Can Masters of the Universe Keep the Toys-to-Film Dream Alive?

Can Masters of the Universe Keep the Toys-to-Film Dream Alive?

He has the power?

Masters of the Universe hits theaters today—the first attempt in nearly 40 years to interpret the venerable Mattel toy line through a live-action lens. The previous effort, 1987’s Masters of the Universe, was one of the first films to transform a plaything into a live-action film and turned out to be the capper on a short-lived trend. Tie-in cartoons based on films had exploded onto the scene from nowhere in the early 1980s to take advantage of media deregulation under Ronald Reagan’s administration. Some of those cartoons turned out to be pretty decent entertainment despite their fundamental nature as long-form commercials, thanks in part to pulling in legendary comic book talent including Steve Gerber, Alex Toth, and even Jack “King” Kirby. He-Man and the Masters emerged as one the best-loved of those efforts. So, when several rival toyline-cartoons took their animated selves into theaters, He-Man went another step and moved beyond animation for its theatrical effort.

Fittingly enough. Masters of the Universe was always a bigger, more exaggerated line than competing toys. Could its Hollywood version have been anything less?

It would be pretty easy to pick the year 1987 out of a police lineup.

Those mid-’80s live adaptations didn’t go much of anywhere; after Masters of the Universe, the entire concept more or less vanished for years, replaced by the comics-to-movie pipeline that gave us Batman, Dick Tracy, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Toy-based live-action efforts wouldn’t make a proper comeback in theaters until Michael Bay’s Transformers hit it big nearly 20 years later. But you could argue that those movies didn’t have much of anything to do with the toys considering how radically they redesigned the characters; no one looked at Bay’s visually confusing Optimus Prime or Starscream and immediately said, “Oh, hey, it’s those chunky, streamlined toys I liked 20 years ago.” Likewise, the narrative didn’t feel much like Transformers, either, as Bay’s tendency to center his stories on the U.S. military turned the Autobots and Decepticons into secondary characters in their own films. (Except for the completely charming Bumblebee, which everyone overlooked. You blew it, everyone!)

Transformers stablemate G.I. Joe gave it a go soon after with considerably less success. Perhaps misled by dreams of becoming the next Avengers, each G.I. Joe movie kind of told a story within a single continuity while shuffling characters and actors around in three separate attempts to set up some sort of long-term storytelling universe. None of those panned out. And the less said about Battleship, the better.

Arguably, 2023’s Barbie is the only modern toy-to-live-action endeavor to this point that stands as an unqualified success. And, unlike G.I. Joe Origins: Snake-Eyes, it didn’t try to establish a cinematic universe; on the contrary, Barbie told a wholly self-contained story that doesn’t readily lend itself to a direct follow-up. And unlike Transformers, Barbie never seemed embarrassed to be a movie about a toy. On the contrary, director Greta Gerwig embraced the absurdity of the entire premise, producing a film that was one part Toy Story, one part The Hudsucker Proxy, and one part museum-grade corporate hagiography.

We’d say the name “Skeletor” is a little on the nose, but, uh... no nose?

The new Masters of the Universe looks to take a lot of cues from Barbie. Which, in a way, makes it a faithful follow-up to the ’80s movie, at least in some respects. The 1987 Dolph Lundgren movie has gone down in history as a sort of camp classic: a Schwarzeneggerean bodybuilder of a leading man battles evil through a dimly lit world of pre-CG practical and miniature effects. The movie took itself quite seriously despite its absurdity. The 2026 film, on the other hand, appears to be very much a product of the post-Barbie era, with hyper-saturated colors and bright lighting, all in service of a narrative that balances a grand, apocalyptic threat with a jokey, self-aware tone. “We know this is all a little silly,” it seems to be saying, “but we’re all gonna have a great time together anyway.”

If we’re being honest, that earnest approach seems like the smartest way to go about things. Masters of the Universe, after all, was a toy that thrived on oddball gimmicks, like dynamic battle-damage armor, spring-loaded character bodies, and one guy whose entire thing was that he smelled absolutely revolting when you took him out of the package. The He-Man universe leaned all the way into the silly novelty of children’s playthings. It will be interesting to see if adult moviegoers can still connect with their childhood love of such things—and if a generation of feral kids reared by viral TikTok memes find it based, or if it’s merely boomer cringe.

Just remember, little ones, there’s a character here literally named Cringer. Sometimes, cringe is the right choice.