Disclaimer: I was (am) a HUGE G.I. Joe fan as a kid. I had all the Joes, all the Comics, watched all the cartoons, and a year or so ago when Cartoon Network aired the classic G.I. Joe cartoon movie (you know the one with Cobra’s evil Weather Domiator, later made fun of by Robot Chicken) I DVR’d it and put it on the long-term storage drive.
So, I somehow missed the pre-airing buzz of the G.I. Joe trailer that aired during the Super Bowl and was caught totally by surprise. When it first came on I thought, hmmm, looks interesting. Then I started to vaguely recognize some characters and perked up–was that Snake-Eyes? Then the title screen came up and I could no longer contain my excitement. My wife calmly asked, “You want to see that?” “Yes!” I exclaimed, “And we are going to South Barrington to see it” (Chicago-Land’s only digital, and best, theater).
This is the first comic/cartoon/toy movie that I can honestly say that I am a devotee of. Batman, Transformers, whatever, I was always more of a casual fan looking for a fun summer movie experience. This time–its personal.
Over the past couple of days, I have done some reading about the trailer and upcoming movie, and I have to say that I am disappointed by all the negative reaction. There are a lot of complaints about changes or updates to familiar characters and wardrobes. Lets face it people, colorful costumes and tights work for cartoons and comics, but not for live action. All the recent movie versions make changes, probably necessary changes. look at X-Men, good movies, but no yellow tights. Batman, some say, wrongly, that Dark Night was the best move of lat year, it was very good but made changes from Batman lore. And what about Transformers? One of my favorite movies of this genre, the transformers were updated making them unrecognizable at first glance–I still don’t know what happened to Megatron, but lets face it, how do you make a handgun useful as a vehicle.
Now, I have no Idea if this is going to be a good movie, it really could suck, but the 30 seconds or so that I saw on Sunday were enough for me to count the days until August 7th, 2009.
http://www.gijoemovie.com/
Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.
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