This is a new animated series on The Hub (formerly Discovery Kids, now a Hasbro channel) and I think it's been kind of interesting. I've seen this described as "GI Joe: Year One" which isn't a bad description.
In this one Cobra isn't some SPECTRE-like terrorist organization in snake-shaped hideouts. Rather, Cobra has a large, trusted multinational corpoaration as a front (Cobra Industrieswhich I think is an interesting conceit. A handful of soldiers stumble on to the truth about Cobra but are framed as terrorists themselves and are on the run from both Cobra AND the US military and authorities. Personally, I think it's good to give kids a bit of healthy distrust of established institutions.
When I first started watching this I was not impressed by the character designs at all and they are still odd but have grown on me a bit. The animation is interesting, sometimes it looks a bit like static flash animation but sometimes it works well. For example, in the last episode ("Homecoming, Part 2"), the final action set piece aboard a runaway train was blocked much like a real movie. It played out that way more than a lot of animated shows.
The slowed down pace also works to effectively convey the loneliness, distrust and anxiety of being on the run with nowhere to turn. This was not an established GI Joe unit but a hastily thrown together small unit brought together under false pretenses that ended up over their heads. The show so far has not let up on that and the relative realism of the Joes-on-the-run plot has created a unique entry in the Joe franchise, almost a mood piece. In fact, I'm not quite sure how they will even tie in a toy line with this which is interesting considering its history.
So anyone else watching this? Am I reading too much into this or what? It might be a bit overstated up there but I think it is doing interesting things for an American cartoon.
In this one Cobra isn't some SPECTRE-like terrorist organization in snake-shaped hideouts. Rather, Cobra has a large, trusted multinational corpoaration as a front (Cobra Industrieswhich I think is an interesting conceit. A handful of soldiers stumble on to the truth about Cobra but are framed as terrorists themselves and are on the run from both Cobra AND the US military and authorities. Personally, I think it's good to give kids a bit of healthy distrust of established institutions.
When I first started watching this I was not impressed by the character designs at all and they are still odd but have grown on me a bit. The animation is interesting, sometimes it looks a bit like static flash animation but sometimes it works well. For example, in the last episode ("Homecoming, Part 2"), the final action set piece aboard a runaway train was blocked much like a real movie. It played out that way more than a lot of animated shows.
The slowed down pace also works to effectively convey the loneliness, distrust and anxiety of being on the run with nowhere to turn. This was not an established GI Joe unit but a hastily thrown together small unit brought together under false pretenses that ended up over their heads. The show so far has not let up on that and the relative realism of the Joes-on-the-run plot has created a unique entry in the Joe franchise, almost a mood piece. In fact, I'm not quite sure how they will even tie in a toy line with this which is interesting considering its history.
So anyone else watching this? Am I reading too much into this or what? It might be a bit overstated up there but I think it is doing interesting things for an American cartoon.
