Masters Of The Universe | 1987
- Locations |
- Los Angeles, California
- DIRECTOR |
- Gary Goddard
He-Man (Dolph Lundgren) and his mates spend a lot of time on Earth – and where else would they turn up but in Southern California. Find out exactly where.
The film is very Eighties and a bit cheesy in a pleasantly retro way (wonderfully free of CGI). As ever, it's the villain who steals the show. Surprisingly, Frank Langella has claimed this was his most enjoyable role but watching the film you can see why, he seems to be having a ball, even sneaking in a bit of Shakespeare's Richard III ("I am not in the giving vein today.").
The 'Castle Grayskull' set was built on what had been two adjoining sound stages Culver City’s old MGM Studio, now the Culver Studios, 9336 West Washington Boulevard. The wall between the stages was demolished to create the largest set Hollywood had seen in over 40 years (according to the publicity).
The rocky terrain of 'Eternia' in the opening is sequence is, behind all the matte painting, familiar 45-acre Vasquez Rocks Natural Area Park, 10700 West Escondido Canyon Road, near Agua Dulce Springs, about an hour north of Los Angeles.
Named after the 19th century outlaw Tiburcio Vasquez, who hid out here, this outburst of the San Andreas Fault has been used in hundreds of Westerns and sci-fi movies, pop videos and photoshoots – see it in 2009's Star Trek reboot, The Flintstones, Apache, Alpha Dog, Starship Troopers and many other films as far back as 1935 in Werewolf Of London.
The park is in the high desert north of Los Angeles, between Newhall and Acton, off Route 14.
He-Man and a small group of Eternians make a hasty escape using a mysterious 'key' which randomly transports them, fortunately for the budget, to the environs of 1980s Los Angeles. Unfortunately, the key gets lost in transit so there's a frantic hunt to retrieve it.
Sadly, the quirky triangular 'Bobby's' fast food joint, where Julie (Courteney Cox) finishes her final shift before leaving LA for New Jersey, is long gone. I can't find what it was actually called, but it stood just south of Foothill Boulevard at Osborne Street in the Hansen Dam area of northeastern San Fernando Valley. The spot achieved notoriety several years later as the site of the notorious Rodney King beating.
With her soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend Kevin (Robert Duncan McNeill), Julie pays a final farewell to her deceased parents in 'Laurelwood Cemetery'. There are disputed claims for this location but it does seem to be another screen favourite, Pioneer Cemetery in Sierra Vista Park, 553 East Sierra Madre Boulevard, Sierra Madre, just northeast of Pasadena. It had previously been seen in Alfred Hitchcock's final film, 1976's Family Plot, and of course in John Carpenter's original 1978 Halloween.
It's here they find the lost key which, in the age of synth pop, Kevin naturally assumes is a musical instrument. Something of a muso himself, it's off to the High School gym where his band is set up to test the gizmo's possibilities.
Oops! Turning on the key gives away its whereabouts to the evil Skeletor and his minions, and a band of weird mercenaries soon turns up to retrieve the precious device.
The school is Mark Twain Middle School, 2224 Walgrove Avenue, in Venice, which had previously been featured in 1982's Slumber Party Massacre and 1985's vampire spoof Once Bitten, with a young Jim Carrey. You can see the entrance used in MOTU from Lucille Avenue.
Julie's house, where Kevin goes looking for her after the gym is burned down, is 2154 Hill Drive at North Eagle Rock Boulevard, in Eagle Rock – a little to the north of Pat & Lorraine's Coffee Shop, famous from Reservoir Dogs.
But most of the film's action centres around Whittier – a city just southeast of Los Angeles famous for supplying high schools for both Back to the Future and Disney's Hocus Pocus.
The town's 'Main Street', where most of the fight scenes take place and down which Skeletor imposingly glides in his hovering craft, is Greenleaf Avenue, Uptown Whittier, mainly between Bailey Street and Philadelphia Street.
'Charlie's Music Store' has gone, it seems to have stood on the currently empty lot between 7016 and 7018 Greenleaf Avenue, south of Philadelphia Street.
The little green space at the entry to the parking lot alongside A La Mode Nail Spa, 6718 Greenleaf Avenue near Bailey Street, is the corner where Kevin plays the keyboard tones to activate the key – which transports that little bit of Whittier off to Castle Grayskull.
Don't worry. It's back in place, unharmed.
