Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Yo Joe!

I finally bought the G.I. Joe Movie.  Not the recent film.  I'm talking about the cartoon from the 80's.  It was 50% more for the blu-ray version.  I went for it.  Before that I'd been watching a VHS tape of it that I bought for 8 or 10 dollars when I was twelve.  And I still have that tape.  I'd watched it so many times that the color was turning reddish.  So I'm a self-confessed fan of G.I. Joe and other popular 80's toons.

But why was it good?  I mean no one ever died, at least to my knowledge.  It wasn't as cheesy as the old serials where you'd see the hero fall to his death, only to learn the following week that he'd escaped the crashing plane somehow.  They'd shoot their "laser" weapons.  I mean they looked like normal guns but shot lasers.  They could hit vehicles and buildings and trees, but never each other.  If a plane got shot down, you'd always see the pilot escape.  And nothing really brutal ever happened, except for the occasional taking of human slaves by Cobra.  They'd all get rescued at the end of the episode or miniseries.

Well, there was still tons of action, especially for an older cartoon.  The characters were colorful.  And they showed as much of Cobra as G.I. Joe.  Many of my favorite characters are members of Cobra.  Every episode is some sort plot by Cobra to take over the world.  There was espionage and attempts at brainwashing and fighting over secret weapons.  Some of it was awfully silly.  Some of it was not so silly.  Most of it was well-written fun.  I admit that having re-watched the 2nd season, the second half was not as coherent or focused in its plots.  But even then it could still be enjoyable.  It was intended for children as entertainment.  So I guess I'm a big kid.

I've tried other visions of G.I. Joe.  There was the series in the 90's.  I watched it.  As a kid I never thought it was as good.  To be fair to it, I have not reviewed it since that time.  I've seen that it's out on DVD.  Maybe I'll watch some. 

For sure the recent movie was pretty bad.  It bore little resemblance to the cartoon series; actually to either the first run or the second.  And the idea that the Baroness lost her Hungarian accent, became a baroness by marrying some rich schmuck, and wasn't really evil?  Oh, that just ruined for me.  No, I don't mean to ruin the plot.  But spoiler: the Baroness is not really evil.  What?!

The other thing I watched was called G.I. Joe Resolute.  I'd say it was truer to the source material, but still not great.  It drained all the fun and warmth from the characters.  It needed to be "real" and "gritty".  I'm not saying it was bad.  It was watchable, but just not the same.

Maybe I'm crazy, but I've always felt there was a lot of untapped story potential in G.I. Joe.  We could have had internal squabbles in the organizations, occasionally hinted at but never deeply explored.  And we could've developed relationships, and deepened and flawed the heck out of the characters.  Oh, well.  I still sound the battle cry: Yo Joe!

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