80’s Fans of the He-Man cartoon series all remember the 1987 live-action movie adaptation Masters of the Universe. If you don’t, it’s probably cause you’ve spent about two decades trying to forget the movie ever existed. The movie starred Dolph Lundgren as He-Man, alongside a litany of poorly acted and indiscernible characters.
Well, it seems that the anticipation of DreamWorks’ July release of the Transformers has Mattel in a mad frenzy to revive the He-Man series for the big screen. They’ve solicited Warner Bros. and producer Joel Silver to begin the ground work for yet another live-action He-Man movie.
What does this mean? It means that Mattel knows that Sci-fi and 80s cartoons are hot, and new story ideas are not. They’re prepared to ride the 80s wave of cartoon revivals, which include the 2007 releases of TMNT and Transformers. It also means a ton of money for Mattel if the movie is a success. He-Man toys have long been considered a commodity in the collector’s market. During the 2001-2003 revival of the animated series, figures were selling on Ebay at prices between $50 and $500 dollars.
He-Man is the story of Adam, the young prince of Eternia, who is endowed with the Powers of Grayskull and fights the evil forces of the maniacal Skeletor. Whenever Adam holds “aloft” (for some reason in the 1980s cartoons used words like aloft, go figure) his sword and says, “By the Power of Grayskull, I have the POWER!!!” He makes the electrifying transformation into He-Man. He also has the option to transform Kringer his fearless friend (he’s actually a really a big cat that is afraid of his own shadow) into the awesome Battlecat.
The movie adaptation will be written by Justin Marks. Marks is also working on live-action scripts for the Green Arrow, Voltron and Street Fighter.
Producers are hoping to instill the new movie with a 300 type feel. For more on the magic and cinematography of 300, see the past article on 300: A Tribute to Cinematography.
What do you think of He-Man returning to the big screen?
Dolph Lundgren was a good Punisher, IMHO.. He-Man.. Hmmmm… Not so much! This has some potential. I am optimistic for Transformers, Voltron, and Street Fighter as well because those are all things that have a special place in my heart. A lot of history there… I hope this Marks guy pulls through!
If you look at his past works, there’s not much to give you an idea of what to expect here…
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1098479/
…Again, I hope they do a good job. The comic, cartoon, and video game movie spin-off’s do seem to be getting better as a whole than they were back when we had that horrid Captain America movie. There are still some one-offs that leave a lot to be desired but even those are pretty good in themselves.
I enjoyed the 2001-2003 revival of He-Man, what little I caught of it, but it was missing something. What do you guys think? Hmmmm… Let’s keep our fingers and toes crossed for the new live-action film!! =oD
The Bag Man also enjoyed the 2001-2003 revival of He-man the animated series. But, yes it was missing something. The animation and character sketches were all top shelf. All of the classic characters were there, plus the back story of He-man’s origin and Skeletor becoming Skeletor.
The show overall was just alot of action and very dry on the story line. What was also missing was the humor. They didn’t need to revisit 80s-style-cheesy-pun-intended humor, but they could have added more mature sarcastic humor. At least make fun of Orko more.
Some say that humor corrupts action-style cartoons, but that’s not the case. Avatar was able to make a great balance between the action and humor, so it can be done. Hopefully, next time Mattel researches a better creative staff and realizes that more than animation and special effects make a good cartoon. It still needs to be fun.