G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

[Velorath]

The movie studio bought the IP to suck in nostalgic thirtysomethings and their kids, but they weren't about to make a movie that actually followed that silly horseshit too closely.

Instead they took some of the old horseshit, and mixed in some of their own horseshit.  Brilliant.

[Margalis]

A scathing condemnation of GI Joe from a fan of Star Wars, how droll.

I think the heroes should count among their numbers a bunch of embarrassing stereotypes like an American Indian who goes around in braids and a hairband while he talks to animals, an Asian who runs into battle shirtless and barefoot so he can karate the shit out of people, and a huge black guy who speaks entirely in rhyme.

Yousa and meesa is gunna diiiiieeeeee??

Edit: And if we want to talk about embarrassing black stereotypes the GI Joe character is a big step up from the Transformers Ghettobots or Marlon Wayans.

[Fordel]

This is not a valid argument for turning it into halo:the movie.

Halo: The Movie, was going to be awesome before it got shit canned :(


The End result is we get Distrct 9 instead, fair trade really.

[AutomaticZen]

Instead they took some of the old horseshit, and mixed in some of their own horseshit.  Brilliant.

That's pretty much any movie adaptation ever.  Just in this case, the new horseshit isn't any better than the old horseshit. 

Again, my point isn't that one thinks the movie looks stupid.  I'm just wondering why people are shocked given the source. If anything was going to become a live-action Team America, it was GI Joe.

Tazelbain said respect the source.  I'm saying the source isn't worth respecting in this case.

[WindupAtheist]

A scathing condemnation of GI Joe from a fan of Star Wars, how droll.

I was hoping you forgot that part of Star Wars where Jar Jar was an actual black guy rhyming about barbecue. And that part where Order 66 involved getting every Jedi in the galaxy to stand under a chandelier at the same time. Alas your memory is sharp and I am rebutted. Oh wait.

Seriously, there's summer blockbuster stupid and then on a whole different level there's eighties cartoon stupid. I didn't make anything up in that "scathing" condemnation of mine. Oh, except Cobra Commander didn't mind control people to mine diamonds for his diamond-powered oil tanker invisibility beam, he exploited a tribe of South American buttflap natives to do it. And his mountain fortress was shaped like a giant cobra head, not his own head. Totally inconspicuous and logical.

This was always going to be a brand name recognition scam and anyone who expected otherwise is retarded. It's not like somebody sat around watching a cartoon with Cobra trying to steal shaving cream to make a hole in the ozone layer and thought "This is a powerful story that must be brought to live-action film!"

EDIT: Also, what's this Halo talk? The one review I bothered to read took shots at the movie specifically for having those armor suits but only using them in one scene.

EDIT #2: That second Transformers movie is closing in on $400 million bucks domestic and over $800 million global. I haven't seen it so I'll go ahead and take people's word that it was shit, but so what? The source was shit too. All they did was replace shit with other more profitable shit.

[HaemishM]

300 was crazy Uncle Frank's exploration of totally not gay masculinity and how MACHO and MUSCULAR and WELL-OILED men can be when killing other men who deserve to be killed while the whores whores whores women look on.

The point of 300? The one that you missed, so so badly? It's way the fuck over there.

Look at "The Dark Knight". Batman kills someone through his actions. Batman kills. That's pretty much a 180 on the character. Yet it doesn't make the film any less awesome.

The very first Batman story by Bob Kane had Batman let a criminal die for punishment.

[DraconianOne]

It was missing something to the tune of several thousand (more) Athenians, several thousand Helots, and a massive fucking sea battle where and Anthenian navy fixed rams into the Persian fleet and then plowed them onto fucking cliffs.

But that might just be the retarded fucker who wrote the graphic novel as an allegory to the U.S.

Yawn.

[Trippy]

"G.I. Joe" is AWOL for critics

By Carl DiOrio Carl Diorio   – 14 mins ago

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – In a highly unusual move, Paramount will open its big summer movie "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra" on Friday without screening it beforehand for critics or other media.

Studio executives say they are trying to protect "Joe" from the kind of critical savaging unleashed on its recent "Transformers" sequel.

Not that the toxic reviews have affected its box office: "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" is the biggest movie of the year so far, with worldwide sales of $810 million.

Further, must-see interest for the first pure action movie in weeks is so high that many industryites foresee a $50 million opening weekend for "Joe." Generally, pictures are kept from critics when it's feared that poor reviews additionally will hamper an opening that's already challenged by underwhelming public interest.

"Joe" totes a reported negative cost of $175 million after a production arduous enough to spur ultimately erroneous reports of director Stephen Sommers being booted from the project. Its cast includes Dennis Quaid, Channing Tatum, Sienna Miller, Marlon Wayans and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Sommers has said "Joe" isn't a "Bush movie" but one more attuned to the current administration. But Paramount is giving the film a decidedly Red State marketing campaign, and the picture's premiere was held Friday at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.

Other than military personnel and focus groups, only bloggers including Harry Knowles of Ain't It Cool News have been shown the film, an effects-laden tale of high-tech military special ops inspired by co-producer Hasbro's G.I. Joe action figure.

(Editing by dean.goodman at Reuters)

[fuser]

Other than military personnel and focus groups, only bloggers including Harry Knowles of Ain't It Cool News have been shown the film, an effects-laden tale of high-tech military special ops inspired by co-producer Hasbro's G.I. Joe action figure.

People have got to stop listening to that guy.

They are skewing meta reviews like rotten tomato's rating by this before the weekend. Oh well I'll save my money and check out Ebert's review next week.

[UnSub]

300 was crazy Uncle Frank's exploration of totally not gay masculinity and how MACHO and MUSCULAR and WELL-OILED men can be when killing other men who deserve to be killed while the whores whores whores women look on.

The point of 300? The one that you missed, so so badly? It's way the fuck over there.

The Spartans were badasses? Killing Arabs is cool? A visually arresting spectacle with the depth of a fishbowl? I enjoyed the movie, but I'll be interested in hearing the 'point' of "300". Bonus if the 'point' hasn't been done better by other war movies.

Look at "The Dark Knight". Batman kills someone through his actions. Batman kills. That's pretty much a 180 on the character. Yet it doesn't make the film any less awesome.

The very first Batman story by Bob Kane had Batman let a criminal die for punishment.

Don't make me bring up Bat-mite or some weird 1960s Batman comics. Just because something has happened in a Batman comic once doesn't make it part of contemporary canon.

Batman's modern incarnation doesn't kill in the comics and hasn't for a long time.

[Lakov_Sanite]

The Dark Knight would have been a poorer film if he had saved Ras at the end of it, period.

[WindupAtheist]

So would Batman Begins. 

[Lakov_Sanite]

I have been served.  In my defense though, batman begins is a silly movie title.

[JWIV]

Oh lord.  Just heard a radio ad for this and they're quoting snippets from Ain't It Cool News (which is to say, some slobbering froth from Harry Knowles)

[HaemishM]

300 was crazy Uncle Frank's exploration of totally not gay masculinity and how MACHO and MUSCULAR and WELL-OILED men can be when killing other men who deserve to be killed while the whores whores whores women look on.

The point of 300? The one that you missed, so so badly? It's way the fuck over there.

The Spartans were badasses? Killing Arabs is cool? A visually arresting spectacle with the depth of a fishbowl? I enjoyed the movie, but I'll be interested in hearing the 'point' of "300". Bonus if the 'point' hasn't been done better by other war movies.

Frank Miller is about the farthest thing from a rah rah military cheerleader as you can get. 300 was typical of his work - it relies very heavily on highly archetypal characters who act in completely over-the-top ways for emphasis. You could almost say that 300 was historical war fiction done through the lens of film noir, with as much emphasis being on the visual style as on the paper-thin story. It was an ironic story showing the weakness of a society who deified military conquest and the conquerors - they were portrayed as superhuman (mainly because the narrator of the story was retelling it to his men to give it the weight of mythology) and yet the superhumans were betrayed by the weakest member of their society, an outcast who was disqualified for service because of his supposed weakness. The Spartans disdained the Athenians as boy lovers (while practicing homosexuality themselves though that isn't portrayed), yet in the end, they needed Athenian help to fight off the Persians. You got distracted by the style and missed the point completely.

Look at "The Dark Knight". Batman kills someone through his actions. Batman kills. That's pretty much a 180 on the character. Yet it doesn't make the film any less awesome.

The very first Batman story by Bob Kane had Batman let a criminal die for punishment.

Don't make me bring up Bat-mite or some weird 1960s Batman comics. Just because something has happened in a Batman comic once doesn't make it part of contemporary canon.

Batman's modern incarnation doesn't kill in the comics and hasn't for a long time.

But that doesn't mean he is averse to letting someone die by their own evil actions. Sure, the character has gone through various incarnations and for the most part, doesn't kill himself (and didn't in the movies). But the character in both of the latest Batman films is true to the character told in the first Batman story.

[Miguel]

Look, I'm pretty sure that unlike Transformers, even Michael Bay couldn't fuck up a G.I. Joe movie.

I heard this on NPR: "Michael Bay is to movie making what hurricane Katrina was to urban planning."

[Lakov_Sanite]

Every single time I see a new trailer or clip with the baroness speaking like she's from california, I did a little inside.

Ironwood, back me up here?

[Khaldun]

/threadjack
Mind you, I thought 300 was visually interesting and had some set-pieces I liked in between the painful dialogue and bad scripting. But Haemish, really, Miller DOES have his obsessions. Rah-rah isn't it, quite, you're right about that. It's more that he likes a certain kind of damaged, violent masculinity and exalts it in some pretty fucking odd ways. So in the case of the source comic and the movie, the numbers of things he's either overlooking or glossing over are pretty substantial. The Spartans were by any contemporary metric pretty goddamn evil motherfuckers: about the only thing you can say that's noble by contemporary standards is that they were in the context of 300, rabid nationalists. (Though not very much later than this, they turned into imperialists in their own right.) If Miller were making a mythic, no-frills exploration of desperate men engaged in desperate violence at Thermopylae *on both sides*, that might get close to what you're thinking about. But the comic and far more so the movie pretty much dishes up the "effeminate dark-skinned guys vs. manly white dudes", which isn't really anything like the world of the Eastern Mediterranean in this time. New book on Xenophon's expedition to Persia some time after Thermopylae and the Peloponnesian Wars is a kind of wake-up call about what that historical world was really like.

Back to your regularly scheduled discussion of how Snake-Eyes shouldn't be in armor or whatever. I have to say I'm almost tempted to see it just to see Eccleston as Destro.

[Sheepherder]

It was an ironic story showing the weakness of a society who deified military conquest and the conquerors - they were portrayed as superhuman (mainly because the narrator of the story was retelling it to his men to give it the weight of mythology) and yet the superhumans were betrayed by the weakest member of their society, an outcast who was disqualified for service because of his supposed weakness. The Spartans disdained the Athenians as boy lovers (while practicing homosexuality themselves though that isn't portrayed), yet in the end, they needed Athenian help to fight off the Persians. You got distracted by the style and missed the point completely.

Yeah, screw him for not seeing the subtle irony that largely wasn't included in the story.

[Samwise]

The Spartans disdained the Athenians as boy lovers (while practicing homosexuality themselves though that isn't portrayed)

The Spartans' disdain of the Athenians as "boy lovers" wasn't as hypocritical as you seem to be thinking.  The implied contrast isn't to "girl lover", but to "man lover".  The Spartans thought the Athenians were pussies because they liked their gay lovers soft and boyish, rather than tough and manly.  (Or so says John Boswell.)

[HaemishM]

If Miller were making a mythic, no-frills exploration of desperate men engaged in desperate violence at Thermopylae *on both sides*, that might get close to what you're thinking about. But the comic and far more so the movie pretty much dishes up the "effeminate dark-skinned guys vs. manly white dudes", which isn't really anything like the world of the Eastern Mediterranean in this time.

You missed it again. It wasn't about BOTH sides, it was about one side and the myths they make of their own heroes in order to bolster nationalism. It was absolutely not meant to be a fair or accurate representation of the Persians, but of the jaundiced and degraded way a military society must portray its enemies. The story is an absolute exaggeration by the narrator to make his soldiers ready to slaughter the enemy - and to make the enemy seem human, with his own justifications for acting would only weaken the inspirational nature of the story. If you want your troops to fight like devils, make sure they view the enemy as the worst evil you can think of. The enemy is an inhuman mass of slaves and mutant demons led by a demonic lord. Having the narrator describe the Persians as anything other than that wouldn't fit the bill.

[Hindenburg]

Guys, it's Frank Miller. He just wanted to draw people being bad ass motherfuckers, and chose a legend that fit the bill. There's no deeper meaning.


Also, on the thing about the freak betraying them, Leonidas actually gave Quasimodo a good reason not to join, he didn't dismiss him at first glance.

[Sir T]

AfAIK GI Joe was marketed in Europe as "Action man."

Oddly, the movie is out in Europe as GI Joe 

[NowhereMan]

The 80's cartoon over here was called Action Force. I was honestly confused the first time I saw it as G.I. Joe and I thought they'd just had a new intro. Admittedly the, "Go Joe!" cry was better than, "Full Force!"

[WindupAtheist]

I liked the European version of the intro to the animated 80's movie. INTERNATIONAL HEROES! LA LA LA LA! PLEASE IGNORE THEM LITERALLY WAVING AN AMERICAN FLAG WHILE STANDING ON TOP OF THE STATUE OF LIBERTY! INTERNATIONAL!

[Ratman_tf]

A scathing condemnation of GI Joe from a fan of Star Wars, how droll.

I was hoping you forgot that part of Star Wars where Jar Jar was an actual black guy rhyming about barbecue. And that part where Order 66 involved getting every Jedi in the galaxy to stand under a chandelier at the same time. Alas your memory is sharp and I am rebutted. Oh wait.

Seriously, there's summer blockbuster stupid and then on a whole different level there's eighties cartoon stupid. I didn't make anything up in that "scathing" condemnation of mine. Oh, except Cobra Commander didn't mind control people to mine diamonds for his diamond-powered oil tanker invisibility beam, he exploited a tribe of South American buttflap natives to do it. And his mountain fortress was shaped like a giant cobra head, not his own head. Totally inconspicuous and logical.

This was always going to be a brand name recognition scam and anyone who expected otherwise is retarded. It's not like somebody sat around watching a cartoon with Cobra trying to steal shaving cream to make a hole in the ozone layer and thought "This is a powerful story that must be brought to live-action film!"

Ever see the episode where the Joes go into a parallel universe where Cobra rules the world? Yeah, there was a lot of silly shit in the original cartoon, but the cool bits are what the 30something nostalgia geeks want. A liberal sprinkling of that nostalgic awesome mixed with a fresh look at the franchise. This shit isn't rocket science, it just gets second guessed to death by guys in suits who think that they can reduce entertainment to a formula.

[LK]

From my experiencing studying screenwriting, entertainment is, actually, a formula you in most cases that you can follow.

[Hindenburg]

The 80's cartoon over here was called Action Force. I was honestly confused the first time I saw it as G.I. Joe and I thought they'd just had a new intro. Admittedly the, "Go Joe!" cry was better than, "Full Force!"

Full Force is a far better catchphrase/double entendre.

[DraconianOne]

From my experiencing studying screenwriting, entertainment is, actually, a formula you in most cases that you can follow.

Then you need to read more William Goldman.

Structure is one thing - entertainment is something else entirely.

[NowhereMan]

I liked the European version of the intro to the animated 80's movie. INTERNATIONAL HEROES! LA LA LA LA! PLEASE IGNORE THEM LITERALLY WAVING AN AMERICAN FLAG WHILE STANDING ON TOP OF THE STATUE OF LIBERTY! INTERNATIONAL!

Yeah but the regular series intro seems way more awesome to me. The movie one was pretty

Edit: Nostalgia led me to watch an episode of GI Joe that involves the Joes being sent in because the police and national guard can't deal with 3 hoodlums throwing tomatoes at a mayoral candidate. Around the 5 minute mark and one of the dreadnoughts has complained that the kids bollocksed it up and I giggled like a school girl. I can only hope whoever wrote that knew exactly what it meant.

[DraconianOne]

The 80's cartoon over here was called Action Force. I was honestly confused the first time I saw it as G.I. Joe and I thought they'd just had a new intro. Admittedly the, "Go Joe!" cry was better than, "Full Force!"

Where's "over here"? I don't recall there ever being an Action Force cartoon nor a "Full Force!" battle cry. I remember the comics that featured in Battle (later Battle Action Force) and I remember the slow transition from Action Force to GI Joe although that was after my time.

[NowhereMan]

UK, I'm talking about the mid-80s cartoon when I talk about Action Force and they definitely did go, "Full Force!" Although since it was done half assedly and dubbed over the original VA it usually sounded like about 4 bored Americans going full force. I remember this distinctly through the rosey tinted spectacles of childhood.

[DraconianOne]

UK, I'm talking about the mid-80s cartoon when I talk about Action Force and they definitely did go, "Full Force!" Although since it was done half assedly and dubbed over the original VA it usually sounded like about 4 bored Americans going full force. I remember this distinctly through the rosey tinted spectacles of childhood.

Found out what you were talking about and yeah, never saw it. This was more my period - early 80s: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDPEsh4O2eo

[Khaldun]

Hey, man, I go back to when GI Joe was a full 12-inch doll with a manly beard and everything. http://www.users.vance.net/grayarea/1431landadvwbox.html

[WindupAtheist]

Yeah but the regular series intro seems way more awesome to me.

Man, they really should have sprung for something more than two singers and a Casio. I don't know what the problem was anyway. Nickelodeon used to run some British cartoons over here back when I was a kid, and they were still British. I sat blankly through jokes about soccer and wondered why the hell they were using the word biscuit to refer to cookies.