Tag: Gary Goddard

Instead, Watch ‘Masters of the Universe’ (1987)

If you’re hankering to watch a live-action movie based on a Mattel toy franchise, in which the characters make an ill-advised trip to the “real world” that disappoints long-time fans, let me suggest an alternative to the film that opened this weekend. I recommend the 1987 box-office disaster Masters of the Universe, which is based on the hugely popular sword-and-planet toy line of the same name. It stars an oiled-up Dolph Lundgren, fresh off his performance in Rocky IV, as He-Man. The movie was panned by critics and shunned by audiences when it came out, and it is even credited with dethroning the Masters of the Universe line of action figures from its dominance of the toy aisle and helping to shut down its studio, Cannon Films. Nonetheless, I believe it’s past time that this movie gets a re-evaluation. It is undeniably flawed, but it was made with real passion and heart, and it contains some genuinely good performances.

You can stream it for free on Amazon. ( Please ignore it if that link gets crossed out as if it’s dead. WordPress doesn’t like it when I link to streaming services.)

This movie, sad to say, had a minuscule budget and consequently makes some serious mistakes, but let’s face it, it probably really is the best thing to ever come out of the Masters of the Universe franchise, which has never been known for its brilliant writing or high production values. The 1983 cartoon, which is the version of the story that everyone remembers most fondly, is memorable mostly for being surreal, weird, and stiffly animated–and its stiff animation often falls into uncanny-valley territory because much of it is rotoscoped. If you have doubts, I invite you to watch its first broadcast episode, which you can also stream for free, and compare it to the movie linked above. Assuming you can put nostalgia aside and judge both dispassionately, I think you will agree that the film is the superior production.

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‘Captain Power’ is the Greatest Sci-Fi Television Show of All Time

All praise to the Machine! All glory to my Lord Dread!

At the moment, I’m unable to play DVDs on my computer, but I ask you to forgive the picture quality and to watch this video. In fact, since this is from a TV show that originally broadcast in the 1980s, the quality you see here is probably close to what you would have got back when this originally aired:

This is from the episode “Freedom One,” from the short-lived 1987 television series Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future. This is in some ways the most ambitious television show ever made, being the first live-action show to have CGI-rendered characters (you can see one on screen here), being replete with action sequences and special effects, and full of innovative set design combined with miniatures. The show cost a cool million per half-hour episode and during its brief run had more-or-less taken over every film-processing studio in Toronto. Most of it was filmed inside a gigantic, abandoned bus depot that the creators, led by Gary Goddard, had filled with sets, miniatures, computers, and other equipment. J. Michael Straczynski, who became the de facto lead writer, credits Captain Power with teaching him the techniques of making a complex sci-fi television show on a budget, techniques he later used on Babylon 5. Continue reading “‘Captain Power’ is the Greatest Sci-Fi Television Show of All Time”