As the documentary points out, 85 percent of all silent pictures are gone forever because of neglect, abuse, and improper storage of original prints. This film stresses the importance of saving these and more recent films as cultural documents that have become part of our shared history. It also takes the viewer through the painstaking process of film restoration, and highlights some of the organizations and individuals who are spear-heading this movement.

The world of Eternia in the aftermath of Skeletor's war on Castle Grayskull, which he has won after seizing Grayskull and the surrounding city using a cosmic key developed by the locksmith Gwildor. The Sorceress is now Skeletor's prisoner and he begins to drain her life-force as he waits for the moon of Eternia to align with the Great Eye of the Universe that will bestow god-like power upon him.