What can be learned from the mistakes of the first GI Joe Movie

[gugumugats]

Stay away from black costumes: it's so early 2000's.

Sooo early 2000s. Never thought of it that way.

 

[Shadowlord X]

Within these movies there are two categories of faults:

- Faults as a movie
- Faults as an adaptaion

The first ones tend to be more significant because they affect the entire viewing audience as opposed to just the fans with the second category. Although some adaption faults can hinder the movie as a whole because the character or concept works as originally concieved but when drastic changes are made the character or concept falls out of balance and becomes much less interesting or impactful than what it was.

I enjoyed GI JOE for what it was: a pure escapist fun action romp based on a 80's cartoon. I even saw it more than once. The changes from canon I was able to look past as I was not that strong a fan. However the movie faults are hard to ignore and IMO inclde the following.

- Chafing Scrotum as Duke. Epic mega-fail. The guy has no charisma as an action hero. Typical example of Hollywood thinking; looking for whom they believe to be the next big thing.

- Wayans #4291.0. Typical black comic relief character. Fail and out of place. He wasn't that bad though.

- The wannabe IRON MAN suits. Fail. Again typical Hollywood brain dead mentality; "Let's make it more like _________!"

- The actor who played General Hawk phoning it in across a bad overseas connection. Demand some good acting dammit.

- Some poor CGI VFX.

But overall still enjoyable. Also they went for hyper-stylized action instead of gritty action which suits me but I don't think the current audience is into.

 

[Captain Marvel]

- The wannabe IRON MAN suits. Fail. Again typical Hollywood brain dead mentality; "Let's make it more like _________!"

It's even worse than that. I recently found out that that scene was one which Sommers had had written beforehand and which he inserted into GI Joe. That's right. Apparently for a long time, now, he's wanted to make a movie with people in hyper-advanced suits of armor running around a major city blowing stuff up, and when he got handed the job to direct GI Joe, he had that insipid scene inserted into the movie.

 

[antonydelfini]

It's even worse than that. I recently found out that that scene was one which Sommers had had written beforehand and which he inserted into GI Joe. That's right. Apparently for a long time, now, he's wanted to make a movie with people in hyper-advanced suits of armor running around a major city blowing stuff up, and when he got handed the job to direct GI Joe, he had that insipid scene inserted into the movie.

What a freaking hack. Talk about someone not giving a damn about the fans. I can live with directors not knowing anything about a franchise before stepping in, but those directors should put a lot of effort in researching about the characters, the important storylines, what makes the franchise and characters beloved and special, the tone needed before starting the movie. I hope Chu will be able to resurrect this franchise from Sommers' disaster.

 

[TheVileOne]

I heard that was more diBonaventura's thing than Sommers.

 

[Bug-Eyed Earl]

It's even worse than that. I recently found out that that scene was one which Sommers had had written beforehand and which he inserted into GI Joe. That's right. Apparently for a long time, now, he's wanted to make a movie with people in hyper-advanced suits of armor running around a major city blowing stuff up, and when he got handed the job to direct GI Joe, he had that insipid scene inserted into the movie.

Wrong. The accelerator suits were in the 2005 David Elliott Paul Lovett draft. I know this because I read it. Summers wasn't hired until mid t0 late 2007.

 

[TheVileOne]

Yeah so that thing was something more that diBonaventura had wanted to be in it from the beginning.

Sommers is a flawed director but that's one thing we can't pin on him.

 

[gugumugats]

I actually enjoyed the accelerator suit scenes.

They just had NO business being in GI Joe.

 

[S. Grundy]

In the wake of Iron Man, the accelerator suits did seem like they were trying copy the success of that. But I don't see how it had no place in a G.I. Joe movie, it's no more ridiculous a thing to have in a movie based on a cartoon/comic book that was based on a toy line which over the years has had plenty of ridiculous **** go on.

And even if he did have the idea before hand about the suits, it doesn't make him a hack or show disrespect for the fans.

 

[TheVileOne]

The scene was stupid and made no sense though.

 

[Octoberist]

That, and the scene made the Joes look like incompetent fools since they allowed innocent people to die in numerous cafes and cars explosions right behind them.

 

[Jake Cassidy]

Snake Eyes did look cool flipping around the cars, though.

 

[Iron_Stark]

Looks like the mistakes from the first ARE being corrected in this one. Just saw a new picture of Snake Eyes and it looks completely badass.

 

[Thatsabingo!]

Has anyone mentioned how closely they're going to follow the first one? I walked out of the first one with a "meh" attitude. But judging by the trailer, I feel like a lot more effort is being put into the sequel

 

[psylockolussus]

I hope the CGI for the second movie is better. Even though I liked the 1st movie, the CGI wasn't really good that it looked cartoonish.

 

[Rowsdower!]

Yeah, it was really, really awful. And I say that as someone who enjoyed Sommers' Mummy films, despite their questionable (and sometimes awful) CGI. But GI Joe took it to a whole other cartoonish level. I felt like I was watching Who Framed Roger Rabbit with laser guns and battlesuits.

 

[The Guard]

The first movie was a good action movie, and I even think they got a lot of the GI JOE elements right. The battlesuits never really bothered me, as the film was full of advanced tech, and a lot of it was really well done. I think this movie just needs better character work. GI JOE was actually fairly solid, scriptwise, except for the "conflicts" they chose to give certain characters, and the resolution of those. Why do I care that Scarlet sees love in cold, sterile terms? Show me what her GI JOE centric conflicts are.

 

[TheVileOne]

Considering Cobra Commander is still Rex Commander, now I'm not sure they have learned very much.

 

[The Guard]

VS Cobra Commander being a used car salesman?

 

[TheVileOne]

Yes. That Cobra Commander > Joseph Gordon Levitt's illogical Rex Lewis, brother of Anna "Baroness" Lewis, Duke's fiancee.

Oh I'm going to get some intel at this butler. Oh there's a crazy mad scientist. Aren't these creepy experiments on humans beautiful? Yes . . . it is beautiful. WTF?!

 

[Bug-Eyed Earl]

Considering Cobra Commander is still Rex Commander, now I'm not sure they have learned very much.

Chu hinted he wanted to reboot. I think he's simply stuck with the current Cobra Commander. He's one of the few characters who has to carry over, and frankly, he has to think of the audience members who liked the first movie. That, and he probably would prefer the time that would be spent writing out Rex and introducing the new guy elsewhere.

It could be pretty clumsily handled; if there was something in the first movie that hinted that Cobra existed before the end of the movie and it even pre-dated Rex (the way the IDW comics have Cobra as an older organization with "Commander" being a title that is passed down) I would say they had a case for introducing a new Commander and just leaving Rex to rot in prison. But there wasn't any hint of any agenda larger than Rex's, so it would be hard to make it work for those who didn't hate him. To anyone who didn't hate Rex, it wouldn't come as a relief but as an awkward retcon. I think they made the most of it; they wrote out Duke and the Baroness, thus eliminating his personal connections to any characters in the movies and the need to reference his backstory and revamped his look.

Besides, not to be snide, but there are more opinions than yours and mine out there; only now are the questions asking if JGL is coming back are starting to taper off, and there are the fans who are acting as if he's irreplaceable, despite the majority of his Doctor/Cc performance just being his eyes and a heavily modulated voice. If the producers of the movie literally went to gauge fan reaction online to see what to do in the next movie, I think the chances are slim they would decide to write out Rex and introduce a new CC based on fan reception of the character.