He-Man's alter-ego as Prince Adam was totally ignored, and many beloved characters from the cartoon - Orko, Cringer/Battle-Cat, Man-E-Faces, Mekaneck, Trap Jaw, Clawful - were nowhere to be seen. Well over half the film was set on Earth, revolving around a lovey-dovey teenage couple (played by future Star Trek: Voyager star Robert Duncan McNeill and future Friends superstar Courteney Cox) way too old to serve as a proxy for the pre-pubescent kids who would want to see the movie. Whereas the cartoon was essentially a feudal fantasia, the live action version - re-dubbed simply Masters of the Universe - turned things into a futuristic sci-fi action-fest with laser guns and dimensional keys and soldiers in black-plastic armor that screamed Star Wars ripoff. He-Man did still fight alongside trusted warrior compatriots Man-at-Arms and his daughter Teela, and he did still wield the famed "Sword of Greyskull." Skeletor did still have a skull for a face, and He-Man did still wear virtually nothing other than leather briefs, a small chest plate, and a red cape.īut otherwise, for many He-Man fans, this film was a bizarre abomination. It was still set on Eternia and still centered around Castle Greyskull, which was still overseen by the Sorceress - and Skeletor and his right-hand woman Evil-Lyn did still covet conquering it.
Starring Swedish adonis Dolph Lundgren ( The Expendables, Universal Soldier, Rocky IV) as the virtuous and heroic He-Man and genuinely respected actor Frank Langella ( Robot & Frank, Frost/Nixon, Dave) as the villainous and power-mad Skeletor, the film did resemble the cartoon series in the basic details. In 1987, Cannon Films - the great, long-defunct schlock factory responsible for some of the best bad movies of the 1980s - released a live-action version of the wildly popular cartoon TV series He-Man and the Masters of the Universe.