Masters of the Universe (film): Definitely one of the best "bad" films ever

I think this will possibly hit home with people that were alive and aware of their surroundings in the 80's. I believe the sentiment will kind of be lost on anyone who wasn't old enough to understand the allure of afternoon and weekend cartoon binge-watching sessions.

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The He-Man and Masters of the Universe (errr, universe?) was everything back in the mid 80's. Rivaled by maybe only G.I. Joe, the amount of plastic crap that my family and friends of the family managed to acquire was easily from a retail perspective hundreds, if not thousands of dollars. We had Castle Greyskull, Snake Mountain, and whatever that rock cave was called, I think it was Hordak's lair. We also had dozens of action figures, all of which functioned in pretty much the same manor and a bunch of mounts (some of these things are worth quite a lot of money today.)

Therefore, it is understandable that they would eventually make a feature-length film out of all this.

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They made a lot of mistakes in this one: The main one being that an animated series with mostly non existent entities (like giant tigers that serve as horses) was going to be very difficult or impossible to portray in a film. Keep in mind that this was 1987 and computers were all but non-existent and therefore CGI was too.

The film is a mess and at the time this was universally panned because yes, it is pretty terrible and the action seemed to have little to no choreography and was extremely sluggish. However, if you watch this movie today it is one of those "so bad it's good" type things.

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Due to the fact that they didn't really have much of a budget for such and undertaking, it was necessary for the fantasy world that He-Man and Skeletor live in to not be in much of the film and they needed a much cheaper filming location.... something like.... New Jersey.

and that is exactly where the battle for humanity ends up taking place... in all its ridiculous glory.

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The acting is bad, the sets are obviously sound stages, the special effects are laughable and other than a few well-known MOTU characters, the film has nothing in common with the very popular cartoon and collectible empire. These stormtrooper-esque foot-soldiers that are simply cannon fodder... they don't exist in the cartoon.

The laser effects used on weaponry is just hilarious and of course, just like their brethren in white, these Strormtroopers are also completely incapable of hitting anything with a blaster.

So why am I writing about this now? As it turns out, a remake of this movie (hopefully not based at ALL on the source material) will be released in 2020 and while I am not getting my hopes up, it does seem like the increased technology that exists today should ensure a slightly better production. However, the 1987 original is unintentionally hilarious in the same way that many large-scale attempts at epic action / fantasy productions ended up being back in that time. If you enjoy a good laugh mixed in with some 80's nostalgia (as well as some critically acclaimed actors who regret being in this movie (Monica from Friends is in it!) then this is a great way to spend an afternoon.

It is so entertaining in fact that it will get an overall rating that has never been used before.

and yes, this was an actual character from the cartoons