Feb 16, 2009

GI Toe is [probably] Going to Stink

Folks, the GI Joe movie has been showing signs of total and complete suck for months now. Pretty much ever since they decided that it's going to be an international task force....

A video from the Toy Fair shows a robotic GI Joe suit that does 'awesome' stuff. It's got cords and running, it talks, and looks more like RoboCop and Buzz Lightyear's illegitimate son. That outfit reveals "the Accelerator sequence" in the movie. It's an Iron Man-ish power suit. It is not the simple GI Joe with a Kung Fu grip. Oh, and suggested retail is $70.

Meanwhile, all research on the subject - because for some reason Blasphemes readers really enjoy GI Joe movie updates - everyone involved, from the Director, to the writer, to the art director have zero knowledge of the property before they were hired. Look, that's probably okay. Most Star Wars kids grew out of their toys before GI Joe really got big. But no one involved seems to know what this is about. GI Joe has been around since the 60's. There was a comic, a fairly rich toy history, and a half hour ad/cartoon that ran most of the 80's. Zero knowledge?

Plus - they're under an extreme time crunch to get the principle photography (read green screen) finished so that they can cram in the 1,400 FX in before August. All this because some people went to see the transforming trucks... So don't expect Oscar caliber dialogue on this steamer.

Second, they're screwing around with Cobra Commander. Here's the first look. Granted, it's for the kiddies - but it's a fairly good guess what the final will end up looking like.

Guys, this isn't hard - he's supposed to look like this or this:


I'm not even suggesting that you make him a used car salesman (Marvel Comics) or a complete idiot that spent no time in training his people. Cobra troops couldn't shoot straight. Hell, even his pilots in mini-helicopters had to have standard issue parachutes because they got shot down so often.

At least NO ONE ever got hurt.

Let's face it - Cobra Commander was a meglo-maniac with an inexhaustible trust fund for MASS Devices, a weather dominators, and flying aircraft carrier bases (even at 1985's prices, I can't imagine what it would have cost just to fuel that thing) and a retirement pension fund for henchmen that must rival the UAW especially since no one ever died - but say what you will about the guy - his style was pretty awesome. So why mess with that?

I should also mention that Snake Eyes has a mouth in his face mask - and it kind of moves when he's not speaking.

On the bright side, there's no mention of Sgt. Slaughter being on the cast.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

DUDE!

ZOMG. Is that Kennedy as Baroness? I mean that girl was hot, but never as much as *right now*.

Chris Eccleston is in it. That will be a hoot.

On the bright side, intend to ingest vast quantities of alcohol so that I am not so concerned with the very many gaping plots holes that will open like a collapsing Einstein-Rosenberg bridge going out.

By the way, Cap'n. Y'all must not have read the comic. Plenty of baddies died, and some principles too.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, the comic. I couldn't follow it once they made Serpentor out of a dead Stormshadow - and then Stormshadow was alive somehow?

Who died in the comic?

The movie looks about as bad as when the cartoon put all that cobra-lalaalalaa crap in it. What the hell was that?!

Anonymous said...

Snake Eyes has a mouth and it moves a little?

wut?

Cthulhu said...

Waffle-



It was mainly Cobra foot soldiers, though some Joe allies bit it too. At the very least, there were fatal consequences for fighting wars.

Was that the GI JOE movie? Man, some of that stuff was crap. The only good thing about synthoids is that they had a crossover 30 years later in Transformers.

Capn said...

My God people,
We should write about GI Joe every day.

I'm with the Waffle Man - the comics were hard to wrap a pre-teen's mind around. I had a subscription to GI JOE (meaning Marvel mailed them to me) as a birthday present.

I think my subscription started right after the infamous Snake Eyes -we forgot to print the text- all silent issue.

That lasted about a year, and I might have asked for either Playboy or Mad Magazine.

Misfit410 said...

I've been concerned about the movie ever since I heard Steven Sommers would be directing, after the crapfest that was Van Helsing (and how awesome the concept was and how good it COULD have been in the right hands), I have next to no faith in this movie?

When actors for parts were announced I was like.. hey good choice.. then I see the shots of Destro were not just actor shots but the shots of the character, where in the hell is the metal mask? are they going to pull some lame event where he is disfigured and puts it on? that goes against the backstory where it's been a tradition handed down from generation to generation after his grandfather was punished for selling weapons.

Anonymous said...

That part of the story is already there - why not use it?

From what I've heard, duke and ripcord are recruited -

who the hell are they making this for?

Anonymous said...

The Wolverine movie looks more enjoyable than this dungfest

Cthulhu said...

As one of those outlier geeks who never really got into too many comics, I thought that GI Joe was pretty good, especially in light of the Commercial--I mean, Show--and some of the 'guys in tights' titles out there.

I thoroughly enjoyed TRANSFORMERS, but that had frickin' 20 foot robots with lasers on their heads. Plus I was uproariously drunk.

My advise to you sirs, is to follow that example.