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Review by Mark Longden

If you’re a generation X kid (mid 30s to late 40s?) you will have encountered He-Man at some point. Whether it was the ubiquitous TV show or the even more ubiquitous figures, he was everywhere in the 80s. I loved the TV show, but was never a big toy guy, so it’s been interesting in recent years to listen to friends of mine who became collectors, talking about the various directions of the toys and TV shows over the years.

That’s why I was really pleased to discover the existence of this documentary, made by Randall Lobb and Robert McCallum, who’ve also made a bunch of other nerdy documentaries. Can it keep the interest of an at-best distant fan such as I?

Before I start: if I suddenly sound a lot smarter, that’ll be thanks to the input of my friend Alex,...

If you've never seen the documentary Toy Masters it's a film definitely worth checking out. The doc focuses on the classic He-Man franchise and the story of behind the toy line, cartoon series, and movie. 

Regardless of how bad the 1987 live-action movie was, I still love it, and I have very fond memories of watching it over and over again while eating Kentucky Fried Chicken. I was recently reminded of this Toy Masters doc when I saw an article pop up on THR, that focused on Dolph Lundgren and how he only had three chances to nail the dialogue or his voice would be dubbed. I included the segment from the doc below that focuses on the movie and it feature members of the crew talking about the crazy film production! It's a fascinating story! 

Apparently, everyone was worried about Lundgren's voice because it was so hard to understand him.

Masters of the Universe was released 30 years ago today and the movie is still just as decisive as it was back when it originally hit theaters. Some hail it as a cult classic and some call it one of the worst movies ever made thanks to cheesy comedy and a less than stellar performance from star Dolph Lundgren. Lundgren at that point had only been in two movies prior to Masters of the Universe, and neither of them had very many speaking roles, if at all. Apparently the Swedish actor had a pretty good contract for Masters of the Universe that protected his full performance from being tampered with.

The Hollywood Reporter reveals via the documentary, Toy Masters, that muscular He-Man star Dolph Lundgren had a very difficult time delivering the lines for the movie. A Mattel executive in the documentary says that Lundgren's contract allowed him three attempts to...

On August 7, 1987, "Masters of the Universe" stank up movie theaters across the country and killed any hopes of kicking off a live-action franchise for He-Man and his merry band of heroes (the property is currently in the process of being rebooted with the help of "Thor" screenwriter Christopher Yost). As I wrote earlier this week, "MotU" actually wasn't all bad, with standouts like Frank Langella's Skeletor and Bill Conti's excellent score keeping the film just this side of unwatchable. Glory be! A happy byproduct of my online research arose in the form of a YouTube recommendation for a video entitled "The Making of Masters of the Universe the Motion Picture," which is not, as it turns out, an extra ripped from the film's DVD release but rather a segment from a 2012 documentary entitled "Toy Masters," which boasts the following synopsis on IMDb: "Filmmakers Roger Lay, Jr. and Corey Landis...

Toy Masters

Written by Roger Lay Jr. and Corey Landis

Directed by Roger Lay Jr.

USA 2012 Fantasia imdb

This year, Fantasia doubled the number of documentaries in their Documentaries From The Edge series from five to ten. Justine has already raved about The Mechanical Bride and I intend to write very positively about Despite the Gods and My Amityville Horror when I get a chance to devote the time to the reviews that they deserve…

Toy Masters, on the other hand, is my biggest disappointment of this year’s Fantasia Festival. It’s almost not fair to review the film, it is such a work in progress. The Q&A after the film was filled with talk of extra footage that the production team were about to shoot or had just shot, “Dolph Lundgren? Yeah, he’s supposed to come to our office to film an interview in two weeks.