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Easter Eggs You Missed In The Masters Of The Universe Trailer

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published

The first Masters of the Universe trailer just dropped, giving fans a chance to see He-Man and his friends in all their live-action glory. So far, most reactions have discussed the solid effects, inspired casting (Idris Elba as Man-at-Arms!), and cool designs (miraculously, Skeletor actually looks like his cartoon counterpart). Fans have also noted that the upcoming film has been inspired by superhero films such as Thor: Ragnarok and Superman (2026).

But as an ‘80s-born manchild with a He-Man themed home office, I wanted to focus on something a little different: the Easter eggs! For fans with long memories, this trailer is filled with tributes to the original toys and He-Man’s tangled lore. If you’d like to “have the power” to appreciate all the nerdy nods and heroic homages, keep reading to discover the coolest Easter eggs in Masters of the Universe! 

Sorceress Hiding In Plain Sight

At the beginning of the trailer, we see a colorful bird flying over the fantasy world of Eternia. She pops up again later, still soaring over everything and everyone. Considering how much of this trailer focuses on swords and sorcery, you might be wondering why the heck this bird (and not even, like, a robot bird) is featured so prominently.

The answer is that this isn’t just any bird: that’s the Sorceress, who (at least, in the original Masters of the Universe cartoon) is a mystical guardian of Castle Grayskull and can transform herself into a falcon at will. She’s a major part of early franchise lore and, in the earlier cartoon, the secret mother of Teela. When she’s not in bird form, the Sorceress is played by Morena Baccarin, who (after starring in both Deadpool and Gotham) is no stranger to colorful genre storytelling.

A Shared Origin Story

One major lore change the Masters of the Universe trailer makes is making He-Man a native Eternian who, Superman-style, is sent to Earth for his own protection. This never happened in the original cartoon, although that show did reveal that He-Man’s mother was originally from Earth. If the movie doesn’t change this fact, then it makes a lot of sense that she would send her son to a familiar place where he could get a cushy email job instead of fighting for his life in brutal attacks on the palace.

Speaking of which, the trailer highly implies that the violent attacks against the royal kingdom we see in flashback are what cause Marlena to send her son to Earth. We never see who is leading these attacks, but chances are that it is Skeletor; in the 2002 animated revival, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, we see that Skeletor was once a normal man (albeit a blue one) named Keldor who attacked the palace and tried to throw acid at Captain Randor. The future king deflected the attack, and the acid horribly disfigured Keldor, transforming him into an evil skeleton man.

This is presumably why they cast Jared Leto as this villain: to show him as the handsome Keldor before he is transformed into a ghoulish monster. My theory is that he is leading the attack in the trailer that causes Marlena to exile Adam to Earth and that he will (as in the cartoon) get disfigured during the attack. In this way, the film will link the origins of He-Man and Skeletor together in a way the franchise has never done before.

The Big Deal About Big Jim

One fun detail we learn about He-Man’s time on Earth is that he becomes a real geek who hyperfocuses on swords and sorcery. This is presumably why he ends up at a nerdy toy store, tugging on a sword held by a statue of a barbarian. While that statue is a cool Easter egg unto itself (more on this in a minute), there’s something fairly innocuous hiding in the background: a Big Jim toy box.

Big Jim is important to the history of He-Man because Mattel ultimately reworked some of these older toy designs for their own Masters of the Universe figures. The most famous example of this is that Battle Cat (He-Man’s faithful green tiger) was originally created from a Big Jim tiger mold. By including this box in the background of a pivotal scene, the Masters of the Universe movie honors the original Mattel toys that helped to first bring He-Man to life.

He-Man Meets His Own Toy

The goofiest moment in the Masters of the Universe trailer is when He-Man is trying to remove his own Power Sword from the hands of a life-size barbarian statue. Most casual viewers of this trailer have simply assumed that this is supposed to be a statue of Conan the Barbarian. However, this is actually a statue of Vikor, a different character created by original He-Man designer Mark Taylor.

When Taylor was first figuring out He-Man’s design, he created this character as part of his concept art. Obviously, Mattel went with one of Taylor’s other ideas for their final He-Man design, but they eventually turned the earlier design into a character named Vikor, who was reimagined as an earlier protector of the Power Sword. Incidentally, the final He-Man design was based on Taylor’s concept for a figure named Torak; look closely and you can actually see the “Torak” name hidden in the trailer’s toy shop scene!

A Very Special Release Date

The final Easter egg in the Masters of the Universe trailer is hidden in the last place you’d think to look: the release date. The film is set to premiere on June 5, which seems ideal for a nostalgic summer blockbuster. Therefore, casual fans had no real reason to believe that this date had any special significance. 

However, June 5th also happens to be the birthday of Mark Taylor, the aforementioned designer who created He-Man’s iconic look. Taylor had no way of knowing it at the time, but his brilliant design ended up changing the landscape of both pop culture and toy history. He sadly passed away in 2021, but the upcoming Masters of the Universe movie will release on what would have been his 85th birthday, helping to honor the legacy of He-Man’s most important creator.


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Microsoft Office 2024 for Mac and PC gets smarter with AI, now 60% off

TL;DR: Microsoft Office 2024 Home & Business for Mac or PC is on sale for $99.97 through March 1 at 11:59 p.m. PT, offering 60% off Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and more.


$99.97

$249.99
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If your work revolves around documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and email, Microsoft Office 2024 Home & Business brings those core tools together with updated features designed to keep everyday tasks moving efficiently. The lifetime license for Mac or PC is priced at $99.97, representing a 60% discount off the regular price, and ends on March 1 at 11:59 p.m. PT.

Included are Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook — the familiar lineup, installed directly on your device for both online and offline use. Office 2024 brings performance improvements across the whole software. In Excel, for example, working with large datasets or handling multiple workbooks is quicker and more reliable. For anyone who routinely works with numbers or builds reports, this added speed can make daily tasks less tedious.

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Content creation tools have also been refreshed. PowerPoint now supports recording presentations with voice narration, video, and closed captions, which is a plus for remote meetings, online classes, or sharing presentations after the fact. Word adds Focus Mode to help reduce distractions as you write, alongside AI-powered suggestions to sharpen up your prose. Built-in research features keep citations and references at your fingertips, so you can stay in the zone without switching tabs.

Microsoft’s Fluent Design system brings Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook a cohesive look and feel. Touch and pen support is now smoother on tablets and convertibles, and customizable templates and themes make it easy to create polished work without a designer’s eye.

Collaboration tools are built in as well. Real-time co-authoring allows multiple people to work on the same file simultaneously, with chat, comments, and version history helping track changes and feedback. Deeper integration with Microsoft Teams centralizes file sharing and communication within the Office environment.

Microsoft Office 2024 Home & Business is designed for users who already rely on Microsoft’s core apps and want updated features without changing how they work. For $99.97 through March 1 at 11:59 p.m. PT, the current deal makes it easier to step into the latest version at a lower cost, especially if those tools are already part of your daily routine.

StackSocial prices subject to change.

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Super Bowl LX performers: Who is singing the anthems

The Super Bowl LX halftime show featuring Bad Bunny and the Super Bowl pre-show featuring Green Day may be taking up all the attention when it comes to Super Bowl performances — and rightfully so! Everyone is looking forward to what the internationally known artists will do or say regarding President Trump and ICE.

However, other musical artists are performing at this year’s Super Bowl as well.

Charlie Puth to sing national anthem

Kicking the show off with the U.S. national anthem “The Star-Spangled Banner” is the Grammy-nominated singer Charlie Puth. Puth’s debut single, “Marvin Gaye,” featuring Meghan Trainor, was a Billboard chart hit upon its 2015 release. Puth has since had other hits, including “We Don’t Talk Anymore (feat. Selena Gomez),” “Attention,” and “Nothing But Trouble.”

Brandi Carlile to perform patriotic song

Next up, singing “America the Beautiful” is singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile. Carlile has a whopping 11 Grammys and two Emmy awards. Her biggest hit was 2007’s “The Story,” but she is also known for songs like “Broken Horses” and “The Joke.”

Coco Jones to sing Black national anthem

Grammy Award-winning R&B artist Coco Jones will sing “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” also known as the Black national anthem. “Lift Every Voice and Sing” has become a Super Bowl staple since 2021, when Alicia Keys performed it at the event. Singer and actress Ledisi performed the song at last year’s game.

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How A Star Wars Set Malfunction Caused A Cast Member To Meet Jesus

By Chris Snellgrove
| Updated

Would you believe that arguably the most recognizable figure in the entire Star Wars franchise once ran into Jesus? This was no Jedi, although it’s admittedly fun to imagine what the Son of God might have had to say to someone else who could come back from the dead as a powerful ghost. No, the Star Wars character in question was R2-D2, and he had an accidental meeting with the divine when a remote control malfunction sent him to the set of Franco Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth tv movie!

A long time ago (1977, to be precise), in a desert far, far away (Tunisia), two very different filmmakers were working on two very different projects. Franco Zeffirelli (best known for his Oscar-nominated Romeo and Juliet) was working on Jesus of Nazareth, which blended the four Gospels of the biblical New Testament into a single TV movie. Meanwhile, fresh off the success of American Graffiti, rebel filmmaker George Lucas was working on Star Wars, a movie that would effectively define his life while reshaping pop culture history as we know it.

Meeting The Maker

Aside from the involvement of James Earl Jones, these projects didn’t have much in common, and Lucas and Zeffirelli generally stayed out of each other’s way despite their sets neighboring one another. That all changed thanks to a scene requiring R2-D2 to be piloted using a remote control. While actor Kenny Baker was often inside the droid for scenes where R2 had to stay relatively still, there were some scenes in which George Lucas simply needed to move the little astromech from Point A to Point B.

In this case, Lucas intended for R2-D2 to exit a scene by rolling out from behind a sand dune. To do this, they intended to use a remote control, but the unit malfunctioned. Therefore, instead of stopping where the filmmakers intended, R2 just kept going until (as if guided by a higher power) he ended up on the set of Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth

Fortunately, the runaway astromech didn’t cause any damage to the set of the Jesus TV movie, something that we can only assume would be some kind of sin. These days, the whole incident has become a bit of amusing trivia for Star Wars fans to share among themselves. At the time, though, R2 encountering a savior from heaven was just one more reason that filming this sci-fi blockbuster had become a living hell. 

When Droids Move In Mysterious Ways

Reportedly, this is one of many incidents in which the droids weren’t doing exactly what the filmmakers needed them to do. On top of that, the droids were powered by exotic batteries that were hard to replace, and those batteries were soon drained in the hot Tunisian sun. Making matters worse, the truck storing R2-D2 and other droids once caught fire, damaging valuable props and costing George Lucas money he couldn’t really afford to spend.

Fortunately, it all worked out: after all these onset issues, Star Wars became one of the most successful films ever made. There are many reasons for this, including its perfect cast, killer effects, and charming story. However, we can’t discount the possibility that the movie’s success is a product of divine intervention; after all, his excursion to meet Jesus proves R2-D2 is a droid with friends in very high places!


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