It seems like when I read forums and chat logs everyone has there own idea on how they would reboot GI Joe from video games to cinematic universes. I figured I’d open the door on this topic to people who CLEARLY LOVE GI Joe.
From Joe’s on screen, both animated and live action, to print of comics and graphic novels: How would you reboot the story of GI Joe today to introduce a new generation to a intellectual property we all love.
As much as folks hate the idea, GI Joe needs a complete overhaul to work in day and age. Folks have to realize that GI Joe ARAH was a product of the 80’s tied heavily to Reagan era. The way people see war and terrorism are totally different especially post 9/11, even James Cameron who intended to make a True Lies 2 has noted how terrorism is not funny, because it’s something America really didn’t know till Oklahoma and 9/11 happened, and the world has had it’s eyes opened. Folks like to say “don’t make it political”, but really these are topics that you can’t touch anymore without going that direction sadly. Back in the day calling Cobra terrorists was just a name for bad guys that no one gave a second thought too.
As for how to change GI Joe, they need to focus on characters primarily. Make characters people can be fans of, enjoy, and want to emulate and cosplay as even. While many folks have favorite Joe characters, really many barely had any development in the cartoons or comics, getting only a couple lines at most and no real back stories. The characters of the new GI Joe need to be personal and you need people to like them.
I would love a serious hardcore GI Joe show with the characters we grew up with in a mature setting, something like the TV Show ‘Strikeback’ but with a bit more high tech comic book feel to it. Now of course that’s just wishful thinking of an adult fan, but Hasbro is a toy company, and they need to reach children to sell toys. This is why to me a good idea that didn’t pan out was actually GI Joe Renegades. You had a small cast, with characters getting actual character development and time to shine. You had an all new take on GI Joe while keeping some of the mythos alive still. It was new and different while also being family friendly. The show I feel though was doomed to fail being early show on the failure of a network The Hub, and it was tied to the troubled launch of the Retaliation movie, so Hasbro gave Renegades next to no marketing push unlike Transformers Prime which had movie tie in going on and lots of marketing. Unless you watched The Hub, you didn’t know Renegades existed cause they never advertised it outside to the public, all Hub ads were focused on Transformers and MLP
I think there is a lot of potential to reboot the basic plot points of GI Joe in a cinematic universe (either episodically on tv or films) the key to this is it has to be angled more adult than for kids and the story needs to start small and then grow into world domination. It’s hard to digest stories that begin with a doomsday device because it doesn’t allow you narratively to go anywhere and your audience expects a build up.
I agree, the key is characters! Unfortunately as much as I loved Snakeyes growing up, I don’t think a spin off featuring a oath of silence is the best way to tackle this. Snakeyes needs to be a side character in a team to allow the narrative to grow.
I keep thinking of how long this trend of super hero movies is going to last that the general audience is going to want something else? One way I thought it might be interesting is to start with a series of individual storylines about each character, then build to the doomsday epic movie where they collide. In this, I feel that there’s room for an antihero story to take place and the character that comes to mind to use is Zartan. He interlocks different storylines that makes this a common thread between the Joes and Cobra. Zartan is also digestible in an age where common movie goes see characters doing impossible things on screen, so a shape shifting master of disguise might be okay at this point in time (if the writers want to use that direction) Zartan walks the line between mystical and grounded and is certainly unique to the GI Joe. He’s also a good litmus test because if he’s believable then making other crazy characters show up is not going to be jarring to the audience.
Just one guys thoughts here. There’s many ways to think about it for sure.
The comic books work on the screen cause they are finally giving comic book movies freedom to be what they should be, which is comic books come to life. A problem for so many years was studios and execs thinking comic books couldn’t work on the screen, and the need to try and make them more “realistic”, “gritty”, or to go completely towards “make it kid friendly”. The comics are gonna last because they now have the freedom to do whats needed to tell the stories they want, and there is a huge variety to tell. It’s not just basic super hero stuff anymore, you got comics that cover all genres and they are being faithful to the source material. It’s like the joke in the first Xmen movie when they take a shot of the old costumes and the reason why they are all wearing black leather. No the fans want colorful and faithful costumes, you don’t have to make everything boring and every day normal looking.
Hasbro needs to look at the comic movies and see what makes them work, and that’s making likable characters. Give the characters personality and time to shine, and give them some good actors. The First GI Joe live action movie is perfect example of not what to do. So many boring no personality actors all in black body suits… yea that is fun.
Give us unique characters that the audiences can enjoy watching and invest their time into.
I know it will never happen but I wish they made a cartoon accurate live action movie. They did it with the funny ‘Balad of GI Joe’ song online and it looked cool as hell to me. Actually, that’s what made me finally say, “Man, I need to get involved in GI Joe cosplay”. I had been doing Star Wars, Ghostbusters, Harry Potter, Gangs of NY, Fallout and all sorts of other cosplay before getting into The Finest.
Id like to see Cobra a little more badass, I know the good guys have to save the day in the end and even though they had their moments in the live action films I felt it was extremely short lived. In Retaliation Cobra finally revealed themselves as being in control then 10 minutes later it was over. Shortest reign of terror in history. However, I am glad they went back to basics in that film and lost those damn Excelerator suits… haha
Renegades (or as my son called it, the G.I. Joe A-Team show) was a really good, youth friendly update. It was a good balance of RAH and Resolute… there were instances of maturity without getting too heavy. I thought the way they integrated other Joe characters into the story was well done. They’d appear, play their part for the episode arc and the team would move on and run into someone new in the next episode. It was akin to how TV shows will stunt cast A-list actors as guest stars for an episode or two.