Everything comes to he who waits.
- Today marks the 30th anniversary of the theatrical release of Masters of
the Universe, a less than faithful adaption of the toys and
cartoons show from the 80s.
- I have the power.
- And since we're still feeling nostalgic for mullets and greased up beefcakes after
our last episode, we're devoting this one to the man.
You know, He-Man specifically.
Here are seven things you didn't know about Masters of the Universe, probably.
(Music)
Fans of He-Man love to gripe about all the He-Man lore that Masters of
the Universe got wrong.
And one of the biggest complaints is the omission of the Orko character.
- (Sound) Ta da!
- What most people don't know is Orko more or less had to be left out
because of how expensive it would have been to portray the character properly.
It would have been too costly to have a character that could do magic and
fly around.
After all, it was still the 80s, and back then,
special effects required a lot more than downloading an After Effects plugin.
- Yes, I'm afraid so.
- Wildor was created to replace Orko, and that still required three and
a half hours of makeup every day for Billy Barty.
Even with the liberties they took,
making Masters of the Universe a reality was a huge undertaking for the filmmakers.
So come on, lay off them.
30 years after the fact.
- No.
- I'm sorry.
- Moving on.
(Sound) - Whoa,
all hell is breaking loose out there.
Let's see what's up.
- Speaking of production challenges,
Masters of the Universe nearly burned down this high school's gymnasium for
real over the course of the two days they were filming the sequence.
And the part where the fire legitimately got out of control and
almost burned the gym down is on film right here.
Luckily, they were eventually able to contain it, and
the building wasn't completely burned to ashes.
Bet that was the last time that high school let any Hollywood dip (Bleep)
borrow their gym, though.
- Whoa, what happened?
- You don't never wanna know.
(Sound) - Masters of the Universe was given a $17
million budget, which was quite bit of money at the time, but
the movie had too much going on for it to actually be enough money.
It had special effects, special effects makeup,
creatures with contact lenses, stunts, pyrotechnics.
Pretty much everything you could put in a movie that would make it harder to
make a movie.
It was a tall order for any director, and it must have been even taller for
Gary Goddard, because Masters of the Universe was his first feature film ever.
Unfortunately, it was also his last feature, according to IMDB.
On the plus side, he's got something called Broadway 4D on the way for
2018, so way to bounce back, Gary.
Anyway, hiring a first time director allowed the production company to stretch
the budget farther, but it still wasn't enough to avoid going over budget and
an almost catastrophic ending to the film.
- (Sound) - Masters of the Universe
was nearing the end of production, but it was over budget and
the producers were in a panic, so they pulled the plug.
Just days before they were going to finish the climactic scene,
production was shut down by the higher ups.
In fact, they'd gotten as far as this moment, when we see the staff break, but
they had no ending to the sequence to put after it.
There was no moment shot where He-Man definitively beats Skeletor.
But the director took it upon himself to make sure the film would have
a proper ending.
It took two and half months to make it happen as well as Gary Goddard
contributing some of his own salary to pay for it, but they eventually shot the rest
of the battle over the course of a day and a half.
- Skeletor, it's over.
- It saved the movie from having an incomplete, totally unsatisfying ending,
and taught us, yet again, that the suits are pretty much always wrong.
(Sound) - They're gone.
- Only He-Man has this power.
- Yeah?
Battle armor Skeletor has it, too.
- It's no surprise that at its heart,
Masters of The Universe was really made to sell more He-Man toys.
But the toys were also meant to help sell movie tickets.
So Mattel had a contest that awarded the winner a part in the movie.
Unfortunately, by the time the winner was chosen and flown out to the set,
all of the parts of the film that take place on Earth were already in the can and
they were shooting exclusively in Eternia.
That meant that the little boy who won the contest wouldn't really have
anywhere to go in the film that made sense, because
they couldn't just have some little kid running around Skeletor's castle.
- I don't think so, no.
- They were contractually bound to get the kid on film, so they had to outfit him
a way that made him fit in, in Eternia, which is how we wound up with Pigboy.
The cutaway to the little guard here is the kid who won the contest, and
Mattel's lawyers are pretty much the only reason that this shot is in the film.
Pigboy even made it into the credits.
So, way to stick it to that little jerk for winning a contest one last time, guys.
Moving on. - (Sound)
- Remember that high school gym we told
you about that production nearly burned to the ground?
Well, that wasn't the only thing Masters of the Universe destroyed.
The night exteriors they shot were done in downtown Whittier, California,
and in this scene, they really did blow out the windows of that business.
- (Sound) - They'd shoot in with year from sundown
to sunrise each day.
At sunrise they'd have to shut down and reopen the street to all the businesses.
It was a nightmare schedule, because they had to completely
load out all of the gear, cables, and other production junk after every night.
Plus, they often wouldn't get to shoot at all until after their midnight dinner
break, because they'd lose so many hours getting set up all over again each day.
Bearing all that in mind,
it is very possible they blew up that business out of spite.
- (Sound) - Gyms and store fronts
aren't the only things that were wrecked following Masters of the Universe.
All of the rooftops that you see in these scenes, with our heroes getting swarmed,
as well as the ones you can't see off camera, with stunt people, cameras,
and gear, they're all long gone, they don't exist anymore.
The buildings were all destroyed in a devastating earthquake that hit Whittier
in 1987.
On the plus side, at least this time production couldn't be blamed.
Hey, hey suits.
On the double plus side,
the quake didn't hit while they were up on those rooftops filming.
(Sound) That's it for this one, but let us know in the comments if you guys
are excited for the Masters of the Universe remake.
That's supposedly on the way, even though it's been in development now for
over a decade.
Thanks for watching and subscribe to Cinefix for more true-ish things
about movies and sometimes Pigboys, right here on Things You Didn't Know.
(Music)
- Good journey.