Don't Do It
Don't mess with Skeletor, especially when Skeletor is really Frank Langella. Don't do it.
Where's My Shirt?
Can Skeletor cope with losing his shirt... before it's too late?
Mario Lopez?
A while back, I met He-Man, Skeletor, a DJ, and Mario Lopez. At Toys R' Us. Yeah!
We've talked about 1987's live action Masters of the Universe movie before, but surprisingly, I've never really mentioned the accompanying action figures. I would assume that this oversight has at least a little something to do with the fact that I'll have to talk about Gwildor in this article. If you've never heard of Gwildor, he's one of the movie's new heroes - a trollish oaf who plays around with some 'Cosmic Key' while spewing words of encouragement to Courtney Cox. No really, Courtney was in the film. Dolph Lundgren played He-Man, Frank Langella played Skeletor, and I couldn't give a flying fuck who played Man-At-Arms, but he was there all the same.
If you can get past the realization that it's the stupidest movie ever filmed, it's actually pretty fun to watch. It's almost entirely set on Earth, so we're finally given the chance to see how Eternians react to eating fried chicken. The characters remained true to their roots, and though this isn't a popular opinion amongst He-Fans, I think Langella gave us the best Skeletor we'll ever see. There's another bonus, too. Remember James Tolkan, the guy who played the gruff, loudmouth principal in Back to the Future? He's in this flick, too - playing a gruff, loudmouth police captain. Why is it a bonus? He gets funky with some of the half-naked Eternia chicks at the end of the movie.
But yeah, other than that, it's pretty silly. Either Dolph had a cold the entire time they were filming, or went into the part under the belief that He-Man should try to speak only using his nose, as if to illustrate just how far his powers reached. You might become a little uneasy once you deduce that Skeletor's true master plan only extends as far as chaining guys in their underwear to his crotch, but Langella's never been a stranger to ambiguous acting. Plus, there's no Orko.
While they used several of the characters kids knew and loved from the cartoon, the movie separated itself a bit by adding a few new heroes and villains. The special effects and make-up jobs were admirable considering the time period, and even though the monstrous villains were scripted to sound like morons, they looked damn cool anyway.
The movie wasn't a success by any stretch. Critics panned it to such an unprecedented point that I'm honestly surprised the director didn't blow his head off years ago. Obviously, the cartoon was meant for kids, but the film seemed to be designed more for the teen crowd. Truth be told, the teen crowd didn't give a shit about He-Man, as illustrated by the fourteen dollars total collected in ticket sales. Oh well, I still thought it was entertaining, even if only in a 'wow, if I amputated my finger, drew a smiley face on the top, and taped crayons to it, it could still write a better movie than this' sort of way.
Surprisingly, Mattel didn't go all out in their efforts to cash in on the film with new toys. They could've easily created updated versions of the main characters and sold tons of figures, but I guess everyone involved wanted to put the whole mess behind them, and pretend like the movie never happened just like everyone who went to see it pretended the same thing. Instead, the merchandising was kept rather quiet. A few toys based on the movie were sold, but they came and went without any fanfare and even the more voracious MOTU fans might not have ever heard of 'em. Until today, of course.
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Mattel only released three action figures based on the new characters from the movie: Gwildor, Blade, and Saurod. The latter two were some of Skeletor's new henchmen, and didn't really offer much onscreen aside for more fuel to add to the 'Holy crap they ripped off Star Wars!' fire. The figures were to the same scale as the ones we were used to seeing, but made from better materials and sculpted with a lot more precision than ever before.
In fact, you'd never assume that these toys had anything to do with He-Man unless you saw the film. They don't weigh the same, they're not made the same, and they certainly don't look the same as Mattel's famous line of sword-wielding, monster-faced Eternian wildebeests. My best guess is that the usual sculptors passed on the job, not wanting to be in any way associated with a motion picture that casts poor Skeletor as a male harem master who wanted his clothes to turn into gold.
Okay, I'll explain it: Skeletor was trying to get these insurmountable powers in the film. Powers that would make him invincible, powers that would turn him quite literally into the 'Master of the Universe.' He succeeded, but instead of becoming 'all-powerful,' his clothes just transformed into pieces of plastic which had previously been spray-painted gold. He-Man laughed and kicked him into a pit of lava. Folks, this is how the movie ended.
Today, we take a look at the three movie characters who were immortalized in plastic. These guys can fetch some pretty high prices due to their scarcity, but I wouldn't recommend tracking them down since they lack the charm of the originals. Without the familiar furry crotch mold and squeezable rubber head, these guys weren't worth jack to most of us...
Blade: I'll admit that Blade looked promising in all the trailers and ad spots promoting the film's arrival, but when I finally had a chance to see him in action? Just another bald idiot who gained fame simply because he glued strips of metal to his face. It's worked for so many in the past, but Blade? This guy really didn't deserve his notoriety. I'd be surprised if he spoke more than six words total for the film's duration, but that's nothing to complain about since the actor playing him subscribed to the theory that every bald alien swordsman must talk like a generic cartoon pirate. 'ARRR HE-MAN,' 'DIE-ARR HE-MAN,' and more silly shit that made me hate all other bald alien swordsmen sheerly by association.
The figure looked almost exactly like the real thing, which wasn't such a feat considering that the 'real thing' was designed to look like an action figure. Blade came with two count 'em two identical swords, making him doubly dangerous in combat. Sadly, the toy was posed in such a way that Blade looked more like he was about to bust a move than bust some skulls. When you shave your head and wear a loincloth, one thing you definitely don't want people to think is that you like dancing. It raises questions. Probing questions. Poor Blade.
Gwildor: In a way, Gwildor was the movie's version of Orko. Small, happy-go-lucky creature who means well despite screwing things up a lot of the time. Now here's some trivia for you. There might be three people reading this who remember the Golden Girls episode where Rose is dating a midget. C'mon, dig deep - you know you remember it. Okay, if you'll recall, Rose had a dream about what would happen if she married the midget, leading to a sequence where her dead father walks into the room, now represented as a dwarf. Friends, the man who played that dwarf is Billy Barty...the same guy who played Gwildor! Woo hoo hoo, I love six degrees.
Midgets typically lead a tough life, but imagine how Billy has to introduce himself. "Hey! Down here! I played 'Gwildor' in the He-Man movie. I also played Betty White's dead father in a Golden Girls dream sequence!" Oh well, he was also in U.H.F., so he can rest easier knowing that I'd sleep with him any day of the week. Except Thursdays. Thursdays I reflect.
The figure comes with a 'Cosmic Key' accessory - a tool which was very important to the plot of the movie. It looks like some kind of torturous robot dildo, but in actuality, playing it's musical keys can open doors into any dimension of any time period. I've got no idea why He-Man would allow Gwildor to hold a tool of such significance, but if we're going by what He-Man did in the movie, the guy wasn't exactly setting the intellectual world on fire. To make up for it, I'm pretty sure I remember him setting Beast Man on fire a few times, and that's almost as good.
Though much smaller than most of the other figures, Gwildor was also much more detailed. The Cosmic Key thingamajig could spin around very quickly, and under the right lighting, Gwildor appeared to be brandishing the famed Olympic torch. Okay, it's not that important. Sue me. If I didn't describe the stupid Key, I would've had to waste a paragraph trying to figure out what all of those pointy silver things popping out of Gwildor's belt were supposed to represent. And I'm not ruling that out for later.
Saurod: This guy was interesting. He looked cool enough, but he never really did anything to warrant looking that cool. It's wasted cool, see. This guy could've been Skeletor's right hand, the one sent out to wreck shit and kill people. Instead, all Saurod gets to do is miss easy targets and get chastised at length by his superiors for it. It's not the kind of movie appearance that's gonna make geeks get Saurod tattoos wherever it hurts the least, but in his defense, even He-Man himself ended up looking pretty dopey in the flick. The people responsible for this script certainly had an interesting approach. "Write everyone as a jackass." I'm not sure this is the route I'd personally head in with my ultimate sci-fi fantasy drama, but it worked here in its own special way.
It's tough to figure out exactly what Saurod's supposed to be. The movie is very dim at times, especially during battle scenes, so it wasn't until I had a chance to lighten some photos that Saurod's reptilian nature became apparent. So yes, he's some kind of alien lizard. Saurod had one of the greatest outfits ever, looking like a mixture between a standard space warrior and equipment with which you'd make a salad.
The toy, which was lightweight and seemingly hollow, had a mechanism that let you make sparks fly from Saurod's mouth. Little, tiny sparks. Saurod never did this in the movie, but then again, he didn't do anything in the movie. It'd be tough to market an action figure whose 'special feature' was the ability to stand quietly in the background, so I applaud Mattel's decision to make Saurod throw up lightning. If that wasn't enough for you, he also had a giant tail which made him look menacing while also serving as a sort of balance beam so he wouldn't topple over like the rest of Eternia's plastic people.
As a cartoon, toy line, and overall childhood passion, Masters of the Universe is widely and fondly recalled. As a movie, it's almost completely forgotten or otherwise disregarded. Truth be told, it's actually one of the better films in its genre. The one catch is that I have no idea what that genre might be. Eh, you know what? This flick had a scene where Skeletor zaps COURTNEY DAMN COX with energy bolts, leaving a flesh wound the size of a dinner plate on her leg. I think movies that have scenes like that deserve their own genre. I can see it now. You're in Blockbuster. You skip past the 'New Releases' section because Blockbuster's idea of 'new releases,' to this very day, still includes titles like Waterworld.
You head to the genre-specific sections. You browse 'Science Fiction.' Nothing. You take a look at 'Horror.' Clint Howard's Ice Cream Man piques your curiosity, but it's more of a passing thing, so again...nothing. You move on to 'Drama.' The cavalcade of totally unrelated movies that somehow fit under this 'drama' banner frighten and confuse you, so you move on. With nothing. Then, by some act of God, you land at the final section and find your late night movie. You should've known to check the 'MOVIES WHERE SKELETOR KILLS COURTNEY COX' genre section right off the bat, but I'll lay off since you're new. Remember it next time.
For those of us infatuated with merchandising ties (read: TOYS!) because we've got a background in marketing (read: no background in anything) or because the subject of economics in general (read: I'm eating Cheez Doodles) intrigues you, it kinda sucks that there weren't more toys based on the Masters of the Universe movie. Oddly, they didn't even use the cooler new villains, instead opting for the ones who looked like pirates or the ones who didn't look much like anything until you took a digital picture of them and increased the gamma levels by 500%. Who knows, though - maybe now that He-Man's become the in-thing again, we're only a heartbeat away from a worldwide re-release of the film, now with THX. Let's hold out hope - even if we've seen it, our world isn't gonna be all it can be until everyone else has the chance to watch Skeletor kick the holy Hell outta Courtney Cox. I'm still gushing.
Remember that Nike Transformers contest we were promoting a few weeks ago? Well, several X-E readers took home a prize. See, not all contests are fake and nasty. UGO's running another one, this time giving away a brand new Sony Watchman every day in February. It's free to enter, and you won't get spammed by doing so. Click heah yo to throw your name in the hat!
