could see that he was put together somehow, it would have made sense. And how come Beast Man didn't talk? Cringer talks with a completely plain, boring voice instead of terror concerned. Didn't seem like he actually had like a presence or real character.
SPEAKER_00Oh he didn't have a he didn't have a huge presence as far as talking, but I mean he came in and talked.
SPEAKER_02I mean, and again, he's a guy that historically can control all animals just using telepathy, right? Right. You would have thought that that would have been something he did with cringer. Nope, they got rid of that whole last like basically making him a giant monkey. Right. Beastman is a lot of people's favorite, favorite kind of evil warriors. I think you like Beastman a lot too.
SPEAKER_00I do. I have one of the Mondo figures. He's one of my favorites. He's he's absolutely and now he's basically just a big, big It was a two-toy for Kringer at the end.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's pretty, pretty disheartening to see somebody who's got such power and who lusts after Skeletor's power and and respect in the cartoon get treated that way. I mean, I get not everybody can be awesome, but everybody should be a formidable force, especially on the villains, so that it makes them feel that much of an obstacle. They did that pretty well with the heroic warriors, if you will. Like Mechanek isn't played for a human giraffe, you know, which they could easily have done. Everybody gets mocked, you know, Fisto, Ram Man, and whatnot. But I don't know. I mean, yes, they added all the proper characters and more of the characters and eternia and the world and everything, but it's played for last and at the expense. And I and they try to retcon why it's presented that way, but there's just too much to overcome with the internet culture that has bogged this down.
SPEAKER_00Well, again, I mean, with with how much lore and how much uh stuff there is to pack into a what was this, two hours and 20 minutes, somewhere around there, two hours and 30 minutes. You know, I I felt like they did a good job with balancing stuff out. Again, I think there's problems with it. One of the issues that I had was, you know, they made certain characters look so fantastic, and then goatman. You get a guy that's painted red with horns stuck on his head, and then they painted his mouth. It looked like he got slapped by somebody that had flower on his head.
SPEAKER_02Very different than Spike Or, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, very, very different.
SPEAKER_02But I will say, Goatman, because he's real, has more of an on-screen presence, and I could feel that he was there compared to like a spike ore or beast man.
SPEAKER_00I I felt like they should have got you. You know, you remember the movie Legend with Tim Curry and how how they did certain contours of the prosthetics of where it came down in his face, and like I mean, I felt like they could have done more. I felt like they got lazy with certain characters, and then they went all out on other characters that didn't get the presence that you know, like Goatman did, you know. And I I just I feel like that was a missed opportunity there, but you know, so we've explored one I was gonna say again, and you know, budgetary reasons, whatever, you know, you know, they made the decisions that they made, and we got this movie.
SPEAKER_02So yes, we did. Uh we've already somewhat discussed the sequel understanding the original over the last few topics. So let's jump right ahead to again one of one of my favorite things, one of your favorite things, the standalone test. Does this reboot sequel work without the original? Without the culture, without the end jokes, does it stand on its own? Does it introduce everything uh well enough? Does it do a good job with it with if you can ignore everything that came before it the toys, the comics, even the very few video games?
SPEAKER_00I I think you could have this movie as a standalone, but some so yes, the storyline I think would be a standalone. The nods back to everything else, I think you know that that kind of is where it screws with the standalone test. All those movies well, but but I think the storyline itself, I think you could have this movie so distracting.
SPEAKER_02They are distracting so distracting, like the kid that you talk to at the same time is like, no, it's it's it's cheesy and hokey, and that's not an invitation to learn more. Like, does the film work and succeed? Sure, it can function, it can be executed on the storyline that they're setting up where a kid is sent away to another world and has to come back to become all that he can be in some sort of pro-military campaign uh subverted ad through magical sword play. But at every turn, when you're when you're winking and nodding at the audience, it's very distracting. And the original and everything that comes before it actually becomes distracting, even to a mega fan like me. It became so distracting that it was hard to enjoy. I want to enjoy this, I want to live for you and different though.
SPEAKER_00But I I enjoyed all that, but it it I get it, but I don't need that.
SPEAKER_02Show me something that can just live and breathe and start a whole new generation's appreciation for everything eternum, without saying, hey, remember this. Right. Did we grow up with things that said, Hey, remember this? No, there were subtle nods to stuff that became before it, whether it was uh whether it was like Sherlock Holmes in Batman, the way that some of that stuff would be seated, or the way that Superman was seated within He-Man in itself, the alternate disguise, the magical world, you know, word, putting on a performance. There's lots of you know homages to stuff, and homage is fine. Paying tribute to is great. Winking and nodding is not great. You're not clever, you're lazy, lazy.
SPEAKER_00I I didn't I didn't necessarily think it was lazy. I thought I for for either lazy or scared, I loved it.
SPEAKER_02I loved it. You're either lazy or scared that your work can't stand on its own, and that you just had to wink at the camera. Just put your heart on the line, let it just stand the test of time because it will work. Right. Because you're you're just risking like you're going from bulletproof to showing stinks in the armor. How how much do you think the sequel benefited from the original or the original stuff, the IP that's out there?
SPEAKER_00Oh, I think I think this new reboot benefited a lot from the original, especially for the fans, you know. Again, this was fans, yeah. I mean, you from the marketing.
SPEAKER_02If that original stuff didn't exist, this trailer, this film has to be marketed differently. The first trailer is literally showing you the filmation cartoon, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, right. Oh, yeah, exactly. But yeah, I mean, I I I think I I think it benefited a lot from the original. I again, I don't think had this movie, you know, been made all on its own, been a standalone, I I don't think it would have had the the opening that it had. And I I say that because uh, you know, obviously the you know, the box office weekend did more than what it had projected, which was I think 33 million. So it did 20 more million than than it originally projected.
SPEAKER_02And I think it was a million, I think was domestic. I don't think that was a worldwide guess. I think that was that not worldwide, okay. No, so I think it landed within that. I think the fact that the scary movie reboot reiteration came out was a surprise that it did the best opening for that franchise ever, but there had been enough time off in between, right? And people know they're probably going to laugh at something. It was a very known, easy, marketable, you know, concept compared to what are we actually getting here with this thing that's from the 90s or 80s or whatever it is? What's the fan breaking point? Is there something where where fans of the audience lose faith in what they've seen here in this reboot? I think honestly, it happened with the casting of Jared Leto. Yeah. I think that's when fans were like, I don't know, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00Well, I think there was a few records of choices that they made. Uh, Jared Leto was definitely a huge one.
SPEAKER_02But for the record, I've always had faith in him because he's he's won an Academy Award and he's given great performances. And like I've said before, like Nick Cage, I don't mind people taking swings. I love swings, right? So I'll always come to see something that he's in. I don't care about it is, which means which reminds me I gotta watch uh Morbius still.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you know, and I I've I've loved a lot of his earlier films, you know, one of the most recent ones, Tron Ares. I absolutely love that. I thought he was great in that, you know. So I I think the casting, I think there were several casting choices that were under scrutiny before the film came out. After the film came out, I think you you can't deny that those actors did a fantastic job in the roles that they they were in. But yeah, I think that was a fan breaking point. I think if we're gonna talk about the actual movie itself, one of the breaking points that I kind of cringed at a little bit was some of the more adult humor. There was a lot of adult innuendos in this movie that it was like there was a lot of language in this movie. There was a lot of language in this movie, and I'm sitting there thinking, I'm like, hey, you know, especially if you're you know a fan of the franchise, if you're bringing your kids to come see this, like two-year-olds and a five-year-old, and man at arms is sitting there going, ass, ass, ass, ass.
SPEAKER_02And maybe that's okay in your house. Our kids are a little bit more sheltered than that, and then having Tila say shit and somebody else saying it later, too. It's like, first of all, those are very earth words for you to use, and all they're all of a sudden common vernacular on eternity. We'll let that go too, I suppose.
SPEAKER_00But it doesn't have it doesn't need to have a that would that was a little bit of a cringe for me as far. I mean, now I don't have kids, so I I didn't cringe too hard, but I I I was sitting there thinking while while the movie was playing, I was like, wow, there's a lot in here. Like, I don't know if I would want to take my kid to see this, you know. I mean, there was, you know, so I I I think that could be a breaking point. I mean, that was obviously something that I questioned, and and like I said, I don't even have kids, so you know, yeah, I I I think I think there's a few breaking points in the movie, you know. Obviously, the you know, going back to the nods, you know, I think I I think that could be a breaking point. Obviously, you didn't like that, so you know, and you're you're a you're a super fan, you know.
SPEAKER_02Lazy, you don't need to use language, right? You don't need to use that. You can come up with something more clever, right? This is another one of my favorite things we get to talk about because even in the worst sequels, reboots, relaunches, and even in the best ones, this one topic alone is just always the delight. What's the one good idea that you think in this? Like one of the best things that they did in this entry. There's like, oh, I get it. This is what makes the sequel work, or this is what helped green light it. There's two two things for me that that they did in this that were home run ideas.
SPEAKER_00I think the origin story of Adam and the transformation into He-Man was was huge. I, you know, they didn't do that in the 87, and obviously, you know, uh I I think you were supposed to already know who He-Man was, and you know, like you said, kind of going on the you know, the the coattails of the cartoon and the comics and everything, you know, you kind of already had a sense of what was happening, and you you didn't really need to uh to go that route. But you know, 40 years later, I think that was what they needed in order to make this a successful movie. Had they just had he, you know, he-man, I I think, you know, it I don't think it would have been, you know, a a good story. But I also think, you know, you you have to, I I have to, you know, as as as far as uh the the characters themselves bringing in, you know, some of these characters and the action that they had, I think that, you know, making making those fight scenes as cool as they were, I think that was a must to keep fans. If they had been, you know, lazy with the fight scenes, I think they would have lost a lot of people.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think the fight scenes were really great ways to explore the characters and showcase their powers without having to get into the exposition of it. I sort of like what you said with the first point about Adam, but my thing that I liked is that they purposely sent him to Earth. They exiled him to Earth to keep him safe. A little bit of a Superman thing, right? We sent our you know begotten son to Earth to be safe. Of course, he's coming back, so it's a little bit different. It's a little bit like Hercules returning to Olympus to try to figure out his his place amongst all that. I thought that was clever. Again, would have liked to see lesser. It is what it is, but the one idea, the one home run idea more than anything else is the names of these characters and the name He-Man. It's all explained through the eyes of a 10-year-old child who's who's watching this and doesn't know the people but is familiar with them. It's like walking into a party that your parents are half having, neighbors from around the street are there. You don't know those people, you've seen them down the street, and you're like, oh, that's funny. I'm gonna call them bristle lip. And look at that's the guy with the toupee. I'm gonna call him, you know, like high uh uh Mr. Hydor or something like that.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_02For them to rationalize He-Man and find a way to get it out there that isn't I'm He-Man, like like they're playing it serious, I think was great.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And they called him the champion of Gray Skull as the serious part of everything. And you know, they you know, the the He-Man uh kind of name, uh you said, seeing it through the eyes of a 10-year-old and and seeing how ridiculous those names were, like that that was actually really good. I thought that that was pretty much that was the one home run idea.
SPEAKER_02Now, it didn't have to be for everything. He you could have I could have been completely fine with Fisto and Mechanek and all those people as their actual names, but for them to just say, you know, and I wish I could have been alongside you and you could have called me He-Man, that would have also worked. Right. Right? Just like he's projecting himself in that world because now he actually can with his sword. Now there's a lot of ideas that I didn't understand, like why they had to like comment on him running away to change again. Why does he have to change back? Does he change back? Or he does he just they don't explain how he changed back and got thrown in the cell. He just got like kind of clobbered by Skeletor a bit, and then they dragged him there and he had his clothes back on, which they kind of also talked about and didn't realize they wrote a bit of a plot problem. But again, they got rid of the whole secret identity thing, which is a core, core element to that world. So I don't know if I like that or not.
SPEAKER_00Right, yeah. You know, and there is one area that I I you know I don't know if I like or dislike the way that Randor treated Adam when he was a kid. Pretty harsh. You know, there's a there's a lot of us, and and you you know this because we've interviewed a lot of people, you know, on you know, Masters of the Universe and a lot of other subjects where these cartoons were an escape for things that were happening in their lives. I mean, even even my story where you know my father was abusive, and there was a lot of things that had happened, you know, Masters of the Universe was very much an escape and was a defining moment for a lot of us where we actually decided that we have the power and it taught us things about our lives that we didn't have to take, you know, certain things, right? And the way that Randor was treating Adam at the very beginning, I it was a little like woo-hoo, you know, it felt very felt very abusive. And it was like, you know, oh, I'm supposed to become a man, this is what I'm supposed to do, you know. And it it felt very much like, you know, when Randor came back and said, you know, I was just trying to make you strong. It was like, ooh, that's that's kind of what my dad used to say, and that really like I was like, okay, just kill him already. Okay. I I it it just there were there was a lot of things in there that were very triggering, I guess you could say. And I may get flack for that, you know, and that's okay, you know. But I did like how they balance that out with you know, man at arms being able to, you know, to come to Adam and be like, you know, hey, it's it's okay to talk about these things, it's okay to talk about things that are going on within side of you. And yeah, but he didn't know how to do that.
SPEAKER_02He was I I don't know. I think Adam didn't know man of arms didn't, but Adam didn't. That's what I mean. So like the whole idea that he struggled with learning how to talk and hiding it with alcohol was also something really strange for eight-year-olds to see.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. That was that was a little that was a little strange, yeah, I thought as well. Yeah. Especially with the world.
SPEAKER_02I also think strange stuff will send Adam to my home planet of Earth. It's like, okay, Queen Marlena just telling everybody right away, hey, I'm from Earth, and these worlds are connected. We're not gonna explain that. We're gonna say that this is the fantasy world, these things you read about in stories, but it's actually connected to Earth.
SPEAKER_00It's like yeah, and when Adam and when Adam and Queen Marlena was first in that in eternia with cringer, you see her astronaut helmet in the back.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, lots of little things. There's lots of little again, much like the 87 film where he randomly gets thrown to Earth. That's a little bit cleaner. I get that she's from Earth. Again, I'm a fan, but it they could have just found out that he went to this planet Earth, you know, it's like not as developed, it's this kind of civilization, play it a little bit more sci-fi, right? You know, hopefully he'll come back. Like they didn't they also didn't say, like, you know, keep the sword, it's your only way back. Like, when is he supposed to come back? Wouldn't it be wouldn't it make more sense to go get him when it's safe to come back? And good luck on your own, just a sword. Yeah, maybe they're gonna do the the young He-Man adventures where we see Adam as a 10-year-old.
SPEAKER_00So here's what I still thought I would find funny about that whole thing. He was supposed to hold up the sword to come back to Eternia, right? And he thought he was gonna vanish in this ma magical, you know, puff of smoke and and be transported back to Eternia, but it was kind of like a homing beacon, right? Queen Marlena was alive the entire time, and yet, you know, the the sorceress knew where she was from, you know, and yet nobody told anybody where he went.
SPEAKER_02I it just he had the sorceress made this portal, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Right, yeah. So, like, why did he have to hold up the sword for a beacon 15 years later?
SPEAKER_02And they were like this also goes to the the question about the post post-credit sequence, or you know, hopefully one day both my children to be together. It's like, well, I'm sure you can open another portal and figure that out. Yeah, that would be like probably know where she is, the other child, if you know what happened to her, unless you just magically you send your son to the planet that you know, but then when you send your your daughter to a planet you don't know, or do you know who took her and where he probably took her? I don't know. That's for the sequel that might never happen to tell us the escalation problem. Does the sequel get bigger, smaller scenes go scale?
SPEAKER_00Oh, I think I think it got bigger. I I I think with overall, I agree.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but go on.
SPEAKER_00I I I think with uh the amount of uh you know, just overall budget that they put into this and and you know the action sequences, and you know, we we get more of eternia, although you know, not a lot of eternia, we get more of eternia. I I think overall, yeah, it it was bigger than the original, yeah. But I also think that they they had to like the very end with Orco, you know, I thought that was great where Orico comes back at the end and gives the you know the inspiring message, like you know, the the 80s cartoon. But again, they they kind of take that idea and they didn't give it in anything new, you know.
SPEAKER_02So so I think overall you're right, the film feels bigger, there's more space and area covered, other than the one horse town of Graceville and the Palace, which feels smaller. I do think the final fight with T Man. Skeletor feels actually smaller than the 87 film. I feel like the 87 duel feels much bigger, especially since half of the fight for the 2026 version is in Adam's brain, where Skeletor is like replacing all like the bullies he dealt with on Earth as like this whole mind battle sort of thing. And then it basically just goes into what I like to call the return of faker territory, where we see He-Man just kind of start pummeling Skeletor, which we would have never seen, you know, uh He-Man use Mike to overcome a foe, but the foe destroy himself. So James E talked it at first, just saying it for the record, uh, where we got to see He-Man put it put it on display. But yeah, I don't feel like that fight, especially since we saw them fight earlier already, right? It just doesn't land the same. It's like you don't see Luke fight Vader more than once in a film, you build up to it. You might see him have nightmares about it and worry about it, but it's like it's a hat on a hat. When we see it once, it's gotta be epic, which is why I think they did the whole mind mesh thing. Yeah, because it wasn't special on its own suddenly.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I actually like the mind mesh thing. Of course you did.
SPEAKER_02Of course you did because you make a good laugh in in a serious moment when all stakes are on the line. Well, like Skeletor dressed up as a businessman.
SPEAKER_00Well, the one thing I didn't like about the final fight was the amount of times that they did the slow motion punch for Skeletor, you know, where he's punching him in the face and then it was like the thunder punch, Nathan. I know the action punched thunder punch, like the action figure. The action figure, Nathan.
SPEAKER_02No, I I wait a second. Are you complaining about something they do over so much that it becomes overkill? Yes, yes, I am. Wow, not for this film.
SPEAKER_00Well, I mean, I had a lot of complaints about the film. No, you did not. I did two it's your favorite movie.
SPEAKER_02It's not my favorite movie. Bigger question. Yeah. What if the sequel never happened? Would the franchise still be stronger? Did this entry get in the way of better ideas?
SPEAKER_00No, because I honestly I I think this film was a lot better than I was expecting. I was really expecting for this to be some over-the-top, magical, like you know, firebolts back and forth from the fingers, you know, and it was just going to be absolutely a train wreck. And honestly, I really felt like this was much stronger film than I was expecting that we were gonna get. Almost, almost in like Mortal Kombat, you know, you know, that to me, that movie was such a letdown because I love the franchise and the video games and you know, the original movie, you know, when they came out with this new reboot. It was very much of a letdown. And I was expecting that for this film, and I didn't get it. I mean, yeah, there's some problems with the film. Don't get me wrong, there's always going to be problems with the film, but for me, this was a lot better film than I was expecting.
SPEAKER_02I think a film was inevitable. It felt like it was more and more coming to fruition with the toy line, other cartoon entries, and the media that was building up over the last colour eight to ten years, slowly getting to a point where something bigger had to happen.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_02Otherwise, it was gonna fade away. So they took a chance and the economics somehow worked out that this could happen. What happens from here is anyone's guess.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think overall, you know, a lot of the comments are very positive that I've seen online for this movie. I'm hoping that it will continue to grow. I hope it becomes a cult classic. Will it? I don't know. You know, for me, it, you know, like I said, it was a lot bigger, it was a lot better than I imagined. And I I don't think that it hurt the franchise. Now, could the franchise have survived on its own without this movie? Yeah, probably.
SPEAKER_02And it's funny you say uh about the buzz, right? Because I put a post up on Facebook just to kind of test the waters about what people thought. I asked for a three-word review. Hot takes only, honest hot takes. Unfortunately, we're connected pretty heavily into the He-Man community. How you and I didn't get an invite to the premiere is beside the point. Uh some of the three letters, three-word reviews, rather, are bright, loud, self-aware, love the nostalgia, worth the weight, campy as F, perfect childhood nostalgia, so much fun. Better than Mando, made with love. See it now, honest overdue cheese, great popcorn flick, everything I wanted, action packed blast, I love skeletor, weird but fun, filmation, fantastic fun. What I wanted. Somebody said needs more kissing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they didn't have any like the the one romance scene was between him and Tila, and then she goes, but we're just friends, we're really good friends. And I thought that was because you always have to have a romance scene, and they didn't do romance in this. They did not, they did not.
SPEAKER_02Let's get to the final verdict, my friend. All right, I've got the categories here. As always, our categories it's either gonna land in necessary evolution, worthwhile mistake, better than expected, corporate but competent, creatively empty, betrays the original, or never should have happened. And we will put it in one of those categories based on artistic value, franchise impact, cultural impact, emotional necessity, or legacy impact. Where does Masters of the Universe 2026 land for you?
SPEAKER_00It it's gonna go as necessary evolution for me. I I really, really enjoyed this film. I know it's got its issues, but I I I really, really loved this film. I I'm glad they made this film. I, you know, I I was I loved it so much I went back a second time. It kind of renewed a sense of childhood in me. And yeah, I felt like this was the movie that I wanted. Not everything, but not every movie has everything that I want. So but it was pretty close.
SPEAKER_02This was very much corporate but competent. There's just too much. We need to do this, we need to do this, like creativity by committee almost. And I don't envy Travis Knight or any of his team to try to make this film. I I certainly don't think I could do a better job with Amazon overlords, Mattel overlords saying it had to be X, Y, and Z, let alone A, B, and C, and then you know, something from the Grecian alphabet as well. It's an impossible task to get this film right. I'm very thankful it exists. I just it reeks of commerce. The toys were coming out before the film came out. I know you need to time that, but I could just see the playsets and the characters and everything that they were trying to do in a in a paint by numbers corporate machine for quadrant film. And hopefully we could just get back to what made the filmation era great, where we're just caring about stories and entertainment uh first.
SPEAKER_00And and I hope they I hope they do something with She-Ra. I I hope that comes out.
SPEAKER_02Well this is this is our next topic, right? It's where do we go from here?
SPEAKER_00Right. Where do we go from here? Where do we go from here? I I hope they make Shira. I would love to see that story. Would I love to see some things change, you know, with with how they do it. Maybe now that they've gotten it out of their system with you know all the little nods to the cartoon and you know everything else, maybe they can make She-Ra very serious. That that mid-credit scene with She-Ra, again, spoiler alert, but that mid-credit scene was very, very, I don't want to say it was intense, but it was very serious. Dark and gritty, isn't that what everybody wants? So, you know, I I hope, you know, my hope for it is that they can keep it dark and gritty, that they don't, you know, all of a sudden tease this little bit of dark and gritty and then you know go back on it and you know, just I tell you right now, if they have a scene where they're hanging around with a great rebellion, and Adam's there, he looks around and it's glimmer and frosta and flood arena and perfuma and angela and shera or adora and then gets to Bo and says something like, Wow, you're the only boy here, huh?
SPEAKER_02Huh, it's kind of weird. It's kind of like Tila with us, she's the only girl. If they have to do like a wink and a self-aware thing like that, I will walk out of the film. I probably won't walk out of the film, but I'm telling you, I'm predicting the joke now.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but you you you have too much respect for for films to to to do that. I've walked out of a movie before.
SPEAKER_02I won't tell you what it is, but I've done it. Uh where I hope it goes from here. No. Where I hope it goes from here is that you can leave the shackles of an origin story behind and just tell an honest, straight up great adventure that has heart, that that's serious now that we've established all these characters, and then get to something that like surprises us now that you don't have to do the heavy lifting of introducing all these characters. And now that you've melt all the memes and all the internet culture to death, you don't have to do it again anymore. Because yeah, you know, at least 80% of the people that installed the this version will come back.
SPEAKER_00Rob, as you know, I always like to 3D print something for our episodes. And this one I was really excited about until I 3D printed it. There were some issues with it. It's gonna look good on camera, but when you get up close, you're gonna see some issues with it. But for Masters of the Universe, I in in honor of my favorite villain on that new movie, Masters of the Universe 2026, I printed a trap jaw.
SPEAKER_01And uh, that's wicked.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think he's pretty awesome, man. So the issues that I had with him were up in this this area up here, it didn't fit. I think this is an AI generated uh model, and the person that posted this did not make sure that it went all together when it printed, but I made it work. I did a few things that uh you know that made it work, but I think it came out pretty decent. So I'm gonna try to I'm gonna try to redo them, try to get them right, but yeah, so I thought this was checking that out.
SPEAKER_01And you know, if you want that, just comment in the comments and it could be yours. Final thoughts? Final thoughts.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'm probably gonna go see it again probably this week.
SPEAKER_02I will wait till it hits streaming. I think it's gonna be a smash for Amazon on Prime Video. I think everybody's gonna be curious to check it out. I think it'll be one of those things where you're on at a party or people are enjoying themselves and you will put it on and have a great time for it. I think it'll be the kind of thing that you do show your kids on streaming that you can sit down and watch it with them. I am curious to see what extras get released as part of a DVD or Blu-ray if there are like making of documentaries.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because apparently they cut a lot of stuff from this, especially with the She-Ra scenes and a lot of Shira scene, I guess, was done at the very last minute. Yeah. Well, they had they had quite a few scenes that they that they were going to implement, even though it was done at the last minute, but all that got cut, and then they did the post-credit. So I would love to see what like deleted deleted scenes and stuff like that for some of the extras. I I would like to see what they cut from the film.
SPEAKER_02I'm sure they'll show how Skeletor was made or something at the very least, but the mo cap experience was like I just saw an interview with Travis Knight that said because it was just Jared Leto, he wanted the reaction of the actors, so he would actually smear blood across his face so that it gave the actors something to react against so that it was a little bit more terrifying and menacing than just his face.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So that's it. All right. Do you think this film actually has the power of Gray Skull, or is it still searching for it?
SPEAKER_00You know, I think uh from 87 on, we're going to be searching for it. So I I I think there's always gonna be a search for the power of Gray Skull. I don't, like you said, I don't think they're ever gonna have a movie that gets us a hundred percent right. Um, I'm just glad we have something out there. Um, honestly.
SPEAKER_02I I've said enough. You guys can go back and watch this to get my opinion if it wasn't clear the first time. I'm Ron McCallum. Thanks for watching. If you're watching us here, you know where to come back and watch us again. It's my good friend Nathan the Tato Slayer. All right, guys.
SPEAKER_01Have a good one. See you next time.
SPEAKER_02That was a good debate. Only because I was right.
