Masters of the Universe
Trevor Lynch argues the new Masters of the Universe reboot is a classic of Right-wing cinema
2,100 words
I can’t think of a pop-cultural hero more out of sync with wokeness than the blond, muscular, sword-wielding prince of Eternia known as He-Man. Thus when I heard that Amazon—of Rings of Power infamy—was making a Masters of the Universe movie, the thought never crossed my mind that it would be good.
Indeed, my first thought was, “How could they make Masters of the Universe any worse?” For I can’t think of a dumber and more cynical pop-culture “franchise.”
Star Wars made such a fortune with toy spinoffs that by the time Return of the Jedi rolled around, the merchandising tale was wagging the movie dog. Hence the Ewoks. Thus it made sense for toy giant Mattel to launch its own sword, sorcery, and spaceship franchise just to move merchandise
The villain of Masters of the Universe is Skeletor, a sort of cross between Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine. But Skeletor’s nemesis is not a callow, whiny farm-boy like Luke Skywalker. Instead, he is modeled on Arnold Schwartzenegger as Conan the Barbarian. Imagine the smirks at the pitch meeting: “. . . and we’ll call him ‘He-Man.’”
I confess that my only exposure to this franchise is the 1987 Masters of the Universe movie produced by Israeli schlockmeisters Golan and Globus, starring Dolph Lundgren as He-Man and Frank Langella as Skeletor. Everything about this film is cheesy and derivative: Skeletor from Star Wars, He-Man from Conan, costumes and sets from Flash Gordon and Star Wars. Even Skeletor’s costume change at the end is borrowed from Emperor Shaddam’s getup in Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Dune book. The score by Bill Conti is a transparent rip-off of John Williams’ scores for Superman and Close Encounters.
There is very little back story and world-building. I guess they were assuming that their audience were all readers of comic books and watchers of Saturday-morning cartoons.
Dolph Lundgren looks great as He-Man, but he has very few lines, because he can barely speak, much less act. Also, he is often comical when wielding a sword or blaster. The fight sequences are quite clumsy and bumbling.
Frank Langella’s Skeletor shows that a good voice can sell lines on the level of: “Bwa-ha-ha, I am evil. [In case you were confused about his motivations.] Once I have the Sword of Power, I will be master of the universe. Kneel before me, pathetic Earthlings. Seize them, you fools, they’re getting away!” But Max von Sydow did it better as Ming the Merciless in Flash Gordon.
The most appealing performance is a stunning young Courtney Cox as a California high-school girl. Yes, most of the action takes place in Southern California in the 1980s, which to today’s eyes looks far more idyllic than Eternia. The two main human characters are earnest blue-eyed high-school students. But they are still quite mature for the intended audience, for this movie is strictly for kids. The whole film has the production quality of a TV movie, maybe an Afterschool Special.
But Masters of the Universe offers the kids very little. It has just enough cool-looking costumes, sets, and shots for trailers and commercials designed to get kids to bug their parents to buy movie tickets. But the film itself isn’t all that entertaining. There isn’t even a moral to the story. Frankly, most ten-year-old boys with He-Man action figures could come up with better stories on their own.
So how could one of the wokest corporations on the planet make Masters of the Universe any worse? The answer is: it couldn’t. There was nowhere to go but up.
Of course you don’t need to make a good reboot to beat the original. But the new Masters of the Universe is actually a very good movie.
Beyond that, this reboot is politically interesting, because at Amazon (of all places), wokeness didn’t parody Masters of the Universe. Indeed, the new Masters of the Universe parodies wokeness.
The movie opens on a positive note. We hear the earnest, manly voice of the young He-Man filling in the back story. He-Man has a strong sense of identity: “Everything I am is because of where I come from.” He comes from Eternia, a world of beauty and magic, where fairy tales and legends are real. He-Man says, “I come from a pretty impressive lineage of mighty heroes. Noble, strong, fearless.” The rulers of Eternia protect it from evil with the Sword of Power. But they don’t just have the Sword of Power, they “use it.” Power is good, you see, because evil is real and must be defeated.
Throughout this monologue, the young He-Man is constantly parrying against cynicism about heroism and magic, which is precisely what a woke movie would have pushed. About 21 minutes into the movie, we learn why He-Man is battling with wokeness: because he’s surrounded by it.
Our young prince was exiled from Eternia as a child and raised as an orphan on Earth, in Oklahoma City to be exact. At the age of 25, he is known as Adam Glenn. Adam works in the Human Relations department of some mega corporation. Adam’s name plate on his desk lists his pronouns (he/him). Adam’s colleagues are precisely the sort of people you would expect in a HR department: a perky, power-mad black woman, a couple of neurotic white girls with pink and blue hair, and a neurotic nu-male named Darryl.
Adam is apparently pretty good at his HR job. His vocabulary is full of corporate team-building, conflict-resolution, and self-esteem speak. And even though Adam is a big, handsome Chad—which he tries his best to hide in a baggy pink shirt—his speech and mannerisms are very much those of an office-trained, long-housed nu-male. But in his spare time, Adam is hunting for the Sword of Power, which he lost in his rather bumpy arrival on Earth.
Naturally, this creates a conflict, actually two conflicts.
First, there is the conflict between Adam’s heroic identity and purpose, on the one hand, and modern “normie” society that values conformity and hedonism, on the other. Adam’s effeminate brown roommate Hussein (played by a Polynesian actor, because any brown person will do) urges Adam to forget about Eternia and learn to fit in, do his job, and live for the weekends (which means to live for self-indulgence). But for Adam, that means to “forget who I am and my entire life’s purpose.”
Second, there is a deeper conflict between Adam as a masculine white male and a society that denigrates all these traits. Naturally, when the big blond lug is seen hunting online for swords during his work hours, the neurotics around the HR office begin to get nervous. In the end, when it comes down to a choice between the Sword of Power and his corporate job, Adam chooses the Sword, which after some comic misadventures, brings him back to Eternia where he must confront the evil Skeletor.
At this point, Adam must learn to use the Sword of Power. But Adam, like a lot of over-nannied and under-fathered young men today, has some self-confidence issues. Shades of Unbreakable, Adam is virtually indestructible. But he doesn’t know it, because he’s never tested himself. This, of course, is very much a metaphor for all of today’s overcoddled young white men.
Beyond that, America today is very much a liberal society, animated by the faith that all conflicts can be resolved through talk. Adam has taken this to heart, and when he returns to an Eternia at war, it generates some genuine comedy.
But Adam grows into both his manliness and his role as prince, becoming increasingly willing to fight and kill his enemies. At a certain juncture, when his friends think Adam is about to give the Sword to Skeletor, that’s the furthest thing from his mind. Adam won’t give up the Sword of Power. Instead, he needs it to kill Skeletor.
When Adam is mocked for not knowing how to use the Sword, he retorts that he knows how but simply prefers not to. You see, Adam isn’t just a dangerous, muscular brute. He’s also wise. He knows how to make right use of the sword. He prefers peace. He prefers conflict resolution. He prefers covenants. But in the end, he knows that covenants are meaningless without the Sword of Power to enforce them. Beyond that, some people cannot be bargained with, because they are simply evil.
Liberals hold that human nature is malleable and thus “perfectible.” Mankind is not evil by nature but by nurture. Thus we can hope to cure evil through therapy and social engineering. Adam has tried to see the good in his enemies. He has tried to talk things out. But finally he has been rebuffed: “There is no good in me that you might uncover. There is nothing you can say that will change my nature. For I am a villain.” If some people are evil by nature, they must simply be conquered, which is why a Sword of Power comes in handy. Thus at this point, Adam declares “The time for talk is over.”
When Adam was a little boy, he made up his own names for the various heroes of Eternia. When the battle is over, Adam is asked if he made up a name for himself. “You’re gonna laugh,” he says to all the cynics and wokesters out there. Then he answers: “He-Man,” meaning “a strong man . . . a masculine fellow.” There’s a bit of scoffing. “What? It’s too macho?” To which his friends answer, “No, no. That’s very manly, and you are very manly.” And that’s it. No more apologies. No more irony. No more cringing.
There’s no time for any of that. A distress signal has come in. “This looks like a job for He-Man.”
Masters of the Universe is for manliness and power. It is against liberalism, wokeness, feminism, and weakness. Moreover, although this movie has many genuinely comic scenes, it does not poke fun at good things. It saves mockery for the evil and stupid; it attacks cynicism and irony directed at the good. These are very healthy messages.
Beyond that, Masters of the Universe is highly entertaining. The fight scenes and special effects are brilliant. The thrills are genuinely thrilling, and the comedy is genuinely hilarious.
Only two things annoyed me about this movie. First, there is a bit of tasteless sexual innuendo. Second, one of the major characters, the royal master of arms, Duncan, was race-swapped by Idris Elba. But it could have been worse. It feels like one of those eighties movies where the black sidekicks act white.
Aside from those caveats, everything else about this reboot is not just better than the original but good in an absolute sense. Anglo-Greek actor Nicholas Galitzine is excellent as Adam/He-Man. Jared Leto voices Skeletor like Tim Curry’s Evil in Legend, with the occasional lapse into Rocky Horror’s Frank N. Furter. Sasheer Zamata is hilarious as Adam’s girlboss. There really are no weak links in the cast. Dolph Lundgren, the big oaf, even has a cameo.
I also loved the music of Daniel Pemberton: imagine a fusion of Queen’s score for Flash Gordon and Howard Shore’s music for The Lord of the Rings. It works.
I was slightly annoyed when the director undermined Queen’s “Princes of the Universe” with a bit of irony in the middle. But he redeemed himself by matching the subsequent fight sequence to the words of the song, even the cringe-inducing line, “Bring on the girls.”
Masters of the Universe went through long spells in development Hell and Purgatory before hitting the screen, so it is hard to pinpoint who is responsible for making this such a good film.
My bet is on the director, Travis Knight, a white former rapper and the son of the co-founder of Nike. Knight runs a stop-motion animation studio. In addition to Masters of the Universe, he has directed two stop-motion animated movies, Kubo and the Two Strings (2016) and the forthcoming Wildwood (2026), as well as a live-action Transformers film, Bumblebee (2018).
We shall watch his career with great interest.
Now you need to watch this movie. I was surprised to learn that Masters of the Universe lost money at the box office. People are weary of superhero movies. Beyond that, critics were sensible enough not to denounce it as subversive Right-wing propaganda, so I simply assumed it would be more woke trash. But I predict the Masters of the Universe will become a cult classic. So make my prediction come true by watching it. It is now free to stream on Amazon Prime.
Sounds like a healthy movie. How did it not get shut down??
Great and entertaining review. Thank you.