Ok, so I have a bit of a fascination with GI Joe. (Which explains why today's Daily Fluff is about Scarlett and Lady Jay's romantic options.) To explain: I used to watch it in the morning while getting ready for school, because (as morning cartoons went) is was definitely above average. Right up to the introduction of Serpentor, it had some interesting and creative plotlines and was generally good fun. Sure, it had its silly points--no one ever gets hurt, they just parachute out of their planes; no one was ever allowed to change their uniform identity to fit in with weather or geography, so that poor Snowjob is running around New York in the summer still in his Artic jacket--but still a good show.
So when news came down that they were making a live action movie, I didn't immediately decide that it would be a lazy, p.c., formulaic piece of crap. And granted, it hasn't come out yet, but there have been omminous signs. Apparently the initial plan to make the Joes part of an international counterterrorist group working out of Brussels (Brussels??!!!!!) has been shelved in response to a, "strongly negative reaction." Interesting, because my own strongly negative reaction was something along the lines of, "that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard." What part of, "a real American hero," suggests, "Belgian-based ops team?"
And, of course, there's the questions of casting and which Joes are going to be included in the movie. The presence of Stormshadow, General Hawk, Snake Eyes, Duke, and Destro are all positive. On the other hand, everything is thrown into question by the fact that Marlon Wayons has one of the major roles (as Ripcord). This isn't a problem because Ripcord was white in the cartoon--who cares about that? I'm not even all that worked up because Ripcord is being given a major role--he wasn't ever one of my favorites, but I suppose the whole point of having so many Joes is so that you different people can have different favorites. It's a problem because Marlon Wayons has yet to be in an even halfway decent movie. The fact that someone thought that he could convincingly portray a badass special ops guy points to a tragic flaw in the thinking behind this movie. As do the slick black leather/vinyl/whatever fetish-wear that seems to be the new GI Joe uniform. They look like mutant vampire hunters.
I'm trying to hold out hope that it won't totally suck, but there are limits to even my optimism. So now I know that there's a good chance that the whole thing is going to be more over-produced, under-written, timid Hollywood bombast. (How can it be timid and over-the-top at the same time? Have you ever seen anything by Michael Bay?) And knowing is half the battle.
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