Dismissing the Gary Goddard affairs and its effects on my perception and history with the movie:
The virus of cinephilia infected me 30 years ago, on a rainy December 30, 1987 in Cherbourg.
This was no STAR WARS but it was mine, as an 8 year-old who had barely seen one or two live action movies on the big screen...
(seeing these giant marquees in the air Parisian metro, is still a strong "memory picture" in my head)I re-watched it last night, it had been a few years I'd seen it from beginning to end, and I had forgotten how fast paced it is.
And I still don't get all the laughs and criticism, especially from those who had seen it as kids because it's hard not to get pulled in, making it harder to think about differences with the cartoon (lamer in my opinion). Even the Earth setting works better than other in other movies of that era because of the look, you see the characters evolve in a still eerie world and context, whether you're on Eternia (still quite represented) and or Earth. Not mentioning it's not that childish, dialogues well written, and quite spooky or rough at times for a child in 1987...
PS:
Special mention to the unsung heroine of this MOTU movie, editor Anne V. Coates (LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, THE ELEPHANT MAN...) without whom the film probably wouldn't be as enjoyable... I couldn't really appreciate it before but the editing is really good and some of the flaws are probably due to the footage at hand.
MOTU is definitely one of the films released by Cannon that have the best production values because apart from the cinematographer (replacing a bigger name who quit not being comfortable with the genre), they hired a top notch Hollywood crew...