YMMV / The Blade Master

• Ass Pull: During the climax, the Mentor springs the idea of Zor being tried by the high court of an international league that hasn't been mentioned or evidenced at all up to that point, to keep Ator from killing Zor at the last minute simply because he's been disarmed. And then Thong just kills him anyway when Zor tries to stab Ator in the back.
• Fashion-Victim Villain: Zor. Just look at that helmet. That the version Joel wears for the one host segment really looks no different says it all.
• Foe Yay Shipping: Joel & The Bots lampshade a case between Zor and Ator in the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode.
• Narm:
  • Ator's attempt at expressing dismay and borderline whiny Big "NO!" and Mila's "Grrr!" face as they watch the village being destroyed.
  • Ator flying. And he's flying over a modern-day city in one shot. While it could be argued that this is a post-apocalyptic setting and those are remnants of our society... nobody working on the movie probably thought about it all that much, so almost certainly not.
• Padding: Ator takes his sweet time to get to Zor's fortress with the hang glider.
• Sequel Displacement: Thanks to the Cave Dwellers version being featured in an early and very popular episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, most people are only familiar with this single film from the entire series.
• Signature Scene: Ator flying with the anachronistic hang glider is the most infamous part of the film.
• Special Effects Failure:
  • The over the top meat slammer sound effects of Zor pounding on the Great One, the hubcap armor, the dark age Soloflex, the tire tracks in the primaeval landscape...
  • The stupid giant snake is an obvious (and cheesy) velour puppet, which Ator "wrestles" in similar fashion to that Bela Lugosi/giant octopus bout in Bride of the Monster.
    Crow: It's the Mother-Loving King of all Sock Puppets!
• Stock Footage Failure: The scene of the geometric nucleus blowing up is just footage of an atomic bomb test.
• Strangled by the Red String: The film seems desperate to shoehorn in the "Hero leaves his love behind to continue Walking the Earth" ending common in '80s Sword and Sandal flicks between Ator and Mila, even though there's almost nothing in the entire rest of the movie to suggest there's been any sort of romantic attraction brewing between the two. If anything, it's completely one-sided. Mila has a crush on Ator but Ator is apparently a Celibate Hero who gently and politely turns her down early on.

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