SixDemonBag

Hey everyone, I'm the writer of the article in question here and I wanted to respond directly to canprime's misguided critique of my piece. First of all, some of your colleagues here in the forum got it right. They were intelligent enough to realize HUMOR and SARCASM when they saw it. Do you have any grasp of those concepts? Obviously not. This might be shocking to hear, but not every blog on the Internet takes itself as serious or even as sanctimonious as you seem to take yourself. Next, in regards to your comment that I'm "representative of the stereotypical 'fan' who can't see past the one narrow niche of his hobby". Well, collecting G.I. Joe toys is not my hobby, and it never has been. I'm simply a movie fan, and fan of the property, a child of the 80's who loved reading about Snake Eyes, Storm Shadow, and the Joes in the Marvel Comic series, as well as playing with the great Hasbro toys. There's nothing "supposed" about my love of G.I.Joe. I grew up the real American Heroes and I have a vested interest in seeing them portrayed in the best possible light. Having said that, I have absolutely no problem with directors and other creative filmmakers making changes and/or updating properties to help translate them to the silver screen for a modern audience to enjoy. What I do have a huge problem with is clueless, money-hungry marketing analysts and other meddling studio "suits" who take it upon themselves to make the worst possible decisions when it comes to these properties. A prime example is Warner Brothers recent announcment that all of their future superhero films (regardless of the hero in question) will be "dark and gritty" because the Dark Knight was dark and gritty and made a bajillion dollars. A Superman or a Shazam film should never be dark or gritty, but that's what we are going to get thanks to the same backwards thinking that obviously went into the planning of this upcoming pile of rhino dung. Now some counter-counter points: 10.) Your point is valid, but this is an example of that whole "humor" concept I talked about before. I was poking fun at the lazy-ass production team who couldn't be bothered to name the character properly. 9.) *sigh* Again...ummm...can you say SAR-CAS-M? Of course Destro walking around with the huge pimp medallion with an exposed collar would be outlandish and ludicrous, genius! But Destro's polished steel mask is an iconic image; it's the one thing that defines his character. Oh, and uhh, dude, the picture is a cheesey Marvel promo for an in-store appearance back in the 80's. I may be wrong, but I think with $180 million, the movie studio could come up with something that looked a little better. Just a hunch... 8.) "Ripcord really isn't big enough of a character to be noticed by the majority of movie-goers." EXACTLY. Then why the hell use him, why the hell make him black, and why the hell cast Marlon Wayans? Nothing about that decision made any sense, and his spot in the film deserves to go to a better-known member of the team whith an actor who can convincingly portray that character. Yes, Marlon was solid in REQUIEM, but that was the exception, not the rule. 7.) No braniac, I don't want a guy in a white leotard with crotch bulge. (Funny, I don't recall the character ever having a crotch bulge, but then again I wasn't ever really looking down there. Hmmm...but you seem to have been). What I want is a ninja outfit, which has been done to perfection in just about every movie ever that had ninjas in it. It's a pretty hard costume to screw up. 6.) Steven Sommers sucks. Next. 5.) Yeah, young guys in our military have command positions, yadda, yadda, yadda. But, this is an ELITE fighting force. Plus, a piece of toast has more acting ability and charisma than this dipsh**t. 4.) Yep, sucks. 3.) Origin-"I agree here, but what can you do?". Ummm...not make it an origin story? Treat the audience with respect? Take a chance and break away from "the norm"? 2.) Whole-heartedly disagree with you here. Stalker is the heart and soul of the G.I. Joe team. He's certainly more vital to the squad than Ripcord. Tell you what, let's pose a question to the forum: "Who would you rather have, Marlon Wayans as Ripcord or any other black actor on Planet Earth as Stalker?" 1.) Boy, are you sure you don't work for the movie studio? Because you certainly are willing to drink the Kool-Aid they're serving and accept anything they are throwing at you. Yes, black rubber suits worked for the X-Men, but this is not the X-Men, this is G.I. Joe, an American military group. They aren't superheroes, and yes, while some of them had pretty outlandish costumes, a good percentage of them were military-themed and could easily be toned down. Our military has been wearing camoflauge for 20+ years, and they'll probably be wearing it for at least 20 more, so why not incorporate some of those elements here? The bottom line is that there was a great opportunity in this adaptation for some unique (key word there) military-themed costumes that would give the characters individuial identities and help to set this movie apart from movies like X-Men and every other team-based action movie made in the past ten years. Instead, we got more bland, unimaginitive, boring, cliche, bullsh**t black rubber suits and it's absolutely unacceptable. Well, that's about it, to all of you who actually enjoyed the artice and "got it" kudos and thanks to you. Yo Joe!