The Masters of the Universe franchise is getting a lot of attention this year (despite the movie theater ticket sales). The biggest story of the Mattel property is the new adaptation from Amazon MGM Studios that tried to jumpstart a new series. While the movie has been a notorious underperformer at the box office this past summer, it is actually seeing a lot more views when it finally hit Prime Video.
The franchise spotlight also shines on the original 1987 live-action adaptation that notoriously came from Cannon Films and stars Dolph Lundgren and Frank Langella. Arrow Video spun off a new sect of their Blu-ray distribution company into Toy Robot Video, which involves more cult films. Masters of the Universe is part of their debut slate for upcoming 4K releases and one of the notable features in this two-disc set is a recently unearthed “Preview Cut” of the movie that sports extended scenes and alternate takes.
One think I’ll start with is that I love that the good people at Toy Robot actually started both discs with a movie preview. The preview is what I assume will be a future release from them — the 1983 Tom Selleck film, High Road to China. That was a nice surprise greeting.
Let’s get to the nitty gritty. What you may have been waiting for — the Preview Cut of of Masters of the Universe. According to the box, the Preview Cut is just four minutes longer than the theatrical cut. Since it was advertised as “recently unearthed” and called a “preview cut,” I was expecting something rougher — something that may have been taken from a VHS source or a dusty, grainy film print. However, the Preview Cut is actually remastered along with the theatrical cut and it looks just as good as the theatrical 4K transfer!
Unfortunately, for the most part, it doesn’t really live up to the hype of whatever you may have expected. The differences between the two cuts aren’t very big. You do get some extended scenes. Some even give a bit more context to the film, but it hardly feels like something extra special for fans of the movie. The most prominent changes that I noticed is that there is an extra bit with Man At Arms that has the movie do a bit more world building and a couple of extra exchanges between Skeletor and Sorceress, which I actually enjoyed as I can’t get enough of Frank Langella’s Shakespearean performance as Skeletor, but they are over pretty quickly. There are likely some alternate shots that I didn’t catch, but on a whole, the Preview Cut is pretty much the same as the theatrical cut. I will say this though: I’ll still consider it superior with just those bits added.
It was not long after watching this cut that I realized that this movie was the nail in Cannon’s coffin, where they nearly couldn’t finish it. It stands to reason that there probably wasn’t much left on the cutting room floor and they had to get every second they could up on the screen.
The UHD Blu-ray on both discs look fantastic. Arrow Video is always trusty with their transfers and although it’s under another label, the quality is consistent with Arrow releases. The presentation of both cuts are in DolbyVision and DTS lossless audio. The movie looks great! We recently took a look at the Mars Attacks 4K from Warner Bros and I didn’t notice a significant jump in quality in that picture. Masters of the Universe also seemingly comes from Warner Bros., but the restoration comes from Arrow and I can absolutely see a difference in the care put into both films. It’s crisp and sharp with some grain and it looks amazing. The audio also sounds so dynamic and the surround aspect comes through with certain points of the sound design.
We get some extras that include new interviews with actors Robert Duncan McNeill and Anthony De Longis, and production designer William Stout. There’s also a cool archival featurette that has been cleaned up pretty well for this release (and is the kind of VHS transfer I was expecting for the preview cut). We also get an audio commentary from director Gary Goddard, as well as trailers and stills. The storyboard images are kind of funny and heartbreaking as they are so grand and elaborate. It’s funny to think that Cannon thought they could get away with such a grandiose production, but also heartbreaking that there was a more faithful intention behind Masters of the Universe being planned, but they ultimately had to make sacrifices to save money.
I’m a lover of the 1987 Masters of the Universe. I think Arrow did another bang-up job on the presentation transfer, and if you’re a big fan of the film, I’d recommend it. You can pre-order it HERE. For fans of the film and collectors who can swing it, I’d say it’s a welcome upgrade.