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What do you think of the First G.I. Joe Movie?


gojira77

What do you think of the Animated Movie?  

24 members have voted

  1. 1. Describe your feelings towards G.I.Joe: The Movie (1987)

    • Love It! Nemesis Enforcer is my Homeboy!
      14
    • Hate it! Cobra Commander sold Used Cars, dammit!
      4
    • Eh, indifferent. Bring on Resolute and Ray Park!
      7
    • There was a movie?!
      1


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"Crashing through the Sky, comes a fearful cry..." Thus begins one of the more devisive parts of all G.I. Joe lore, the 1987 Animated Movie. Many have warm and fuzzy memmories of the time that an ancient snakeman with the voice of the Penguin nearly destroyed the Human race, only to be thwarted by a hot ninja, a professional wrestler, and a screw-up Green Beret with a huge chip on his broad shoulder! Yet others, as Toyfare Magazine would say, would rather burn a copy of the DVD than watch it! As Hasbro continues its second year of celebrating all things from the classic Real American Hero line, we get such movie figures as a Nemesis Immortal AKA Enforcer and a Screaming Animated Duke with Jet Pack.

 

Where do you stand, Joe fans? Are you a comic book fan who never really got into the 'toon, left sort of bewildered by the whole thing? A 'toon lover that just couldn't suspend their disbelief to include Evil Space Fungus? Or did you take it all in and just enjoy the ride? And if you loved the movie as a kid, what do you think of it now? I want to know-- 'cause knowing's... Yeah, you get the drift! :)

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Alright let me reply with this. While the story was well paced, great action, and beautiful scenes, the newly created backstory was utter crap!!!

 

I mean they could have come up with Cobra La and had some other background story like say Cobra Commander while scouring the world for funding for his new Cobra Organization came across this ancient tribe and the movie could basically play out the same. But having him be a member of the Cobra La race was stupid as hell!! The rest of the movie could be exactly how it is, even the part with the Commander getting a face full of spores as a punishment for failure. However this would come to an outsider who betrayed them and sealed their trust in humanity, if they ever had any.

 

Get what I'm saying. Everything about the movie was great, just not that buster back story!!

 

Oh and as far as the whole toon vs comic. I liked em both, both had their faults and pluses. I liked some of the characters from the cartoon and how well they translated on the small screen, ie Wreck, Dusty, Destro. I liked some of the stories to come from the comic, such as Cobra Island and the Fred series. I hated some of the stories from the cartoon such as the Gamesmaster. I hated how Storm Shadow betrayed Cobra and well basically the whole ninja back story that kept growing to include everyone and their mama. So I took the best of both worlds when I played!! And it worked out for me, GI JOE will always include the stories from the file cards, comics, and cartoons!! 'nuff said!

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Alright let me reply with this. While the story was well paced, great action, and beautiful scenes, the newly created backstory was utter crap!!!

That pretty well sums up my exact feelings on it. I love watching the movie, but the story is out there, even for Joe. I say this as someone with a professed fondness for the Mega-Marines!

 

It's not just Cobra Commander, either. Falcon's whole storyline is garbage. The man is a green beret and new recruit into one of the most elite special missions forces in the US (the world, as far as the cartoon is concerned)... and it's like the guy pulled it out of a cereal box. On top of that, then we're supposed to buy that this guy is their biggest foul-up when guys like Shipwreck and Quick Kick have largely the same personality and have made many of the same mistakes in the course of the series.

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Alright let me reply with this. While the story was well paced, great action, and beautiful scenes, the newly created backstory was utter crap!!!

 

I also agree. While I enjoyed most of the movie, and believe it was well done for an animated children's movie, the backstorys killed it in a way. As has been suggested above, they just didn't work. First of all, Cobra Commander didn't have to have come from Cobra-La, and everything would have played out the same. It would have made Golobulous' interference in the creation of Serpentor much more meaningful, showing how he had decided to take over an operation from an inferior human. As for Falcon... there is no way on this planet that someone as screwed up as he was portrayed in the movie would have even been accepted into the Green Berets, let alone be promoted to Lt.

 

Personally, I prefer the comics, but I still enjoy the cartoon. I own all the DVDs and while I haven't had time to watch them all yet, I've enjoyed what I've seen. For me, the comics will always be the primary source of Joe history, but the cartoons are a nice alternate universe.

 

 

 

 

@can@

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Alright let me reply with this. While the story was well paced, great action, and beautiful scenes, the newly created backstory was utter crap!!!

That pretty well sums up my exact feelings on it. I love watching the movie, but the story is out there, even for Joe. I say this as someone with a professed fondness for the Mega-Marines!

 

It's not just Cobra Commander, either. Falcon's whole storyline is garbage. The man is a green beret and new recruit into one of the most elite special missions forces in the US (the world, as far as the cartoon is concerned)... and it's like the guy pulled it out of a cereal box. On top of that, then we're supposed to buy that this guy is their biggest foul-up when guys like Shipwreck and Quick Kick have largely the same personality and have made many of the same mistakes in the course of the series.

 

Quick Kick wouldn't even be fit to go into a 7-11 with his "uniform"! @loll@

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I have to say I'm all good with everything. Sure I'll admit that some of the plot to the movie and the series for that matter were a little silly and out there, but overall it was still great. I mean it was the 80's. The tv show to Hasbro was nothing more than a glorified toy commercial. I own all the marvel comic series myself and love that it is so hardcore and realistic compared to the cartoon. But everytime I watch the cartoon I get this little feeling of nostalga that makes me feel like I'm home again. Anyway you slice it the cartoon and the movie for that matter helped put g.i.joe on top. Plus characters like Golobulus, Pythona, and Nemesis Inforcer were just so cool.

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But everytime I watch the cartoon I get this little feeling of nostalga that makes me feel like I'm home again.

 

Very well put. I feel much the same way when I watch the 'toon. :D

 

As for the Movie...I liked it. I have the same complaint about CC's background, but I can overlook it and enjoy the movie for what it is.

 

Like everyone else here has pretty much stated, the comics and cartoon don't really go together, but I love both for what they are. :)

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I love the animated movie.

Its cheezy, loud fun--especially the opening titles: that's what GIJOE is to me.

I watch it every once in a while and revert back to being "8 years old" for about 2 hrs for a while--even though I've been a adult for all of GIJOE RAH's existence.

 

As far as CC's flaky origin..........my educamacated guess says they hit upon a small obstacle in writing the movie......namely that CC's "real origin" is ..........well...........pretty dull.

 

Having him be a literal "snake-man" is far more dramatic and interesting to kids than having him be a disaffected used-car salesmen. His COBRA-La roots tie in nicely with the sci-fi/fantasy theme and dovetails well with Serpentor and COBRA-La's bio-technology slant.

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"Crashing through the Sky, comes a fearful cry..." Thus begins one of the more devisive parts of all G.I. Joe lore, the 1987 Animated Movie. Many have warm and fuzzy memmories of the time that an ancient snakeman with the voice of the Penguin nearly destroyed the Human race, only to be thwarted by a hot ninja, a professional wrestler, and a screw-up Green Beret with a huge chip on his broad shoulder! Yet others, as Toyfare Magazine would say, would rather burn a copy of the DVD than watch it! As Hasbro continues its second year of celebrating all things from the classic Real American Hero line, we get such movie figures as a Nemesis Immortal AKA Enforcer and a Screaming Animated Duke with Jet Pack.

 

Where do you stand, Joe fans? Are you a comic book fan who never really got into the 'toon, left sort of bewildered by the whole thing? A 'toon lover that just couldn't suspend their disbelief to include Evil Space Fungus? Or did you take it all in and just enjoy the ride? And if you loved the movie as a kid, what do you think of it now? I want to know-- 'cause knowing's... Yeah, you get the drift! :)

 

 

You asked the question, well have I got an answer......I like what could have been...

 

 

I waited and waited for new episodes after GI Joe the Movie and after Transformers had their "Rebirth", but there were none.

 

 

BUT there appears to have been plans in the work for another season and perhaps even scripts were written. Some of these scripts might have been bought and used by DIC (since some of the DIC episodes were written by Sunbow writers). But most of the ideas and intentions for this unproduced last season of GI Joe never made to the screen.

 

 

 

G.I. Joe story editor Buzz Dixon had this to say in an 1987 article about the G.I. Joe cartoon:

 

What will happen to G.I. Joe and Cobra on television in 1987?

 

"Changes," Buzz Dixon said. "Expect Cobra to be dramatically restructured. It will not resemble the Cobra of before. There will be big changes with G.I.Joe. The Rawhides and Renegades will be introduced, and will play a big part. Another thing is that 1987 will premiere a whole new series of high-tech vehicles for both Joes and Cobra. They will reflect the big upwards shift in the nature of the G.I.Joe/Cobra conflict"

 

From G.I. Joe Yearbook # 3 March, 1987

I had the opportunity to ask Mr. Dixon more about this when I interviewed him for the UGIJCW:

Jodie: Were there ever any plans for a third season of G.I. Joe, with the characters from the movie?

 

Buzz: Mike Hill, who was on staff at the time, made a brilliant proposal to send the Joes off after a somewhat new foe called The Coil for the never made Sunbow season three (there was a DIC season three, but they never bothered to ask for any input from me or Flint or Steve and frankly, we were just as glad). As I recall, Mike's idea was that following the Movie, Cobra would be shattered as a world-wide organization. Under the guidance of Tomax and Xamot, a new organization called The Coil (much more criminal in nature than military) would be formed, picking and choosing among the best of the surviving Cobra units. Cobra-La was utterly wiped out, no survivors, except for Cobra Commander, who would be slithering about in the background for the first half of season three as some sinister character of shifting alliances, then be revealed in severely mutated form in the second half. He would be playing the Joes and The Coil against one another in an attempt to destroy both and rebuild Cobra.

 

Sunbow season three was never made. Hasbro had been funding G.I. Joe out of their own pocket; they got a ridiculous deal from DIC to take over the series and they pretty much let them. The story behind DIC is much too long to go into here; suffice it to say these guys may not have been 100% responsible for the destruction of the animation industry in the late eighties but they sure helped!

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The story behind DIC is much too long to go into here; suffice it to say these guys may not have been 100% responsible for the destruction of the animation industry in the late eighties but they sure helped!

 

I dunno about this.

I started in the biz back then, and on a few DIC series and shows. They were no the portent of the industries downfall.......that never took place until about 2001, when things really slowed down.

The 90's were boom years for animation all across the board, both features and TV.

DIC wasn't doing anything that any other studio back then was doing.

I just do not know what Buzz is talking about here, because I sure as heck didn't see anything that looked like the destruction of the animation industry.

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They could have made just as great a story without introducing the Cobra-La crap! They were looking to get on the bandwagon with the growing interest in X-Men's growing comic book success (mutants) and just blew it. In my opinion. Even as a 15-year-old, I was like, WTF? That's when things started going wonky with the neons and the aliens and such. That's when I stopped collecting G I Joe.

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"Crashing through the Sky, comes a fearful cry..." Thus begins one of the more devisive parts of all G.I. Joe lore, the 1987 Animated Movie. Many have warm and fuzzy memmories of the time that an ancient snakeman with the voice of the Penguin nearly destroyed the Human race, only to be thwarted by a hot ninja, a professional wrestler, and a screw-up Green Beret with a huge chip on his broad shoulder! Yet others, as Toyfare Magazine would say, would rather burn a copy of the DVD than watch it! As Hasbro continues its second year of celebrating all things from the classic Real American Hero line, we get such movie figures as a Nemesis Immortal AKA Enforcer and a Screaming Animated Duke with Jet Pack.

 

Where do you stand, Joe fans? Are you a comic book fan who never really got into the 'toon, left sort of bewildered by the whole thing? A 'toon lover that just couldn't suspend their disbelief to include Evil Space Fungus? Or did you take it all in and just enjoy the ride? And if you loved the movie as a kid, what do you think of it now? I want to know-- 'cause knowing's... Yeah, you get the drift! :)

 

 

You asked the question, well have I got an answer......I like what could have been...

 

 

I waited and waited for new episodes after GI Joe the Movie and after Transformers had their "Rebirth", but there were none.

 

 

BUT there appears to have been plans in the work for another season and perhaps even scripts were written. Some of these scripts might have been bought and used by DIC (since some of the DIC episodes were written by Sunbow writers). But most of the ideas and intentions for this unproduced last season of GI Joe never made to the screen.

 

 

 

G.I. Joe story editor Buzz Dixon had this to say in an 1987 article about the G.I. Joe cartoon:

 

What will happen to G.I. Joe and Cobra on television in 1987?

 

"Changes," Buzz Dixon said. "Expect Cobra to be dramatically restructured. It will not resemble the Cobra of before. There will be big changes with G.I.Joe. The Rawhides and Renegades will be introduced, and will play a big part. Another thing is that 1987 will premiere a whole new series of high-tech vehicles for both Joes and Cobra. They will reflect the big upwards shift in the nature of the G.I.Joe/Cobra conflict"

 

From G.I. Joe Yearbook # 3 March, 1987

I had the opportunity to ask Mr. Dixon more about this when I interviewed him for the UGIJCW:

Jodie: Were there ever any plans for a third season of G.I. Joe, with the characters from the movie?

 

Buzz: Mike Hill, who was on staff at the time, made a brilliant proposal to send the Joes off after a somewhat new foe called The Coil for the never made Sunbow season three (there was a DIC season three, but they never bothered to ask for any input from me or Flint or Steve and frankly, we were just as glad). As I recall, Mike's idea was that following the Movie, Cobra would be shattered as a world-wide organization. Under the guidance of Tomax and Xamot, a new organization called The Coil (much more criminal in nature than military) would be formed, picking and choosing among the best of the surviving Cobra units. Cobra-La was utterly wiped out, no survivors, except for Cobra Commander, who would be slithering about in the background for the first half of season three as some sinister character of shifting alliances, then be revealed in severely mutated form in the second half. He would be playing the Joes and The Coil against one another in an attempt to destroy both and rebuild Cobra.

 

Sunbow season three was never made. Hasbro had been funding G.I. Joe out of their own pocket; they got a ridiculous deal from DIC to take over the series and they pretty much let them. The story behind DIC is much too long to go into here; suffice it to say these guys may not have been 100% responsible for the destruction of the animation industry in the late eighties but they sure helped!

 

I've read this before online-- yeah, that would have been A LOT better than "Operation: Dragonfire", which was a decent mini-series compared to the depths that the DIC cartoon would later sink! As a kid, I kinda figured that Cobra La and Serpentor were history (strangled by a run-away air chariot and all...), but I wanted to see what was next. I think Falcon would have taken Duke's place as field commander; makes more sense with an actual officer anyways.

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well just like the transformers movie it was made to help introduce new guys IE action figures. i loved it and hated some parts. some of the filler parts were just lame but i was a big fan then and still think the movie holds well all things considered.

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There were things I loved about it, but my memory's skewed because I only saw it one time on tv one Sunday afternoon on WGN, and I think I missed the first part of it. And even then I don't remember everything about it. I remember Falcon being kicked-out of the Tomahawk, and I liked that. (lol) It was unexpected. And I also liked how Sgt. Slaughter and his Renegades show up to help "train" Falcon. I remember thinking as a kid Mercer spitting on a scorpion was kinda bad-@$$ and hard-core for a cartoon at the time. (lol) I also remember a part where Serpentor is in this lazer-cage-thingy, and I thought it was neat how he paces like an animal and throws his pillow into the beams, frying it. (It's funny the stuff you remember...) (lol) And I absolutely loved Burgess Meredith doing the voice of Golobulus; very appropriate.

 

I remember the animation was good. And I don't remember thinking twice about the ridiculousness of Cobra-La until later. There was a movie, and there were toys made of Cobra-La. So in my thirteen-year-old mind, it was G.I. Joe. I didn't question it. Now I look back and it's like, "Whaa...?" (lol)

 

If I were still collecting though, I think I would like the new Cobra-La figures, just for old-times' sake. I saw a SDCC pic of Golobulus, and it looks like a statue it's so detailed. Very cool...

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According to an interview with Kirk Bozigian in Collectible toys & Values magazine, the sales of the 87 movie toys were very poor, almost causing GIjoe to be cancel. They had originally plan to make a lot more cobra la related figures and vehicles but didnt because of poor sales.

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Unfortunately the DIC series was already being produced under the auspices of Duke being deceased, (originally Duke died from that snake to the heart, but the Doc voice over at the end was added due to the backlash created from Optimus Prime being killed in the TF movie) and moving from a campy action adventure series to a straight toy whoring machine. I would be remiss not to mention the attempt to make it more "international".

 

Unfortunately, the animation quality was worse than the Sunbow series, the team had no real leader anymore, and the toys went neon. This, coupled with a retail environment in which Wal-Mart and Target did not yet span the continent, and with no internet, made it damn near impossible for even the most ardent Joe fans to even find the later waves of figures.

 

To wit, it is my contention that these factors led to the cancellation of the toy line, not poor sales of the movie figures.

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According to an interview with Kirk Bozigian in Collectible toys & Values magazine, the sales of the 87 movie toys were very poor, almost causing GIjoe to be cancel. They had originally plan to make a lot more cobra la related figures and vehicles but didnt because of poor sales.

 

That's interesting, because they seemed to continue the whole sci-fi aspect that, in my opinion, ultimately killed off the line (along with the lack of a good series on TV to keep us kids interested).

 

I distinctly remember not liking the less military look of GI Joe and more out-there designs for Cobra. I remember not hating the movie but not being overall impressed with Cobra Commander's origin. I didn't mind Cobra-la so much, just the fact that he was one of them. I still don't like it today, but I kind of like the movie still - I just sort of ignore the parts I didn't care for, but this goes for the entire Sunbow series. Obviously you can't take it, as a whole, 100% seriously!

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I'm certainly in the minority on this (I'm pretty sure) but I thought the movie was a lot better than the regular cartoon series. As a twenty-something adult when all this phenomenon was going down, I'd catch those weekly cartoons on occasion, and thought them an interesting vehicle in which to advertise the TOYS (my main interest) and knew that despite my desire to collect "kids toys" I knew I wasn't the target audience for EITHER the toys or the cartoon (not back then anyway, not like how that's all changed today) but the toys background info had a lot more appeal to me than what all they could cram into those cartoons for it so it didn't really matter much to me if the cartoons were all that interesting or not, as that young adult I was at the time.

 

There were a few exceptions though, and I found myself drawn to the story of Sgt. Slaughter and then Serpentors creation. Those episodes seem to grab my imagination a good bit more than the usual hokey kids shlock. When the movie came out, I just thought they had reached a new peak, and really went all out on the effort with these cartoons. After the invention of Serpentor, i didn't find the whole COBRA-LA addition all that crazy or disappointing. Seem to try and make just a little more sense out of the CC character and his bizarre and twisted mentality (bare in mind I had absolutely NO contact with the comics, or any of THAT medium upon which to compare the ARAH story) so I thought the movie was pretty well done and entertaining for what it was, and it was DEFINITELY made for "the kids" and not the grownups of the era, that USE to be "kids" like how everything G.I.Joe ARAH-related, is made today. So much is lost in trying to please that audience, a lot of innocent and silly kid-like entertainment gets beat down and dissected in all the over analyzing of what should have been this or what should have been that and what's considered the better angle to go with in order to appease each and every persons own personal agenda and reason for even being a G.I.Joe fan. :(

 

Don't judge the movie on how you feel about TODAY, but try to remember your thoughts on it back then.

 

 

 

ANYWAY, I thought it was pretty cool myself, COBRA-LA and all. Although seeing and hearing Serpentor belt out that "Cobra...la la la la la la" still makes me cringe with embarrassment a little bit. @lol@

 

 

I'm sure this has been viewed a hundred times over by the members here (I'm a little slow on some of this stuff) but this is a pretty funny piece on the movie...

 

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The opening sequence was the coolest part. The movie had it's moments, but Cobra La never really interested me. I always thought it was a far stretch from what made G.I. Joe "G.I. Joe" for me.

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Honestly, I thought the whole Cobra-La concept sucked. However, as an attempt to explain why Cobra Commander was so ugly (Destro couldn't even watch him eat!) and why Mindbender dreamed Serpentor, I thought it did a decent job of it. I really think the movie's downfall is Falcon. As a main character, he sucked. He's a Lt. and should be outranking almost the whole team, and yet he's treated like a private. Making him Duke's brother makes it even worse. I have no idea why Hasbro had such a hard-on for replacing their old characters with new ones that year, I have no idea. Still, I liked Hot Rod better than Falcon. And I can't see how a 3rd season focusing on Falcon and his crew would have turned out any better than Rodimus Prime and his crew. The season of Transformers after the movie is largely crap because the premise of replacing all of the old characters is such a bad one.

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