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

[gojira77]

As a Kid, my Cobra Commander wasn't a car salesman or a snakeman but a Latin American revolutionary who got tired of class struggle and just wanted to rule the world...

[nevermore]

Like I said I thought it was good but can't say I loved it.

 

Did you guys here what the original concept for the movie was going to be? I read an interview with one of the writers I believe and he said the original concept was going to be something called "The Most Dangerous Man in The World."

 

I don't remember too much about it but the guy said they had that script and then all of a sudden Serpentor was added to the cartoon and they had to scrap the plans for that storyline.

 

From what I remember the Serpentor character would've still worked in it.

[nevermore]

I googled the concept for the original plans for the movie. I realize most of you are probably familiar with it but just in case some are not.

 

"The Most Dangerous Man in the World" was supposed to be all about how the philosophy of Cobra was started by a Marx-like individual who Cobra Commander came across early in his terrorist career. CC then took the man's ideas and then twisted them to his own evil agenda (like the commies did with Marx and the Nazis with Nietzsche), and then he imprisoned this man so that nobody would know that the basis for Cobra was a false philosophy. Then, early in the movie, this man would escape and all of Cobra's global activities would cease as the entire organization stopped in order to look for the escapee. GI Joe would then begin to look for this man too, without knowing who he was, simply because Cobra deemed him so dangerous. The end of the movie was to have the Joes finding this man and then releasing him into the world at large hoping that he would spread the word that everything Cobra is based on is a lie, thusly taking away any of its remaining legitimacy, but also knowing that they just let a philosophizing terrorist free. It was kind of a "Uh, did we just win or not?" kind of awesome ending. The exact OPPOSITE of what the real GI Joe the Movie ended up being (what with the toy people originally making the writers make a "Cobra Emperor" for the cartoon, and then forcing them to make Cobra La be the REAL backbone for Cobra in the movie -- more toy sales that way)."

 

For a complete review with some really funny commentary on the "problems" with the movie check out:

 

http://www.therossman.com/digest/gijoe_movie_bleh/index.html

 

Watch out if you are offended by "foul" language!

[Viper Hunter]

For a complete review with some really funny commentary on the "problems" with the movie check out:

 

http://www.therossman.com/digest/gijoe_movie_bleh/index.html

 

 

That was a pretty critical review. More critical than what I would have said about it, I mean GEEEESH it's a kids cartoon about a kids action figure toy. How deep and realistic should a plot for such a cartoon be? @lol@

 

Even as a young adult (thinking I was too cool to watch cartoons, even though I was collecting TOYS) I thought it was good enough just to see the neat characters in "action" and given some life, ANY kind of life of which to view upon. Celebrity voice-overs and a pretty decent aray of special effects made it even better than the regular cartoon. It could have been done in a hundred different ways with a hundred different plots and scripts, but this was what we got and I would say it's still alright.

 

That article read as though it was written by somebody who loved it as a kid, grew up and watched it again, and felt embarrassed about it and just nOW (all these years later) feels the need to redeem themselves?

[nevermore]

I think you're right. It is a kind of guilty pleasure. I think that article is hilarious. I still like the movie but that article has a lot of funny truth in it.

[Viper Hunter]

I think you're right. It is a kind of guilty pleasure. I think that article is hilarious. I still like the movie but that article has a lot of funny truth in it.

 

Oh definitely! The pics off to the sides are hilarious and the article itself (although a bit too harsh for my endorsement) is still an interesting read. I can even relate to some of it if i put on my ADULT thinking cap, but when it comes to G.I.Joe, I like to wear my "kid" one.

[ARROW]

I can totally see why the "most Dangerous Man in the World" was dumped for the COBRA-La story.

Given the years the movie was made in, its too "deep" and sophisticated a storyline for something like GIJOE.

It MIGHT have flown if the film had been made 10 years later, but even then.......its still a pretty involved premise for a kid's property.

It primary flaw is that its violates the KISS ( keep it simple silly) principle with animated film stories.

 

The COBRA-La story was a lot better for the needs of the time.

[RobbieDigital]

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...

 

 

I've never seen that video and it was great.........."I've never seen the Sigma 6 cartoon out of personal feelings because I believe that a "Real American Hero" shouldn't look like Pokemon." Awesome......

 

I still have a love for the movie.......I tell ya what I was around 9-10 when I first saw it and I thought it was the greatest movie ever made.....when I was little so it did its job pretty well. But even as an adult I can still appreciate it.

 

Anyone else remember when it would come on the USA Cartoon Express when it was chopped up into episodes.......they would play an episode a day and Sgt. Slaughter would do the commercial promos. Great Stuff man.......I must have rented it a million times from the Video store back in the day.

 

"An itty bitty ditty bag!"