"Yo Joe!" G.I. Joe Discussion Thread

I'll wait for the DVD.
Should be some time in September or October.

 

I'm going to have to back up Merlin here. The teaser trailer I saw was clear, easy to follow and showed no sign of stead-cam work anywhere.

If the whole film's as good as the teaser trailer I'll be over the moon.

Not really.

Yo Joe.

It might not be entirely the fault of Sommers though. I seem to recall reading somewhere that Universal insisted he make a film with Dracula, the Wolfman and Frankenstein's monster all in it together (to renew copyrights or something to that effect), so it might have gone a bit better if he'd only had to work with one creature at a time, as he had with The Mummy. As it was, he only just managed to get out of having to somehow work in the Creature from the Black Lagoon as well.

You do that.

 

I have a theory as to where those power suits are supposed to come from. According to the GI Joe wiki entry, there is as series of comic books call GI Joe vs Transformers, in which the Transformers are the minions of Cobra, but at the same time, the Joes manages to get their hands on Cybertronian technology and reverse engineer themselves powered battlesuits.

 

That's an excellent theory, Chancellor -- especially considering Josh Duhamel's character in the 2007 film is named Captain Lennox. The name was also that of a Joe in the old Marvel G.I. Joe vs. The Transformers series.

 

I didn't know that. It almost makes me wonder if they are laying the ground work for a Joes/Transformers cross-over film.

 

I can't say I am looking forward to it, never was a fan, but I have to express my heterosexual love for Chris Eccleston. I hope he is particularly badass in this.

 

That would certainly explain where the cartwheeling rocket-dodging thing comes from...

 

Ah, yes, TFvsG.I.Joe...
There was a 4-issue limited series about the time the first TF movie came out, and later on (1994?) when the Generation2 toys were released, Transformers appeared in a crossover with the G.I.Joe comic. Cobra had built a rail-gun and was about to use it when Megatron showed up. Outclassed, Cobra shot megatron with it. Megatron was so impressed that the projectile passed through him and achieved ballistic orbit that he agreed to stop attacking cobra in exchange for the weapon. This upgraded megatron from Pistol to Tank mode. The scientist who did the work tried to plant a virus in the code, but Megatron spotted it, rewrote it, and put it back into Cobra's computers.
Don't know if anything came of that.

If there is a second TF movie, or a crossover movie, I hope whoever is in charge actually knows what s/he is doing, and doesn't try to make American PIE with giant robots again.

 

There is nothing in this world that could make me sit through this one. Looks like a giant steaming turd, if you ask me. But if it actually turns out to be good, I'll admit defeat... But there is nothing G.I. Joe about that trailer. And there's nothing worse than a non-sequel having a subtitle. Rise of Cobra is just so lame. We really don't need a whole movie dedicated to introducing Cobra. I seem to recall the Empire being established pretty well without silly subtitles. And for those of you about to bust me with "What about 'A New Hope', that's a subtitle". Remember it was added later... And it wasn't something silly like "Rise of the Bad Guys". I'm sorry, I just can't see this movie being remotely cool for anyone over 13-14 years old. But that's just me.

- T_S_R

 

I'll tell you what came of that comic... which was about 94, but the first Transformers animated movie was like 88 or 89 probably earlier... GI Joe was dropped from Marvel.

 

Did Cobra ever get a coherent ideology or has it always just been "we are going to take over the world, muahhhahahahahhahaa!"?

 

Cobra is a terrorist organization, which means it seeks to upend civilization by any means necessary. Once chaos is achieved, and the dust settles, it would seek implement its own society -- like any other terrorist organization.

 

Agreed and agreed. I frankly don't care what the title of the movie is as long as it's good. Cobra's origins seem a perfect place to start the framchise. Overall, the trailer looks exciting and well-produced, and is exactly what I would have imagined a GI JOE film to look and be like.

 

I liked the Huey Long/KKK/grass-roots movement described in the comics. It really worked well, and was both funny and realistic (as much as any origin could be).

 

Terrorists of any stripe usually have an ideology. Something they are fighting for, which enables them to recruit.

Very few people in this world, and that includes people who join terror groups, actually want chaos for chaos' sake.

So even if Cobra Commander is just down for chaos, what's he use to lure people into becoming blue helmeted and red masked Corbra cannon fodder?

 

I thought it was the medical coverage and excellent dental plan.

 

Cobra Commander finds others who share his need to destroy civilization: The disenfranchised, and perhaps others who would just like to witness massive destruction: I think its fair to assume that Cobra would implement some sort of fascist dictatorship, but since he never achieved any of his goals, we can speculate all day what kind of system -- or lack thereof -- he would favor.

 

If all Cobra Commander has to say is "let's destroy stuff!" No wonder Cobra never achieves anything... they wouldn't be able to recruit enough people to really do anything. But then again, perhaps that's where BATs come in. Once people stop joining and becoming the blue and red outfitted fodder, they have to build androids as foot soldiers. It's insane how much better armed and funded Cobra is than most Western governments...

 

Terror and destruction for the sake of terror and destruction is no one's idea of a good time (except perhaps an extreme minority of psychotics, such as the Zodiac killer et al.).

With regard to GI JOE, perhaps Cobra Commander could be convincingly depicted as one such psychotic, but that would hardly explain his capacity to recruit thousands of operatives to his cause. Cobra must have a believable ideology, or else the plot of this movie will turn out to be laughably unrealistic.

 

raw charisma. Hitler was a freak, with very little foundation, but with raw charisma and a little planning, he was able to take advantage of the incrediblly poor morale and economy to convert a generally non-aggressive nation into a world-wide threat to civilization and anything remotely resembling human decency. There are a huge number of other factors at work (there's a reason there are so many volumes dedicated to exploring/explaining how he was able to accomplish this while growing that goofy mustache), but he did get the job he wanted.

In the comic, Cobra was able to secure an island homeland, gain recognition and protection from the UN, and set up a stable government there. Of course, that was under Serpentor, not CC.

As for the source of funds... Destro is an international Arms Dealer. There's always money in that. (Humans seem to like killing each other.) I'm sure that cobra also provided mercenaries, consultants, and other support to other dictators and organizations. A compentant scam artist could set up a charity that would dupe people into supporting an institution that they know nothing about. Get a couple hundred scam artists...

As for chaos for the sake of chaos, you can usually find a group of young, impressionable teenagers in just about any town who are at the stage where "chaos is cool, man." Maybe not the best troops, but 3 months of boot-camp with the rewards promissed of "taking down the MAN" should produce acceptable cannon-fodder.

 

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This is the first PIC of Cobra Commander to be released (that I know of). I gotta say that I agree with most of the replies on the site, 'cause he does look bizarre and nothing like the Cobra Commander from the toy-line, comics nor TV show.