“When I was directing MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE and we were just starting on the conceptual ideas, John DeCuir (CLEOPATRA, KING & I, HELLO DOLLY, GHOSTBUSTERS) was the first person that signed on to initiate conceptual work. I had hoped to involve Ralph but he was signed on to Ron Howard’s production of COCOON at the time and was not available. Then about three weeks into MASTERS, Ralph called and said ‘Cocoon has been put on hold. Might be a week, might be a month, might not resume at all. Do you still want me to work on Masters as I am available, but if I get called back on Cocoon, I’ll have to honor that contract.’ So I said yes, come on board. So Ralph joined us but as it turned out only for about three weeks as Cocoon went back into active pre-production and he had to return. But in these three weeks, Ralph did some interesting design work. With his passing last week, I went and dug into my old MASTERS file and found these. I thought fans might like to see them as they have never appeared anywhere before, at least not to my knowledge.
SKETCHES – Masters of the Universe “Ralph generally did thumbnails first, to get a feeling for the world and the characters. These are some initial sketches for the “world” of Eternia and a few of the denizens there in. We talked early on about “robotic sentries” as a result of Mattel had acknowledged early on that He-Man “could never harm people” in order that drove the concept of making a military of “robot sentries” that will spark and explode when hit, quite than “die”. The feminine proven was a primary sketch concept of Evil-Lyn. There was an concept early on for a “cute robot” which I killed as there have been tons of cute robots in TV and movies then and I didn’t wish to have one more one.
VEHICLES – Masters of the Universe “In the first version of the script, and per Mattel, they had hoped to see a number of designs with “toyetic” prospects. Ralph began sketching some concepts based mostly upon some current Mattel designs for toys, after which began to veer extra into an strategy that based mostly the flying jets extra on bird-like shapes as evidenced within the middle of this set of sketches.
PLACES – Masters of the Universe “These are more thumbnails showing the early ideas for the opening sequence. We were to be on Eternia and I had wanted originally to give the sense of a true “world”. Various photographs had been going to indicate totally different facets and “lands” inside Eternia, all main in the end to GRAYSKULL CASTLE. In my thoughts, the concept of bringing the Eternians to Earth was a given attributable to price range and this was the script that I had signed on to make. But I had hoped in a sequel that we’d go to Eternia, and my thought was that the world of Eternia must be each bit as attention-grabbing as something in LORD OF THE RINGS (which means the books after all), or on this planet of the Star Wars motion pictures. But to be totally different, I used to be pushing extra in the direction of a Tolkien-esque world for Eternia.
BAD GUYS – Masters of the Universe “Once the Thumbnails were roughed out, Ralph and I would talk and he would take things to the next level. Here we have a look at Evil-Lyn (and several variations) and one of Skeletor. In this one, I was playing with the idea that SKELETOR might actually have a SKULL MASK that was fashioned to instill fear in people. Underneath, as with The Phantom of the Opera, and with Doctor Doom and later, Darth Vader, is a scarred human being whose face had been severely disfigured and scarred in some long-ago accident or battle. So this was a SKULL MASK with a helmet. Ultimately we decided this was too “Darth Vader” and likewise Mattel was of the opinion, in all probability rightly so, that Skeletor needed to be SKELETOR –which is to say a SKULL with talking talents on an in any other case completely wholesome male human physique.
GOOD GUYS – Masters of the Universe “Early character designs for He-Man, Man At Arms, Teela, and what would become GWILDOR, the character I created to take the place of ORKO. In the days before digital animation, the idea of bringing either ORKO or BATTLE CAT to life in a live action world would have meant stop motion animation, and a great deal of painstaking effects work. As this was being done on a limited budget ($17,000,000) the idea of having BATTLE CAT or ORKO was out of the question. But of course, by bringing them to Earth, we avoided any accusations that we had taken them out of the mythology – they just didn’t make the jump to Earth. In retrospect it would have been very cool to have Battle Cat in that opening confrontation in the Throne Room, and to have brought him back into it for the scene where our Earthling teenagers say goodbye and return home. Ralph was still working on that little cute robot which I kept telling him was a no-go. And these initial studies were based largely on the Toy designs, and I was pushing Ralph to move away from that and to begin inventing our own designs for the movie. “As we continued development on the project Ralph worked on some initial sketches for Castle Grayskull. In this case, I wanted the castle to be based on the iconic version from the animated show, but I wanted it grounded in reality as well. His initial thumbnails were very good.
Vehicle “He also was working on vehicle ideas- though these initial ideas — as you can tell — were based on the toys. I told Ralph that we needed to veer away from any toy-like vehicles. I wanted to create our own look and feel. Again, we were in a world where sword and sorcery fantasy mixed freely with high-tech futuristic technology. There were swords and blasters, and there were medieval castles side-by-side with high-tech vehicles. With this, we decided to take liberties, and yet find something new that would be based upon the world we were creating for the film and not on the pre-existing toys. We came up with a mix of unique flying warships and air discs.
“The entire finale sequence, when we brought Skeletor to Earth, was to be a massive “Air Chase” via the skies of our suburban metropolis. Key to this sequence, is the concept I had give you for the flying discs, and the “Air Centurions” that will be chasing He-Man although the streets, and over and across the rooftops. At this level I used to be nonetheless promoting this concept to the producers and to the studio – it wasn’t but within the script. But Ralph received what I wished straight away. Even in his earliest pen-and-ink thumbnails, there was a grace to the figures — he actually had a terrific sense of staging and design. Air Centurions had been an elite a part of Skeletor’s Army, and so they wanted to have a navy really feel about them. Ralph and I met a number of instances and talked the concept over, and at one level, Ralph was going to do some shade renderings of the Air Centurions in assault mode over a suburban city. But then he received the decision to return to Cocoon, and we by no means received these shade renderings, a lot to my disappointment. But we did get these very cool thumbnails and preliminary designs (see Post 2 of Ralph McQuarrie and MoTU), and later Bill Stout would use these for the premise of the ultimate model within the movie. The attention-grabbing factor about MASTERS is that we had John DeCuir, Sr. on initially, however then one other film, which he had signed on for, began up. And we had a break in our schedule from the time we began (in 1984) via the time we truly made the film (1986) — when the mission moved from Warner Brothers (the place Howard Kazanjian was going to be the producer) to Cannon. Once we had been totally funded, Bill Stout got here on as the important thing idea designer, transferring as much as grow to be the Production Designer early on. Bill introduced in Moebius for some ideas of key parts and costumes, and Claudio Mazzoli contributed a substantial amount of conceptual artwork as properly.
But Ralph was in there on the very starting. Working with Ralph, although temporary, was a pleasure. Thoroughly skilled and straightforward to work with, it was at all times a optimistic expertise after we met to debate sketches and conceptual concepts. In the three weeks that we had collectively on Masters, we had been capable of simply scratch the floor of issues. But there’s little doubt his sketches, so simple as they had been, helped me to promote the complete concept of the “sky chase” between the Air Centurions and He-Man. And it’s onerous to think about the film with out this thrilling chase sequence that gives the climax to the second act.
This final pencil drawing by Ralph is my favourite – a lone Air Centurion, on a glossy aero-dynamic disc, prepared for battle.
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