Jackson Beck said it best in the toon opening: [JacksonBeck]"G*I*Joe is the codename for AMERICA'S daring, highly-trained Special Mission Force. It's purpose: to defend human freedom against COBRA, a ruthless terrorist organization determined to rule the world!"[/JacksonBeck] All you need to know in two simple sentences, and none of this "international" crap. It won't necessarily make me boycott, but I'm slightly unhappy.
While I am in agreement over GI Joe being an American team if you want to stay most "pure" to the cartoon, think of the political reality of today. Thanks to various factors (be it media, the government, take your pick) the US armed forces are not viewed very positively in many parts of the world nowadays. If you start going on and on about an "American" military force, it doesn't have the same marketability as an "international" force. I'm just glad that it's being primarily led by Americans, keeping some of that core concept intact.
WTF happened to my post?! Anyway, I still would like to see this movie, but the whole nonsense about "men and women from different parts of the world" contradicts the concept of G.I. Joe being an all-American team. So what does the G.I. now stand for? Governments International? Gladiators Incorporated?
Not just the cartoon. I was more a fan of the comic myself, but even the comic was titled "GIJOE: A Real American Hero!" and the writer adhered strictly to that. Maybe, but the strategic reality today is the same as it has been since the turn of the last century: that the ones whining the loudest about America's military are usually the same ones who beg for its help every twenty years or so. Under those circumstances, I don't care if an all-american GIJOE is unmarketable in Belgium. Let Belgium get it's own special mission force. (A Real Belgian Hero!) Let Russia make an Oktober Guard movie. Better yet, if the force has to be international or our distinguished allies won't bite, there's a perfectly good alternative. Make a Rainbow Six movie! GIJOE is not Rainbow! Which is one reason why I'm not completely abandoning it.
If this had been the property of another country -- Japan, England, Russia, etc. -- and they globalized the concept for a movie, there would be a lot of people going stark raving mad about the change ruining the purity and integrity of the project.
Of course. There's patriotism tied up in this, and no matter how much "enlightened" people try, you are never going to completely suppress patriotism.
That happens all the time. Japanese and British media products are remade with American actors, in an American setting, in order to play to domestic audiences. This is an American concept that been globalized to play internationally. It is a broadening of the concept, and as such a good thing. Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
This isnt exactly the same though. one of the critical aspects of GI Joe is that it is an elite American strike force. That's why it was known as GI Joe Real American Heroes. Its not like The Office where you simply have a show about office workers. Whether they were american or not did not play a role in the concept behind the show. As mentioned up thread, its more like making the the last samurai in The Last Samurai a white dude from America. Yeah, you can do it but it doesnt mean its a good idea.
Tom Cruise was not the last samurai. The title of the movie referred to Ken Watanabe's character. This is more along the lines of the 9/11 firefighter statue they were going to make, where the real firefighters depicted were white but some people thought it'd be a great idea to make them multicultural instead.
if they wanted a truly international strike team movie, they should've gone with Action Force who's line up includes Germans, Brits, a Kiwi (called Kiwi), an Arab, a Mexican, an Argentinian, an Icelander, a Belgian, a Frenchman, a Russian and several Brits and Yanks. i'm actually giving serious thought to writing that movie and seeing if i can flog it to Working Title...
For other countries' audiences, but I would think you wouldn't go out of the way to piss off the audience in it's country of origin.
Awww, man. Beat me to it. Oh, well. I'll watch it for Scarlett and cool Cobra gear. Snake Eyes bores me though. If it's the Rise of Cobra, why is Snake Eyes the only thing on the poster? Fanboys. Loser fanboys is why. EDIT: Jumping on the "International Strikeforce Bullshit" *Checks his hundreds of GI Joe figs* Hmmm...all members of the US Armed Forces. *Double checks the more numerous Cobra guys* Interesting...lots of international mercenaries. I'm sensing something...it's almost as if the premise of GI Joe is American Military badassery versus International Terrorism. America's the international community's whipping boy until some psycho dictator decides he wants to rule the world or genocide his own people, then it's all "Where's America? Why aren't the Americans stepping up and doing anything? The Americans are all rich and fat. They should spend their treasure and spill their blood to save the rest of the world. It's the least they can do since their country isn't a shithole like 2/3 of ours are." Seriously, whose first response to impending doom is "Call the French!" "Brazil will save us" "Trouble in Denmark, get the Chinese on the phone" or "If Only the Japanese were here!" What? No "Thank God, the Russians are coming"? The strategic reality of the world is that most countries don't have the resources for a GI JOE operation or the balls to use one if they did. Of those that do, most you don't want anywhere near you to begin with. That leaves the US and the UK (and associated nations like Australia and Canada) to break out the mop when the shit hits the fan. I can see these guys joining up for some JOE special ops, but the Rainbow Coalition the movie people are going for here is stupid.
WRONG! Big Ben is from the SAS and Boomerang is Australian. PLUS there's a load of Russian Oktober Guard figures.
I always assumed that the "Samurai" of the title was plural, which would also make sense. In any case, I'm British, fairly liberal, and I've had some criticisms of American foreign policy and whatnot recently, but I'm still pissed off about them mucking up GI-Joe. Even without the "Real American Hero" tagline, there's still no more American sounding name for a force than GI-Joe. The history of the phrase should never be ignored, it just makes a movie with an already silly premise (no bad thing) more ridiculous.
I can't be the only one who really doesn't give a damn about G.I. JOE being turned into an international unit. And I agree with Bishbot, I always interpreted The Last Samurai to be Katsumoto and his clan, not just Katsumoto, and definitely not Algren.
Some of the changes seem a bit odd to me - Duke water boarding prisoners, a french Joe code-named "cynical smoker" who doesn't do anything but turns up at the end demanding a medal, Ace wiping out half the joes in a friendly fire incident... It looks ok but it's no Team America.
Hey, would you look at that. A genre film with 'Rise Of' in the title; This thing has originality written all over it. Maybe Cobra can get together with The Lycans, The Machines, and The Silver Surfer for a little party. I think they're serving cake as we speak, down in the I don't have a frickin' original idea in my wallet sized brain pavilion.
Wow, the hypocrisy in this thread reeks like no other. "OMG! They changed the wording on GI JOE! OMG! IT SUCKS! THEY WENT INTERNATIONAL" "Holy shit, Transformers they changed everything! OMG! IT ROCKED"
Transformers has gone through many many changes over the last 25 years. Just at a rough count I can come up with ten different Transformers universes, including the movieverse. I'm not an expert on GI-Joe, but I know a fair bit, and it doesn't seem to have been anywhere near as mutable, its not really surprising that people are pissed.