Month: June 2026

‘Masters of the Universe’ can’t find the right tone, but creates a lot of nostalgic fun

/ Ian Casselberry / Leave a comment

Middle-aged men who grew up in the 1980s watching the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe cartoon series and playing with the Mattel action figures sure seem like the target audience for the live-action Masters of the Universe movie. So I’ll admit I was an easy mark for this one.

Although I still hold a tight grip on the comic books, movies, books and TV shows I loved as a kid, I’m more resistant to nostalgia as I get older. But fellow Gen Xer Travis Knight (Bumblebee, Kubo and the Two Strings) is obviously a fan of the old animated series and knew what notes to hit to trigger those childhood tingles.

Being a fan is not always a good thing for movies like this. Sometimes, filmmakers try to cram too much into one story, attempting to load everything they love about a property in their endeavor — maybe because they think it’ll be the only chance they get. Or perhaps he or she just can’t take off their fan goggles and assume audiences will enjoy the same things they did, rather than take an objective look at what works and what doesn’t, what needs to be subtracted or added.

Knight — with writers Chris Butler, Aaron Nee, Adam Nee and Dave Callaham —walks that line pretty well, realizing what was silly about the cartoon and toys — notably character names such as “Fisto,” “Ram Man” and “Mekaneck.” The movie actually comes up with a funny, believable conceit to explain some of the sillier, campier elements of the Masters of the Universe mythology.

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‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ is too stationary, failing to justify its existence as a movie

/ Ian Casselberry / Leave a comment

Saying a movie spun out of a TV series should have stayed a TV series feels like an easy, sometimes even lazy, criticism. I thought that might apply to The Mandalorian and Grogu. Yet it’s probably a fair gripe.

The Mandalorian and Grogu doesn’t utilize what made the series special, probably because it’s limited to a two-hour running time rather than eight episodes of TV. It’s also limited by not being allowed to step outside the show’s boundaries into the larger Star Wars mythology. So yes, rather than being made into a movie, this should have been Season 4 of the series. (And hopefully, with more episodes, it would have been better.)

What made The Mandalorian series so enjoyable as a Star Wars fan is that it expanded the universe that we followed in the movies. It made the mythology feel bigger against the backdrop of the war between the Rebellion and the Empire, building on the concepts of the Jedi and the Force. It also added more to ideas that were intriguing yet not crucial to the overall story — characters such as Boba Fett, his origins, and the society in which he existed.

Yet the world of The Mandalorian could only go so far. It runs into a ceiling. We don’t see the main character, Din Djarin, in the newer Star Wars trilogy. (The series is supposed to take place between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens, which allows for a whole bunch of storytelling possibilities.) Grogu, the adorable “Baby Yoda,” was not a part of the most recent films either.

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