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Why the hell is Skeletor so hard to write for?

Skeletor is one of, if not the easiest villains in fiction to get right. He’s evil. That’s it. His original toy’s card lists him as “lord of destruction”. He wants to conquer Eternia. He’s a jerk to everybody. He’s a villain from a kids show based on a kids toyline. Nobody needed to give him any further backstory like being Randor’s brother (which goes against the original lore seen above from the old illustrated booklets the minicomics supposedly were based on), he doesn’t need to be Loki with a racism twist, and we don’t need to know about his skull-shaped family back home. Other villains evolved with stronger histories. Even Cobra Commander did back in the 1980s with his origin story in G.I. Joe: The Movie because I’m ignoring the “used car salesman” backstory from the comics. Skeletor does not need it.

The original cartoon bible suggested that Skeletor was one of the other astronauts with Marlena from Earth that crashed on Eternia. This would not be used in the final product and we’re better off for it. 2003’s reimagine just had Keldor as someone who wanted the power of the Elders, got acid on his face that he meant for Randor, went to Hordak and became the Skeletor we know…and he still wasn’t sympathetic. (That version of Evil-Lyn was because she loved Keldor while Skeletor was kind of nuts.) He brought it upon himself and suffered for it. Easy, simple, done, now let’s watch him scheme to take over Castle Grayskull. Between DC Comics and Netflix this wasn’t enough, even though it was just fine for decades. It seems every writer these days needs every minor detail explained. Why is Skeletor evil? Why does he hate Randor? What is his favorite brand of toothpaste? Who cares?

So now we have a new live-action movie that is partly set on Eternia (ugh) and will bring back Skeletor. The movie is directed by Travis Knight, who made the GOOD Transformers live-action movie, Bumblebee. Of course, that’s good by comparison. The movie still had flaws, like playing up how The 80s it was. Still, I want to trust him after seeing the end result. In a recent interview with Empire, of which a snippet is available online, Knight discusses his approach to Skeletor and the Masters Of The Universe movie in general. There are some good things and one line that in our modern times has fans understandably concerned.

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