Masters of the Universe (1987)

Costume Design by: Julie Weiss ( notable efforts: Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (1983), Wicked Stepmother (1989), Twelve Monkeys (1995), Frida (2002), Blades of Glory (2007), Hitchcock (2012) )

The Cannon Group's infamously cheesy attempt to ride on Star Wars' fame by making a movie on a toy line, Masters of the Universe for sure occupies a similar niche as most of the films deemed to be 'Star Wars ripoffs', thought also does feel a little bit like the famous Flash Gordon movie albeit without as much of the humor. In a similar manner to Star Wars, the costumes were based mostly on production artwork, mostly by the renowned William Stout, and had to be realized on-screen by costume designer Julie Weiss. The costume for He-Man (Dolph Lundgren) isn't really worth covering because, well, it's not much of a costume is it, whilst Man at Arms (Jon Cypher) wears a rather dull armored getup similar to the ones sported by many a generic space soldier, and there's some ugly gnome in a gown. It is Teela (Chelsea Field) who wears the most distinctive costume of the main cast, wearing a grey spandex bodysuit with an ornate collar and straps around it - I wonder if this wasn't actually inspired by Ralph McQuarrie's costume sketches for Princess Leia in the original Star Wars, mind.

More striking however, is the dress worn by the Sorceress (Christine Pickles), which is a classic 'fantasy' queen design, being a white and silver dress with streamers of fabric running down, raised shoulders, and of course a headdress crown adorned with several shards to resemble a crystal - feels remniscient of most popular depictions of the Snow Queen of the Hans Christian Anderson fairytale, and similar archetypes.

The the rest of the more striking costumes of the film are worn by the villains, with a highlight being Evil-Lyn's (Meg Foster) dress, consisting of a patterned bodysuit of a slightly translucent material being worn under a leather skirt and golden armor, worn with a large cape with golden plates fixed to the shoulders - this is completed with a necklace of dark red crystal beads, and an ornate golden headdress.

Under Evil-Lyn's command are several mercenaries and soldiers, though out of all of them the only one that I feel is worthy of inclusion is Karg (Robert Towers), who sports a silver padded jumpsuit with golden lined chest armor and wristguards, but the weirdest detail to this costume has to be the Tudor ruff collar worn over the armor, as well as the short furred cape! The other minions in the film aren't really worth covering in my opinion - Saurod and Beast Man are more in the realm of creature effects, whilst Blade (Anthony De Longis) just wears a fairly generic chainmail vest (that was reused in the infamous Albert Pyun scifi action film Cyborg, a few years later!) and armor pads, and the various soldiers are just in jet-black armor that feels like a rehash of the various armored troopers of Star Wars.

Perhaps the most infamous aspect of the film is Skeletor (Frank Lagella), whose hammy performance and prosthetic makeup alone push an already cheesy film into deeply camp territory - Skeletor's costume is ultimately another spandex bodysuit with chest armor and a leather kilt-like garment worn over it. It is the kilt and armor that especially are the highlight, with the former having several square segments stuck on, as well as a pair of leather straps trailing down to the feet and also having similar segments attached to it.

Much more striking is the outfit briefly worn in the movie's finale, when Skeletor has became a god, and as such his costume changes from its glossy black colour scheme to being a shining gold - but is otherwise the same costume minus the addition of a wonderfully ornate helmet. A lot of recent scifi and fantasy costume design tries so badly to be 'detailed' and instead ends up fiddly and overdesigned, but to me this helmet really is over the top without being messy - but again this is personal preference! Sadly, I could not find a higher resolution image of the costume as it appears today, so it's just the screenshots of its brief appearance. Also, this wouldn't be the only time costume designer Julie Weiss worked with an all-gold costume...