[Music]
And welcome to Pick Six Movies, the podcast where every season we pick a topic and then we find six
movies all related to said topic. But wait, there's more. After that, we select one of those
movies and give you some behind the scenes facts on how and why the movie got made. But wait,
there's more. After that, we give you a full review of the movie from start to finish,
filled with snarky comments and a bunch of stupid voices and possibly some random stories about
things that happen to us in the real world. It's a delightful time. I'm Chad Cooper, one of your
hosts, and along with my lifelong friend, Mr. Bo Randstall, we are wrapping up season 24's theme,
Pop Culture Club, featuring half a dozen movies based on pop culture nonsense. For the finale,
we have Masters of the Universe, based on the cartoon, based on the dolls, I mean action figures,
which were based on some businessman's fever dream to make money off of stupid kids in the 1980s,
of which I was one. This movie has swords and sorcerers, hunky guys and S&M garb,
time travel, chicken and ribs in a bucket. Man, how could this movie be bad? Well, guess what?
It is. And to set the table for this buffet of disappointment, let's get Mr. Bo Randstall in
here to tell us all about how this movie leapt from the small screen to the big screen with a
faceplant belly flop of epic proportions. Bo, get in here and start the beginning of the end for this
disastrously disappointing season based on things that people barely remember.
In 1945, in a garage in Los Angeles, a new business launched. Harold Manson, Ruth Handler,
and her husband Elliot Handler, birthed Mattel Creations. At first, the company made picture
frames in dollhouse furniture and managed to stay above water, but this was no Fortune 500 company.
I guess there's not much money in dollhouse furniture, even in the 1940s. When Harold Manson
took sick in 1947, he sold his stake in the company to the Handler's and Ruth became the real star of
the show, managing the business while her engineer husband came up with his designs for something
that would make Mattel Creations a real success. And in 1947, they had an early hit with a ukulele
called Yooka Doodle. In 1950, they got the rights to sell the Magic 8 Ball and all signs pointed to
success. Less than a decade later, in 1959, Mattel offered the first series of Barbie dolls,
which would become the company's best-selling toy in, well, ever. A year later, in 1960,
they offered the Chetty Cathy, a doll that talked and creeped out absolutely nobody.
It was the first of the pullstring dolls, and Mattel revolutionized the market with it.
By 1960, the company that started in the El Segundo, California garage was listed on the
New York Stock Exchange, a genuine and undeniable success. They continued to capitalize on their
successes by introducing the Ken doll to the Barbie line, along with the Barbie Dreamhouse,
and used the technology from the Chetty Cathy doll to make the CNC toy, which introduced the
sound a cow makes to a generation of children. In 1968, Elliot Handler found his son playing
with little toy cars called Matchbox cars due to their small size and propensity to burst into
flame. I didn't in fact check all of this copy from the interns, but that last part really doesn't
sound right. Whatever. Anyway, Handler's son loved the cars, and Elliot saw an opportunity to do
something both the same but different. The cars were too small to put a clock in, so he did another
thing that was different. Where Matchbox cars would be realistic depictions of everyday automobiles,
what Handler envisioned was something grander, more exciting. And to capture that excitement,
he named his new line of toy cars Hot Wheels. They would be exotic designs, race cars, and muscle
cars, the kinds of cars that either existed only in fantasy or so different in concept and design
that they could not be mistaken for any old car you would see on the street. There were crazy paint
jobs and superchargers and hood blowers and a bunch of car stuff I know about but don't really
understand. And along with Harry Bentley Bradley and Jack Ryan, Mattel released 16 original Hot
Wheels designs, and the toy world was turned on its head. They were immensely successful,
partly due to the outrageous designs of the cars and partly due to the engineering. The wheels of
the Hot Wheels cars were wide hard plastic, unlike the narrow tires of metal or plastic used by
Matchbox. The result was simple and profound. Hot Wheels cars rolled faster. And so, when Mattel
launched a racing track set in the late 1960s, one could put the cars through their miniature paces.
And now we must pause to talk TV. In the 1960s, there was great controversy on how advertising
affected the children watching it. The claim was that children are too stupid to understand that
most advertising was a bunch of horseshit intended to make you buy shit you don't need and eat shit
that will make you fat or kill you or both. In 1952, congressional hearings took place focused
on violence, but the Federal Communications Commission also mentioned advertising as an
issue. The research showed that most dumb kids couldn't tell the difference between the show
they were watching and the commercials in between it. The FCC and broadcasters generally allowed 16
minutes of advertising aimed at children per hour during early morning weekday hours and only nine
and a half minutes during prime time. Which brings us back to Hot Wheels. In an effort to
further the brand, Mattel sponsored a series called Hot Wheels. It was the story of Jack
Rabbit Wheeler, a high school student who led the Hot Wheels Racing Club. He and his friends would
race and get in all kinds of adventures. It was really quite something. Almost right away,
the FCC began receiving complaints from other toy companies who said that the show was a half hour
Saturday morning advertisement for Hot Wheels toys. And wasn't there some kind of rule against
advertising that long to kids? The FCC said, all right, all right, we'll write a letter to ABC and
that should do the trick. ABC said they never actually advertised any of the toys during the show.
The club just so happened to be called the Hot Wheels Racing Club and the show just happened to
be called Hot Wheels, which happened to be the name of a top selling line of toy cars. But that's just
happenstance. The FCC came down hard and ordered ABC to log part of the runtime of the shows as
advertising. Wait, that doesn't seem too draconian. Huh, no wonder kids are so stupid. But the war
between advertising, the FCC and cynical cash grab cartoons had begun. Mattel took another stab with
creepy crawlers based on their easy bake oven like toy that made little plastic bugs in a low watt
oven. There was GI Joe, which not only sold the toys, but kind of glorified war in a weird way,
or Care Bears, which told tales of adventures with the stuffed animals. But all of that is
prelude to the real star of this story, He-Ban and the Masters of the Universe. The idea had been
kicking around Mattel since the early 1970s when they workshop toys based on Conan the Barbarian,
if thematically and not by name. And then Mattel made a serious and money-losing mistake when the
CEO of Mattel in 1976, Roy Wagner, was approached by the Star Wars folks to make a line of toys
based on the upcoming movie. When Mattel declined, the rights to the Star Wars toy
merch fell to Kenner, who proceeded to make about a kajillion dollars on it.
After seeing Kenner rake in all that money, Mattel tried a few sci-fi efforts of their own in the
action figure space, but nothing ever caught on. The origins of He-Man, the idea that did catch on,
are debated. A guy named Roger Sweet says he was the first to come up with the design and concept
for He-Man, somewhat inspired by the art of Frank Frazetta, but Mattel, perhaps to keep from paying
Sweet more than what they wanted, says Sweet's idea began as a character named Torok from a prototype
designer named Mark Taylor. Regardless of its origin, Sweet took character models from the
Big Jim action figure franchise and added more bulk and took a plaster cast of these new, bigger
Big Jims. The idea was all in the name. With a character called He-Man, you could basically
drop him into any universe and he could be the big, burly hero of the moment. He pitched three
versions of He-Man to the CEO of Mattel, Roy Wagner. One was a soldier type, one was a bounty
hunter reminiscent of Boba Fett from the Star Wars franchise, and the third, the one that
Wagner responded to, was an ex-wielding barbarian. Once He-Man was a go at Mattel,
they had to round out the cast of characters surrounding their signature hero. These would
be called the Lords of Power, at least at first. Some folks within Mattel thought that using the
word Lords might sound a little churchy, so the name was changed to Masters of the Universe.
Taylor, the guy who designed a potential inspiration for He-Man called Torak, you may recall,
designed Skeletor based on one of his own drawings called The King of Sticks.
Looking at that sketch from 1971, you can see some of Skeletor's trademark armor and lots of
little details that would make Skeletor such a good villain. Along with He-Man and Skeletor,
the line of toys would launch with Man at Arms, Beastman, and Battlecat, which had been a tiger
in the big gem line before being adapted to the new Masters of the Universe series.
To set the stage for the characters, Mattel explored the idea of doing a comic series
based on a suggestion from their marketing director, a guy named Mark Ellis.
Ellis worked with DC Comics to make a mock-up of an origin story, but Toys R Us, who were heavily
in the toy game up until the bottom fell out of the toy story industry, balked at the idea of a
comic. "Five-year-olds don't read," they said, so Mark Ellis decided that if kids don't read,
you could beam He-Man straight into their brains with a TV special.
But then came a fateful meeting with the head of animation studio filmation,
Lou Scheimer. Much more than a single special was in the works for He-Man and the Masters of
the Universe after that. The toy line launched in 1982, and Mark Halperin was brought in to help
craft a series bible for the forthcoming animated series based on those toys. Halperin was a
successful playwright and author and managed to shape the story into something Shakespearean,
with good and evil, secret identities, and a gothic castle filled with an awesome power at the center.
Mattel and Filmation took the series to ABC, who passed. Likewise, the other major networks.
So Filmation said to hell with those guys, and they took the series into what's called
"barter syndication." Basically, that meant that TV stations could license the show
directly from Filmation. The gamble to do so turned out to be a huge win.
When He-Man and the Masters of the Universe debuted in September of 1983,
it became the first syndicated show to be based on a toy. Within a year, it was seen on 120 TV
stations across the US. By the middle of 1985, that number was 152, and the show was the most
popular series among 2-11 year olds, which feels right given the simple, if moralistic, plots.
And of course, there was another controversy. Much like Hot Wheels, both the toys and the show,
He-Man was accused of being one great big commercial for the toys. In fact, the UK banned
He-Man toys from being advertised during the show to ensure some kind of break in the marketing.
But the show itself was noteworthy for depicting some actual violence. Short little of it was
He-Man hacking away with his sword, preferring to pick bad guys up and throw them around instead of
eviscerating them. But this was still a big deal for children's programming at the time.
And it was successful enough to spin off a whole other series about He-Man's cousin,
She-Ra. But all things must end, and He-Man ran out of steam as a series in 1985.
The toy line would run out of steam a couple of years later, bolstered by the success of the She-Ra
spin-off. The series was rebooted a couple of times, most recently with Clark's director Kevin
Smith behind a Netflix relaunch of the show. But nothing has matched the juggernaut of the 80s
phenomena. Which brings us to the inevitable movie. I mean, it was a successful toy line,
a successful animated series. How could the movie not be good, or at least profitable?
The whole thing started with Edward Pressman, a producer who not only made some very good movies
like Duss Boot and Conan the Barbarian, but he had a company called Pressman Toys, which, you guessed
it, was a gaming company. With a foot in the world of toys and a foot in the world of cinema,
it made sense for Pressman to do the thing. Director Gary Goddard wanted on board this movie
from the beginning. Goddard had never directed a feature film before, uh oh, but he had worked
as an Imagineer at Disney, designing some of the attractions at Epcot. And he also had worked in
games, in fact the characters depicted in Candy Land, Lord Licorice, King Candy, Princess Lolly,
they were all characters from Goddard's company, and bore the likeness of his business partners.
Of course, Goddard himself was King Candy. Goddard had also designed the Conan the Barbarian stunt
show for Universal Studios with his new production company, so while movies may not have been his
thing, putting together a spectacle and making games certainly were. By the time Goddard was
sniffing around for the job, a script was already in place for the movie. Written by David Odell,
who also wrote Supergirl, oh double oh. The story involved he man's mother being from Earth,
linking Earth and Eternia, and had a bunch of business with Snake Mountain and lots of action
in Eternia. When Pressman and Goddard met, Goddard liked the script and Pressman said he believed in
first time directors, but Mattel had to give him the green light too. Having worked with Goddard
before as a game maker, Mattel knew the guy, trusted the guy, and everything looked like a go.
Mattel had also approved of Dolph Lundgren for the part of He-Man as part of the package,
so the script was there, the director was there, and our He-Man had come pre-approved.
And Lundgren was coming in hot after his turn in Rocky IV as Ivan Drago, but his celebrity did not
account for his speaking voice, which was immediately a problem for Goddard. If you recall,
the only line he has in Rocky IV is "I must break you." The guy certainly looked apart, but
Goddard fully acknowledged Lundgren's hard work to get his voice right for the role,
but he still wanted to use an actor to dub He-Man's lines. Since Lundgren was getting a
bunch of money to be the star, no producer wanted to shell out more money to not hear the guy they
paid. Speaking of money, when Pressman went to Warner Bros. for a budget for this epic sci-fi
fantasy space drama, Warner only wanted to shell out $15 million to make the movie.
The upstart canon group said they'd go as high as $17.5 million, and so He-Man and the Masters of
the Universe would end up in the hands of canon films. With the lower budget, much of the attorney
and stuff had to be ditched from the script, so Odell decided to make a fish-out-of-water story,
with He-Man showing a beatman bruised on the doorstep of two humans, Kevin and Julie.
And Goddard wanted to book in the movie with the attorney and stuff, so the Earth setting felt
less like a compromise for budgetary reasons. Enter the throne room set and all the business with
the moon rising and all that mess we'll talk about in a few minutes.
Frank Langella was brought on as Skeletor, and Langella jumped at the chance when he was offered
the role. His son was four at the time, and Langella recalled him running around the house
with his He-Man action figures, shouting "I have the power!" And Goddard knew him from his stage
performance of Amadeus, and he believed that Frank Langella could act through all that makeup,
which was true. With a star that was, shall we say, voice challenged, Goddard secretly planned to hang
the whole movie on Skeletor and his partner in crime, Evil Lyn, played by the pale-eyed beauty
Mick Foster. What Goddard chose to omit from the script was the characters of Orko and Battlecat,
which would have required putting a guy on strings by Goddard's thinking,
and that would have ruined the whole movie, and Battlecat would have had to have been stop motion
at best, which also would have cheapened the already budget-challenged film. So both of those
characters were thrown away. And then he got Courtney Cox, who was just the girl from the
Bruce Springsteen video at the time. And when she got the part in Masters of the Universe,
the story goes that she came in for an audition, and while Goddard liked her, he didn't think she
looked right for the part, she looked a little too old. The casting director brought Cox back in the
next day, this time without any makeup, and Goddard was convinced she could play the suburban girl
next door after all. Goddard chose to shoot as much of the movie at night as he could,
partly because this would hide some of the makeup and highlight the laser blast effects and so forth.
But thematically, Goddard never bought the idea of these characters existing in the daylight.
I might call that a problem. Another problem, with canon films being behind the money and their
business starting to teeter toward bankruptcy, there was no time for rehearsals or getting
fight choreography right, it was a whole lot of winging it. Changes to the script, changes to the
characters, changes to the core of the movie, all real seat of the pants. And then, the money
completely ran out, before the final battle between He-Man and Skeletor could be shot,
canon pulled the plug on funds, there was no more money to make this movie.
Goddard and the producers negotiated with Mattel, who had never paid all of their rights money to
the movie makers, for enough money to complete two more days of shooting, and so the end was
completed on borrowed money with borrowed time. When the movie was completed, canon couldn't
even afford a cast and crew screening. It hit theaters on August 7th, 1987, and it was a
terrific disappointment. Third place, the opening weekend behind the James Bond film The Living
Daylights and that Emilio Estevez Richard Dreyfuss movie Steak Out, which is a real
staying tune for this show. The movie only made $5 million in its opening weekend, and within a
month it was out of theaters completely. But despite the fact that this movie came out a
couple of years after the toy line peak, and ended, the cartoon shuttered its windows,
and most of the world had moved on, does that mean the movie is really bad? Oh buddy, just you
wait. Let's get chatting here for a trip to another world, and then right back to earth for most of its
run time. Ladies and gentlemen, he men and evil lens, it's 1987's Masters of the Universe.
[Music]
Hey there everyone, welcome to a new episode of Pick Six Movies, and yes, I do have the power.
Not only do I have the power though, with me as ever is the man to my he, Chad Cooper.
[Music]
I've got the power! I've been waiting all week to say that.
So we are doing, as you heard in the introduction, Masters of the Universe.
A movie adaptation of the popular animated series and the toy line, and was fit in this season
because this is a story of a pop culture phenomena. Like he man the Masters of the Universe was a big
deal. Yes, it was a very big deal. And you and I were, are of the age that this was part of my
childhood. I remember leaving the hospital where my grandfather was dying with my mother. He was
dying of cancer, and saying to my mom, hey, um, he man comes on at 430. So can we wrap this up?
You mean his life? Hey grandpa, can you uh, you know,
however you want to interpret that, I just needed to see me some he man.
I get it. I get it. It was a big deal. So much so that a lot of young children murdered
grandparents to get to the screen. Yes. You just get a pillow. Right. And you say, I have the power.
Right. And then you do what we like to call the cuckoo snuffle up. And yeah, so I don't know that
I was a particular fan of he man in the Masters of the Universe, the cartoon at least. Sure.
I had some of the action figures, but I think when you turn 12, they just got handed to you.
I had a bunch of the action figures until I became a bit of a pyromaniac. And then I went
into the woods behind my house. And with some lighter fluid or kerosene or whatever, and just
burned them up. That was the same fate that the GI J's that I had shared. Right. And so I'm familiar
with that move. On one particular day, I was melting true story, a beast man with lighter
fluid and matches that I stole from a pizza in not stole, but you know, reached up and a big hunk of
the orange beast man plastic fell off and just schmear across my hand and burnt the shit out of
my hand and it hurt. And I ran inside and I put ice on it to clean it up. And then my mom told me
we were all going to dinner at Captain D's. And I went to Captain D's just writhing in pain. And I
couldn't tell her I'd been outside burning he-man figures. So I sat there with my hand like a paw
stuck in a cup full of ice and water at Captain D's trying not to wince and cry. And then my mom
looked at me. She was like, what's wrong? And I said, I just miss grandpa so much.
Wow. That is grim. True story. Yeah. Well, I mean, the telling of it now is at the time you were
deceptive to say the least. Oh, to say the least. Yeah. He-Man the Master's the Universe, as you
heard in the introduction, there's a lot of Conan in it. There's a lot of Star Wars in it.
There's a lot of sexy guys in it. And look, I'm a career heterosexual, much to the dismay of a lot
of our listeners. Yeah, we get a lot of letters. I'm taken. But I will say I've had two people in my
life tell me that as young men in watching he-man that they were like, Oh, I definitely knew that I
was gay. The cartoon? Watching this cartoon. Yeah, really? I mean, it was just like sexy,
rippled bodybuilding cartoon guys just flaunting their muscular calves and their huge pecs and
their biceps and just, I guess if that's your type, you know, like I'm looking for more of a cuddler,
I guess. How about we get into this movie? All right. So it starts off with the Canon logo.
So you know what you're in for here? Yeah, Canon films. We make movies, sort of. You know,
which begs the question, and I'll ask this right out of the gate. Is this better or worse than
Invasion USA, which may be the best Canon film? Worse. Yeah, absolutely. Invasion USA is the
greatest Canon film of all time. It's very good. Is it the greatest film of all time in general?
Maybe it's part of the conversation. Sure. I like after that we get the title that says a
Gary Goddard film. And you're like, Oh, right. That's up there when you see a Weinstein production.
You're like, doesn't inspire confidence. No. Music by Gary Glitter. Right. Filmed on location at
Epstein Island. Oh, uncomfortable. Special thanks to the staff of Neverland Ranch, who
know how to keep their mouth shut if they know what's good for them.
Narrated by Kevin Spacey.
Then we get a title credit for the name Dolph Lundgren, followed by Frank Langella,
who are surprisingly not in this movie very much, in my opinion. It is shocking how little
He-Man and Skeletor do not dominate the screen in this adaptation. Honestly, He-Man is in it
about five minutes more than I am. There are multiple times where you're watching it and
you will think to yourself, is He-Man in this movie? Yeah. Oh, wait, there he is. But even
when he shows up, he doesn't really show up. I mean, he's nothing character. He feels like a
tertiary character. He's not even B-plot. He's like an NPC of this film. He just walks into the
scene and he's like, "Hello there," and then walks out. And I can't chalk it up to like the George
Miller style Mad Max scenario, where Mad Max is the title of the movie but is rarely the engine
powering the movie. No, they just didn't know how to make an He-Man movie. This movie's all over
the place. They just didn't know what the character was. He-Man's character is "He is good guy." That's
their interpretation. Yes. In the reality of it, he is Superman. He has two personalities. He's
Prince Adam and he's He-Man and he pivots between the two. Some people know he's He-Man, some people
don't. That's how this shit works. But they don't deal with any of that as we will get into in just
a moment. In a very Super Mario Brothers style, this movie does not care about what the original
thing was about. And it's just like, "Hey, we're gonna do our own thing." And if you had inserted
Mojo Nixon into this movie in the Billy Hardy role, now maybe you got something.
I got this house for Key Man. The power's in my pants. Gonna get you pregnant by 15.
What? We start with a pretty awesome matte painting. It's nice, isn't it? Yeah. We haven't
seen a matte painting like this since Kingdom of the Spiders. I was hoping you would make that
reference because you're right. And there is narration about how Castle Grayskull sits
at the nexus of worlds between light and dark, protected by a beautiful sorceress.
And she protects the power to be supreme. To be a master of the universe. We get the title of the
movie, Masters of the Universe. Uh-huh. Then, Bo, the opening credits continue. And this movie so
desperately wants to be so many other films. Star Wars, Superman, Back to the Future, Ghostbusters.
It's got hints of all of these all over the place. And the opening credits and even the music,
feels like Superman the movie. And I saw something in this movie, but I never thought that I would
ever see in my life. The opening credits for this film begin with the words "Starring Billy Barty."
Like Dolph Lundgren and Franklin Jellis, they got their names above the title of the film,
but it didn't say "Starring" those two. That is implied. Starring Billy Barty? That's right.
What? When you think of Billy Barty, who is a little person, what movies or TV shows come to
mind for you? Under the Rainbow? Yeah, anything else? I remember him as the police captain from
this screwball comedy called Night Patrol. But he's kind of one of those eponymous little people.
Like if there was a little person in your movie, he was probably gonna be in it. Shockingly,
he wasn't in time bandits. How'd that happen? Well, he's not British. He was the baby in the
Bride of Frankenstein. Uncredited. Yeah. He did a lot of voice work, strangely. And I think he's
got a kind of interesting, iconic voice. And honestly, I think he is one of two people in
this movie that seems to give a shit about the movie. Yeah. Well, he's starring in it. Yeah.
They were like, "Marty, we're giving you a starring credit." Oh, really? Okay.
He's really got a great agent at this time. He worked for 72 years in film and television.
And if you don't know who Billy Barty is, he is essentially the walking, talking,
living, breathing embodiment of baby Herman from Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Yes. Yes.
I think it's a compliment and an insult at the same time. I forgot he was in UHF.
Yeah. And he was also in foul play and a ton of TV. If there was a little person in your TV show
in the 70s, 80s, and into the 90s, it was Billy Barty. Legitimately, though, I think a pretty
good act. I mean, that's not to say that little people can't be good actors, but it wasn't just
stunt casting. It's sort of that Peter Dinklage thing, even though there's no station agent in
Billy Barty's career. Peter Dinklage is in a league light years beyond Billy Barty. But Billy
Barty was at least, he could act. He wasn't just a little person filling the size requirements for
certain roles. Right. Leprechaun, Billy Barty casting, you know. Sure. Cupid, Billy Barty here.
Yeah. Troll, Billy Barty. Nah. Ewok. He wasn't an Ewok either. He had standards. His agent was like,
look, you started Masters of the Universe. You're not going to be an also as Ewok at the end of the
credits. All right. You're a star. So this movie's credits go on introducing a bunch of people that
you don't care about until the name Courtney Cox show up and you're like, whoa, whoa, what?
Courtney Cox. Courtney Cox is to Masters of the Universe as Jennifer Aniston is to Leprechaun,
as Meg Ryan is to Amityville 3D. And that, by the way, the second reference to Leprechaun in a show
that we have guaranteed will contain at least seven Leprechaun references. So see if you can
spot them all, kids. At the end of the credits, we do get a and Meg Foster as Evil Lin. Now,
Meg Foster is the only woman that I can think of who perpetually looks like she has been
angered just enough to turn into She-Hulk. Meg Foster is the woman that you call when you're
like, Hey, what's that lady with the crazy eyes? But she's kind of sexy. Yeah, she looks good. I
mean, it's not like her eyes are like weirdly gray green and she looks like she's possessed,
which she does, but she's got a sharp jaw and a raspy voice. She looks like if Ali Sheedy was
in The Exorcist. Oh, that's a good call. Meg Foster is great. She was in They Live with
Roddy Roddy Piper. She would make a good dominatrix. Sure. Like just like whipping the shit out of you
and telling you how awful you are. Now you're talking. Yeah, like I'd give her a couple of
bucks for that. Sure. A couple of bucks. Look, she is high priced to say the least. And then,
man, in the credits, Beau, we get a music by Bill Conti. And I was like, the guy who wrote Rocky's
theme and the karate kid, the right stuff like that Bill Conti. And they're like, that's right,
because you need an incredible composer to make music that sounds close enough to a John Williams
score without getting sued by John Williams and his estate. Who did the Superman score? Jerry
Goldsmith. I thought that was Williams. I don't think so. I'll verify this, but it is 100% like
somebody saying, Hey, we need some music that sounds like Superman, the movie that that was
the task. It was John Williams. You're right. For some reason, for years, I've been thinking that
you're thinking Superman three, because you got your head up your ass with cannon films. I can't
stop Bill Conti is to John Williams as Ray Parker Jr. Is to Huey Lewis. I'm going to have to really
put that on the whiteboard and break it down. What the Ghostbusters theme and I want a new drug.
Yeah, yeah, I forgot all about that. You're right. You're right. So, but after all the credits,
there's like a big explosion. That's like, boom, the credits are done. And then we get another
matte painting, which is the desert, but it's just a bunch of soldiers being led through a desert,
like apparently some wars going on. And by the way, kids don't expect to get much explained about
any of this. And you know, what's crazy about this movie boat is that as a fan of the original
cartoon, the whole movie was about the battle for Castle Greyskull, will he man maintain control of
it to keep power in check? Or would Skeletor come in and take over and become the bad guy, right?
This movie begins after the core concept of the He-Man and the Masters of the universe narrative
having taken place. Yeah, Skeletor one, it's over. Literally, after we get that shot,
it starts with him just strolling into Castle Greyskull being like, guess what I won to the
Unperial March? Like, what did you call it? Unperial. Right. Duel of the Fats. Liars? Thumbs up. He's
okay. Every fifth note is different. And Evil Lynch rolls up to Skeletor and is just like,
yes, we are closing in on Billy Barty and He-Man is leading the resistance, but we'll have him by
the end of the day. End of the day? What? Really quick timetable. And then she says,
after all this time, Greyskull is Oz. And that's where Skeletor is like, but, but, but, but,
let me stop you right there. Greyskull is mine. When you say Oz, are you referring to a little
mouse in your pocket? Because I'll kill him too. I assume you're talking about the Royal We. And
they are going to capture the most powerful being in their universe by the end of the day. At the
opening of this movie, they have captured the iconic thing that sits in the nexus between good
and evil. They've got the sorcerers and some force field we're going to see in a minute. And
we also get our first big look. Like there's kind of this dramatic whip around us. Skeletor faces
the camera and high def does nothing to help the makeup job of this movie, which sure needs all the
help it can get. It would be like if you were making a Lord of the Rings adaptation and you
just started off with all the bad guys having the ring. Yeah. That's kind of the whole thing. Yeah,
we know, but we're moving on. And he goes up to the sorcerers who again is in this kind of force
field. Played by an actress named Christina Pickles, who actually won an Emmy for her role
on St. Elsewhere. And she was also the mom of Ross and Monica on the TV show Friends,
which made me wonder, do you think she and Courtney Cox swap stories about being in this
shitty movie? Oh, probably, right? At first, I thought it was Helen Mirren slumming it back
in the 80s. I was like, Oh, no, it's just Christina Pickles slumming it back in the 80s.
More like Helen Mirren. Skeletor is giving her the business about as soon as moonfall comes,
all the power in the universe will be mine. And the sorcerers like, Hey, hang on, hold your horses
there. You ain't want nothing yet, Skeletor. I know I'm trapped in your little force field or
whatnot, but look, he man is still alive. And let me just say this darkness cannot destroy the light.
Okay, it can only hide it. That is good. That is good. Someone write that down. She's dead. I'm
gonna put that into my book of one liners. And then he looks zaps her or something with his
force powers. Like he basically is Emperor Palpatine. Take this. Kapow Kapow. Yeah, I learned
that from my friend, the Emperor over in Star Wars. His was blue mines, pink lawyers. Thumbs up.
You're good. And then he tells evil Lynn to activate the hollow sphere. And because every
now and again, Skeletor just gets lonely and like calls up the battlefield. Hello, soldiers, me,
Skeletor and people of Eternia. As you will probably all aware, I've taken over the planet,
the sorceress. She's here. She's my prisoner or something. I don't know. Anyway, according to my
people, he man, the most powerful man in the universe, he's going to be my slave by the end
of the day. Don't ask what kind of slave but it's going to be good. Anyway, now, according to my,
my number two Evelyn, it's evil. Excuse me. It's evil. Lynn Evelyn evil. I'll write it down for next
time. But evil then it's two words. I've been calling her Evelyn for three years. Are you sure
did she just how would she? I thought it was an apostrophe. I didn't tell I've been writing it.
It's a hyphen. You put a hyphen. It's evil hyphen Lynn. But if you put the apostrophe, it's Evelyn.
It's a hyphen you moron. I agree to disagree. But against this backdrop of our, this green screen,
more accurately, we finally meet he man as Stolf Lundgren, who just kind of turns around to face
the camera to be a big sack of beef. He's got this glorious mullet. Yeah. He's looking up at this
sky sized hologram of Skeletor shouting at everybody and nobody all at once. And then we see
some soldiers that are apparently bad guy soldiers, right? Because they're in kind of black gray
armor. And they're they've got Billy Barty, who is dressed up as some kind of wicked W Warwick or
half elf or something. You see them walking, they've got like a long stick. And there's this
net beneath. And they're carrying it's a doll. It's not even an actor. Like it clearly looks
like a prop. There's no body movement whatsoever. Also, I need to point out that this movie so
desperately wants to be the next generation Star Wars. All of the lackey disposable bad guys,
they're stormtroopers, but they're dark stormtroopers. It's just instead of white, their
metal is black. They're carrying Billy Barty and all of this Gwildor makeup. Gwildor is the name of
the character. And then he man just attacks. And one of the big problems of this movie presents
itself in this scene, which is how bad the editing is. Yes, among many other things. Right.
It's not the only problem, one of the problems. And it's just this really awful action scene where
they're shooting lasers at him. And he's reflecting it with his sword like it's a lightsaber. Also,
though, I went back and spot checked some He-Man cartoons, because they didn't really use guns or
blasters at all. Like there was a little bit of magic and you might get some sort of like hocus
pocus alakazam type stuff. This movie is filled with people shooting guns and shit. And I was
like, this would be like if you made a Scooby Doo adaptation and you gave Fred and Shaggy AK47.
It does not belong in this universe at all. I don't like this combination of fantasy and
science fiction. Like I think that can work in some situations. But like we saw a little bit of
it with John Carter, and I don't think it really worked there. And then we see it again here. And
I don't think it really works here. I think it's something that's tough to get right. Yeah,
if you've got a sword, then why all the blasters and if you got a blaster, you definitely don't
need a sword. No, you just shoot them. That's why cops in America don't walk around carrying
like Katanas. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like this works a lot better from a from a greater distance.
Bang, he's down. It's really something. And by something, I mean terrible. Yeah. And so he
kills a bunch of dudes. And then after everybody's kind of dead, man at arms and Tila show up. Who
are these people? But the movie doesn't really explain them at all. They're just apparently
friends of he man who were like, Oh, hey, were you shooting people over here? Oh, okay. Well,
hey, it's me, man at arms and Tila which again in the cartoon Tila who was a princess sort of she
was essentially the lowest lane of the cartoon. She was this badass in the military. And she was
there to protect Prince Adam, but she was unaware that Prince Adam was also he man and her dad
is man at arms, which this movie does not address at all until about 40 minutes later when Tila goes
Thanks, dad. And you're like, Wait, huh? Dad, dad, daddy. Oh, none of that seems clear here. No,
but they all hug each other. The woman who plays Tila is an actress named Chelsea feel who went on
to marry Scott back from quantum leap and Star Trek something something thing probably most
recognizable from last boy scout. Yeah, she got that after this. Yeah, this movie her costume
is not the high thigh cut white princess outfit from the cartoon. She looks like she's wearing
a gray motion capture outfit. There's leather that uncomfortably looks like it's pushing her
breast apart. Yeah. And then she also has leather around her hips and what appears to be an incredibly
uncomfortable thong going up her ass crack and they focus in on her ass a lot. In this movie.
Well, sure, you got to do some to put the asses in the seats. I guess so. I can't remember the name
of the guy who plays man at arms, but he looks just like David Axelrod Obama's political consultant.
He's got this big bushy mustache when he takes off his helmet. He's really got a bald spot with a
ridiculous comb over. Yes. As soon as you mentioned that to be off the air. That's immediately what I
fixed. So he looks shockingly like David Axelrod. So man at Axelrod says to him, Eddie, Hey man,
thank the sorceress. You're alive. Also a gray skull was taken by Skeletor. I was watching the
first part of the movie earlier. Oh, it's really fucked up. Anyway, I think somebody betrayed us,
which they never explained that someone betrayed that. Hasn't come out. I think the idea is when
they learned that they use the cosmic key to get in gray skull, that sort of, Oh, nobody betrayed
us. They just use this thing, but you're right. Nobody gives voice to that. Look, why mention it?
Either leave the line out or say when you bring up the cosmic key, like, Oh, we weren't betrayed.
They use that to get inside castle gray skull. And that explains the betrayal. Right. Then our,
our hobgoblin, Gwildor, he starts screaming out and then they just let this little abomination
out. And he walks over and he's like, I am Gwildor locksmith and inventor. And you're like,
do you know Yoda? It's a real, like we need an orco slash Yoda for this movie. And that's what
this is going to be. We got to talk about this. Again, I hate to go back to the source material.
One of the main characters in the original show was a character named Orko, who was a sorcerer and
kind of floated around. I do not understand why they didn't just name Gwildor Orko. It doesn't
matter. It didn't float. Okay, great. You don't have the budget to make a flying little sorcerer.
Just call him Orko. This is your Orko. It's not Gwildor. What the hell's a Gwildor? As soon as I
saw him and I'd seen this movie before, but I was pretty sure like, Oh, this is Orko. And when he
was like, I am Gwildor. I'm like, Oh, the fuck you are your Orko. You're, I mean, because you're
fulfilling the same annoying character. Yes. Kind of role. Instead, he says, I'm a locksmith and
inventor and Skeletor's forces are hunting me. Hey, who wants to go back to my place and get
ripped? And they're like, well, you know, war is almost over. Might as well. For what it's worth.
First off, no one listening who's never seen this movie should ever watch it. Gwildor, because it's
played by Billy Barty, he's about three feet tall. He's got this like come back big red afro and
there's a part down the middle and he's got a matching beard. He's got a long pointy nose,
but his cheeks look like deflated scroll sacks. Yeah, it's real droopy. Yeah, it's kind of gross.
And every now and again, you can see his mouth moving behind the mouth, which always makes me
laugh. The prosthetics are terrible. Yeah, because it's a cannon. They go to Gwildor's cave apartment,
which is this movie's excuse for Yoda's home on Dagobah. It looks just like it. And then Man at
Axelrod and Tila and He-Man, they enter this house, which is full of all these random inventions. And
Gwildor says, "Skelator is after me because I invented this cosmic key that Skelator stole.
But guess what? I have another one. I have two cosmic keys. He's got one. I've got one. And it
generates tones and music and it can take you to any time or place in the universe." And then
He-Man gives, I think his first line of the movie and he goes, "Does Skelator's juice
got into the castle and surprised us?" Yeah. Yeah. So anyway. What did he say? Were those words?
All right. Yeah. Well, is he going to keep going like that? So my race is a trusting one. And a
beautiful woman came from Snake Mountain and they're like, "Oh, that must have been Evil Lynne."
No, no. She said her name was Evelyn. Oh, I don't know. Is he sleepy? Why does he talk
that way? Huh. So they stole the key, I guess is the point. Does he need to sit down?
Yeah, we should go on a gray skull and just zap right in.
If you're saying we should use the key to do the same thing that they did,
then Skelator's key will locate our key. And then is that what you said?
I'm going to say that's what you said. And then we'll be caught. And that doesn't matter because
immediately after he says this, it's like, knock, knock, knock. Skelator soldiers. And they're like,
"Oh no, we've got to get out of here through my secret passage that goes under the castle gray
skull." Man in Axelrod's like, "Is this place have a back door?" Yeah. "Where is it?" It's in the back.
Let's use it. We get a shot of the soldiers outside as they're trying to bust in to Billy
Barty's joint. And we see this weird dude named Karg, who is basically a guy. Who? Karg. He's the
one that's got the blown back white hair and looks a little bit like a Chihuahua in the face. Oh,
Karg. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm with you. It's also crazy how they didn't use characters from the
cartoon. They used Beastman, who was one of Skelator's henchmen. But for anyone who watched
it, Trapjaw, Merman, Tri-Clops, Whiplash, these were all like your mainstay number twos or threes
for any given episode. And they don't use anyone but Beastman. And even when they use them, it's
barely. It was kind of like the way the Ninja Turtles didn't use Bebop and Rocksteady. They didn't
really use them. They could have. You just did it. And here it's crazy that they didn't leverage
known IP for this film. They kind of made up some shit. Like the Mario Brothers movie. Because no
one stopped to think how we should be making a Masters of the Universe movie. They were making
a movie that's like, "Oh, we want to make something that's like Star Wars. Or we want to make something
that's like Superman. Or we want to make something that's like Ghostbusters. Or Back to the Future.
Anything else that was popular this time." And they never stopped to think about how they should
be making a Masters of the Universe adaptation. Because again, in just a few minutes, we're about
to leave this fantasy sci-fi world and go to the year 1987 where we're going to hang out at a used
musical instrument store for the majority of the film. And some dudes house. Like, yeah. This is a
movie that begs to have a grand scale and it just continually shrinks throughout the movie. Which is
not what you want your epic space fantasy adventure to do. Is to feel smaller and smaller and smaller.
So our heroes make their way to Greyskull using these passages underneath. And it's like, "Oh,
well that was easy." They didn't need the cosmic key at all. They just show up there. And the
sorceress is like, "Hey, you guys are in danger. You got to get out of here." And Dolph Lundgren says,
and she says, "Um, yeah, look, I can't get out of here, but I can resist Skeletor until Moonrise.
And then the great eye opens on the universe and then we're all fucked. So you got to figure
something else out." And then a bunch of soldiers come in led by Evelyn. "Skeletor then shows up
to you. It's like, oh, we have her dramatic ending of the movie at 15 minutes. We're going to be in
and out of here quick." He-Man shouts out, "Let her go." And Skeletor just responds, "No, I will keep
the sorceress here until the great eye opens and then I'll have all the power and I'm Skeletor and
everyone will join me." He-Man says, "I think you want me. You don't want me." Um, look, I know we're
about to battle here, but does anyone have a read on what he said? No? Okay. Evelyn chimes in,
"The little red-headed weirdo, he has another key!" And Skeletor's like, "What?!" There's one great
line read that Frank Ligella has here where somebody says, "You can't dare like trap the
sorceress like this." And he goes, "I dare anything!" That's pretty good. Way to go, Frank Ligella, for
washing the shit off this gold nugget. Frank Ligella is to Masters of the Universe what Bob
Hoskins was to that Super Mario Brothers movie. I don't think he fully realized the shit film he was
in and was swinging for the fences. And it's also crazy because the makeup for Skeletor looks
terrible. Like the level of emoting that he can do behind this piece of latex and plastic is only
second to whoever the hell played Michael Myers in that spray-painted William Shatner mask. Talk about
like seeing his mouth behind it when he's yapping. It looks like that woman in the Chewbacca mask who
cracked herself up outside that coals. She looks like a ventriloquist dummy. It's a step above
a Spirit Halloween store costume, but it's a small step above that. Slightly. You got the deluxe
version that allows you to put a piece of elastic under your chin to at least give the appearance
that when you talk the mask is talking to. And you're also like, "You know what? I could probably
get a Landshark bottle top in this mouth." Oh yeah, I'm good to go for Halloween. They fight a little
bit. There's a battle that rages here and by rages I mean takes up some screen time. Then Billy Barty
just dials up an escape route with this Cosmic Key thing he's got. Hey, we could go anywhere,
any place, any time, in any universe. Just get on in here. I do like the visual of the world kind of
bending as the door opens up. This was done by Richard Dykstra who did Star Wars and stuff like
that. Did Raiders of the Lost Ark. He's a great visual effects guy and most of it looks like
shit because he was probably given two weeks and fifteen dollars, but this looks pretty good.
You say so. Look, credit where it's due because we're about to get to some boring bullshit in
this movie. So I'm trying to start at like what if this movie was like a seven? Not a ten, just a seven.
And that's not what this movie is, but we're gonna get to that. All our heroes jump through this
portal and they disappear to the year 1987 and on their way through the portal, Gwildor drops
his Cosmic Key on the ground during this battle and everybody's gone to this other dimension.
But before it closes this cable with a three fingered claw that you would find on an arcade
claw machine, it comes zip zapping back through the portal, grabs the Cosmic Key, and then yikes
it to 1987 as well, which for me beg the question, who shot that claw to grab that key? I think that
was Billy Barty who did that. I think you're right, but in watching it the first time I was like,
who has this technology? I only know that because of what happens later, which is not the way you
want this to work in a movie where it's like momento style where you're filming it backwards.
But anyway, so he grabs the Cosmic Key, the door closes and Evilyn is like, oh, that's not good.
Um, Skeletor, he seems to have disappeared with the Cosmic Key. And at that point, Skeletor says,
well, you have to go after them. I must possess all or I possess nothing. And you're like,
boy, you seem like a terrible boss. When Man in Axelrod and Tila, again, we still don't know who
they are or what they do or their relationship to one another. When they show up in the year 1987,
they walk over and they find He-Man pulling Gwildor, who is headfirst in this muck and mud
to save his life. And Man in Axelrod and Tila, they just start laughing their asses off. What
a couple of assholes. They finally get him out of this thing. And Billy Barty is like,
hang on, I got to clean out my gills. And you're like, wait, you have gills?
And sure enough, he just sprays water out of his disgusting face. And then He-Man says,
goodbye to Thierry, save sorceress. I've got a plan. Did he hit his head when he came through the
door? Anyway, we could get back, but we've got to find the key and that's missing. Also,
when we got here, I just smashed a bunch of random keys. We could literally be anywhere at any time.
At that point, He-Man is like, well, anybody going to have a perimeter and probably take a sector.
Tila jumps in, knocks him out of the way. She gets rough with Gwildor. She grabs him on the front of
his jacket and she's like, you got us here, you Tharunian jackass. You get us home. She kind of
gets violent quick. And I think she's racist. She's got a temper for sure. You know, it's
product of how she was raised. Yeah. And then they hear something moving in the bushes. And they're
like, they've got this like alien style scanner to see what's coming. And sure enough, out of nowhere
comes a loose cow. Tila, because of her short temper, she just pulls her gun on it. She's like,
I'll shoot it. Right. Like, whoa, whoa, whoa, Tex, calm down. I feel like Marty just starts mooing at
it. I know this scene is played for laughs at all, but it just feels demeaning to everyone involved.
Speaking of which, this movie has zero humor. There's no character in the film that is the
comic relief. And when this movie attempts at humor, it fails miserably, but it doesn't do it
very often. It's not a fun movie to watch. Nobody's having a good time. Really. Well, definitely not
the audience. Going back to one of the problems of the movie, like the editing is bad. It's a bad
script and acting is terrible. Cinematography is awful. Music is trash. To that end, it's not any
fun. Like the movie doesn't have any fun with the premise. And part of that is that He-Man is such a
nothing paper thin. I'm just going to say a few lines character. I'm not on his side because I
don't know what his side is. Other than he's good guy, man. It acts arrived says, Hey everybody,
by my calculation, we've got point eight four gloop clerks to get back to save the sorceress
before the moon does something. Hey, he, man, you got a plan and he man says cosmic. Can you
turn you? Uh, listen, I'm going to rephrase that for me, man. Here. Uh, I think what he's saying is
we're going to find out two to 3000 soldiers, uh, uh, freed the sorceress. And then we're going to,
uh, sink our personal communicators and then go find this cosmic key. Is that what you're saying
there? Uh, he man, Ooh, Tila jumps and she's like, what if I just shoot my gun at the ground
repeatedly? That'll blast a hole back to attorney. Bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye. Okay. Uh, Tila,
let me just say, um, when you are, uh, shooting up the place that really puts a, uh, it's like
an MRI of your soul, Tila. And, and you're not representing attorney. Well, you're not representing
a gray skull. Well, and, uh, you know, you, you just want to think a little bit more about, uh,
who you're shooting and why you're shooting them. Uh, and maybe we just need common sense
Tila legislation. We're going to come together. We're going to form a coalition between the four
of us and we're going to go over, we're going to break out and we're going to go and we're going
to find the cosmic key. This is a, this is a game of addition. It's not a game of subtraction.
That's what we've got to do. Let's not make this like a bad mood either. Like, Hey everybody,
good journey, good journey, everybody. And everybody's like, uh, yeah, good journey.
Weirdo. Yeah. For those of you who do not speak Eternian, uh, uh, see, say Puede. Is that, is that
how we're going to say this here? You know, that's what we're going to say. Then we cut away from
the movie that we bid in for a while to Courtney Cox, working a job at some kind of country fast
food joint. Yeah. It's this a frame small town diner in Nowheresville America. And outside this
place, they've got signage that shows their signature items, which include, but are not
limited to chili dogs, French fries, hot dogs, which I'm like, well, first off, jackass, if you
got chili dogs, one can surmise that you also have hot dogs. You don't need to print that up there.
And then they also proudly serve ribs and chicken and jumbo shrimp. Come on, man. Pick like one or
two things that you do very well and promote that you're spreading yourself way too thin here.
Robbie's on route 12. If you go around the side of the building, you see sushi, spaghetti,
steak breakfast served 24 hours a day. And apparently Courtney Cox is going to school in
New Jersey? Question mark. I don't think she's going to school. I don't know where she's going
or what she's doing. She's dressed in this little cowgirl outfit. And then the movie just gives us
this dump of exposition from her to set up these plot lines that do not belong. In a Masters of the
Universe movie, she says to her co worker, I never thought I'd be this sad serving shitty food to
these rubes for the last time. Now that I'm moving to New Jersey and breaking up with my long time
boyfriend since seventh grade, because we both changed and my parents have always wanted me to
move 3000 miles away from this small town. One, why is she going to New Jersey? But why not send
her to New York? They don't explain that she's going there to like live with her aunt or a school.
Speaking of not explaining things, then her boyfriend Kevin, who she was just talking about
picks her up in a limo. No, he picks her up in a rape van. Is that kind of thing that he's driving?
He is he's driving the van. It's one of those vans that you trick a fat girl into helping you
move a couch. You throw her down a hole and cut off her skin. You dance around with your cock
tucked up in your ass cheeks. Courtney Cox, a great big fat person. If you could just help me
get this couch in my van. Courtney Cox goes out and climbs into the front seat with her boyfriend,
who she earlier said she's going to break up with because she's moving to New Jersey 3000 miles away,
which also I just was like, Where is this town? Yeah, because Los Angeles is 2700 miles from New
Jersey. Like are you in Vancouver? I think she's rounding up from Dayton. I guess so. So she's
just saying Kevin is like, So you coming to sound check or what? Do you have time to come to to
where I'm playing musical instruments? Do you know how to not scream? Where we're doing the
sound check. There's only one door and that's going to be changed when you get in. So don't be
suspicious or worry about that. Also, if you see any desk head moss, that's just a hobby of mine.
By the way, have you thought of taking a later flight or no flight at all? And she's like, No,
no, no, I can get the fucking mind putting your passport and your driver's license into glove box
or safety. I like to keep them in a cedar boxes, trophies. Listen, I got to get on this plane,
but can you take me to the cemetery for her to say? And he's like, Oh, cemetery done and done.
They got the cemetery where she's like says goodbye to her parents who have mysteriously died. We
don't know how they died yet. I mean, she could have killed him for all we know at this point in
a real Menendez slain. Is it here that she tells him like I'm so terribly sad because my parents
are dead. And it's my fault that they're dead because they got on a plane and I thought it
would be funny. And I shot one of those laser pointers up in the air and they're playing
crashed. You really can't blame yourself mostly because I had way more to do with that than you
did. I said too much cut to Tila with her gun drawn as always. And she rushes over to Robbie's
rib and chicken shack and she finds man at Axelrod hiding in the bushes and Tila says,
can I shoot somebody? And he's like, Oh, I think that'd be a bad idea. She's like, Come on,
father. And you're like, Father, this is how we find out that you two are related. You just tell us
now. And so they also see Billy Barty snooping around this place and he's got his like grappling
hook thing that he uses just a swipe a bucket of ribs as well as some sides from the back of a car
where a bunch of kids are making out. So these two teenagers drove to Robbie's ribs and chicken shack
ordered a bucket of chicken and ribs then put it in the backseat of their open convertible while
they what worked up an appetite sticking their tongues in and out of each other's mouths.
Tila and man at Axelrod and Gwildor they start showing down on the chicken and ribs and then
Gwildor grabs a bucket of barbecue sauce and just downs it and it runs all down his face. It's vile
and then Tila gets grossed out when it is discovered that they're eating animal meat off of bones.
But this movie pauses for about 60 to 90 seconds to just watch three characters eat ribs.
Three minutes of a movie. That's what an hour and 41 minutes or so.
It's good. It's oh hey did you try the spicy oh try the two sauces together sweet and spicy.
Oh my god that is delicious. You know what the coleslaw is surprisingly good.
Give me that give me some of that. Did you try the biscuits? The biscuits I think are first cooked
daily and it goes on forever. Is that Irish or southern potato salad? Let me try a little bit.
Oh it's southern. You can really taste that mustard. Just the right amount of black pepper.
I didn't think I'd like the celery but it really adds a crunch I like. It stopped this movie to
eat ribs. Uh-huh. In the masters of the universe movie. And that's the whole scene. We don't learn
anything else other than the fact that they like ribs. Three of these characters, two of which you
know from the cartoon, stop to eat ribs for a period of time. Like in the bushes. Uh-huh.
Yeah no wet wipes. They're just wiping their hands on leaves and shit.
And meanwhile Courtney Cox and Kevin are at the cemetery saying goodbye to her parents and this
is where she says the thing about this is all her fault. And I got ahead of myself. Yeah and who
cares. And then Kevin is like look you can't change things. That only happens in fairy tales
and you can't make things happen unless you want to. Unless you're willing to go the distance and
make a body suit. And she's like what? Nothing. Then they just find this cosmic key thing in the
cemetery. Hey what's this? And it looks like a bomb. If any right thinking person anywhere saw
this on the ground it looks like an explosive. There's nothing about this. It looks like an
instrument to make music whatsoever. Any second I expected John Lithgow to show up like the
Manhattan Project where he's like you can't have that. Yeah. And then Evelyn back in Greyskull is
like Skeletor we have detected the use of the key. And he's like yeah yeah look the next time it's
used send a bunch of mercenaries in case it's a trap. I don't want to waste all my good soldiers.
Lock in the coordinates. Open a doorway. And look I realize that mathematically there's no way that
they would ever be able to return home. You know what let's do a masala. We're gonna find him. Bring
him back here. Especially bring back He-Man. He's in the movie still right? Yes good. He-Man is going
to come back here and he will kneel before Zod. Wait wait hold up sorry kneel before Skeletor.
You can edit that in post. Alright thank you. So then we cut to He-Man who's just kind of creeping
around a fence at night. Dude he is wandering around a high school wearing what is clearly
a BDSM submissive outfit. Uh-huh. He looks like the grand marshal of every gay pride parade. Like he
is this Adonis this muscled tan oiled up man wearing nothing but straps of leather around his
pectoral muscles with a tiny fur loin cloth. You know what I'll give you all of that in the sense
that hey if this is how you want to dress this character up fine. The biggest problem again is
that he doesn't say or do anything that tells you anything about who this character is. And it's just
maddening. Inside the high school Courtney Cox is there. Remember she was planning to leave town to
catch a bus to get on a plane to go to New Jersey. She's just hanging out in this empty high school
gymnasium as her boyfriend Kevin does a sound check by himself on the stage. He doesn't have a band.
I don't think he actually plays in a band. And this gymnasium is decorated with blue and white
balloons and blue and white streamers and the theme is Around the World Fantasy which coincidentally
enough is the theme of this year's gay pride parade which coincidentally he man is the grand
marshal up. Oh I could go for an Around the World fantasy right now Chad. Not gonna lie. This entire
scene looks like the enchantment under the sea dance from Back to the Future. Yeah complete with
Strickland who's gonna show up here in a minute. Dude detective principal Strickland in this movie
he may be working harder than Franklin Jell-O to really sell his character but he's basically just
doing principal strike or coming back to the future. Yeah Kevin thinks that this is like I think this
is some kind of new fangled keyboard. Whoa listen to this. I can smell your key. Back at Castle
Grayskull they lock in on the keys signal because Kevin was playing it and they realized that they
were on planet earth in the year 1987 and Skeletor says Evelyn have you assembled the
mercenaries to go to earth to find the key to bring back He-Man. Um yes yes we did Skeletor.
These are your mercenaries there's Kog who you know. Oh yes Kog. Kog wonderful wonderful. I love
your hair how it waves back. You look like a an aged Al Sharpton. Here's a weird looking reptile
guy called Sohrod. Mmm you know you definitely worked in the car too yes. Are you like Boba Fett
but a lizard? His blade which you can tell he's got a lot of knives. I think you'll like that.
Blade. You know it's funny I would have thought maybe he was on roller blades but I see how the
knives work in his favor. Maybe both knives and roller blades if you considered that blade. That
would be an interesting touch. It could be a triple threat. Short blades, long blades, roller blades.
Consider it. Soft suggestion. Not a hard suggestion but I am Skeletor. I will be the master of
utero so basically what I'm telling you is I'd like to see on roller blades. And then finally uh Skeletor
here's a big furry we found named Beastman. Beastman yes I've seen you on the cartoon many many times.
Wonderful wonderful Beastman. Who did the makeup for this Beastman? He appears to be the Sasquatch
from Six Million Dollar Man if you ask me. And then Skeletor just tells them so bring He-Man back
alive so I can make him kneel in that get up that he wears that kind of does it for me. Oh he'll be
my slave kneeling down. I wonder how he likes feet. I have skeleton feet but I still like the
toes sucked. Clean the bone. That's what I pay extra for. Clean the bone He-Man that's what I'll
say to him when he gets here. We go back to Earth where Kevin is having this guy Charlie who owns
the local music store check out the Cosmic Key but Courtney Cox is like hey I'm just gonna hang
out in this empty high school to say goodbye to the old place. She says that she's not gonna be
able to graduate. You're like why not? Do you even go to school? She's got a lot going on. I think maybe
she got expelled. She's sitting in the gymnasium dealing with her never-ending depression grief
and suicidal thoughts and so she opens up this locket and sees pictures of her dead mom and dead
dad. She's like boo hoo hoo and then the portal door opens and our henchmen show up along with
the one character we recognize from the cartoon who's Beastman and a bunch of other storm troopers
dressed in black. They show up. Then this character who I'm guessing is the high school janitor we've
never met him. He comes walking out of a bathroom or something. He's wearing a letterman's jacket
which then I thought he might be one of those sad sack students who peaked in their senior year
of high school and never just left. They're just like clinging to those glory days throwing around
the ball or whatever and this janitor guy comes out and he's like hey you can't be in here and
Beastman punches this guy in the face so hard that he explodes through a lock set of metal doors
and I'm like that guy's dead. This is a crime scene. It turns out that's not the case. We'll
find out later but you're right. This should have been the end of this character. He's not making it
to see another sunrise bow. After what happens next? He's certainly never going to carry on a
conversation again. And he won't ever want to look in a mirror. Even if he did he's not going to
recognize who's there. What is that big piece of melted wax? Cornell? Get the pigs, Cornell.
So our henchmen all run in. They start blasting up the high school gymnasium and we have all of
these props in there for the end of your dance. The Around the World Fantasy dance and there is
a 30 foot tall Eiffel Tower. There is a matching Big Ben standee. None of this bow belongs in a
Masters of the Universe movie. And then all of these laser blasts just set the gymnasium on fire.
And then Beastman rushes to attack Courtney Cox who's just screaming in fear and at this point
the whole movie just feels like the Howling Three. Like with this wolf man chasing her as she crawls
around under the bleachers. She goes into like some kind of wooden pallet storage facility
as she runs out of the high school. Yeah. And runs smack dab into He-Man who just picks her up and
carries her off like King Kong. Yeah. Then they hide for a little bit. He hands her a gun and is
like, you know how you use that and like shoot. He just gives a strange creature on a planet that
he's never been to a weapon. He just leaves her there while he goes on the hunt and ends up
shooting this Soread person and then beats up Beastman a little bit. And then of course,
Tila man at arm show up guns blazing. Which it's also crazy that the four henchmen completely
ignore Skeletor's orders of bring He-Man back alive. They're blasting at him, slinging a sword.
They're clearly trying to kill this guy. Well, but I also think that they're under the impression
that you can't actually kill a He-Man without a stake through the heart. And so like the blaster
is only going to hurt him. Like that's just going to make him angry. They run off when man at arms
and Tila show up and then we just cut away from the scene. Yep. And go to Kevin where he's at the
record shop where the music to purple haze plays. Yeah. And this guy Charlie is checking out this
cosmic key and it's like, Oh yeah, I seen one of these before. It's Japanese. And so they're
tinkering around with it and there are a bunch of lights that starts dancing over the top of it.
And Charlie, the music guy is like, Hey, where'd you find this thing? He was like,
what was in the cemetery again? You know how I like to hang out there and just commune.
For what it's worth a little earlier, a couple of police office were here asking about you asking
if I'd seen you in the cemetery. I mean, I told him maybe, but Charlie, I tell you what,
why don't you come by my place later? I'm going to be down in the basement. You know,
where I got that well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've heard about that. Well, I think you're going to
like it. How about you come on by and you can look at the well, you know, that's one of my
favorite hobbies is leaning over long, deep holes and trusting the person behind me. It's kind of
my thing. You know, that's why I like you so much, Charlie. We really complete each other,
but then they see a bunch of emergency vehicles pass by and then Charlie, who has a police bed,
apparently just to keep tabs on his buddy, Kevin learns that the high school is on fire through
the police band. And so Kevin's like, well, I better get over there. I mean, if she's going to
get cooked like a roast pork, I want to be there to see it. Peel the skin off. It's really easy to
remove it from the muscles once it's started to crackle a little bit. When it goes too far,
it essentially turns into pork rind. So I really need to go. You know, Charlie, they call humans
long pork because it tasted a lot like pork. My dead grandfather, the one I mentioned earlier,
he had two different police band radios in his house. And I remember as a kid on Friday and
Saturday nights, that was entertainment. Just listening to crimes being committed around our
hometown. That's weird. I've known people like that. My grandmother also had a police band
radio and it's just strange. I think he might have been doing it to make sure that nobody was
coming after him. That's why he never saw you coming. Never in his life did he think it was
going to be his grandson. Keep your friends close. Keep your enemies closer. Keep your grandchildren
super close. Take this, grandpa. Then we get this cutaway to Dolph Lundgren talking to Courtney Cox.
Courtney Cox gets a dose of her own medicine here where he just dumps a bunch of exposition on her
about the movie. Describes what the key is and what it does and that kind of thing. And there's
nothing better than to have a character explain things that you, the audience already know to
someone else. What he says is "Ughhhh." She's like "Really? Ughhhh." Oh my god. Ughhhh." Wow. It sounds
like we're in trouble. And then they go after Kevin, who by the way shows up at the school with
this key in hand as this janitor is being taken out on a stretcher remembering the last time he
ever walked apparently. With that letterman jacket infused to his skin from temperatures that he
never thought he would feel. Because the school is blazing to the ground. And this is where Detective
Principal Strickland shows up. Yeah. And she's like "Alright, alright, what's happening here?"
It's really unsettling seeing him in this movie if you've seen Back to the Future 1, 2, or 3.
Because he's essentially playing the exact same character. Absolutely. He's just like "What are you,
a slacker?" Kevin's like "Hey, did you see a great big Courtney Cox inside?" And he's like "Nah, nah,
there wasn't no Courtney Cox inside." But are you sure? Because she, you know, has dark hair,
and she's a little thinner than I'd like because it's harder to cut off. And that's the point where
Strickland is like "Alright, you're coming with me pal. We gotta ask you some questions downtown."
Do you have any evidence of me? You haven't been to my house, have you? You didn't look down on
the hole, did you? Oh jeez. I knew eventually the law would catch up to me. So our heroes meet back
up. My heroes, I mean, Man at Arms and Tila and He-Man. I swear when you watch this movie,
you forget characters are in the film until they just randomly show back up. Including Gwildor,
where you're like "Where has he been the whole damn time?" And then he comes rolling up in a
convertible peak Cadillac. Dude. With like a straight up Mr. Fusion in the car. I came in
and added all of these new enhancements. We pop up and he's like dumping Miller Lide and putting
banana peels in it and shit. It's all but flying off the ground. My favorite part of this whole
scene though is when Tila shows up and Courtney Cox is beside him and He-Man says "Oh, you have
a look?" And she says "Not as much as you apparently." Rar! That cat's got claws. I really
thought that was funny. But yeah, so they all jump in this pink Mr. Fusion fueled rocket car
that Billy Barty has invented. This is a Masters of the Universe movie! What are we doing here
Bo? We cut back to Skeletor and he is kind of fondling Evil Lyn's face. She's on her knees
in front of his crotch like "What's going on there?" Don't ask. And she's like "Skeletor,
we must destroy He-Man because the people wait for him to return." And Skeletor's like "No,
he must be broken." And then our mercenaries show back up all hang dog and kicking a can in front
of him. "Hey Skeletor, what are you doing here?" "Oh geez." Let me ask you all one question. "Oh
crap, is it do we have He-Man because the answer is no. Or if we have the key, no." Hmm, that was the
question. Um, Blade. "Yes." I need to make an example of someone and honestly the Rollerblades
thing has really me very put out with you. So I've really been practicing. Really too little too late
I'm afraid Blade. And then he just disintegrates him. And he says "Alright you assholes, go back.
This time you're taking more forces and Evil Lyn the whole time is like "Yeah, yeah, you do that."
And he's like "Oh, did I forget you Evil Lyn? Or should I say Everlin? You're gonna be going with
him." And she's like "Ah, why me? Because you have to lead these idiots. Alright, I could do it but
I'm Skeletor. I've got a whole thing to do here with the sorcerers and I'm about to make another
call to the battlefield. Do you know that it's Taco Tuesday tomorrow?" So we cut to Courtney Cox's
parents house. Well, I guess it's her house. Maybe it's the banks house. I don't know who owns this
house anymore. Remember she's going to New Jersey. Detective Principal Skinner and Kevin. They just
wander inside. And as they're meandering around Courtney Cox calls her own house and Kevin
answers the phone with Detective Principal Skinner nearby and he plays it real cool and he's like
"Hello?" "No, Courtney Cox isn't here." "Yes, uh, yeah, this is definitely not Courtney Cox calling
me on the phone. Yes, I have that large metallic music cat we were discussing earlier." "Yes,
well it was nice talking to you, not Courtney Cox. Goodbye." And then Detective Principal Skinner's
like "Wait a minute, wait, who are you talking to? Was that Courtney Cox? What's that metal thing
you got in your hand? That's not a cat. Is it a synthesizer? What is this thing?" "I'm pretty sure
this is a Japanese synthesizer. That's what Charlie said anyway. Have you seen Charlie? He
was going to my house and looking in the well." "Japanese? I fought in WW2. We're not going to be
dealing with any Japanese synthesizers. Now while I'm on the force, you're a slacker. You always
been a slacker, Kevin." Again, he threatens to take him downtown, but we cut away from that because
Evil Lyn is using this scanner thing to see this fight that's already happened here on earth because
she and the mercenaries are now, you know, in the vicinity. "In the year 1987." Yeah, she's given
the mercenaries all kinds of shit. "Oh yes, I see that there was a young high school girl here. I
guess that's really what tipped the scales against you." And one of the soldiers is like "Hey, Evelyn,
uh, sorry, Evil Lyn." "It's Evil Lyn! It's a hyphen, it's not an apostrophe. I know that on our
internal roster system, it has an apostrophe. It is a hyphen. It's Evil Lyn. Can you get that
through your thick skull?" "Uh, we found the key." "Oh, well that's good news. Where is it?" "Uh,
over here." "Wait, are you pointing somewhere? What are you?" "Um, close. Just follow me." "Okay." And
so we cut back to Detective Principal Strickland, who is making these lights up here above the key.
And Kevin, by the way, is heating up some chicken in the microwave. "In a microwave." Yeah. And one
of the soldiers that was just talking to Evil Lyn is like "Hey, uh, we're getting a weird signal
that's interfering with our tracker. You want me to blow that thing up?" And she's like "Yes, yes,
blow it up." And so he sends, I guess, a signal or something that remotely blows up Kevin's
microwave, which is a real jerk move. "Yeah, blows up his chicken and ribs too." And Detective
Principal Strickland does not seem to be that put out by this turn of events and just keeps
questioning Kevin about like what the thing is, what's going on with Courtney Cox, and then
Detective Principal Strickland is just like "Give me that key. I'm taking it downtown." Yeah. At
which point these mercenaries blast through Courtney Cox's door and just attack Kevin.
Evil Lyn comes in and she says "Hand me Wonder Woman's lasso of truth. Oh, we don't have one.
Then give me the the collar of mostly not lies." And so they slap this collar on Kevin around his
neck and he just starts spouting off all the truth of where they found the cosmic key. And he went to
Charlie and Detective Principal Skinner has it. And that's where he's headed now because that's
gonna be a perfect location for this lackluster action sequence we're about to have in our
room. Yeah. And during this scene, one of the henchmen finds a newspaper clipping detailing
that Courtney Cox's parents are dead from a plane crash because that's gonna be needed later.
So after Kevin spills the beans on where the cosmic key is, at that point they just leave
Kevin there to stare off in the distance with this magical lasso standing around his neck.
When Evil Lyn and her henchmen and these random dark stormtroopers all exit the house, they
climb into this thing that looks like a space swamp boat and they just fly off into the night sky.
Pretty fancy hovercraft, but yeah. And then the pink Cadillac containing all our heroes shows up
right after to find Kevin inside with this collar around his neck. Hey, sorry about that, but that
Dominatrix came in here and really gave me what for. And I gotta tell you, it was pretty hot.
They're on their way down to Charlie's music store for a disappointing action sequence.
As soon as they take the collar off, he just picks up a chair. It starts to make like he's
gonna bounce it off of He-Man. Yeah. And Teela, of course, quick on the draw, shoots it out of his
hands. And then Courtney Cox is like, "No, no, no, don't shoot him. He's with me. He's fine."
At that point, Billy Barty shows up in a bunch of stolen human clothes. That is one of the attempts
at humor in this movie. But yeah, they decide like, "Hey, we gotta go to Charlie's because that's
where Strickland is headed with the cosmic key." They're like, "All right, we'll take us there."
And Kevin's like, "Um, I don't think so. You guys are a bunch of freaks." And Courtney Cox is like,
"Well, I disagree. Let's go." And so they do. They all head down to the music store. The pink
Cadillac shows up. He-Man and crew rush inside to find Detective Principal Skinner, and he just
pulls a gun on him. Detective Principal Skinner says, "Look, slackers, I want some answers. Let's
start with you, Blondie." And then Gwildor comes wandering in and Detective Principal Skinner shouts,
"What the hell is that?!" Maybe the best moment in the movie is him just being like, "What the fuck
is this thing?!" At some point, Detective Principal Skinner's police-issued weapon falls into the hands
of Tila, and she forces him into the back office. And then at this point, Gwildor is trying to use
the cosmic key to triangulate or return to Castle Grayskull or something. Kevin shows up and he's
like, "Pretty good at playing music. Would you like to hear me give it a try?" And he's like, "Oh,
that would be a great idea." So these two are starting to bond. And then we get this shootout
at Charlie's used musical instrument Emporium with a bunch of those black-colored stormtroopers,
and it's all very boring. Again, badly edited. It's just them inside this music store. It's not
like a big battle. It's like you're shooting at each other 10 feet away. Basically, if you've ever
been involved in a playful Nerf gun battle, it's like that. Only slightly more... what I want to say.
Stupid. And it causes fire. Like if your Nerf darts somehow set a drum kit on fire,
that's what's going on. And then Tila giving really the only gift she knows how to give.
She throws Kevin a gun and is like, "Hey, protect the key from Detective Principal Strickland." And
then she shoots some dudes and said, "They need a woman's touch. A woman at arms." And you're like,
"Ugh, god. This movie is worse than I thought it was." "Maybe they'll call me a mistress of the
universe?" And Evil Lin's like, "Shut up! That's my title!" "Oops, sorry." "I thought your name was
Evelyn." "Oh, it's Evil Lin! There's a high fiv--" "I'd shoot them!" "That was a topography!" "Shut up!"
Detective Principal Strickland is trying to go after the gun, and he's threatening Kevin with
jail. And while they're scuffling, Courtney Cox looks out the window during this gunfight and sees
her mom standing outside. "Uh, her dead mom." Right. And so she slips outside and Evil Lin,
clearly, is pretending to be her mom and is like, "Hey, honey, I'm sorry we had to disappear and
fake that plane crash, but can you scamper in there and get a cosmic key thingy for us? And then we
can all go home." "Oh, mom, I don't do anything! You ask. I'll be right back!" "Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum,
here it is! Haha! I'm Evil Lin! I'm not your mother! It's in my name! Evil Lin!" Also inside,
Billy Barty has to get the gun and fire off a shot into the ceiling to chill everybody out. "Yeah."
"Everybody be cool! This is a robbery!" Courtney Cox is screaming because Evil Lin has revealed
herself. And at that point, all the soldiers retreat because they got what they came for.
And then the pursuit goes the other way where now all of He-Man and his goons are following Evil Lin
and her goons. "Detective Principal Strickland leads the charge. He gets a shotgun from Charlie,
who keeps it behind the counter. This is basically just a glorified pawn shop. And then Detective
Principal Strickland, he runs outside and he's like, "Free slackers!" And then these black storm
troopers - excuse me, storm troopers with black armor - they turn around and just start shooting
at him as he's hiding behind a car and the car just explodes!" "He has to make a break for it
and duck." "He's the only character that really curses a lot in this movie. He's just like,
"God damn it! Holy shit!" "He's basically playing every detective character from a venture movie."
Evil Lin sends a signal to Skeletor. "Beep, boop, boop!" Goes to clear. And then another portal
opens and Skeletor comes riding in on this parade float with his Imperial Guard troops marching
along in front of him. Also, there are no citizens of this nameless town in 1987. The only people
that we see living here were out at the Rib Shack and that's it. Also, when Skeletor comes through,
there are these dudes - I think he calls them air centurions. The ones who glide around on those
little shields. Right, and never move. It is one of the shittiest effects in a movie filled with
shitty effects. It is shocking how bad it is. It's like if you basically put those green army men that
have the bazooka on their shoulder on a stick and ran it in front of the screen. Yeah, and then
twirled it every now and again to make it look like they were going up over a building. Yeah. It looks
terrible. It looks really really bad. It's terrible. Anyway, so a bunch of soldiers follow along with
Skeletor, these air centurions. Evilyn is like "We have the key!" and Skeletor is like "Yes, yes,
yes, but you have he-man! That is what I want!" We have the key! Evelyn, I tell you, I want he-man
because I want him to be my slave! Look, I'm very clear on this. I've been clear on the hyphen
verse of the apostrophe, alright? Oh, Evelyn, get over it. Somebody didn't bring donuts Friday
morning for donut Friday. And it wasn't me. When I look at the sign-in sheet it says "Evel apostrophe
Lin, Evelyn." Are you telling me that wasn't you? You weren't supposed to pick up crispy creams on
Friday, Evelyn? I'm sorry, Skeletor. Oh well, now you're going to be in big trouble. Whatever you
say Skeletor! Just fine he-man! And so our heroes go from pursuit and now they're running away and
they get in some kind of building, like an abandoned building, all Samaritan style. Uh-huh. And
Dolph Lundgren uses this grappler to get himself one of these hoverboards and starts flying around,
which also looks like shit. He-man is chasing these centurions. Right. Through the sky. He shoots
one of them and his whole body explodes like a balloon. Right? Like what are these things made
of? C4? I don't know. They're like pinatas or something. Maybe candy blew out everywhere. And
then he swings by where Evelyn is and fires the grappling hook at her and just yanks the cosmic
key out of her hands and she's like "Oh no!" And he does this like tipsy doodle to get away with it
where he flies the aerial equivalent of the triple Lindy. Yep. Where he flies over this dude's head
and comes around behind him and then blows him up with by hitting him with a sword. And then
Skeletor is just like "Ah, son of a bitch! Alright, look, you sky centurion! I need you to act as bait!
You need to lead He-man to me!" And while that is going on, while there's this aerial battle taking
place, I mean battle in quotes. Right. And Skeletor rises up in his fancy hovercraft up to the roof
of this building where our heroes are hiding and he's like "I see you!" And so he demands that they
throw down their weapons, which they do, and they are taken prisoner. And that's where He-man shows
up and is like "Hm, he's a little... not... French?" Courtney Cox shouts out "No, He-man! It's a trap!"
And then Skeletor shoots her in the leg with his pink finger lightning. And then at this point,
He-man lands and does sword battle with these dark stormtroopers and through all of this, Skeletor
ends up getting the cosmic key. Yes. And he says "Hey man, I'm going to give you a choice.
Return with me as my quote slave. Don't be so bad. You'll never know." Some of it you'll really enjoy.
And I also need you to surrender your sword as well as that long metal thing you carry. I'm kidding,
I'm kidding. You know what I meant with sword. Or else I'm gonna kill all your friends. And He-man
takes his sword and he's like "K-Klunk!" They go back to Eternia with He-man as Skeletor's slave.
Yeah, and they take his sword and leave his friends to die. And Tila then checks out Courtney
Cox's wound. "Goo! Oh my god!" This is another one of those moments where it's disgusting, of course.
It's bubbling and green! And somebody needs to say the line "Only Eternian Magic can save her."
But that's not what they say, they're just like "Oh, she's a goner." Tila's like "I'm shooting off
her leg!" Billy Barty says like "The other cosmic key is fried! There's no way we're getting back,
we're really fucked!" And then Kevin says "Hey, there's a fountain down on the ground. We should
go down there and get some disgusting water from it and put it on Courtney Cox's leg. That way I
can peel off the skin more readily." Give her some dysentery. Meanwhile, Detective Principal Strickland
has led all the cops to this area. "There was a bunch of slackers here! I swear! A bunch of soldiers
in a flying air swamp boat! It was all here, I promise!" Alright, drunkie. And of course he
looks like an idiot and Billy Barty again says "Hey, there's no hope here. Skeletor fried the key
and we don't know the tones!" And that's where Kevin's like "Wait a second, did you say 'tones'?"
'Cause like I've had this song stuck in my head that came out of that cosmic key thingy all day
and it goes like this. *sings "Do do do do do"* Yeah, that's it! That's legally different from that
thing from the other movie! And like Billy Barty is just beside himself happy about this and for
no good reason, Kevin just goes "Yeah, I guess I'm kind of a failure." And you're like "What? No! You
just saved the day! What are you talking about?" Why is this suddenly Kevin's story as the hero of
the film? I have no idea. Billy Barty, again, doing his all here is like "Kevin, look, you're not just
one of a million musicians. Only one of you, only one of anybody." And it's like "Oh, well that's
kind of a nice line and a nice sentiment and maybe would have been a good theme for the movie if the
movie had a theme." No, it does not. To get back though, Man in Arms has to hand over an octite
rectifier which is definitely a sex toy. Teela says "I'll shoot it a few times!" Like "No! No! Bam bam bam!
Too late!" And so Kevin's like "Hey, how about I go get a keyboard so we can end this fucking movie?"
We're so close to the end of it. We are in the home stretch because what happens is back at Castle
Greyskull, He-Man is led to the throne upon which Skeletor sits, you know? Yes. Dick level. Right. And
somebody says "We're half a pre-ton to Moonrise" and you're like "All right, whatever you say,
I'm going to assume that meets soon." And the sorceress is getting all old and wrinkled in her
force field like she got Beetlejuiced. Yeah. And then Skeletor takes this the sword of Greyskull
and puts it in a fancy slot on the throne. He's like "Oh, that's the good stuff!" So He-Man kneel
and He-Man's like "Is that a no? Because it sounded like a negative tone but I don't want to assume
here because you might have said yes." But you're also not kneeling so maybe we should try to coerce
Shoe into kneeling in front of me. You are, my sleigh. You are, after all. That was the agreement.
You agreed. No takesies maxies. I saw your fingers, none of them were crossed. Nor were your eyes. And
the fact that your toes might have been crossed doesn't count. Because he won't kneel, he just gets
electro-whipped for his troubles by some dude. It's like Denzel and Glory. They're cracking his
whip on his back non-stop. Morgan Freeman's in the corners telling Skeletor "Shoe's,
he just wanted shoes." That's another one of those movies. You and I snuck off to drive 45 minutes to
go see in another city with a little more culture. You know what? I went to see that with you and I
went back the next day to see it. On your own? Yeah, I love that movie. Still do. Glory's a great
movie. We were definitely different kids. There is no doubt about that. Glory! Glory! Glory! You know
the director's the guy behind 30-something. I know. He also wrote the episode "I'm Nobody Who Are You."
You're telling me something I don't know? One of the best episodes of the series. Perfectly Mary's
Dickensian poetry and middle-aged ennui. Detective Private Strickland is being taken home for a long
rest when he sees this pink Cadillac zoom by and he's like "Hey, that's a thing with the guy!"
Whatever, sure. Kapow, Kapow!
Kevin shows up with his keyboard and Billy Barty has done some real ET phone home bullshit here
where there are wires going everywhere. This makeshift kakamei device of his. Absolutely.
Billy Barty is so delighted by this keyboard Kevin has. Why didn't you tell me you had a sonic
shmubilizer? Yeah. Because that's not what we call it here, you weird looking little runt. Hey,
how's loose is your skin? It looks real loose. Your face especially. It looks like a scrotal
sack that's been deflated. I'm kind of into this. Hey, let's talk after this whole adventure is over.
I've got a well to show you. Meanwhile, Courtney Cox is in real rough shape here.
My leg! Kevin goes to her and he's like "Listen, I've never said this to anyone because it's hard
for me to feel feelings but I love you, you know?" And she's like "I know, I just don't know if I'll
ever walk or act again." Done with them, we go back to Skeletor just taunting He-Man and is like
"So, would you like to kneel now He-Man? The moon is at its apex. I'm about to have all the power
in the universe." While this is happening, we see that Detective Principal Strickland is moving in
on our heroes with his shotgun. He's gonna shoot him and kill him. Skeletor, back in Eternia,
because we're kind of bouncing back and forth between these two sets, Skeletor does another
of his hollow fireside chats where he's like "Listen everyone, I just wanted to give you the good
news. He met as my slave. I've got the sword and also I'm about to be master of the universe. It's
very exciting. Couldn't have done it without you. Thank you very much." And then this glowing yellowish
orange orb comes down and starts filling him up with all of this light and it crescendos to the
point to where his entire costume changes and now he's wearing this metallic gold plate armor but
he's got this wild fancy gold headdress full of multiple horns. It's sort of the Kate Blanchett
Gila costume. Yeah only yellow. Yeah. So Skeletor wins movies over, right? He demands Heman kneel
again and then starts shooting more force lightning out of his eyes this time. Then back on earth,
just as Detective Principal Strickland shows up, they get this device working again. The door opens
up and they blast in just as Skeletor is asking Heman "So well your friends now Heman." And it's
like "Oh there. Oh well hmm that's serendipitous. Um huh that was supposed to be rhetorical but
here they are." "Doc Stormtroopers killing him!" And then a battle breaks out in Castle Grayskull.
They show up with a chunk of the street they were on behind him as well. Half the pink Cadillac is
there like three quarters of a phone booth. And it looks exceedingly cheap as every part of this
movie does. Detective Principal Strickland just starts blasting fools with his shotgun. Then he
man gets freed when Skeletor tries to zap him with his eyes again and Heman just like puts the
shackles in the way. Then Heman grabs the sword from the slot where Skeletor put it in the chair
and then in a wide shot that doesn't make sense for the first moment in the movie where
Heman grabs the sword holds it over his head and says "I have the power." His catchphrase. Yes it's
not a shot of him doing it. I mean he's in the shot but he's like far left. Yeah. And it's a
real throwaway kind of thing. I don't know that I noticed that he even did it until the second time
through. And then they just pose and start fighting with their swords and staff and whatnot
and sparks and lights are happening while they swing at each other. Now one thing I really liked
about this scene in early Disney films they would use the choreography from one film to
essentially inform another. So there's a scene where Snow White is dancing with the dwarves and
that same choreography was used in Robin Hood. And I really like during this fight sequence how they
essentially took the scene where Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader beat the shit out of each other
and Return of the Jedi and did that exact same thing. It's embarrassing how much of this is the
end of Return of the Jedi. Up to and including Heman whacking him with the sword and him falling
off the ledge into this empty pit of nothingness like oh it's a real anti-climax where he just yeah
like you said he gets tossed over the side of this thing and then immediately this moon door
closes and the sorceress is cool and that's it. It's shockingly anti-climactic. You're just like
um all right I guess that's the end of it. That's it. And then we see all of our characters preparing
to end the movie. Detective Principal Strickland has decided to stay in Eternia because he now has
a female slave prostitute on his arm. I got this girl here. I'm gonna fuck one of the locals for a
couple of decades and uh you know best of luck back on earth. Who cares? Kevin and Courtney Cox
they decide to return to earth. The sorceress gives Courtney Cox a little blue ball to keep
in her hand for safe something to make sure you never forget Eternia. Like I'm pretty sure I'm
gonna remember this shit you know and then Courtney Cox she's like welling up with tears
because she's so sad bow to leave the friends that she met three hours ago. That is also in my notes
of why are you getting emotional? Why are any of you getting emotional over this girl that you
brought here to save like good on you for doing that? But what do you know about this person other
than she happened to be in the building and pointed you to the guy who had the key? That's it. They
know nothing of her life or her dead parents or her plans to go to New Jersey. Up to and including
man at arms giving her this big speech about you know um they we have a little saying here on
Eternia uh live the journey for every destination is but a doorway to another and you know I know
that's a little confusing but it's basically uh you move from one place to another in the
journey along the way but uh what I'm saying is you know come back and see us sometime that's all.
Maybe you could shorten that to something like yes we can. Just a thought. I'm thinking just
keep it simple hope just hope. Yeah they're just hugging their way around the room for no good
reason. Uh Wildor says hey if you guys want I could send you back to a different time if that would be
beneficial to you and they're like nah we're good just send us back to when we left. But at the last
minute they so they start going back through the door and that's where Courtney Cox is like oh but
wait what do you guys think? But they're through. I've not tried to make this film better. Uh-huh. But
why wouldn't they have Wildor be like I can send you back to any time you want and have her say
like yes to be able to respond like I know exactly what I want you to send. And then cut away right.
Cut away to what happens next instead you get the how much oh wait hold on a second bye. Right but
she wakes up in a Victorian era sleeping gown. Yes. In her old house and it's a whole thing where
she goes downstairs and her parents are like cooking dinner and stuff. Mom, dad and they're
there and they're like hey hon we're just on our way to go fly in a plane and she's like bull to
the shit you are. Your mom's like no your dad's an excellent pilot he's a drunk and he's cheating on
you but I'm not gonna let you two die. And she grabs the keys and just runs off. Like they can't
call a taxi you know like this is not as good a plan as she thinks it is. The key she took her
for the lawnmower. I know maybe she's gonna mow the lawn later? I don't know. Let's go fly around
on the plane. Where's my flask? Stay away from my second cell phone. It's weird that it's later in
the movie that they do that reveal that he was flying. Yeah. Anyway so she runs out and sure
enough there's Kevin waiting for her outside. Oh you're one I need your help for me to put this couch
on the back of my van. You can't let your parents get on that plane. Look I got some people sniffing
around about my involvement and if that thing doesn't blow up nobody's in the wiser. And she's
like yeah yeah I got it I got their keys. Those are the boat keys. That's why it's got the floaty
thing on it so if you drop them in the water also it says boat keys. Oh shit. Well door. And then
they kind of look in this blue orb that they have and they're like oh it was all real. It was like
wait was that in question? Did you think it was a dream all along? I didn't get that vibe. The fact
that your parents are now alive again? Right that seems like the proof right? Sure. They look into
this blue orb and there is He-Man raising his sword aloft and yelling oh and that's it and then
credits. There's a post-credits scene. Oh yes there is. Because at the very very very into the credits
Skeletor pops up from some red liquid muck and he says I'll be back. Even in the last moments of
this film it reeks of unoriginality. It is shocking Chad. The way he says it is I'll be back. Yeah.
Yeah. No you won't. That's wishful thinking I'm afraid my friend. Not only is this movie incredibly
derivative we haven't really dabbled in the how do we fix this movie thing because it so fundamentally
misunderstands what this movie needs to be. Like He-Man just doesn't have a character and for this
movie to work he's got to be a hero and you've got to understand what he wants because all he wants
in this movie is to stop Skeletor who wants this power. But apparently He-Man has the power question
mark. It is just the laziest piece of shit that we have watched. But is it? Because Chad it is time
with the season finale that we rate the movies that we watch this season. A season I would argue
filled with some of the worst movies we've done as a collection. Yes and we've watched a lot of bad
movies and had a lot of bad seasons. You told me this cannot be a six-way tie for just garbage.
Yeah that's right. If I had to rank them and it's not from best to worst like that's that's an
impossible task. I think that when I rank them I rank these in an order if I met someone on the
street which of these movies would I have them watch and have them hate me the least for recommending
that they watch this movie. Uh-huh. You want me to go first? Yeah yeah sure. All right I'm gonna go
from best to worst. Okay. My number one this season and I feel disgusting and embarrassed and ashamed
but I'm gonna say my number one is perfect. Oof. Right. Because if I had to recommend this to
someone it's entertaining enough to watch Jamie Lee Curtis and John Travolta do their best with
this terrible movie. I've got a bunch of dirt bagged friends who would enjoy watching all of the women
ride around in their skimpy little clothes. So that was my number one. My number two, I can't
believe I'm saying this, is the Emoji Movie. Ooh wow. Because I'm I am not proud of this. Because
when you watch it you're gonna be reminded of better films and you'll be thinking about those
better movies. I suppose. Number three is The Jerky Boys and here's the thing the reason Perfect
and Emoji Movie were wanted to they were at least somewhat original and weren't completely derivative
of something that existed in a very specific way in pop culture. So Jerky Boys was number three
because I don't think if anybody watched it they would understand what the hell's going on. The
Super Mario Brothers movie you either know Mario Brothers or you don't. Either way this movie
doesn't make any sense whatsoever. My number five is Masters of the Universe and my number six is
Garbage Pail Kids because it's just intolerant. It's that movie is nothing but grotesque filler
trying to get past the 79 minute mark so that they can put it in theaters to try to make a
buck or two which they didn't. All right. There's some definite disagreement amongst our list for
sure. So my number one best of the season is the Jerky Boys movie because it reminded me of things
that I found funny. Not the movie itself but Alan Arkin makes me laugh sometimes. The Jerky Boys
records made me laugh. I can see that. It's just a cipher for other better things. My second is
strangely Masters of the Universe because it's relatively short. Like you won't remember a thing
about it once it's over with and I think that there are good performances in it. I mean it's
a terrible movie and you shouldn't watch it and all of that but there's at least something to it.
Masters of the Universe is my number two. Super Mario Brothers is my number three because it's
just so weird and batshit crazy. All right. Number four is perfect because it's so fucking boring
and even with John Travolta and Jamie Lee Curtis who can be perfectly charming on their own,
this movie somehow makes them just as dull as the rest of it. Right because 90% of the dialogue
takes place over telephone calls. Yes. Number five is the Emoji movie because it's a god-awful
travesty of filmmaking. Yes. And number six is the Garbage Pail Kids movie because everything
about it screams "we do not care." Yes. I'm happy that we both agreed on our bottom. Everything else
is really hundredths of a percentage point difference in its terribleness. This is truly
a season of terrible, terrible, terrible movies. This is one of the worst that we have done. I
mean as a set of movies, like no one film is the worst film we ever saw but taken as a group,
it is a grim set of movies. Next season we're gonna do better because we can't do worse. Sure.
So to kick off next season, Bo, you know Summertime's coming up. Oh, love the summer, Chad. You love
the summer and you know there's nothing more American than just hitting the open road and
taking a road trip, right? Oh, love a road trip too. What if, Bo, we did six movies that were all
road trip film in celebration of summer? Yeah, but that means we're not doing six good road trip
movies. Maybe? There might be a couple of interesting, less not so terrible road trip
movies in there. Hey, well I like the sound of that. Let me give you, for example, to kick off
this season, Bo, one of the most iconic road trip movies of all time is National Lampoon's Vacation.
Oh, that's a terrific movie. And I thought, why not do National Lampoon's Vacation, but the remake,
the one with Ed Helms and Christina Applegate. Oh no. Yeah, it's a movie no one asked for. It's
a movie most people didn't like. I mean, I guess we gotta start somewhere. And if that's the case,
I think the season should be titled Holiday Road. I think that's a great idea.
And one I've clearly heard before. So come back and join us in two weeks time or whenever the
hell we post this next episode. And we will start six road trip movies. And here's the God's honest
truth. We don't know what these six movies are going to be. So if you have a recommendation,
if you have a road trip movie, because there's a lot of them across a lot of different genres that
you would like to hear us talk about the history, the people and the misguided decisions that made
that movie, you can send that to us at picksixmovies@gmail.com. You can find us on social
media. You can write us a letter. You can talk to us in the grocery store. I get it. We're
celebrities, but we're just like regular people. You know, we throw cans of soup at our assistants,
just like you do. I've got a wicker basket of AA batteries. I know you do because you have better
aim than me. Your eyesight is so much better. So come back and see us in two weeks time as we kick
off our next season of Holiday Road featuring six movies that are all about road trips. Bo,
do you have any final thoughts as it relates to Masters of the Universe? Before I go back
through this door, you guys have Wells in attorney? I'm going to take that as a yes.
We'll see everybody in two weeks time.
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