Cora’s Thoughts on the Latest Masters of the Universe Trailers and Other Footage and the Marketing Campaign in General

Posted on May 27, 2026 by Cora

The marketing machine for the upcoming Masters of the Universe live action movie is really running on full power. There has been yet another trailer and new featurettes, TV spots, behind the scenes footage and interviews with cast and crew have been released almost every single day. There’s even been a massive, world record breaking drone show in the skies above Los Angeles. This isn’t even the first drone show they’ve done, they’ve also done another over a congested highway in California some time ago. I kind of suspect that such drone shows wouldn’t have been allowed here in Germany – definitely not the one above the congested highway because it might distract drivers and cause accidents – but they’re very cool.

Amazon MGM is clearly pouring a lot of money into marketing this movie. At any rate, I can’t remember the last time I saw this much marketing for a movie. Possibly for one of the Avengers movies. At any rate, The Mandalorian and Grogu and Supergirl, which both come out around the same time and appeal to a similar audience, seem to have less marketing. Particularly Supergirl seems to be completely missing in action, which is just weird. I also haven’t seen a lot of marketing for that Steven Spielberg alien/UFO film Disclosure Day, but then I have little interest in it. Personally, I think it’s about thirty years too late. As for Scary Movie Whatever, which comes out on the same day and is apparently considered a serious challenger for Masters of the Universe, I haven’t seen anything about that one (though to be fair, I haven’t looked very closely either, since I have zero interest in Scary Movie Whatever) beyond a single trailer either. Anyway, let’s hope the marketing onslaught pays off and Masters of the Universe is a huge success.

So buckle up, cause this a long post, since there have been so many clips, featurettes, interviews and other promo material released.

Though I have seen quite a few people claim that it will be a failure and that Scary Movie Whatever will beat it at the box office. No idea what the reason is for this negativity beyond some weird box office report from a Substack newsletter where the methodology used isn’t even apparent (and even they say their predictions are volatile and they don’t see Scary Movie Whatever doing any better either) and I have no idea why anybody should believe a random Substack newletter. If it were Variety or the Hollywood Reporter maybe, but a random Substack newsletter?

Also, as the guys from the German Masters of the Universe podcast Das He-Manische Quartett (who expect the film to do well enough, even if it may not be an absolutel mega-blockbuster) pointed out, these box office predictions are not exactly reliable. Just recently, The Sheep Detectives did much better than expected – which wasn’t a surprise to me, since I read the novel it’s based upon and knew it would be good – but apparently surprised the heck out of industry analysts. The Mandalorian and Grogu got very lukewarm reviews, box office predictions worse than Solo and was considered the final nail in the Star Wars coffin by certain folks and yet it not only did better than predicted, but actual audiences are overwhelmingly loving it. This weekend, my social media feed was full of people, including a lot of women, proclaiming how much they loved The Mandalorian and Grogu. But that’s a subject for another post.

It’s almost as if certain people want the Masters of the Universe movie (and The Mandalorian and Grogu for that matter) to fail, which I don’t understand at all. There are many movies I don’t care about that I nonetheless don’t want to fail, because the people who made them still worked hard. Okay, maybe I want Scary Movie Whatever to fail, but just because it felt the need to open on the same day as Masters of the Universe. And as long as Masters of the Universe does better, I don’t even care if Scary Movie Whatever makes a profit, too, though I will never ever watch it. But some people seem positively offended by the mere existence of a Masters of the Universe movie, which is something I just don’t understand. Even you personally have no interest in a movie, why not let the people who want to see it enjoy it?

But then I have no idea either why The Devil Wears Prada 2 is currently dominating the box office (honestly, who clamoured for a sequel to a forgettable workplace comedy from twenty years ago?) or why anybody cares about a Michael Jackson biopic (or any pop star biopic or indeed any biopic at all) or why those terrible looking Super Mario movies are so successful (okay, I kind of know why – they’re guilt trip movies, where busy parents take their kids for “quality time” and promptly fall asleep, but there are better kids movies out there than this) or why the world needed a Scream 7 (I didn’t even like Scream 1) or why the world needs any Scary Movie at all (yeah, modern horror movies are silly. But why do we need to make a movie about that, let alone several)? Maybe I just don’t know what the average normie movie goer wants to see. Cause I’m obviously not your average normie movie goer. As a middle-aged woman, I’m not expected to enjoy SFF and superhero movies at all, but am instead supposed to watch romantic comedies, melodramas and family dramas and what I used to call “breast cancer movies” (i.e. movies about women dying tragically but beautifully, many of which turned out to be not about breast cancer at all). Meanwhile, my Mom still enjoyed Marvel and Star Wars movies in her 70s, though her first love were crime dramas and murder mysteries (she also actually watched “breast cancer movies”). I’m pretty sure she would have enjoyed the new Masters of the Universe (she saw the 1987 movie in the theatre with me), especially since she liked Idris Elba and Morena Baccarin. And the utterly delightful The Sheep Detectives (which has some crossover with Masters of the Universe, since Nicholas Galitzine appears in both) would have been right up her alley. She would have enjoyed The Mandalorian and Grogu as well especially since the first two seasons of The Mandalorian were about the last TV show she was still well enough to watch. Oddly enough, I’m not even the only person in this situation. I saw several social media posts from people who had watched The Mandalorian with their now deceased parents and noted how much their parents would have loved the movie.

As for “no one under fifty” cares about Masters of the Universe, let me tell you about a lovely interaction I had last weekend. I visited a friend in Bielefeld. And since I set off early and had time, I decided to pay a visit to the Hermann Monument in nearby Detmold. The Hermann Monument was completed in 1875 and commemorates the Cherusci chieftain Arminius who defeated and pretty much annihilated three Roman legions under the command of Publius Quinctilius Varus in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD and kicked the Romans out of the Northern half of Germany for good. Of course, the battle didn’t actually take place anywhere near Detmold, but rather roughly one hundred kilometers to the Northwest in Kalkriese near Osnabrück, though the location of the battlefield was not discovered until I was in high school, when a guy with a metal detector found a hoard of Roman coins and some weaponry in a field (though finds of Roman coins have been documented in the Kalkriese region for at least two hundred years). I remember that our Latin teacher was super excited and to be fair, so was I.

The Hermann Monument was built out of nationalistic fervour in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars and also as part of the Second German Empire’s tendency to engage in nation building via plopping giant monuments on mountaintops. Supposedly, Hermann faces the national archenemy France – though he to squint really hard to even make out France, considering he has to look across a big chunk of Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium first. However, in the 150 years since it was erected, the Hermann Monument has become a beloved tourist attraction visited by half a million people every year (and note that it is on a mountain top in the forest) and the mascot of the entire region. By now, Hermann has become an old friend you visit on occasion. He is also a 26.57 meter tall (53,46 meters with his pedestal) Germanic tribesman with a winged helmet and a giant sword held aloft in an “I have the Power” pose long before He-Man was even a glimmer in the eyes of Mark Taylor and Roger Sweet.

This weekend, I was walking from the parking lot to the Hermann Monument, wearing a He-Man t-shirt. I chanced to chat with a family – Mom, Dad and a little boy of about seven or eight. They remarked on my t-shirt and that I was suitably dressed for the occasion. “Oh, you know He-Man?” I asked and it turned out that the little boy was a He-Man fan, albeit of the 2021 CGI show, and that Dad was a fan as well. The little boy thought that Arminius looks a lot like He-Man and the entire family are of course going to watch the new movie. And yes, that’s anecdotal evidence, but it’s not just men over fifty (cause us women over fifty are of course expected to watch “breast cancer movies”) who are excited about Masters of the Universe.

As for the resemblance between Hermann and He-Man, see for yourself:

Hermann Monument and Masters of the Universe Classics He-Man

“We have the Power”. Hermann and He-Man

Masters of the Universe Classics He-Man in front of the Hermann statue model at the visitors center.

And here is He-Man with a model of the Hermann statue at the visitors center.

The world premiere of Masters of the Universe took place in Hollywood (where else?) on May 18 and they actually constructed a whole Castle Grayskull in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater.

Absolutely incredible to see the Chinese Theater done up like Castle Grayskull. I had to make it out to see it before they take it all away after the premiere. My God… it’s unreal in person ?

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— Joey Spiotto (@joebot.bsky.social) 18. Mai 2026 um 07:04

The Power Sword was on display as well and Dolph Lundgren who played He-Man in the 1987 movie symbolically handed it to Nicholas Galitzine.

In addition to the usual critics and celebrities, Mattel and Amazon MGM also invited several behind the scenes creatives like comic writers as well as plenty of fans to the premiere, which is a lovely thing to do. Plus, those fans all eagerly post on social media about their experience and of course spread positive word of mouth, even if official reviews are still embargoed. At any rate, I’ve seen plenty of photos of happy fans on the red – well, actually purple – carpet as well as photos of the inside of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, whereas I had no idea what it looked like inside until recently.

What is more, initial reactions to Masters of the Universe were overwhelmingly positive. Most critics really enjoyed the movie – except io9‘s Germain Lussier, who only enjoyed the last twenty minutes. But considering some of the crap io9 does enjoy – so many crappy horror movies – I wouldn’t give too much credit to their opinion.

There’s also been a premiere in Sao Paulo in Brazil, since Brazil is one of the biggest markets for Masters of the Universe and apparently has a lot of Nicholas Galitzine fans as well. In addition to the formal red carpet premiere, there was also some kind of street event, where stars Nicholas Galitzine, sporting a Brazil football jersey (he’s a huge football fan), Camila Mendes (who is Brazilian) and director Travis Knight were on some kind of balcony with a Brazilian band who were playing a song called “He-Man”. Nicholas Galitzine and Camila Mendes were clearly enjoying themselves, while Travis Knight seemed somewhat bewildered by the whole thing. There will also be a formal red carpet premiere in Berlin and London sometime in the next few days.

As for myself, I have already booked a ticket for a preview showing on June 3. And because I have only ever watched Masters of the Universe in English – except for the German audio dramas, where some of the pronuciation and translation issues always irked me – I of course want to see the new movie in English as well rather than dubbed into German. Hence, I booked my ticket for a preview showing at the Savoy Theater in Hamburg St. Georg, which specialises in subtitled rather than dubbed movies and also offers things like showings aimed at neurodivergent people or cinema for knitters/crafters.

But now let’s take a look at the latest trailer as well as some clips, featurettes and TV spots, which include some new footage. Let’s start with the latest (and final) trailer:

The latest trailer starts of with the MGM logo, once again featuring Leo the Lion rather than Cringer (though in the actual movie, the logo apparently features Cringer according to people who were at the premiere), and the Mattel logo, both overlaid with a grainy “old time TV” filter. Then we get the transformation sequence from the Filmation cartoon, complete with John Erwin exclaiming “I have the Power”. Since the Filmation rights are infamously with Universal, I suspect Amazon MGM had to pay them a pretty penny for that little clip.  We also get the text “Over 40 years ago, he saved his universe.”

There is a cut to the Power Sword inside Castle Grayskull. “Adam…” the Sorceress says in the voiceover, as we see little Adam walk up to the sword, clearly fascinated, “…when you hold the magic sword, what do you say?”

There is a quick sequence of shots of the Vikor statue holding the sword, of adult Adam in the comic shop, of little Adam reaching for the sword as well as the text “He inspired a generation.” Then we get another cut to a rather dishevelled and depressed looking adult Adam saying “By the Power of Grayskull…” We haven’t seen this particular shot before, but it’s clearly on Earth, most likely in Adam’s apartment. There’s another cut to little Adam reaching for the sword, followed by adult Adam in the comic shop reaching for the sword. The Sorceress says, “Go on…” in the voiceover, while we see adult Adam in the comic shop holding the sword and looking slightly unhinged. There’s a brief close-up of the transformation sequence, where He-Man’s harness attaches to his body, followed by He-Man exclaiming, “I have the Power.”

“Now you’re ready”, the Sorceress says and also gives us our first good look of Morena Baccarin as the Sorceress in the movie, though we saw her before on character posters and a Uno card of all things. Her design departs quite a bit from the Filmation cartoon and the vintage toy and is closer to the way she is depicted in Masters of the Universe Revelation, where she wears a long down and feathery cape rather than full wings. Black Girl Nerds has an interview with costume designer Richard Sale, where he explains that the Filmation style bird look wouldn’t really have worked in live action, because it would have looked as if the Sorceress was wearing a dead bird on her head. I am somewhat reminded of Björk’s really unfortunate performance of her song from Dancer in the Dark at the 2001 Oscars (Wow, has it really been that long?) where she wore a dead swan as a gown and yes, I totally understand why that is not what Travis Knight and Richard Sale wanted for this movie. Besides, the Sorceress looks lovely in her flowing gown and I do hope we get a figure of her – with fabric that’s actually good (think Mythic Legions) – since the Sorceress is usually one of the later figures to be released.

Once the Sorceress has told Adam that he is ready, the trailer cuts to a scene of He-Man  utterly demolishing Skeletor’s Skel-Knights. I do wonder whether the Skel-Knights will be revealed to be zombies or something along those lines in the movie, considering how many of them we see He-Man and the rest of the heroes taking out even in the trailers. Cause Masters of the Universe has traditionally not been an overly violent franchise in spite of all the muscles and weapons and sword and sorcery vibes. Due to the strict censorship rules of the 1980s, He-Man hardly ever punched anybody in the Filmation cartoon and he certainly never used his sword to stab anybody. And even in later iterations of the franchise, He-Man almost never kills anybody and neither do any of the other heroes. However, if the Skel-Knights are zombies or something along those lines, taking them out wouldn’t really be killing them, since they weren’t actually alive to begin with.

Next we get the shot of Adam, Teela, Duncan, Roboto and Cringer on the ramp of a spacecraft, while Skeletor notes in the voiceover “It seems the prodigal prince has returned,” followed by, “I am a devil, but I mean to be a god”, accompanied by a close-up of Skeletor’s face and an aerial shot of Skeletor standing on what appears to be the platform with the statues of former Eternian kings. He has a crown on his head – possibly Randor’s crown, which he stole – and laughs maniacally. As for Skeletor wanting to become a god, that’s kind of traditional for him at this point and he has briefly achieved this goal a few times, most notably in the 1987 movie and Masters of the Universe Revelation. The shot of Skeletor with the crown is followed by a shot of Trap-Jaw attacking Adam and almost impaling him on his hook.

Next, we get the by now familiar flight out of Castle Grayskull, while a text announces that “He-Man returns.” There’s a cut and we see He-Man in the forest, asking “What am I supposed to do?” We see that he is talking to the Sorceress, though it’s not clear if He-Man is aware of this, since she is in her bird form and sitting on the hilt of the Power Sword, which is stuck in the ground, most likely because He-Man dropped it during some fight or other. “You are he who will restore peace to Eternia”, the Sorceress replies, which is not overly helpful, to be honest. But then the Sorceress isn’t always known to be overly helpful. After all, she sent Adam to Etheria with the mission to deliver the Sword of Protection to its rightful wielder without telling him whom he was looking for and that it was his own twin sister.

Next, we get some repeats of scenes we’ve already seen before. The attack on Eternos, Skeletor strutting through the burning city, Goat-Man at his side, Marlena and little Adam running towards Castle Grayskull, Randor staying behind to buy them time. “Skeletor took my family…” Adam says in the voiceover and I only now realise that he says “family” rather than “parents”, which is certainly an interesting word choice, “…and he destroyed our world.” There is a shot of Adam in the dungeon, addressing the Eternian resistance with “I’m gonna fight for it”, while everybody cheers.

Next we get a bit of new footage of Cringer racing along the bridge to Castle Grayskull with both Adam and Teela riding on his back. We see a couple of Skel-Knights guarding the jawbridge. “Incoming”, one of them yells, just before Cringer pounces on them and mauls them in an unusual display of violence for our favourite cowardly kitty. Since the Skel-Knights are clearly terrified, does this mean they are alive and sentient after all?

We then get a brief shot – later expanded in a clip – of He-Man in the hold of the Talon Fighter looking at a Sky Sled, followed by footage of He-Man racing through the forest on the Sky Sled while dodging Rotons and Fright Fighters and finally grabbing a Roton with his bare hands and slamming it into a tree. We’ve seen this footage before, but it’s still cool as hell.

Then there’s a cut back to Adam in the dungeon, flanked by Duncan, Teela and Queen Marlena wearing black (interesting colour choice), as he calls out the various Heroic Warriors: “Mekaneck”, followed by a scene of Mekaneck knocking down several Skel-Knights with his neck, “Ram-Man”, followed by footage of Ram-Man jumping up and landing on top of some Skel-Knights, knocking them out, “Fisto”, followed by a shot of Fisto punching the camera. Mekanack retaliates by extending his neck and exclaiming, “Prince Alan.” “It’s Adam, dude”, an exasperated Adam replies, while Duncan orders Mekaneck to put his neck away.

Characters calling Adam “Alan” is not a new joke. Skeletor already did it in the 200X cartoon, when he decided to kidnap “Prince Alan” to force He-Man out into the open. It’s still amusing, because it shows that many people, both allies and enemies, don’t really see Adam.

Personally, I also think that making Adam the one who comes up with the silly character names is a great idea. Because let’s face it, the names are silly and particularly Ram-Man and Fisto are also unfortunately suggestive (according to someone who worked at Filmation, the very straightlaced Mattel executives who came up with the names had no idea about the implications). Yet hiding the names – like some superhero movies that never mention the codenames on screen – also isn’t a good solution. Those characters are Fisto, Ram-Man and Mekaneck and everybody knows it. The names may be silly, but the franchise is stuck with them. And if a movie is ashamed of its source material, see the early X-Men movies, it always leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Part of the reason the early Marvel movies and also Deadpool felt so fresh at the time was that they weren’t ashmed of their source material, but embraced it.

Having Adam be the one who comes up with the silly names, because he doesn’t remember what these people are called, makes perfect sense. Because Adam is about ten when he is sent to Earth, exactly the right age to appreciate silly, punny names (and also the target audience the toyline and cartoon were developed for). Besides, do you know or remember the names of your parents’ co-workers when you were ten? Most likely not. And you quite possibly did have nicknames for some of them. Note that I once very seriously addressed a co-worker of my Dad’s as “Mr. Jerk”, when I was about eight, because my Dad used to refer to him as “Alfred the Jerk” and I assumed that his surname was “jerk”. To this day, I have no idea what Alfred the Jerk was really called. Honestly, Malcolm and Krass should be happy that they only got stuck with Fisto and Ram-Man.

Coincidentally, here is a great in-depth interview with Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson and Jon Xue Zhang, the actors who play Fisto and Ram-Man, where they confirm that Adam is the one who came up with the names, but that they end up embracing their new monickers. And yes, apparently Fisto does announce that he is going to fist some bad guys in the film. Cause you know they couldn’t resist that joke and that’s perfectly fine. Adults will get it and the kids in the audience will wonder why the adults are laughing at stuff that isn’t funny. Though that mini-comic panel of an exhausted Fisto announcing to He-Man that he fisted hard, but couldn’t fist them all, is fake, sorry. In the original mini-comic “A Clash of Arms”, he says “fight”. Some joker altered the speach balloons in Photoshop

As for Mekaneck, we haven’t seen a whole lot of him in the footage that has been released so far, but from what little we’ve seen it appears that James Wilkinson is playing him not so much as someone who is insecure, because his powers are silly even by Masters of the Universe standards, like we saw in the 200X cartoon and the Eternity War comics, but more like the cocky, boastful “winning type” that voice actor Douglas Welbat portrayed in the German audio dramas of the 1980s. I doubt that anybody involved with the movie is familiar with the German audio dramas, but it is still an interesting approach.

We get some more footage we’ve seen already. Teela at the controls of the Talon Fighter, Duncan drawing his sidearm, a door exploding, Teela shooting Beast-Man off an overpass on Earth with her staff/rifle, Duncan and Roboto with a very big cannon, one of the statues of ancient Eternian Kings being destroyed, He-Man throwing around a bunch of Skel-Knights as if they were rag-dolls.

“Let me show you what real power looks like”, Skeletor says in the voiceover. “The time for talk is over”, He-Man replies and then we get some footage of He-Man and Skeletor fighting, followed by the title.

At the very end, we get a scene of He-Man and Teela in the forest next to the crashed Talon Fighter.  Teela apparently wants to retrieve something from the wreck and asks He-Man, if he can help her. He-Man obliges her and lifts up the wreck, only for Teela to be completely stunned by his muscles. “It is quite heavy”, He-Man says, “So if you’d just…” – “Oh. Oh my God, yes…” Teela stammers.  It’s a cute moment, which shows that the movie nails both the obvious chemistry and also the awkwardness between Adam and Teela, two people who were childhood friends and can’t quite figure out what to do once they realised that they are attracted to each other. Plus, Teela being literally blinded by He-Man’s muscles has a long history in Masters of the Universe.

The trailer ends with an amazing shot of He-Man on Battle Cat in front of an Eternian sunset, which is just what every fan wants to see.

All in all, it’s a great trailer and also got a lot of positive reactions. Some people even said that this is the best trailer yet, though personally I think I slightly preferred the second trailer, though all of them are good. Some guy named John Campea complained on YouTube that the earlier trailers and the marketing campaign were bad, but I honestly have no idea what he’s talking about, since this isn’t what I see at all.

The trailers were aimed at different audiences. This one leaned heavily into the nostalgia with the Filmation intro and the call outs to the various characters as in “Hey, remember He-Man. He’s back and so are his friends.” Meanwhile, earlier trailers seemed aimed more at people who are not familiar with Masters of the Universe and need an introduction to the characters and their world. Both are perfectly valid, because the movie needs to appeal to both OG fans and new audiences.

That said, not everybody liked this latest trailer. At Reactor, Molly Templeton can’t help herself, but has to be snarky about this trailer just as she was about the previous trailers. And so she complains that there are too many men in this trailer and in Masters of the Universe in general and of course makes the requisite jokes about the sillier character names. She also seems to have issues with the fact that the male characters – well, actually just three of them – are called out and introduced with their action figures – while female characters are not named and don’t get to do anything in the trailer except giving He-Man advice in the case of the Sorceress and oggling his muscular physique in the case of Teela.

This is unfair, since we know that there will be several named female characters in the movie: Teela, Evil-Lyn, the Sorceress, Queen Marlena, Lieutenant Dian and Adam’s boss Suzie, all of whom have been featured in the various trailers. We haven’t seen a lot of the Sorceress yet and Marlena has mostly been portrayed as Adam’s Mom, though we know that she is a badarse astronaut in her own right as well, but we have seen Teela fighting and piloting the Talon Fighter in this very trailer, let alone elsewhere. And yes, she also oggles He-Man’s muscles, but can you blame her? We’ve also seen Evil-Lyn fighting Teela and Dian taking out several Skel-Knights elsewhere. Plus, we’ve also seen Suzie chewing out Adam for his inappropriate interest in swords. So claiming that the women don’t get to do anything is unfair, especially considering that Masters of the Universe has always had a lot of formidable female characters for a franchise aimed at boys. There’s a reason that forty percent of the kids who played with the toys back in the 1980s were girls, much to Mattel‘s infinite surprise.

Of course, it’s quite possible that the movie simply isn’t for Molly Templeton, which is okay. Not every movie is for everybody and I would be hardpressed to say anything positive about Super Mario Galaxy or Scream 7 or Scary Movie Whatever, too.  However, Molly Templeton usually writes very thoughtful articles about reading and the love of books for Reactor, so it’s kind of sad that she apparently can’t get over her disdain for Masters of the Universe.

The powers that be at Amazon MGM have also released several short clips from the movie itself.

The first is a brief clip of the end of the transformation sequence.

We’ve seen before that Adam is lifted up into the air, when he transforms for the first time. This clip cuts in when he floats back to the ground. He exclaims, “I have the Power”, the sword sparks and a cloud shaped like the Spirit of Grayskull appears behind him. Once the sparking stops, Adam – who obviously has no idea what exactly just happened to him – looks down at himself and realises that a) he’s wearing very little now, and b) he’s ripped and has very nice abs. “Oh, wow”, Adam exclaims.

It’s a neat moment and also rings true, because that’s probably how a person would react, if they had just undergone a transformation with sparking lightning and found that they have received not only new clothes but a whole new body. Coincidentally, there is a very similar scene in the 2021 CGI He-Man and the Masters of the Universe cartoon, when Adam transforms for the first time and sees his reflection in the sword – only that the transformation is a lot more extreme in that cartoon,  because Adam is literally a kid (he’s supposed to be 16, but looks more like 13) and his He-Man form is almost ridiculously huge.

The next clip focusses on Man-at-Arms and basically shows him being a total badarse:

This scene is clearly set during Skeletor’s attack on and eventual conquest of Eternos. Duncan and a couple of Royal Guards are apparently escorting the royal family – Randor, Marlena, little Adam – as well as young Teela to safety. However, the Evil Forces of Skeletor are already in the palace and shoot the Royal Guards, while some court ladies – quite reminiscent of the court ladies we occasionally saw flirting with grown up Adam in the Filmation cartoon – run away screaming. Duncan ushers the royal family and Teela out of the line of fire and behind some columns. It’s notable that Marlena has a protective arm draped around both Adam and Teela. Both the Filmation cartoon and Revelation/Revolution showed that Marlena does have maternal feelings towards Teela. It does make sense, because Marlena has likely known Teela since she was a baby and saw her grow up. Plus, Teela’s mother is famously absent and Marlena lost her own daughter as a baby. But I’m glad that the movie continues with this dynamic.

“There’s too many of them”, Randor exclaims. “A big army only means one thing”, Duncan replies and draws his blaster, “More targets.” He winks – most likely at the two scared kids – and proceeds to utterly demolish a whole squad of Skel-Knights, finishing the last one off by hurling an axe at him.

It’s Duncan at his most badarse and it’s supposed to reassure those folks who have problems with the casting of Idris Elba as Man-at-Arms. Though we all know the reason some folks have problems with Idris Elba’s casting is not his acting abilities, cause we all know he’s awesome, but racism, pure and simple.

That said, I now really want to know what exactly the Skel-Knights are, cause it seems that a lot of them get killed in this movie. Now He-Man famously doesn’t kill, unless you piss him off really badly, but I never had any doubt that Duncan has killed and would absolutely do so again, if necessary. He is a soldier, after all. But we rarely see him killing a bunch of people or whatever the Skel-Knights are on screen.

So the question is what are the Skel-Knights? Are they some kind of zombies or other undead, in which case killing them is acceptable since they were never alive to begin with? Are they beings created by dark havoc magic like their namesake from the Origins Battle for Eternia four-pack? In that case, killing them is acceptable as well, since again they are not actually alive. Does the movie go with the “demon from another dimension” origin for Skeletor and are the Skel-Knights other demons from his dimension? In that case, I suspect killing them is acceptable as well, cause few people have problems with killing demons. But if they are living and feeling beings who possibly don’t even voluntarily serve Skeletor, but were forced/compelled in some way, the good guys killing so many of them doesn’t really fit into a franchise like Masters of the Universe, where hardly anybody, including villains and monsters, ever gets killed.

The next two clips focus on the relationship between the characters, particularly Adam and Teela. They’re also a lot of fun.

Adam – already in He-Man form – Teela, Duncan and Roboto are in the Talon Fighter, being chased by Rotons and Fright Fighters. The Talon Fighter is clearly an actual physical set and the hull is riveted, which looks great and also pleasantly retro. And no, the Fright Fighters were not copied from Dune‘s ornithopters, but are based on a 1986 toy.  And no, the Roton redesign was not copied from the Star Wars prequels, instead they both borrowed Frank R. Paul’s artwork from the 1920s and 1930s. See a 1930 predecessor of the movie Roton here.

A Roton smashes into the Talon Fighter and slices into its hull. Adam is understandably nervous and Teela, who’s piloting, tells him to “Go out there and shoot some bad guys.” Since Adam is not entirely sure how to do this, Teela adds, “Sky Sled. In the back.”

“I’m on it”, Duncan says and gets up, but Teela says, “Not you. Definitely not you,” and there’s obvious tension between father and (adoptive) daughter. So Duncan sits down again, obviously annoyed, while Adam gets up and heads for the cargo hold, where he indeed finds a Sky Sled. He takes a deep breath, opens the ramp, gets on the Sky Sled and starts the engine. However, Adam has never flown a Sky Sled before, so he accidentally hits reverse and bangs into the cockpit door, causing Duncan to jump and Teela to exclaim “What the…?” Adam finally find the right direction and flies out of the ramp, though it’s clear that he has no idea how to fly this thing. He narrowly avoids a Roton, drops down into the forest and barely avoids smashing into a tree.

It’s a fun scene and it also makes sense. After all, Adam was about ten when he left Eternia. How should he know how to fly a Sky Sled?  And the Power of Grayskull grants enormous strength, but not skill that the person channelling it doesn’t have. So of course Adam has no idea how to fly a Sky Sled, let alone how to use it to shoot bad guys.

Objectively, Duncan would be a much better choice, since he not only knows how to fly a Sky Sled, he likely built it, too. So why does Teela not want him to fly it and why is there palpatable tension between Duncan and Teela? Now it’s notable that Duncan is not in uniform here, but in civilian clothes. He also looks rough, as if he’s been sleeping in a gutter somewhere. In many ways, he looks like the movie version of the exiled Duncan from Masters of the Universe Revelation or the noir detective Duncan, complete with trenchcoat, from the Masterverse anthology comic series.

As I’ve said before, this family – Teela, Duncan and his brother Malcolm/Fisto (though we don’t know if they will be brothers or rather half-brothers in the movie or just brothers-in-arms and if Teela is Duncan’s biological or adopted daughter) does not deal with failure well. When things go spectacularly wrong, they tend to blame and punish themselves and pretty much exile themselves. This is a pattern we see going back to the Filmation cartoon.

Now something must have gone drastically wrong, because Eternos got conquered, Randor and Marlena were captured (and Randor may have been killed), the crown prince is missing and the Heroic Warriors were forced to go underground. And as commander of the Eternian forces and Randor’s right hand man, Duncan would naturally blame himself for everything that went wrong. And like Teela and Fisto, he does not deal well with failure and tends to respond by letting his hair and beard grow, putting on a brown cloak or a trenchcoat and sleeping in a gutter or exiling himself to a little hut in the middle of nowhere. He possibly also hit the bottle, though that’s normally more of a Fisto thing. And I imagine that’s exactly what happened here. Duncan blamed himself for Eternos getting conquered and the King and Queen getting captured on his watch, decided that he’s no use to anybody and exiled himself, until Teela located Adam and dragged Duncan back into the action. That also explains the tension between Teela and Duncan, because this version of Teela  did not enjoy a safe childhood and youth in the royal palace, but had to grow up on the run with a guilt-ridden and depressed father. Ironically, it seems as if in this version of the story, Fisto is the one who stepped up and became a leading figure in the Eternian rebellion, whereas normally Duncan is the responsible one and Fisto the drunken loser.

As for why they react the way they do, Teela has always been portrayed as a massive overachiever, who feels that she always needs to be the best at everything to deserve love and acceptance, because Teela mistakenly believes that her birth parents abandoned her, because they didn’t want her. So she always feels like she had to prove herself and has problems accepting that the people around her – Adam, her father, Cringer, Orko – love her unconditionally.

Duncan’s issue I suspect might be similar. Duncan is one of the most important characters in Masters of the Universe, but we know next to nothing about his family background beyond the fact that Fisto is his older brother in the 200X continuity. However, it has been strongly implied that Duncan (and Fisto, for that matter) does not come from a privileged background. He rose through the ranks and reached one of the highest positions in Eternos due to his intelligence and his skills as a warrior and engineer – and also due to his friendship with Randor. And once again, we don’t know a lot about how this friendship came about, though it’s been said several times that they’ve friends since they were boys. Most likely, they met as young cadets in the Royal Guard – and note that cadets in the Royal Guard are very young by Earth standards, perhaps as young as twelve. But unlike Teela, who grew up alongside Adam in the royal palace and views the royal family as her family, Duncan has always been shown to be very conscious of the power difference between him and Randor. Note that Duncan always addresses Randor as “Your Majesty” or “Sire”, even in private. I think he calls him by his first name in the Filmation cartoon exactly once – when Randor is in mortal peril.

So Teela and Duncan feel the constant need to prove themselves – Teela, because she believes she is only worthy of affection when she’s always the best at everything, and Duncan, because he believes he needs to be the best to be worthy of his position. When things go wrong, they both tend to punish themselves and run away. And yes, it’s ironic that Duncan who is so supportive and encouraging towards Adam, Teela, Orko and everybody else who needs a mentor and father figure (in the second trailer, when little Adam is knocked down during sword fighting training, Duncan literally tells him that when he falls, it’s his chance to stand tall) can’t take his own advice.

Coincidentally, here is a lovely article from Nagier Chambers of Big Gold Belt Media, who praises Idris Elba’s performance as Duncan and calls him the emotional backbone of the movie. And by the way, it’s great that we have two movies – The Mandalorian and Grogu and Masters of the Universe – which focus on fatherhood and fathers doing their best under circumstances that aren’t always ideal coming out in the space of two weeks. I predict a tight race between Duncan and Din Djarin for this year’s Jonathan and Martha Kent Fictional Parent of the Year Award.

The last clip is an expanded version of the scene at the end of the final trailer and features some delightfully awkward sexual tension between Adam and Teela:

This scene clearly takes place after the previous clip, because the Talon Fighter has crashed in the forest. Duncan and Roboto are nowhere in evidence, it’s just Teela and Adam. As we’ve seen at the end of the trailer, Teela asks Adam, if he can help her retrieve something from the wreck. So Adam lifts up the Talon Fighter with one hand, seemingly effortlessly, only for Teela to be utterly blinded by his impressive muscles. Whereupon Adam tells Teela that the wreck is actually quite heavy, so if she could just get on with it.

The next part is new. Because in order to retrieve what appears to be a box of some sort from the wreck, Teela needs to crawl very closely past his legs. “Sorry, your loincloth is in my…” Teela says. Adam replies, “Fine”, though the close-up on his face shows (great acting by Nicholas Galitzine there) that he’s anything but fine, but is instead very desperately trying to keep himself under control, lest he impress Teela with the transformation of another bodypart.

Once Teela has retrieved the box and poor Adam can relax again, she and Adam awkwardly stand around in the forest and finally sit down on a log. “So… what does it feel like to be the mighty warrior?” Teela asks. Adam considers for a moment, quite possibly because this is the first moment he actually gets to reflect upon what it means to be He-Man. Then he says, “All things considered, pretty great.” However, he’s also wondering what happened to his shirt or his pants – and he looks down at himself, as if he’s only now realising that he’s running around in a leather kilt – and whether they will come back, once he transforms back into Adam or whether he’ll have to buy new clothes every time he transforms. Note that this is apparently the first time Adam became He-Man and that he has no idea how the mechanics of the whole process work. So “What the hell happened to my clothes?” is an absolutely valid question.

The chemistry between Adam and Teela in this scene is amazing, which proves once again that the movie gets this very important relationship right. The sexual tension is absolutely delicious and cranked up quite a bit more than usual in Masters of the Universe. Because back in the 1980s and even in the 200X era, the powers that were at Mattel and Filmation kept romantic tension in the He-Man to a minimum, because they assumed too much romance would scare off the little boys that were the target audience. This was an issue with a lot of 1980s cartoons aimed at boys that any hint of romance was kept to a minimum, which didn’t stop the audience, both girls and boys, from imagining what might be. Honestly, I have vivid memories of romantic scenes in cartoons I watched as a kid that turned out to be nothing more than a mere hint. Meanwhile, the few cartoons aimed at girls that weren’t about pastel-coloured cartoon animals did have quite a bit more romance. See She-Ra, who did get to kiss Sea Hawk on screen (with strong hints of more going on, unless you believe that Sea Hawk will gracefully leave his cabin to Adora, while he bunks with his first mate Sven) forty years before her brother got to kiss Teela. Or see Jem and the Holograms, which was a fully fledged soap opera with a frankly pretty toxic love triangle between Rio, Jerrica and her alter-ego Jem – later expanded when The Stingers and their singer Riot came along – at its heart. And yes, many of us kids of the 1980s craved romance in our entertainment and pounced on every slight hint.

So while the chemistry between Adam and Teela in this scene is off the charts, the awkwardness between them is also quite typical. Because Adam and Teela used to be childhood best friends and when their friendship gradually blossoms into more, they’re not sure how to respond to it. Probably even more so in the movie, where Adam and Teela were separated as kids and only meet again as adults. What is more, Teela grew up with a single father and mostly surrounded by men. She’s absolutely terrible at flirting and has no idea what to do. Adam is actually very charming and much better at flirting in most versions of the story – he is the crown prince and has likely been taught courtly manners – though he still can’t manage to let Teela know how he feels.

The 1987 movie was probably our best chance for a kiss between He-Man and Teela, but sadly there is almost no romantic tension at all between these two. All the romance content was spent on the Earth characters Julie and Kevin. I’m not sure if we will get a kiss between Adam and Teela in this movie, since there have been some comments about Teela “friendzoning” Adam in this series of interviews with the cast and crew by Lauren Veneziani of DC Film Girl – and more will be left to the imagination and fanfiction anyway – but I do hope for a kiss in the end. But at least, we get some delicious sexual tension.

For those people – and there seem to be quite a few of them – who assume that Adam is gay, no, he’s not and he has never been portrayed that way. Adam has always been attracted to Teela. It’s quite possible that he’s bisexual, but since he’s almost exclusively attracted to Teela, it never comes up. And yes, Adam/He-Man is a gay icon, but that doesn’t mean that he actually is gay. As for Adam’s sister Adora/She-Ra, she is canonically bisexual and has had three different love interests – Sea Hawk, Bow and Catra – in the different versions of her story. And yes, Adora has shown interest in women before the 2018 She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. In the Eternity War comics, she’s clearly attracted to Teela, but doesn’t act on it, because she doesn’t want to get in her brother’s way.

Meanwhile, some people have criticised the trailers and clips, because there is – gasp – humor. Indeed, there seems to be a certain contingent of people who do prefer their SFF movies and probably all movies with no jokes whatsoever, because SFF is serious business, dammit. Quite often, these people particularly criticise what they call “Marvel humor”, i.e. quippy dialogue, zingy one-liners and self-deprecating jokes. Interestingly enough, fifteen to twenty years ago, people called this Whedon humor – which is fair, because Joss Whedon stole it from Marvel to begin with – and some folks already disliked it, though it wasn’t yet popular to hate. Now I did have issues with Whedon’s humor at times, because it tended to fall flat and undercut emotional scenes. In the earlier Marvel movies – including, ironically, the Joss Whedon written and directed first Avengers movie – it usually works better, because the humor is more appropriately timed. As for Masters of the Universe, it’s a weird sword and sorcery/sword and planet/space fantasy mash-up aimed at kids, so it always had humor. The Filmation cartoon had plenty of jokes and silly puns as did later iterations. You do have the mini-comic purists, who only accept the first four mini-comics, which had more of a traditional sword and sorcery vibe, but even those first four mini-comics had humor. “King of Castle Grayskull” is hysterically funny, because it is so very, very Freudian, even if we didn’t get it as kids. But then, there apparently are people who would prefer a Masters of the Universe movie directed by Zack Snyder, which sounds like an absolute nightmare to me.

In addition to the trailer and clips, there have also been a couple of new featurettes and TV spots as well.

The first one is called “Who is He-Man?” and focusses on – well – Adam/He-Man.

Actors Nicholas Galitzine (Adam/He-Man), Camila Mendes (Teela), Idris Elba (Duncan) and director Travis Knight tell us that He-Man is iconic, an amazing fighter, super in shape and strong and a big muscle-bound dude, interspersed with scenes of He-Man fighting that we’ve seen before in previous trailers.

Travis Knight says that He-Man’s transformation starts as a young kid and there is a cut to the scene of Duncan training a young Prince Adam that we’ve seen before. However, this time we see that Randor is there as well and he’s clearly not happy with his son’s performance – as usual. “I promise I’ll make him into a man,” Duncan says to Randor as he pulls little Adam to his feet again.

Randor being a shitty father is nothing new – it is pretty much his role to be the distant and cold father who doesn’t really see or understand his kid and who can’t express his emotions – Orko even says as much in the moral segment at the end the Filmation episode “Prince Adam No More”. Nonetheless, Randor demanding of Duncan to make Adam a man is infuriating, because Adam is about ten years old at this point and small for his age. He shouldn’t have to become a man, he’s a kid and should be allowed to be one. Though Duncan taking Adam under his wing would ultimately be good for the kid, because Duncan is the supportive father figure that Randor is not.

ETA 05-27-2026: Here is a red carpet interview during the London premiere with James Purefoy who plays King Randor, wherein he pretty much confirms that Randor is of a different generation and has a different view of masculinity and that he must learn that strength isn’t just about muscles. James Purefoy also has a young daughter who’s a She-Ra fan.

Of course, that whole “boys don’t cry” mentality is the very toxic masculinity that created the distant fathers that many kids of the 1970s and 1980s had to deal with, the kind of fathers like Randor, who – as we learned in Masters of the Universe Revolution and particularly the prequel comics – was the victim of intergenerational abuse and trauma, which swallowed his half-brother Keldor whole. Meanwhile, Randor, while not perfect, does better than his father Miro, let alone his grandfather Rannen. Unlike Miro, Randor marries his unsuitable alien girlfriend Marlena and while he’s not always a good father to Adam, he learns better in the course of the story and he never treats Adam like Miro treated Keldor.

That said, I wonder why Marlena went along with Randor’s ideas about proper education for their son. Yes, she should know what Eternia is like by now and that skills like swordfighting are more important there than on Earth, but was she never disturbed by some of the obviously underage recruits in the Royal Guard that we’ve seen in the Filmation cartoon and elsewhere? Was she really okay with Randor foisting swordfighting lessons on their ten-year-old son? Yes, she genuinely loves Randor, but I’m nonetheless surprised that Marlena didn’t grab Adam and hightail it back to Earth after her baby daughter was stolen or at the very least after Randor decided that their ten-year-old kid needs to become a man.

Of course, Adam does end up on Earth anyway and gets “trapped in corporate mundaneness” for fifteen years, as Nicholas Galitzine narrates, while we see some more scenes of Adam’s life on Earth. We see him walking through the office where he works, tired and dejected, and we see him in a conference room, standing around a table with his co-workers, who seem to be the dorkiest people ever assembled in a conference room. Adam’s boss Suzie, whom we’ve seen in several trailers so far, is there, as is Daryl, the sweater vest wearing co-worker who is freaked out by Adam’s interest in swords and whom Adam really, really does not like. As for where Adam works, Jukka Issakainen has figured it out, as he explains in this video. Adam’s “Please kill me now” expression in the conference room scene is very reminiscent of how my classmates and I felt whenever our teachers told us pick up our chairs and place them in a circle – we always called it “social circle” – a pedagogic technique that clearly had been recommended to our teachers, but was vastly disliked by us students. On a whiteboard, we also see the words “I hear you. I feel you. I see you” written as a kind of affirmation. Of course, Adam’s main problem, whether on Earth or Eternia, is that no one sees him for who he really is, no one listens to him and no one believes him.

We get more scenes that we’ve seen elsewhere before, while Travis Knight says in the voiceover, “He’s warm, he’s kind, he’s funny, but he’s also the most powerful man in the universe”, which shows right there that he gets who Adam/He-Man is, because Adam is very much not a macho type and never has been. Instead, he’s a sensitive and a little goofy, yet he is  also the one who is chosen to wield the Power of Grayskull. There are more scenes we’ve seen before, including the transformation sequence, He-Man throwing off a bunch of Skel-Knights who had piled on him and fighting Skeletor.

***

The next featurette is called “Constructing Eternia” and focusses on the production design and how Eternia was brought to life. This one has a lot of behind the scenes shots, showing off the many practical sets – rare for this kind of movie – though there is a bit of new movie footage as well, most notably a shot of Skeletor with a crown on his head, sitting on his thrown and getting cozy wirh Evil-Lyn in a shot that’s reminiscent of a scene in the 1987 movie where Evil-Lyn kneels at Skeletor’s feet and he strokes her cheek. That scene was our first actual on screen proof that Skeletor and Evil-Lyn have a sexual relationship, though personally I always assumed they were a couple. Coincidentally, I assumed that Hordak and Shadow Weaver were a couple as well, though that has never actually been confirmed on screen.

As for the sets, there have been several reports about set visits by now. Here is one by Maggie Lovitt of Collider and here is one by Dorian Parks of Geeks of Color. They both praise the physical sets and how immersive everything feels. Jamie Broadnax of Black Girl Nerds also interviewed production designer Guy Hendrix Dyas (you can see him briefly in the featurette above) and prop master Steven Morris. In this light, it’s strange to people commenting on social media that the trailers look fake and “like AI slop”, when it’s pretty obvious that much of what we see were actual physical sets and props.

Next, there is a featurette called “Sword of Power”, which focusses on – guess what? – the Power Sword:

There’s a lot of fighting footage in this one as well as a closer look at the transformation sequence where Adam is lifted into the air, his clothes vanish, his muscles bulge and his He-Man gear appears. A lot of people have called this a “magical girl transformation” – which to be fair, it kind of is – and compared it to Sailor Moon. However, Sailor Moon didn’t come out until 1991 (manga) or respectively 1992 (anime), while He-Man and She-Ra got glowy, sparkly transfomation sequences in 1983 or respectively 1985, i.e. years earlier. It’s quite possible that there are magical girl/boy transformation sequences in anime before 1983 and it’s also possible that the Filmation animators were familiar with those scenes and borrowed the idea. But no, He-Man’s transformation sequence was not copied from Sailor Moon. Most likely, they both drew on the same source.

The other bit of new footage is a brief scene of Ram-Man, Fisto, Dian and Moss-Man examining the Sword of Power with some kind of scanner, while Ram-Man notes, “It looks like the Sword of Power.” Well, duh, of course it does. That said, the Sword of Power has had multiple redesigns as well and looks quite different in The New Adventures of He-Man, the 1987 movie, the 200X cartoon and the CGI cartoon.

What made this brief scene interesting is that this is our first look at Moss-Man. We knew he would be in the movie, since someone was cast to play him, but until that featurette, we had no idea what he looked like. He actually looks remarkably like the vintage toy, complete with green flocking.

The other question is “Why does the Eternian resistance feel the need to examine the Power Sword and how did they get Adam to hand it over in the first place?” Are they worried that Skeletor may have sent them a fake Adam and a fake sword?

The final bit of new footage is a very quick shot of Adam in battle ramming the sword into the ground. Adam is clearly pissed off, most likely because Skeletor goaded him into fighting without his sword. This is likely a very bad idea, though it’s not clear whether for Adam, since he’s giving Skeletor an opening to snatch the sword, or for Skeletor, considering that when Adam transformed without the sword in Masters of the Universe Revelation, he utterly trashed Skeletor, the royal palace and Eternos and also killed an innocent manticore.

The Sword of Power is so awesome that it got a second featurette called “Forging the Sword of Power”, which focusses more on how the sword props were designed and made:

We see some early design sketches of the Sword of Power, where it still looked somewhat different, though not as drastically different as the 200X, New Adventures or CGI swords, and the explanation that they finally went with something very close to the vintage toy and Filmation cartoon design. We also learn that they had about twenty different versions of the Sword of Power prop and we see one of them being manufactured from Styrodur a.k.a. XPS (extruded polystyrene), i.e. insulation foam. And yes, they seem to be using the same Styrodur plates you can buy at the DIY store. Using Styrodur makes sense, because Styrodur is fairly light, very easy to cut/carve into whatever shape you want and pretty resistant to damage. Though I suspect they also had sword props made from other materials, because at one point Camila Mendes says that the Sword of Power is quite heavy.

As for new footage, there is a quick shot of the Sorceress telling Adam that he carries the Power of Grayskull. We also get another look at the scene of Ram-Man, Fisto, Moss-Man and Dian examining the Sword of Power. This time, you can see that they are in what appears to be some kind of cave – possibly the headquarters of the Eternian resistance – and that they are standing around a table with a map of Eternia.

There also are two new shots of Earth. In one, Adam and Teela are running along a congested road. Teela picks up the fallen sword, while we see a glimpse of what looks like Beast-Man lying amidst a pile of fruit that probably fell from a truck or something, cause it’s not a mass car chase/crash scene, unless there’s a truck with loose fruit/bottle/glass or something else that’s very messy involved.

The other Earth scene is a shot of Adam in his bedroom, sitting on his bed with the Sword of Power on his lap. He’s wearing the pink shit that he appears to be wearing for most of the movie. What makes this interesting is that I assumed Adam was arrested at the comic shop, after he took the sword from the Vikor statue. But apparently, he did get to take it home. So was he arrested afterwards? Or did he briefly return to his flat after escaping Beast-Man to pick up something, before returning to Eternia with Teela? A week from now, we’ll know.

There’s a quick overhead shot of Teela and Duncan crouching behind some boxes. Duncan is still in his civilian clothes and he looks like a really, really good use a bath.

Next, there’s a featurette called “Becoming He-Man”, which focusses on the training Nicholas Galitzine underwent to portray He-Man.

There’s a lot of  behind the scenes footage of Nicholas Galitzine training and even a brief interview with the person in charge of training him. I guess this featurette is mainly aimed at those dudes (and it was all dudes) who mistook He-Man for a gym bro fantasy and complained that Nicholas Galitzine supposedly wassn’t muscular enough to play He-Man, which is complete nonsense of course. Besides, if you look at Dolph Lundgren in the 1987 movie, he and Nicholas Galitzine aren’t that far apart physically. Dolph Lundgren has a broader chest, probably because he’s just built that way, while Nicholas Galitzine definitely has nicer, more defined abs.

As for new footage, there is a clip of Skeletor taunting He-Man with “Is that all you’ve got?” He-Man replies, “I was pulling my punches.” He clenches his fist and we literally see sparks emitting from it. This is of course reminiscent of Thunder Punch He-Man, one of the vintage variants.  The gimmick of vintage Thunder Punch He-Man was a backpack, into which you could insert a cap ring for a cap gun. When you twisted his waist for the power punch feature, a cap would ignite with a satisfying pop and even a bit of smoke. Beginning with the Classics Thunder Punch He-Man, later versions didn’t have the cap firing mechanism, but they instead had an energy effect to attach to his fist, simulating the thunder punch feature. So seeing He-Man’s fist sparking is a nice call-back to that vintage He-Man variant.

The other bit of new footage is a very brief shot of He-Man and Teela, standing very close and looking at each other, while generating enough sexual and romantic tension to power all of Eternia. Even though the moment only lasts for a few seconds, screenshots of this were all over social media pretty soon.

Finally, there’s a featurette focussing on director Travis Knight:

There’s very little new footage in this one, though there are some behind the scenes shots, showing Travis Knight on set with the various actors, including Sam C. Wilson in full Trap-Jaw get-up. Travis Knight also explains that he was a fan since childhood who had the toys, watched and cartoon and read the comics.

ETA: 05-27-2026: There’s been yet another new featurette called “Rebirth of a Franchise”, which is embedded below:

This one leans hard into the nostalgia factor and pairs shots from the new movie with similar shots from the Filmation cartoon. And it’s certainly interesting that many of the more recent featurettes and trailers have included shots from the Filmation cartoon, because that is globally still the most recognisable version of Masters of the Universe.

Not a lot of new footage beyond a shot of Duncan and Roboto running across the bridge to Castle Grayskull, while shooting very big guns. The bridge is strewn with the bodies of Skel-Knights, who were apparently supposed to defend it.

The other bit of new footage is an expanded version of the scene of Lieutenant Dian cutting loose and taking out a dozen Skel-Knights or so. Considering how often she has popped up in the trailers, it’s interesting that we know next to nothing about Dian and only know her name, because it was tagged under a photo in a magazine feature.

There’s also been a couple of TV spots with a bit of new footage:

This one is mostly an assembly of scenes that we’ve seen elsewhere before. One bit that is new is that He-Man punches through the windshield of a Fright Fighter, grabs the pilot and hurls him out of the craft. The pilot is some kind of being with ram horns. Not Goat-Man, this is someone else. Either a previously unseen henchman of Skeletor, the movie version of a Skelcon or maybe this is another member of Goat-Man’s species who fights for Skeletor.

This spot has Skeletor promising the Heroic Warriors that he will kill them one by one, while He-Man replies, “You can try.” We also get Adam proclaiming “I am He-Man”, a shot of Fisto cheering, a quick shot of Tri-Klops, Karg, Spikor and Beast-Man marching into a battle and the beginning of a fight between Duncan and Trap-Jaw.

Amazing as it may seem, this isn’t even all. There have been so many interviews, set reports, etc… that I couldn’t really link to all of them here, though I did try to include everything I found in the link round-ups at the Speculative Fiction Showcase.

As for the movie itself, there will be a spoiler-free review at File 770 and then an in-depth, spoilery review here. There will also be more reviews of the movie toys at File 770.

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One Response to Cora’s Thoughts on the Latest Masters of the Universe Trailers and Other Footage and the Marketing Campaign in General

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