Is Paramount quietly killing GI Joe?

[Guy Gardener]

I don't know if I was dumb as a kid or I imbued this trite with psychic austere and Spackle to glaze through it's cheese plotholes and childishness on every viewing but frankly my childhoods joy could do with a good jolt now and then that only a decently over raping from a money grubbing multinational conglomerate can bring.

There better be a love triangle with complete orgy whoring between Baroness, Cobra Commander and Despro, because apart from being enlightened Eurotrash his general attire bellows nothing less short than "Studio 54 lives!" so of course he'd be into swinging... Doctor Mind bender in a total kidos to Rocky horror made Sepentor to have sex with too...

And when Cobra annexes Springfield I want to here some voices from the Simpson cast in the crowd scenes because it would be a mighty laugh.

I only noticed Sienna Miller in Stardust on my third viewing the other day. I had no idea she could be so attractive without being dolled up as a hoochie girl and milling about about as a drunk retarded slapper. maybe I was the only person in the world who saw Alfie?

besides, after this gets off the ground, isn't it obvious to make a GI Joe vs Transformers Movie? Actually, I'd be more interested in a Cobra vs Transformers movie as we see the bad guys save the world and remain hated and labled evil at the end of the movie still.

 

[Thespeckledkiwi]

Again, yes and no. It has some grounding in science fiction but much of it was military. Actually reading some of the material, it's interesting to see some of the vehicles they used would actually be awesome and could be made IRL...

I agree, it was a synthesis of the two, as this movie seems it will be. So many stories involve scifi type plot devices (including the way Serpentor was created, the Weather Dominator, Synthoids, the blob fro "The Germ" and everyone using handheld lasers in the 80's) have always firmly placed ARAH (the cartoon) into scifi territory for me. Its crossover with "Transformers" further solidified that in my mind even as a kid.

But again, you are looking at it from the cartoon.

In truth, X-Men and Spider-Man also both had laser guns but there was an overly PC media going on there.

The backdrop to GI Joe is more realistic than most people realize. First off is the whole Vietnam War thing. Read the background on guys like Cobra Commander, Snake Eyes, Stalker, Wade Collins and such. It's a fascinating and interesting take.

It is not a science fiction film. Nor should it be treated as such. But unfortunately TPTB have decided to approach it as such.

I have never understood the double standard that many posters and realistically everyone has: OMG! BATMAN IS SO GREAT! IT IS SO REALISTIC! OMG!!! But when it comes to GI Joe, they want it further from reality as possible even though it is grounded much more solidly in real events and real scenarios. Which is my chief complaint about the Dark Knight is they removed a very critical element of the Joker because they wanted to further deviate from any 'non-reality' based scenarios.

 

[God Magnus]

But again, you are looking at it from the cartoon.

In truth, I'm looking at it from the perspective of it being based on a toy line that is heavily influenced/based on the 80's cartoon. Make no mistake, at the end of the day this movie is being made to not just do well at the box office, but sell gobs of GI Joe figures. Taking it from that perspective, it doesn't surprise me the cartoon is the major influence for this movie.

I also agree with the earlier mention in this thread that a purely pro-US military hardcore flick would not sit well with international audiences right now. The world is not particularly US military friendly right now. They have to approach this in a way that will provide the most mass appeal, and a sci-fi movie with military overtones was the safer way to go in that regard.

 

[FordSVT]

^Let's get this out of the way: this movie, like Transformers, is going to take most of it's inspiration from the 80s cartoon, because that's what most people who are going to watch the movie are interested in. They don't care about the 50 year old guy who played with the original toys, or the hard-core dude who reads the comics, they are going to go with the familiar and easily accessible memories of millions of 20-30 something guys who played with the little toys vs. Cobra.

And why shouldn't they if they're trying to make the movie appeal to as many people as possible? We've got laser guns, improbable military vehicles, guys with metal masks, etc. etc. It's as sci-fi as X-men is.

 

[Barbados Slim]

I Netflixed "Arise, Serpentor, Arise" a few months ago and it holds up pretty well. The animation is kind of shit but the characters and their distinct personalities is what was so special about Joe. I hope the movie captures that.