G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero

[anarky]

Even Joseph Gordon Levitt, a really good actor, was so freakin' bad it was unbelievable.

I got the impression he was intentionally overacting, which was perfect for Cobra Commander.

[Diabolical]

Even Joseph Gordon Levitt, a really good actor, was so freakin' bad it was unbelievable.

I got the impression he was intentionally overacting, which was perfect for Cobra Commander.

How can you tell tell the difference between intentional overacting and everyone else?


Channing Tatum seemed to be the only one who took his role seriously and still failed.

[Rollo Tomassi]

This movie was ass from beginning to middle to end.

ASS.

And not badass.

Just ass.

[anarky]

Like it or not, there's a sequel in the works. Supposedly closer to the source material, but that's what they said about Revenge of the Fallen, and we saw how that pile turned out (actually further from the source material, which I didn't think was possible).

One thing did strike me today when I watched the Renegades take on the Snake Eyes/Storm Shadow origin story and was thinking over previous versions. The movie version of the story seems far too cut and dry. The graphic novel adaptation, though, has one line that was apparently cut from the movie and gives it (in one line) the complexity that every other version of the story has: as Storm Shadow falls to his (obviously not) death, his last words to Snake Eyes are, "I did not kill our master." He has no reason to lie at this point; it's likely he really didn't.

So, someone did. Wonder if they'll have enough sense to involve Zartan and, if so, why. Then again, that bit of the movie was so dull, and both Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow so wasted, it's tough to care.

Really. How the fuck do you take two of the coolest, most badass characters ever and make them sillier than the Sunbow cartoon, where Snake Eyes did little but dress in drag and breakdance?

[Rollo Tomassi]

If they get rid of Stephen Sommers and hire a new screenwriter, I'll take a chance on a sequel.

But otherwise? No.

[Rollo Tomassi]

If they get rid of Stephen Sommers and hire a new screenwriter, I'll take a chance on a sequel.

But otherwise? No.

Hey, they took my advice.

Sure, the Director is the guy that did the Step-Up dance movies and the Justin Biever documentary, but honestly, ANYBODY is better than Stephen Sommers.

And my expectations are so damn below sea level at this point, well....

[anarky]

Apparently, they've been reading our fanfic.

[Rollo Tomassi]

When they say 'any ethnicity' part of me wants a guy of Greek and Vietnamese descent to get the part. Especially if he would then play the part with CrossCountry's hick hillbilly West Virginian accent and demeanor.

[anarky]

If Cross Country is able to solve every ridiculously simple problem with his down-home wisdom and winds up as the leader of the Joes by the end of the movie, I will have conclusive evidence that comic and movie writers troll our boards for ideas.

Especially if Shipwreck and anal abuse are involved.

[Rollo Tomassi]

Every one of CrossCountry's lines in the movie should begin with "It's like my pappy used to say..."

[Rollo Tomassi]

Dear GIJOE movie asswipes:

Ray Stephenson is NOT. I repeat NOT Vietnamese.
As if any of you (you meaning the movie asswipes) gave a shit.

That is all.


PS I just reread my first post in this topic and that movie is STILL awesome. I wish i could find the disc with the screenplay on it. It had the "Roadblock" thing in it Chux. In the first act. The part about "Nobody ever died for a typewriter." I had that whole scene in there, even back then.

And the second act, I had this so fucking cool set piece where Scarlet is pinned down on the thirtieth floor by Cobra. And the other Joes are on the roof and Snake-Eyes bungies off the roof. Meanwhile Breaker (or whoever up on the roof) tells Scarlett to jump through the glass. And she's all WTF? And he's like "JUST DO IT!" So she smashes out the window (and this is all slow motion) shooting back towards the Vipers as she does it not knowiing SE is in freefall on a bungie cord to grab her. So you're watching her fly out into nothing and then SE sails by and grabs her. then the COBRA guys are all WTF Did that stupid bitch just commit suicide? So they walk over to the window. Meanwhile, SE and Scarlett have reached the limit of the cord and spring back up and fly into the broken window blowing all the Cobras away. I mean, of all the things I've come up with, that is still one of my most fave scenes ever.

[anarky]

I've heard Firefly was retconned to be a French guy in Vietnam. I don't buy it. There are no Vietnamese characters otherwise (at least none anyone cares about... disregarding Captain Minh, of course), so the baddest-assed Cobra has to be Vietnamese.

Of course, in IDW, he's a black dude. Because the guy who wrote his story only had one friend with Firefly as a kid, and he was black. In that case, half my Joes have the same last name.

[Ran]

Supposedly Bruce Willis is going to be in the sequel as Joe Colton. Firefly...I never knew what ethnicity he was supposed at least based on the cartoon....or Zartan for that matter. At least Ray Stephenson was bad ass in Rome. If you smeeeeeeeeelllllllllllllllllllll...what the Rock is cookin'.

[anarky]

Firefly was always unclear. It wasn't until the comic had been around for about ten years that we found out about his childhood in Vietnam. Of course, Devil's Due decided he was actually an orphaned French kid who was taken in by Vietnamese farmers before he was "orphaned" again and adopted by the Koga ninja clan. This because he had light skin. God damn, past that rather good first story arc, Devil's Due's run sounds shittier with every passing day. I mean, fuck, dude, just make up a ninja clan; don't use one that's been known for certain to have been extinct for a century!

Zartan was totally unclear. He was always hinted to be American, though he had the weird Aussie accent in the cartoon. But he's a master of disguise, so who knows? His brother and sister both talked with Australian accents in the show (though Zarana clearly used Americanisms in the comic and Zandar basically vanished because he's way lamer than his awesome siblings). Again, Devil's Due says he was from Florida, but underwent some sort of experimental testing and killed an Australian biker named Zartan and stole his identity and now he can't remember who he really is, and the whole story should have been axed because the changing ages of his brother and sister in his origin story make the whole thing go to hell... God damn, sometimes I want to go to Chicago and kick Josh Blaylock in the nuts and demand every penny back I spent on that comic book.

Bruce Willis as Joe Colton is pretty odd. He's a good action actor, no doubt, and him in the movie can't be a bad thing. But Colton, well, I'm not seeing the resemblance:


True, they've run roughshod over what every character is expected to look like. But the one guy who's supposed to actually BE the original 12-inch Joe figure from the 1960s, and not just on a team named after him, they should make him look right, don't you think?

[anarky]

Speaking of ethnicities, here's a weird question:

It seems like most of the Filipinos I've met in my life are from military families. I'm not saying that most of the military is Filipino, but doesn't it seem a bit odd that there are about thirty thousand Joes, and I can't think of a single Filipino?

There are no Vietnamese, Laotian, Thai, or Indian Joes. There is one Chinese Joe I can think of (Quick-Kick, deceased). Tunnel Rat is about six different ethnic groups mixed, with two of them being Chinese and Filipino, IIRC (and, to make it odder, his look based on a Japanese-American guy). Jinx, possibly Budo, and (every third week) Storm Shadow are Japanese-American. (Oddly, even with the shit-ton of ninjas introduced later in the original line, most of them are white guys.) Torpedo is Hawaiian (though he may as well be white for all intents and purposes). One of the Slaughter's Marauders is Samoan, and I only know that because I remember his filecard actually calls him "the big Samoan," even if I don't give a shit about who he is since Slaughter's Marauders sucked ass.

Going a bit further with the thought, there are several black guys, but not a whole lot given the size of the team. The two most well-known black guys are a stereotypical former gang lord from Detroit (Stalker) and a stereotypical "big scary guy" (Roadblock). (Consider also that all of the new Joes from GIJoe: The Movie were made as toys except for Big Lob. Yes, he was one of the most retarded ideas in the history of the line, but they proved about a year later with fucking Captain Grid-Iron that it wasn't a prejudice against sports-themed Joes.) There are a few Native Americans (Airborne and Spirit, and maybe one or two others), and Spirit is like the fucking Village People chief. (He was cool in the comics, but an embarrassing stereotype in the cartoon.) Zap and Shipwreck are the only two Latinos I can think of, both Mexican-American, and Shipwreck has been so ridiculously whitewashed in every incarnation that he may as well not be. Clutch is the only team member every identified as Jewish.

I'm not bitching, but it does seem weird when you continuously read that the military is disproportionally minorities. But most of the Joes are like Flint, Duke, Lady Jaye, or Scarlett, rich white people who excelled in everything and joined the military to actually get a challenge. Or like Cover Girl or Rock & Roll, folks who were really good at an unrelated profession that they realized was frivolous and wanted to make a difference. (I doubt there are a lot of former models and surfers in the real armed forces that could be considered "the best of the best of the best.")

This might be an interesting time-waster project: determine the ethnicities and countries of origin of all the characters. It would also be interesting to know why this is; I have a feeling it wasn't coming from the Marvel side of things, but probably Hasbro marketing (maybe something as dumb as "white parents have more money to spend on toys, so make more white characters!").