MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE: An Insufferably Queer Film Review
I rewatched MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE (1987) for the first time since it came out last night and WOW I have some thots about this thing. We enjoyed roasting the living shit out of it but there's a few gold nuggets in there despite the brutal budget cuts that impacted the plot and what not.
Contains plenty of spoilers.
God bless Wardrobe
OK so … the film doesn't bother to set up any real motivations for the characters, and He-Man (an incredible looking Dolph Lundgren rrrowrrrr) has almost no dialogue which is such a fucking waste.
But this complete lack of narrative framework means we can apply OUR OWN explanations to events.
From the very beginning Skeletor has this obsession with He-Man, which will simmer and then culminate in a final showdown. But before we get to that hot mess, we have to wade through the middle of the film.
He gets as much screen time as He-Man.
Meet the utterly repulsive dwarf scientist Gwildor played by Billy Barty, a rinse-and-repeat of his performance as an utterly repulsive magic troll in Legend (1986). This dwarf is the film's Jar Jar. His face is like a deep dish pizza after an acid attack. His real mouth is visible behind the immobile thick prosthetics and it makes for some truly disturbing close-up dialogue shots. Please, pan away from Pizza the Hutt and give us another shot of Lundgren's pecs please I am begging you, DP
We find ourselves in Gwildor's hobbit hole, and he's a magical inventor. So he has this cylindrical object, it's not clear whether it's a weapon or a teleporter but I'm calling it the Butt-Reamer 9000. Inexplicably, there are two of these things and Skeletor has the other one, and wants to collect both of them. So Skeletor has an excuse to go hunting He-Man as he's hunting his missing McGuffin, er I mean sex toy.
Features rotating ticklers, a big improvement over the Butt Reamer 8000.
The thing about the Butt-Reamer 9000 is its magical power to make even this promising setup devolve into a grind as it whisks the Eternians into the magical, enchanting world of a 1987 New Jersey parking lot. WHO WROTE THIS?
The entire middle of the movie is pretty much hot garbage and involves police detectives, arson, vandalism, high school prom, and other dumb bullshit. Aside from the distractingly naked He-Man, the good guys are an utter bore and include some Eternians, some regular Earth humans and their quotidian concerns which really brings down the fun of the movie. (No, baby Courtney Cox, I don't care about your imminent breakup with your mediocre boyfriend!)
The film owes a second mortgage to Star Wars and steals a lot of ideas from it, from bad guys in shiny black stormtrooper helmets, to heroes shooting blue lasers, baddies shooting red.
Let's turn from this depressing state of affairs and focus back on our cherished villain blorbos.
(L-R: Karg, Evil-Lyn our goddess, and Blade.)
Evil-Lyn is beautiful, evil, a cold bitch queen. Gurl you can do so much better than sticking with this loser Skeletor.
Dump! Him! He's gay anyway!
Skeletor is a shit lazy boss of Greyskull and makes Evil-Lyn run the goddamn place in general. He literally shoots the messenger at one point. Great for morale, there, Skel buddy.
Look closer. Fierce!
There's a number of budget rate henchmen on the job, including Karg, who used a whole can of aqua net this morning and is running around in a white fur capelet with a massive bouffant. He is just doing his best okay, really it's hard to look fabulous around these other bitches.
Blade definitely deserved more screen time
Also, Blade, who had a slutty costume of silvery scale maille or something, and was a bit like a sci-fi bondage Riff Raff / space Judas Priest. Best side character costume.
So, there we have it, the queer coded villain roster of the film.
This homemade collage is for sure taped inside Skeletor's locker at school
Note the gigantic brown eye.
Finally, thank Satan, we return to Castle Greyskull, though it's more like beige-and-brown-skull. But aside from the questionable use of faux marble finishes, this is a quality villain lair with hard points installed directly in the floor of the living room, convenient death pits, and an excellent throne setup that I'm pretty sure they recycled for The Fifth Element.
He-Man is captured alive and brought before Skeletor. Blade does the honors with a 15 foot glowing red bullwhip to He-Man's naked and oiled back, much to the delight of dyed-in-the-wool sadist Evil-Lyn.
Movie is getting good now. Was the side quest to Jersey really necessary?
Skeletor, though, watches this action from the throne and has a lot of interesting responses. We had to conclude that Skeletor is a big old bottom but won't admit it. As a dom he is utterly ineffective. He's trying to make He-man kneel and all this shit but He-Man is not submissive at all. Skeletor is … lol. He really just wants to smell He-Man's dick.
The depths (heh) of his bottom nature will become apparent shortly. But first, a costume change.
Skeletor's glow up --- i'm every woman.
Honey we know you're just trying to impress He-man.
Werk tho.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Hole
The gigantic sky-sphincter directly behind the throne has slid open wide… "Begin! The Goatse Ritual! Join me, He-Man, as I become LORD OF THE GAPE"
But He-Man's phallic symbol shines bright in defiance. In the end, Skeletor is vanquished symbolically by his own nature and instead of his hole swallowing He-Man, a gaping hole swallows Skeletor instead.
They don't really explain what happened to Evil-Lyn after He-Man's inevitable victory in final man to man combat but she was too smart to get caught sleeping in there and must have survived. What a hot evil competent BABE. After the events of the film end, I vote that Evil-Lyn seduces Teela (the good guy solder lady) and has a hot toxic lesbian affair with her.
Evil-Lyn serves cunt in hell 4 evar
Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.
Want some more?
Nice fanart
Another breakdown on Buzzfeed if you enjoyed mine this is even more gay headcanon
The movie is free on Tubi if you want to subject yourself to it.
ArmoredSuperHeavy, 19 Aug 2023
66 notes
·
View notes