MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE (Gary Goddard, 1987)

[ashleyheart]

I was wondering. Did Dolph like playing He-man or not? Wondering cuz I heard he said that it was the lowest point of his acting career but I liked it and thought he did really good. I just hope he doesn't regret doing it entirely because I have heard of some actors who are like that like Bill Murray with his Garfield role, which I thought wasn't that bad either. I mean it was a kids movie anyway. But just wondering if anyone could better tell me how DL really feels about his role as He-man.

[Jox]

He doesn't regret it. It was a tough movie for him to do because it was his first starring role, he had the pressure to live up to the He-Man image and play a toy, and it was a tough shoot, mostly nights. The movie was not the expected success so at one point 20 years ago he felt that well it maybe it was mistake and he didn't like his performance, but now looking he really sees it as fun experience and he knows lots of people love this movie which brought him a large part of his following (me, Tom, Dawn and many others included).

[ashleyheart]

Thanks for clearing that up Jox! I'm glad he's happy with it now because I thought he did real good with the character he had to portray. I don't think anybody but him could have pulled it off so well.

[Travis]

Not a great film but Dolph was great in it. He was the only choice for the role.

On an interesting note, Dolph's co-star Courtney Cox, later became my co-star in a commerical I did for her show Dirt.

[Jox]

Behind the scenes reported in Starlog #122 (September 1987) (first 2 pages only)
http://www.weimar.ws/wmrstarlog7.html

[Jox]

Masters Of The Universe Magazine, Summer 1987, "Movie Collector Issue!"

http://www.motumovie.com/2010/09/master ... ummer.html

[Jox]

An article from 1987 I hadn't seen before, tackles some of the production issues in the second half:
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1987 ... ry-goddard

`Masters` A Lesson In More Thrills For Less
August 13, 1987|By Bruce Cook, Los Angeles Daily News.

LOS ANGELES — Ever since ``Star Wars``--or maybe even all the way back to the original ``King Kong``--there have been so-called ``special-effects movies,``stories that simply couldn`t be told on the screen without recourse to the growing technology of cinematic illusion.

These days, however, even the original ``Star Wars`` looks quaint.

The story behind the making of ``Masters of the Universe,`` for instance, is illustrative of how filmmakers with limited resources are keeping pace.

On the drawing board, the film seemed to have everything going for it:

There is an extremely popular toy line that kids have been buying since 1982; there is a Saturday morning cartoon show to pitch that line to the kids; there is now even a kind of traveling circus bringing hero He-Man, villain Skeletor and the rest of the company in costume to stadiums and shopping malls around the country. It looked as if there was a ready-made audience out there just waiting, but for a long time there was no ``Masters of the Universe`` movie.

Producer Ed Pressman (``Conan the Barbarian,`` ``Good Morning, Babylon`` and the soon-to-be-released ``Walker``) owned the rights. He had put the project before a number of studios without much luck because nobody saw how the movie could be made for much less than $40 million with the effects called for in the script.

But Pressman put together a scaled-down production in the hands of a first-time director, Gary Goddard, and a cast that included He-Man Dolph Lundgren (Stallone`s giant Russian opponent in ``Rocky IV``); Frank Langella, whom not even Mama Langella would recognize as Skeletor; Meg Foster as Skeletor`s ghastly assistant, Evil-Lyn; and Billy Barty, as the errant locksmith whose ``cosmic key`` sets He-Man traveling through time and space to combat the forces of darkness.

He offered this to Cannon Film`s Menachem Golan, who decided it could be made for $15.5 million, and that includes effects.

``Whenever you do a film like this,`` said director Goddard, ``effects are an important element. This is not the kind of film that can stand without them.``

The first person to face the challenge of matching the script`s ambition with the budget`s limitations was production designer Bill Stout. In Stout, Goddard had the right man to suit the director`s ``comic book sensibility.``[Stout was a comic-book artist himself before he made it into the movies, and his conceptions (notably his intricately symbolic design for Castle Gray-skull) have that bold, free, antic sense of the bizarre that the best comic book art has.

Stout used his ample imagination to find ways to stretch the film`s limited budget, which was increased once the film went into production.

``We had to create the illusion of a big, expensive set for the communications room,`` said Stout. ``We did it by storyboarding, planning the shots precisely, building just what we needed to shoot them--and not a bit more. The audience fills in the rest.

``Then there was a communications vehicle that had to look right. We built that around a camera crane. The important thing about stuff like this is that it should look like it cost a lot, and not that it should cost a lot.``

To take Goddard and Stout`s ideas and bring them to life is the work of Hollywood`s special-effects masters. They are the world`s finest, and the trick is to pick the right for a particular job.

``Everybody we talked to for `Masters of the Universe` was quite qualified--Robby Blalock, John Dykstra, Robert Abel,`` Goddard said. ``But because of the wide number of different effects, we thought that (veteran effects coordinator Richard) Edlund would be best. It also made us feel pretty good when he and a number of people in his group came to different meetings in the planning stage without charge.``

Richard Edlund and his Boss Film Corp. is at least as good as any effects operation in the business. Edlund shared an Oscar with John Dykstra for their work on ``Star Wars.`` Among his more recent efforts are ``2010,``, ``Ghostbusters`` and ``Poltergeist II.`` He sat in his office, which is located in the single-story production facility in Marina del Rey (they even use the parking lot for working space), and talked at length about ``Masters of the Universe.``

``There were a lot of problems in production. Cannon learned a lot of lessons, and so did I,`` Edlund said.

Such as? ``Well, it was originally placed as a $15 million production, but it went about half-again over that. Still, that`s pretty good for a film such as

`Masters.` `` Edlund argued that if he had been told up front how much had been budgeted for effects, instead of suffering through painful cost over-runs, the production would have worked smoother and the effects would have looked more impressive.

The problem was time and the script. Bill Stout had earlier explained that only two months had been allowed for pre-production, and that the usual for such a picture is a year. ``I was designing to the last week of shooting,`` he said.

``He had two months, we had seven weeks,`` said Edlund. ``And we were doing effects well after shooting stopped. The real problem was that we wound up doing many more shots than we originally bid on. Originally, there were 64 shots. Then they began rewriting the script while shooting was going on, and in the final analysis we did 120 shots.``

According to Edlund, this led to numerous memorable sessions with Golan to renegotiate payment as the effects production became more complex. ``He would really make a great actor,`` Edlund said. ``You go in there, and you spend the first half-hour yelling at each other--simultaneously. Then you get it all out, everything relaxes, and you can deal with each other. He has fun with this loud haggling, and I can hold my own because I grew up around lawyers in Minnesota where you had to present a case if you wanted an ice cream cone.

Ultimately, Edlund believes his company came out on the short end of this production. ``They found a house, us, that was able to readjust its thinking. But we were not so lucky. I think we got kind of beat up on the production, really. We earned a few Purple Hearts.

``I`ll admit some of the shots in the movie are not raging successes,`` said Edlund, who made them, ``but I think the effects are good on `Masters`-- Skeletor`s battle wagon, the saucer-sleds and all--and the per-shot cost was reasonable. For $22 million or $23 million, it looks like more than that. If I`d had prep time, it would look like a $50 million movie.``

[Jox]

Remember that 1987 interview in Starlog about MOTU? Here's what the journalists remembers:

I remember interviewing Dolph Lundgren was a difficult task. The explanation was that he had tooth surgery or something, so he was kind of out of it. I also found it hard to interview and write about people I was not that interested in. And as little as I had to say about [Lundgren‘s movie] He-Man, I think Dolph had less to say. There just wasn't a lot to talk about.

http://weimarworld.blogspot.com/2010/10 ... -carr.html

[riotgirl77]

Robert Duncan Mc Neil on MOTU
http://io9.com/5522107/from-star-trek-a ... l#obj_8702

One last question — what was it like having Evil-Lyn put that weird obedience collar on you, in He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe?

Funny that you mention that, because I got home last night and there was an email with a link to the Twilight Zone that I did back in 1994. And there was a clip on YouTube, so I posted it on my Facebook page, and this morning one of my friends on Facebook said, "Oh my God, you've got to find more of this." [So I posted that He-Man clip.] The one I found was the French version, so [it was even weirder.]



That was a fun movie. It was kind of a disaster from the studio's perspective. They went way over budget, and there were a lot of production issues. I think it was supposed to be a six- or eight-week shoot, and we ended up shooting six months. It was so far beyond a disaster for that studio. We had fun, Courtney [Cox] and I were very close friends back then, and we stayed friends for a long time. The whole cast was great. We just bonded. The movie just kept going and going, and we kept shooting nights. You're hanging out with this great cast of actors, night after night after night. It's become a cult hit. So many people come up to me and say, "Oh my God, that was my favorite movie when I was a kid." Even Zach Levi, when I first met him, was like, "Oh my God, I can't believe you were Kevin from He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe."

And 24 yrs later...Robert would be directing Dolph in Chuck I didn't realize this until I saw the movie again recently (been re-watching and watching Dolph's movies in order)...Christina Pickles (the Sorceress) would be playing Courteney's mom in Friends lol..

[Jox]

Some original storyboards!

[Jox]

Funny interview with Meg Foster (Evil-Lyn)
http://www.he-man.org/cartoon/media.php?id=51&mid=32

[Jox]

The MOTU blog now brings us with an interview Anthony De Longis also known as "Blade"... Good stuff.
http://www.motumovie.com/2010/11/q-with ... blade.html

[Jox]

[Jox]

fan-made art


And apparently there's a 1995 flick by Fred Olen Ray called STAR HUNTER, a Predator rip off that used Saurod costume helmet!

[Jox]

Promo foldout from Cannon (click images for high-resolution)