Masters Of The Universe (1987) Vs. SHAZAM! (2018)

[KRYPTON INC.]

Or...

Spoiler

Which one? The one based on the story of a youth that gets transformed by magic into a super powered being that as a movie deviates in many ways from the source material or the one based on the story of a youth that gets transformed by magic into a superpowerd being that as a movie deviates in many ways from the source material?

 

[Batmannerism]

Or...

Spoiler

Which one? The one based on the story of a youth that gets transformed by magic into a super powered being that as a movie deviates in many ways from the source material or the one based on the story of a youth that gets transformed by magic into a superpowerd being that as a movie deviates in many ways from the source material?

I vote Shazam ! Just because its actually a well made movie with a heart....MOTU is pretty average, even for a Dolph Lundgren flick of that era ( before he became a straight to video guy).

 

[MbJ]

Dolph Lundgren played He-Man?

 

[Detective Conan]

Picking Masters Of The Universe even if I’m aware it’s objectively an inferior film to Shazam in every way.

 

[Deck Rickard]

Tough choice, but I have to go with Shazam.

Now if we were comparing Shazam to the Dolph Lundgren classic Thunder Gun Express... that’s a different story.

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

Dolph Lundgren played He-Man?

 

[Mandon Knight]

Shazam, easily. MOTU is 80's kitsch and not even v good 80's kitsch.

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

Shazam by quite some way. And I say that as a child of the 80's.

 

[metaphysician]

I mean, I'm willing to say Shazam is a better movie even though I've not seen it and I have seen MOTU. However, as schlocky 80s movies go, Masters of the Universe isn't *that* bad. The characters may be cardboard, but one, that is faithful to the source material *ahem*, but also two, they were cardboard with gusto.

 

[Captain Tired]

MOTU is pretty fun though.

'Let this be our...final...battle!'

 

[Mjolnir Reborn]

Shazam was a disappointment for me but it's certainly way better than MotU. I didn't even like the latter that much as a kid that was into the toys and the cartoon.

 

[Frodo]

I actually saw MOTU in the theaters with my after school daycare group in 1987.

Yeah, it's cheesy, and the behind the scenes stories, and making of the film, is hysterical .

Still , it's note worthy in that it , and Bruce Springsteen's Dancing in the Dark video , introduced the world to Courtney Cox.

So there's that .

"Can't start a fire without a Spark,
This gun's for hire,
Even if we're just dancing in the dark." _ Bruce Springsteen, 1984.

She was also on Family Ties too .

 

[thangaran]

Steel and Glimmer Man are the two greatest films so there

 

[Schlosser85]

Only good part of this movie was Frank Langella's absolute hamfest of a performance.

 

[MilkmanDan]

Frank Langella was indeed great in MOTU. And I really like Dolph Lundgren if only for having a scholarship to MIT and deciding "Nah... I think I'll become a b-movie actor instead". However, it's really not that good of a movie. The Eternia parts are okay, but mostly takes place on Earth with too much screen time given to couple of boring humans. And it doesn't even have Orko!

Shazam! may not be great. But it is definitely fun, entertaining and it feels like the end product is the movie the filmmakers wanted to make. Unlike MOTU which comes across as the studio wanting to cash in on a popular cartoon/toy line but not really having the budget or the technology to do it right.

 

[Schlosser85]

Frank Langella was indeed great in MOTU. And I really like Dolph Lundgren if only for having a scholarship to MIT and deciding "Nah... I think I'll become a b-movie actor instead". However, it's really not that good of a movie. The Eternia parts are okay, but mostly takes place on Earth with too much screen time given to couple of boring humans. And it doesn't even have Orko!

Shazam! may not be great. But it is definitely fun, entertaining and it feels like the end product is the movie the filmmakers wanted to make. Unlike MOTU which comes across as the studio wanting to cash in on a popular cartoon/toy line but not really having the budget or the technology to do it right.

It also comes off like it’s trying to cash in on Star Wars at times.

 

[Erzengel]

Shazam is obviously the better movie, but Frank Langela was so overthetopit'sgreat than Mark Strong and I like Mark Strong.

 

[Deck Rickard]

I wonder if MOTU, despite being terrible and a flop, was actually a heavily influential film. It’s the first film I remember seeing where they did that thing of taking a popular, fantastical property and tried to make it more “relatable” (and cheaper) by having 90% of it take place on earth even though that’s something that never happened in the cartoon (at least that I can remember) and then centering the story on Everyman characters no one gave a crap about. That trope has since appeared in other adaptations (The Smurfs, Sonic the Hedgehog). MOTU probably wasn’t the first one to do this but I can’t think of any others that did it before it came out.