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Aug 12, 2023

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Take a journey to Eternia as we explore the iconic settings, ecosystems, and unused concept art from the 1987 movie that could be used in a new film. With Barbie crossing a billion dollars at the

Take a journey to Eternia as we explore the iconic settings, ecosystems, and unused concept art from the 1987 movie that could be used in a new film.

With Barbie crossing a billion dollars at the global box office and Netflix pulling the cord on their attempt at a He-Man movie, Mattel's Masters of the Universe license is on the market and is the hottest free agent in Hollywood. A theatrical He-Man movie seems certain to get a greenlight. We previously looked at the potential of using rejected He-Man designs by Moebius and William Stout from the 1987 movie for a new movie. In this feature, we dive into the science of Eternia and look at more unused concept art from William Stout and others. The original film cut most of Eternia from the plot due to a tight budget. The story included Snake Mountain, but the stronghold of Skeletor's forces did not even appear as a matte painting (which is how Grayskull's exterior was realized). The movie moved the adventure to Earth, and the writing decision ultimately sabotaged the movie at the box office. No discussion among fans for the last three decades has gone without mentioning the setting ruining the movie. With the movie's failure at the box office, the company that produced it, Cannon Films, took a huge hit, and by 1994, was no more.

In 1987's Masters of the Universe, the prologue describes Eternia as located at the center of the universe. The original toyline comics portray it as a post-apocalyptic wasteland – a world that was once advanced but has fallen into a dark age after war. That is why we find He-Man as a barbarian before he was given the Sword of Grayskull in the comics (as opposed to being Prince Adam as he was in the 1980s cartoon show).

Bringing the world of Eternia to life for a new movie means building a world similar to what J.R.R. Tolkien did for The Lord of the Rings. The artists, screenwriter, and director have to make Eternia a place with a history, varied ecosystems, and multiple civilizations that have settled on the world. They have to begin with establishing the design of this star system and planet type, which is unique from any of the iconic planets in Star Trek, Star Wars, Dune, or Alien.

Eternia is named so because it is a planet with a day side and a night side. One side always faces its star, and the other side is either in darkness or twilight. This most likely means the planet is tidally locked to a red or orange dwarf star. The majority of stars (about 76%) in our galaxy are red dwarfs. Our planet and star type are rare in our galaxy. Red and orange dwarfs are cooler than our star, and their habitable zones are closer. If a tidally locked planet is too close, it is scorched, and if it is too far away, the day side does not exchange enough heat with the dark side, and the dark side freezes, creating what is called an eyeball planet.

With Eternia facing its star eternally on one side, the continent and ocean placements are key to transferring hot and cool air between the hemispheres. We will assume there is an ocean at the sub-solar point, the region centered with the star at the equator. This position, across the equator of the day side, would supercharge the water with heat to carry to the dark side, and it would generate cloud systems for solar coverage and rain in the regions around the sub-solar point, making the landscape more forgiving.

Simulations predict that a planet with one side facing the sun will be dominated by desert on the day-side. We have seen desert planets with Tatooine and Arrakis. Tatooine was filmed in Tunisia, and the 2021 Dune filming locations include Abu Dhabi and Jordan. The Middle East or Australia would be the ideal locations for filming a new Masters of the Universe. The 1987 movie was filmed in the deserts of California, but the deserts of Eternia need to be more alien. CGI can be used to augment the horizon and add structures like Eternos, the human capital.

Eternos, is the human city on the day side, which is the home of the royal family. If Eternia is written as a dystopia, Eternos will be an abandoned location or overtaken by Skeletor’s forces, and the humans would be exiled into the desert. Eternos is a city built on top of a steep, flat-top mountain rising out of the sand like an island. The mountain may have been an island in a sea that has dried up.

The animal, plant, and fungal life of Eternia would be starkly different on the two sides of the planet; like two alien worlds and ecosystems existing on one planet. Plants may have evolved umbrella-like canopies, which protect the organisms from the rays and allow less light to reach the ground. The softer, indirect light that bounces from the ground would feed the plants. Eternia's trees, as with trees on Earth, could alter the climate by providing shade, lowering the temperature, increasing humidity levels, and encouraging rain.

The dark side would not be entirely night. There would be a ring of eternal twilight known as the terminator, where the star is below the horizon but its light bounces off the sky. If Eternia is about the same size as Earth, the twilight region would reach from 0-18 degrees beyond the horizon. One longitudinal degree is equal to 60 nautical miles. The terminator would extend about a thousand nautical miles beyond the golden hour all around the planet. Only about 40 percent of the planet would exist in true night.

Animals on the dark side would have evolved to see at night or use echolocation. Like deep-sea organisms, which live in a world of total darkness, some animals will have evolved to use bioluminescence. The rivers flowing around Snake Mountain, which is located on the dark side, might glow pink because of bioluminescent plankton.

Snake Mountain is a castle built by the snake-men on the dark side of Eternia in ages past. Skeletor has since claimed Snake Mountain as his fortress. It features a stone snake, carved from the mountain, spiraling up the exterior of the mountain. The only concept art of Snake Mountain from the 1987 film available is William Stout’s design of the doors to the caverns of Snake Mountain. There is a Mordor-like wall on the right side of the art. In the center are the doors, with figures beneath for scale. The doors have serpents with looping bodies engraved in them. On the left side of the art, there is a towering stone statue of a snake-man (king?), with a tail wrapped around the figure.

This ancient castle is where the power of Grayskull resides. It always appears in dusk or twilight lighting in the cartoons, and its location must be within the twilight regions. It either remains hidden from Skeletor or he is unable to enter it because of the Sorceress. In the 1987 film, Skeletor has defeated the humans and takes control of Grayskull. The movie’s castle is like a skyscraper rising above the desert. The cartoon Grayskull is primitive and smaller. The castle in the cartoon is built from the remains of an unidentified, Lovecraftian titan. The skull is the skull of the beast, and the castle is held aloft by the insect-like legs of the creature's fossilized corpse. Across the castle's back, you can see the vertebrae of the beast.

Related: He-Man: Unused Moebius Art Designs That Could be Resurrected for a New Masters of the Universe Movie

In the unused art above by Stout, unlike the design that was adapted on film, the skull dominates the structure like in the cartoon and looms over the entrance. The structure is an ancient stone castle, where the Grayskull of the movie is designed to appear Star Wars-like and sci-fi. Stout’s design incorporates the turrets on each side of the skull. Here, the crenelations of the turrets are lit with fires, and blue smoke rises from them, flowing across the orbital sockets and crown of the skull.

A second design by Stout for Grayskull is seen in the feature image for this article. This version is set at a medium-wide shot, showing the whole structure. Fog or clouds (it may be on a mountaintop, as in the remaining designs below) wrap around its base. Here, the skull is set atop a ziggurat-like temple.

This unused Grayskull design sets the castle in the middle of a valley, surrounded by a city, whose lights glimmer below it. The castle is built on a mountain, combining Grayskull and Eternos, and looks like advanced architecture, like the castle that was chosen for the movie. There are many spires that resemble skyscrapers, and lights dot the spires.

In this piece, Grayskull is again set atop a mountain. In this version, by David Negron, the castle looks more primitive, but it overlooks a modern cityscape below, which could have been the film’s original version of Eternos. The surface we see at the foot of the mountain is the tops of skyscrapers. Clouds swirl through the city and around the mountain. There is no date for this piece, but it seems to have been done early in production, before Stout came on to lead conceptual designs for sets and costumes, and this could be a pre-visualization painting for helping the film get green-lit or financing, as it features the logo for the franchise above Castle Grayskull.

True to the producers’ aim to make the movie like Star Wars, famed Star Wars artist, Ralph McQuarrie was hired early in pre-production in 1984 to design vehicles, landscapes, and characters for the live-action movie that would not release in theaters for three years. McQuarrie’s Grayskull designs did not make it into the film that eventually took form. On this page are three rough sketches of Grayskull. The first, on the top left, is either a rearview of the castle or a brainstorming sketch without the skull motif. The designs, if taken to completion, would have looked like they came straight out of Star Wars.

In this pencil sketch, the castle is designed to be a traditional European castle with stone walls and a drawbridge. The turrets feature veins beneath their tops. The skull is dwarfed by the body of the castle. Two figures are drawn on the bridge for scale. The windows are tall and narrow, and the windows are placed high on the walls. The narrow windows and placement, with the flat exterior walls, give this design a colder, monolithic look, like a castle in Mordor.

Claudio Mazzoli’s throne room for Grayskull is close to what was used on film. The long corridor is lined with columns. Between the staircases on each side of the room are gargoyle faces on the walls. The floor features gold rings, and the throne sits before a large window with a crystal over the throne, which is seen in greater detail in the next piece. In the final design in the 1987 movie, the floors of the throne room have large openings that lead to the caverns beneath Grayskull, and the pillars on each side of the hall are replaced by statues. The window in the movie, behind the throne, is closed until the climax, when it opens and Skeletor absorbs the power of Grayskull.

Skeletor sits on the throne, with a small set of stairs below. A large crystal stands over Skeletor, between the throne and the circular window. Inside the crystal is a figure. This was originally intended to be how the imprisonment of the Sorceress was to be portrayed in the film. The window behind the throne, divided into sections, gives the art more Star Wars vibes. The circular window is almost exactly like the window behind Darth Sidious' throne on the Death Star in Return of the Jedi.

Related: The Most Underrated Fantasy Movies from the 80s, Ranked

The producers of Masters of the Universe clearly wanted to copy Star Wars’ homework, despite pushback from William Stout. This piece by Stout, from the ending celebration, resembles the end celebration scene from A New Hope, with the Sorceress standing on a staircase waiting for the heroes to approach and receive their recognition. The celebration was designed to be a colorful scene with flowers or confetti scattered on the ground and birds flying through the open-air structure. The location is surrounded by large columns. Between the columns, in the background, there appear to be fountains.

The Avions are an airborne civilization living in the mountains, likely in the permanent golden hour region. Living in the mountains provides the Avions protection from invasion, and the elevation means that the temperature is lower. The mountains also create a shadow on the far side, giving them a home that has both daylight and darkness. The Avions wear dark glasses, suggesting the daylight is harsh on their eyes. They use jetpacks for propulsion and steer themselves in flight with wings that unfold from their arms.

Like the Avions, the Andreenids live in the mountains of Eternia. The Andreenids are bee-like insectoids that live in a queen-based society. The Andreenids are able to live in the daylight region, creating hives within the mountains. Like termite mounds, the Andreenid hives would use the physics of updraft to cool their hives. The hot air at the base of the mountains would be drawn into channels that carry it through the mountain, pulled up to the peaks and out chimneys by the difference in temperature.

Like the planet Naboo, Eternia has a civilization that lives underwater. The Aquaticans are led by Skeletor’s ally, Mer-Man (expect these characters to have actual names in the movie, like Cobra Khan being renamed Saurod in the 1987 movie). We can infer from Mer-Man’s armor and weapons that the Aquaticans are a low-tech civilization like the Andreenids and utilize natural materials to build or grow their dwellings. Like the Gungans of Naboo, the Aquaticans are amphibious and live in a city with dry interiors that are filled with air.

To get to Grayskull in the dark region, one must pass through the Evergreen Forest. Given Grayskull's location within the twilight region, the Evergreen Forest must exist in both the golden hour zone and the twilight zone. The plants in the darker regions of Eternia might have red or green-mustard foliage (like kelp) due to the lower amount of light. The Evergreen Forest is home to one of Eternia’s most mythical beings, the Moss Man. Similar to our myths of the Green Man, Eternia’s plant-man is like a forest spirit that guards the Evergreen Forest.