Masters of the Universe (1987)
Action, Fantasy, Science Fiction • 1h 46m
Overview
When the evil Skeletor finds a mysterious power called the Cosmic Key, he becomes nearly invincible, seizing Castle Grayskull and the surrounding city. The Sorceress is now Skeletor's prisoner and he begins to drain her life-force as he waits for the moon of Eternia to align with the Great Eye of the Universe which will bestow god-like power upon him. However, courageous warrior He-Man locates the locksmith inventor Gwildor, who created the Key and has another version of it. During a battle, one of the Keys is transported to Earth, where it is found by teenagers Julie and Kevin. Now, both He-Man and Skeletor's forces arrive on Earth searching for the potent weapon.
Director: Gary Goddard
Cast: Dolph Lundgren, Frank Langella, Billy Barty, Jon Cypher, Courteney Cox, James Tolkan, Chelsea Field, Robert Duncan McNeill, Christina Pickles, Meg Foster, Tony Carroll, Pons Maar, Anthony De Longis, Robert Towers, Barry Livingston, Jessica Nelson, Gwynne Gilford, Walter Scott, Walter Robles, Cindi Eyman, Peter Brooks, Richard Szponder
Director: Robert Towne
Director: Robert Towne
Director: Joel Coen
Arrow 4K Blu-ray scheduled for November 2026 release
All the same
Director: Joel Coen
Arrow 4K Blu-ray scheduled for November 2026 release
All the same
UK Arrow 4K Blu-ray > US Shout! Factory
Arrow has a slightly better encode, edging out SF even with FEL, and has done some additional damage cleanup. Caps
UK Arrow 4K Blu-ray > US Shout! Factory
Arrow has a slightly better encode, edging out SF even with FEL, and has done some additional damage cleanup. Caps
Director: Takashi Miike
2026 Arrow 4K Blu-ray
2026 Arrow 4K Blu-ray
Original matrixed DTS Stereo mix: 2026 Arrow 4K Blu-ray
5.0 surround remix: 2009 Shout! Factory US Blu-ray
Arrow includes three audio tracks, matrixed stereo, discrete 4.0, and a 5.0 surround remix. Unfortunately, only the first one is usable. The 4.0 desyncs partway through. The 5.0 has incorrect (lower) pitch. Fortunately, the matrixed stereo track sounds great, but it is still a major disappointment.
There has been no replacement disc announced. See nicwood's BR post.
Director: Takashi Miike
2026 Arrow 4K Blu-ray
2026 Arrow 4K Blu-ray
Original matrixed DTS Stereo mix: 2026 Arrow 4K Blu-ray
5.0 surround remix: 2009 Shout! Factory US Blu-ray
Arrow includes three audio tracks, matrixed stereo, discrete 4.0, and a 5.0 surround remix. Unfortunately, only the first one is usable. The 4.0 desyncs partway through. The 5.0 has incorrect (lower) pitch. Fortunately, the matrixed stereo track sounds great, but it is still a major disappointment.
There has been no replacement disc announced. See nicwood's BR post.
Director: James Mangold
Arrow 4K Blu-ray see caps
Director: James Mangold
Arrow 4K Blu-ray see caps
Director: Wolfgang Petersen
Arrow 4K Blu-ray Both cuts are excellent in 4K. See caps
For BD:
Theatrical: Czech/Polish/Russian Warner Bros Blu-ray
Director's Cut: Warner Bros Blu-ray
Director: Wolfgang Petersen
Arrow 4K Blu-ray Both cuts are excellent in 4K. See caps
For BD:
Theatrical: Czech/Polish/Russian Warner Bros Blu-ray
Director's Cut: Warner Bros Blu-ray
Arrow 4K Blu-ray see caps
Arrow 4K Blu-ray see caps
Director: George Cukor
Director: George Cukor
Arrow UK 4K Blu-ray (damage removed, improved color/HDR, and best audio) or Capelight DE 4K Blu-ray (best compression but no damage removal and LaserDisc audio from Arrow)
Arrow UK 4K Blu-ray >
Capelight DE 4K Blu-ray Kino Lorber US Blu-ray, see caps
Arrow has done additional cleanup work removing nearly all the damage in the transfer. They have massaged the color timing and HDR to try and improve what they could. The Capelight may have better encoding but it does not have these improvements. The Arrow encoding is solid and in motion there are no issues whatsoever. The Kino release has the damage and other issues plus frequent noise due to the lesser encoding.
Some scenes in the Arrow transfer are better, some better in the Capelight.
Original matrixed Dolby Stereo: Arrow 4K Blu-ray or Image Entertainment LaserDisc
(Arrow is a port of the LD track, see spectrograms) This track has the best fidelity of any release but does have some channel bleeding baked in. The 2017 2.0 on the Arrow and Shout BDs was the Dolby Stereo original mix without channel bleeding but that had heavy noise reduction resulting in a very flat and underwhelming presentation. The surround winds up being lessened as well due to the processing. It's a tough choice between the two but the Image LD audio wins out because it hasn't been messed with and the impact is so unrestrained that no other version hits in the same way.
Capelight and old Arrow BD included the original stereo mix, but with excessive noise reduction rendering it much less detailed. Kino only included a painfully defective 2.0 track sourced from somewhere with limited fidelity, volume spikes and screechy high end which frequently ruins the music. The 5.1 remix on most modern release is a processed version that does not sound as good as it once did.
The best and most accurate of the 5.1 mixes is the original version from the 2003 Special Edition DVD in lossy AC3 form.
Arrow UK 4K Blu-ray (damage removed, improved color/HDR, and best audio) or Capelight DE 4K Blu-ray (best compression but no damage removal and LaserDisc audio from Arrow)
Arrow UK 4K Blu-ray >
Capelight DE 4K Blu-ray Kino Lorber US Blu-ray, see caps
Arrow has done additional cleanup work removing nearly all the damage in the transfer. They have massaged the color timing and HDR to try and improve what they could. The Capelight may have better encoding but it does not have these improvements. The Arrow encoding is solid and in motion there are no issues whatsoever. The Kino release has the damage and other issues plus frequent noise due to the lesser encoding.
Some scenes in the Arrow transfer are better, some better in the Capelight.
Original matrixed Dolby Stereo: Arrow 4K Blu-ray or Image Entertainment LaserDisc
(Arrow is a port of the LD track, see spectrograms) This track has the best fidelity of any release but does have some channel bleeding baked in. The 2017 2.0 on the Arrow and Shout BDs was the Dolby Stereo original mix without channel bleeding but that had heavy noise reduction resulting in a very flat and underwhelming presentation. The surround winds up being lessened as well due to the processing. It's a tough choice between the two but the Image LD audio wins out because it hasn't been messed with and the impact is so unrestrained that no other version hits in the same way.
Capelight and old Arrow BD included the original stereo mix, but with excessive noise reduction rendering it much less detailed. Kino only included a painfully defective 2.0 track sourced from somewhere with limited fidelity, volume spikes and screechy high end which frequently ruins the music. The 5.1 remix on most modern release is a processed version that does not sound as good as it once did.
The best and most accurate of the 5.1 mixes is the original version from the 2003 Special Edition DVD in lossy AC3 form.
More Action on Blu-ray
Director: Johnnie To
Disk Kino World Cinema Library 4K UHD Blu-Ray
Disk Kino World Cinema Library 4K UHD Blu-Ray
Disk Kino World Cinema Library 4K UHD Blu-Ray has Cantonese track in Dolby Atmos and TrueHD 7.1, but English dub is only available on the MoC Blu-Ray in LPCM 2.0 (MoC's Cantonese track is also LPCM 2.0). Criterion Blu-Ray's Cantonese track is DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1.
Disk Kino 4K was limited to only 600 copies in China and is OOP. Of the available Blu-Ray releases done from the 4K restoration, Criterion's video has better color and detail than the MoC release, but MoC features dual audio in both Cantonese and English and more commentary tracks.
Director: Johnnie To
Disk Kino World Cinema Library 4K UHD Blu-Ray
Disk Kino World Cinema Library 4K UHD Blu-Ray
Disk Kino World Cinema Library 4K UHD Blu-Ray has Cantonese track in Dolby Atmos and TrueHD 7.1, but English dub is only available on the MoC Blu-Ray in LPCM 2.0 (MoC's Cantonese track is also LPCM 2.0). Criterion Blu-Ray's Cantonese track is DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1.
Disk Kino 4K was limited to only 600 copies in China and is OOP. Of the available Blu-Ray releases done from the 4K restoration, Criterion's video has better color and detail than the MoC release, but MoC features dual audio in both Cantonese and English and more commentary tracks.
Directors: Hideaki Anno & Kazuya Tsurumaki & Mahiro Maeda & Masayuki
Japan King Records 4K Blu-ray
Directors: Hideaki Anno & Kazuya Tsurumaki & Mahiro Maeda & Masayuki
Japan King Records 4K Blu-ray
Directors: Masayuki & Hideaki Anno & Tsuyoshi Kaga & Shoichi Masuo & Ken Ando & Seiji Mizushima & Kazuya Tsurumaki & Naoyasu Habu & Hiroyuki Ishido & Tensai Okamura & Akira Takamura & Minoru Ohara & Masahiko Otsuka & Tetsuya Watanabe & Keiichi Sugiyama
Directors: Masayuki & Hideaki Anno & Tsuyoshi Kaga & Shoichi Masuo & Ken Ando & Seiji Mizushima & Kazuya Tsurumaki & Naoyasu Habu & Hiroyuki Ishido & Tensai Okamura & Akira Takamura & Minoru Ohara & Masahiko Otsuka & Tetsuya Watanabe & Keiichi Sugiyama
Director: Rob Cohen
Universal 4K Blu-ray 25th Anniversary Edition (with Dolby Vision), comparsion
Director: Rob Cohen
Universal 4K Blu-ray 25th Anniversary Edition (with Dolby Vision), comparsion
Directors: Brian Taylor & Mark Neveldine
Directors: Brian Taylor & Mark Neveldine
Director: Deran Sarafian
88 Films Blu-ray in November
MVD 4K Blu-ray beautiful remaster but with frame rate skips (encoding error)
Director: Deran Sarafian
88 Films Blu-ray in November
MVD 4K Blu-ray beautiful remaster but with frame rate skips (encoding error)
Director: McG
The UK cinema version is the most complete version of the film to date, featuring additional scenes of violence. Additional footage includes:
louder impact sounds during the fight scenes with added bass, particularly during the alley fight (the impact sounds are much tamer on all video and DVD releases)
the use of nunchaku during the closing fight on the castle (the fight sequence now has no footage of nunchaku)
an elbow-lock move performed during the above fight (this is now cut from all versions) It is assumed that this version is the cut of the film made before trims were made to it for the MPAA to secure a PG-13 rating.
The UK theatrical cut has not been released on home video to date.
Director: McG
The UK cinema version is the most complete version of the film to date, featuring additional scenes of violence. Additional footage includes:
louder impact sounds during the fight scenes with added bass, particularly during the alley fight (the impact sounds are much tamer on all video and DVD releases)
the use of nunchaku during the closing fight on the castle (the fight sequence now has no footage of nunchaku)
an elbow-lock move performed during the above fight (this is now cut from all versions) It is assumed that this version is the cut of the film made before trims were made to it for the MPAA to secure a PG-13 rating.
The UK theatrical cut has not been released on home video to date.
Director: Simon McQuoid
Director: Simon McQuoid
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