There is a particular cinematic gem that this blog has now seen twice on the premium channels that I feel sufficiently ridiculous as to earn it a blog post of its own: the 1987 live-action He-Man movie, "Masters of the Universe". This movie is so horribly funny that both times made me want to call Gila so that we could laugh at it together. Let's take an in-depth look:
The Talent: Stereotypical scantily-clad (in leather! Woohoo!) blond muscle-bound Swedish Adonis with an incredibly deep voice looks down at the helpless female and says with no emotion whatsoever, "Your friends are in terrible danger. We must go." The helpless female, this blog should note, is played by the one and only Courteney Cox, in her first major motion picture, at the age of 23. (I'm 23. Why aren't I in movies with a scantily-clad muscle-bound Swedish Adonis?)There is probably a very good reason why Courteney Cox does not reminisce on Leno about her days filming "Masters of the Universe." I think it should be shown in acting classes as a "how not to" example.
The Special Effects: This blog was strongly reminded of Star Wars (which films, you will recall, were released in '77, '80, and '83), due to the colored lines and squiggles that were blaster shots. Strangely, I don't recall blaster-type weapons in the He-Man cartoon, but whatever. It really seemed like someone was trying to say to George Lucas, "Oh yeah? Well, we know how to put brightly colored squiggles in our film, too! And it only took us four years to catch up!"
The Costumes: This film was clearly the inspiration for the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. Who needs realistic makeup when you can just put long, shaggy grey hair all over a character, and then creatively name him "Beastman." Or give another guy a futuristic outfit made of plastic and tin foil, arm him with sharp pointy objects, and dub him "Blade."
The Adaptation: In addition to the fact that this movie was poorly cast, poorly directed, and poorly made, it was also a poor adaptation. Let's start with the fact that most of it doesn't even take place on Eternia, but on Planet Earth. There wasn't a single He-Man cartoon that took place on Earth. Then let's put in some weird gnome creature in place of Orko, the friendly floating ghost. Add in villainous characters that never existed in the first place, such as the aforementioned Beastman and Blade. Toss in a plot (and I use the term loosely) that resembles absolutely nothing ever seen in the cartoon series, and voila! You've now just created one of the silliest, worst movies ever.
As such, I highly recommend this film to all of you. You owe it to yourself to watch it. I think I've just discovered the cure for meh-ness.
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