Falling in love with the Masters of the Universe

2026-08-07 Falling in love with the Masters of the Universe movie

A few days ago I wrote that I only made it half-way through the Masters of the Universe movie before giving up and walking away – mostly on account of Jared Leto’s ridiculous portrayal of Skeletor.

A couple of days later – while scrolling YouTube endlessly instead of getting on with what I should have been doing, I ended up watching some “reaction” videos – where Gen-Z content creators breathlessly pretend to watch movies for the first time, and talk all over the movies instead of actually – you know – watching them.

Anyway.

Along the way, I happened upon a couple of comic book guys that appeared to have been waiting for the new Masters of the Universe movie as long as I had – and their excitement was palpable. They said something about the snarky journalists and content creators dissing the movie that struck a chord with me – the movie wasn’t for them.

A cog turned in my head.

I was eight years old when the Masters of the Universe toys arrived in our local toy-shop – their arrival coincided with my ninth birthday, and made the choice of that year’s birthday present an easy one for my parents.

I can also remember the evening – while playing outside with friends in the street (when does THAT happen any more?) – that the cartoon was first shown. I remember rushing indoors mid-pretend-Wimbledon-final-with-the-girl-next-door to watch He-Man knocking the stuffing out of Skeletor and Beast Man.

I am the generation that the movie is for – and I needed to give it a second chance – and while my other half was out the other evening, that’s exactly what I did. And – viewed through nine or ten year old eyes – the movie became kind of wonderful.

We’ll gloss over the brutally funny jokes about fisting throughout the movie – because I wouldn’t have got them at ten years old anyway. We won’t gloss over the post-credits scenes, where Orko and She-Ra made their first appearances. I almost did a happy dance. Granted, I was two cans of cider and curry in by that point, but who could have guessed that the appearance of She-Ra would have made me so happy?

Maybe it’s all tied up with the Commodore 64, the Amiga, the flip-phone, and a hundred other things – the desire to go back to the way things were once upon a time – even if we’re only visiting. Escaping to a simpler time – when we had little or no responsibilities, expectations, or obligations.