along with a skeleton crew with the set's lighting made dark to emphasize the actors' presence. Mattel was also initially very controlling over how He-Man was depicted in the film, insisting that the character could not appear doing anything morally wrong (such as swearing or killing). Sales of He-Man toys dipped in the middle of production, after which Goddard noted that Mattel allowed the director to have more liberties with the character. During filming, Mattel held a contest for children for a chance to appear in the film. Richard Szponder won the competition, but his victory was announced as filming was nearing completion. All the scenes taking place on Earth had been shot, so Goddard cast him as the minion character Pigboy who holds Skeletor's staff as he returns to Grayskull. Two sound stages needed to be connected to film the interior of Castle Grayskull, with matte paintings filling in the pits of the central walk-way. Goddard initially planned to have Lundgren's dialogue dubbed over by another actor but eventually Lundgren learned his lines well enough that he decided against it. Jack Kirby inspiration Comic book writer/artist John Byrne compared the film to Jack Kirby's comic book metaseries Fourth World, stating in Comic Shop News #497: Director Gary Goddard clarified this in a letter appearing in John Byrne's Next Men #26, in which he stated: Brian Cronin, author of the "Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed" column, concludes that "the film itself was not intended to be literally a reworked Fourth World, although the intent WAS to make the film a tribute to Jack Kirby—just a tribute to ALL of his work, not just the Fourth World." Music Soundtrack The musical score of Masters of the Universe was composed by Bill Conti. It was recorded by several European orchestras, chiefly the Graunke Orchestra of Munich (the only one to be credited on the soundtrack album) and conducted by a number of conductors, chiefly Bruce Miller and Harry Rabinowitz (Rabinowitz received sole credit). Conti did not conduct his score because it could not be recorded in the United States as "there was a musicians strike or something like that…So it went to various places." He and the score mixer Dan Wallin assembled the score from the various recorded takes, because there were problems with the orchestral performances ("We didn't have anything that went from beginning to end without a problem"). The soundtrack