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Oct. 31st, 2007 08:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
geebsSo ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
clevemire pointed me out to the description of one of the upcoming issues of Hack/Slash:
"Vlad and Cassie are still entrenched in the mystery of the all-girl school murders! While they are trying to stop the slasher that’s killing nubile college women, they’re forced to take part in bikini parties, all night tickle fests and sorority sleepovers! It’s hell on earth!"
Heh, apparently he saw it off a site where the reviewers were a little put off by the description. I guess because its tawdry, salacious, and altogether lascivious! (I haven't gotten to say that in a long time!) Ooh, how's this for a new one: stv('How lewd!') Though I can't see how one can see it as anything other than awesome. Or as Captain Awesome says, "Outstanding!"
Anyways, Hack/Slash is done by Devil's Due Publishing, which also does the current G.I.Joe series. I hear the movie finally got green lit. I don't know why fans are excited about it, how can it be anything other than bad?! I mean, its like making a Punisher movie. I've always been a fan of the Punisher. But a Punisher movie will never work because at its core, its about a normal guy with extensive military experience who snaps after his family is brutally murdered by mobsters and declares a one man war on crime. And that theme has been done to death. Well, the whole John Q Public turning Joe Vigilante thing. Just in the past couple of months, both Jodie Foster and Kevin Bacon had such a film come out. Then there's series like The Substitute and Death Wish. Unlike classic comic book heroes like Spiderman or Batman or Superman, there's nothing here that will make it stand out in the minds of people who aren't Punsiher fans. I mean, Daredevil was blind and Ghost Rider had a flaming skull and Elektra prolly wouldn't have been made if not for the Daredevil movie (and the fact that Jenny Garner had a hit show going on at the time)
So the same issue holds for G.I.Joe (or Rainbow Six, if they did a movie on that). Sure, its been around for decades. But problem number one: you have the really old folks, who think of G.I.Joe as a guy, and then you have kids who grew up in the 80s, who think of it as a team. Now in the current comic series, G.I.Joe the guy is commanding officer (not field commander, since he's like old and stuff, and its not like he was doing anything other than accidentally hurting Malibu Stacy with his Kung Fu Grip for not coming with him on his Mobile Command Unit) of the team, but that's irrelevant other than to show I'm a huge geek.
But then for the 80s generation, there are those who only knew the TV series, and those who followed the comics. The comics tried to be more realistic, none of the silly stuff from the cartoons (well, they still had things like guys genetically engineered from the DNA of famous military leaders throughout history) like everyone shooting each other and missing until they got close enough for the good guys to punch the bad guys out. I mean, people died in the comics, including actual members. They killed off Lady Jaye! Actually, I think in the current run, Chicago was devastated by a madman (who wasn't even a Cobra!) who was crashing satellites in the first issue, and the current story arc, Cobra had been fanning the flames of the ongoing conflicts in the world's hotspots, culminating in them infiltrating a Russian sub and nuking Boston.
The comic was gone for a few years there, after Marvel ended the series and it was picked back up by Image then Devil's Due. But there's more than ten years of history there since things continued where they left off (albiet a few years later) when the series changed companies. Well, they also did the retcon thing like they've done with all comics to de-age the characters so the characters that were Vietnam vets were actually in some unnamed Southeast Asian conflict that took place more recently to the storyline. But I digress. Actual comic fans would never be satisified with any movie made because it will ignore all that! Its not as well known as Batman or Spiderman or Daredevil where they can reference story arcs like the Phoenix or when Bullseye killed Elektra or Green Goblin threw Gwen Stacy off the bridge (though the movie obviously changed it to Mary Jane and have her survive, but its basically the same scene) and enough people will know it. It'll just be another "elite military team movie" with characters who happen to share the same names as the G.I.Joe characters. I mean, it would be cool if they followed the whole shared history of Snake Eyes/Cobra Commander/Storm Shadow, but they won't.
It'll be like Transformers, where its really about a bunch of new random human characters, and they happened to have robots who transform into things in the background who happen to have the same name as the Transformers and kinda look like them. Like G.I.Joe, there's a history there. It has the same comic book vs cartoon thing, but at the very least both had the Starscream/Megatron conflict which they didn't even touch on in the movie! The series had characterization, the movie just chose to ignore it in favor of people who had nothing to do with the series. They have a "Witwicky" but they changed the first name to "Sam" (though in their defense, Spike or Buster would've both sounded silly). They could've at least named Megan Fox's character Carly, or had him have a cripple computer sidekick genius named Chip. Heck, I woulda even been satisfied with a military lady named Marissa Faireborn. Yeah, she was a character in the post-original Transformer movie cartoons, but the movie took place in 2005, which we are well past. (G.I.Joe/Transformers trivia for the day, Marissa Faireborn was the daughter of Flint, though if Lady Jaye was her mom, they never said. They had her father on the cartoon once, and he was also voiced by Flint's voice actor)
In any case, its not like the characters didn't have personality. Starscream was a vain, arrogant prick and while the cartoon reduced him and Megatron to caricatures of themselves, their conflict over leadership over the Decepticons was always interesting. On the one side you have the rich noble who thinks he should lead by virtue of his birthright, and on the other you have a guy who started out as a gladiatorial pit fighter and managed to be charismatic enough to raise an army, and cunning and devious enough to militarily take over his home planet. Throw Shockwave into the mix, who thinks he should be leader over those two because he's smarter than the two of them combined, and that's an interesting dynamic right there. The Prowl/Grimlock thing was pretty interesting as well. Prowl was loyal, by the book, goody two shoes boy scout, while Grimlock (who's not actually as dumb as he is in the cartoon) is this bad-ass, might makes right Conan type. And both felt they should be next in line as Autobot leader should something happen to Optimus.
I always thought Sideswipe and Sunstreaker were kinda cool. (they were the Lamborghinis in the original run but were updated to Vipers in their Alternator/Binaltech incarnations) Twin brothers, the former a cocky, flippant street fighter who wasn't above resorting to dirty tricks, the latter an extremely vain but highly skilled warrior and most likely a sociopath. Even Mirage had a cool back story, he was a rich noble before the war and is now kinda James Bond-ish in his espionage function. And the rest of the autobots don't really trust him. He's kinda aloof, and its pretty obvious he yearns for the days of old when he was doing whatever the hell a rich robot does. So Optimus fears what would happen if one day Megatron tries to entice him with promises of a restoration of his wealth and power. So there's back story there, its just the movie chose to ignore it, and I'm not sure people would've gone for it anyways because how do you apply human traits to giant robots without it seeming goofy?
Owel, unfortunately what I've written is so long that no one will actually sit through and read this. I guess I can say anything now, like in high school, I accidentally killed this guy when stopping him from sexually assaulting this girl I had a crush on, and instead of going to the police and claiming self defense, we dumped the body and kept it secret ever since. I did get some messed up sex out of it.
clevemire pointed me out to the description of one of the upcoming issues of Hack/Slash:"Vlad and Cassie are still entrenched in the mystery of the all-girl school murders! While they are trying to stop the slasher that’s killing nubile college women, they’re forced to take part in bikini parties, all night tickle fests and sorority sleepovers! It’s hell on earth!"
Heh, apparently he saw it off a site where the reviewers were a little put off by the description. I guess because its tawdry, salacious, and altogether lascivious! (I haven't gotten to say that in a long time!) Ooh, how's this for a new one: stv('How lewd!') Though I can't see how one can see it as anything other than awesome. Or as Captain Awesome says, "Outstanding!"
Anyways, Hack/Slash is done by Devil's Due Publishing, which also does the current G.I.Joe series. I hear the movie finally got green lit. I don't know why fans are excited about it, how can it be anything other than bad?! I mean, its like making a Punisher movie. I've always been a fan of the Punisher. But a Punisher movie will never work because at its core, its about a normal guy with extensive military experience who snaps after his family is brutally murdered by mobsters and declares a one man war on crime. And that theme has been done to death. Well, the whole John Q Public turning Joe Vigilante thing. Just in the past couple of months, both Jodie Foster and Kevin Bacon had such a film come out. Then there's series like The Substitute and Death Wish. Unlike classic comic book heroes like Spiderman or Batman or Superman, there's nothing here that will make it stand out in the minds of people who aren't Punsiher fans. I mean, Daredevil was blind and Ghost Rider had a flaming skull and Elektra prolly wouldn't have been made if not for the Daredevil movie (and the fact that Jenny Garner had a hit show going on at the time)
So the same issue holds for G.I.Joe (or Rainbow Six, if they did a movie on that). Sure, its been around for decades. But problem number one: you have the really old folks, who think of G.I.Joe as a guy, and then you have kids who grew up in the 80s, who think of it as a team. Now in the current comic series, G.I.Joe the guy is commanding officer (not field commander, since he's like old and stuff, and its not like he was doing anything other than accidentally hurting Malibu Stacy with his Kung Fu Grip for not coming with him on his Mobile Command Unit) of the team, but that's irrelevant other than to show I'm a huge geek.
But then for the 80s generation, there are those who only knew the TV series, and those who followed the comics. The comics tried to be more realistic, none of the silly stuff from the cartoons (well, they still had things like guys genetically engineered from the DNA of famous military leaders throughout history) like everyone shooting each other and missing until they got close enough for the good guys to punch the bad guys out. I mean, people died in the comics, including actual members. They killed off Lady Jaye! Actually, I think in the current run, Chicago was devastated by a madman (who wasn't even a Cobra!) who was crashing satellites in the first issue, and the current story arc, Cobra had been fanning the flames of the ongoing conflicts in the world's hotspots, culminating in them infiltrating a Russian sub and nuking Boston.
The comic was gone for a few years there, after Marvel ended the series and it was picked back up by Image then Devil's Due. But there's more than ten years of history there since things continued where they left off (albiet a few years later) when the series changed companies. Well, they also did the retcon thing like they've done with all comics to de-age the characters so the characters that were Vietnam vets were actually in some unnamed Southeast Asian conflict that took place more recently to the storyline. But I digress. Actual comic fans would never be satisified with any movie made because it will ignore all that! Its not as well known as Batman or Spiderman or Daredevil where they can reference story arcs like the Phoenix or when Bullseye killed Elektra or Green Goblin threw Gwen Stacy off the bridge (though the movie obviously changed it to Mary Jane and have her survive, but its basically the same scene) and enough people will know it. It'll just be another "elite military team movie" with characters who happen to share the same names as the G.I.Joe characters. I mean, it would be cool if they followed the whole shared history of Snake Eyes/Cobra Commander/Storm Shadow, but they won't.
It'll be like Transformers, where its really about a bunch of new random human characters, and they happened to have robots who transform into things in the background who happen to have the same name as the Transformers and kinda look like them. Like G.I.Joe, there's a history there. It has the same comic book vs cartoon thing, but at the very least both had the Starscream/Megatron conflict which they didn't even touch on in the movie! The series had characterization, the movie just chose to ignore it in favor of people who had nothing to do with the series. They have a "Witwicky" but they changed the first name to "Sam" (though in their defense, Spike or Buster would've both sounded silly). They could've at least named Megan Fox's character Carly, or had him have a cripple computer sidekick genius named Chip. Heck, I woulda even been satisfied with a military lady named Marissa Faireborn. Yeah, she was a character in the post-original Transformer movie cartoons, but the movie took place in 2005, which we are well past. (G.I.Joe/Transformers trivia for the day, Marissa Faireborn was the daughter of Flint, though if Lady Jaye was her mom, they never said. They had her father on the cartoon once, and he was also voiced by Flint's voice actor)
In any case, its not like the characters didn't have personality. Starscream was a vain, arrogant prick and while the cartoon reduced him and Megatron to caricatures of themselves, their conflict over leadership over the Decepticons was always interesting. On the one side you have the rich noble who thinks he should lead by virtue of his birthright, and on the other you have a guy who started out as a gladiatorial pit fighter and managed to be charismatic enough to raise an army, and cunning and devious enough to militarily take over his home planet. Throw Shockwave into the mix, who thinks he should be leader over those two because he's smarter than the two of them combined, and that's an interesting dynamic right there. The Prowl/Grimlock thing was pretty interesting as well. Prowl was loyal, by the book, goody two shoes boy scout, while Grimlock (who's not actually as dumb as he is in the cartoon) is this bad-ass, might makes right Conan type. And both felt they should be next in line as Autobot leader should something happen to Optimus.
I always thought Sideswipe and Sunstreaker were kinda cool. (they were the Lamborghinis in the original run but were updated to Vipers in their Alternator/Binaltech incarnations) Twin brothers, the former a cocky, flippant street fighter who wasn't above resorting to dirty tricks, the latter an extremely vain but highly skilled warrior and most likely a sociopath. Even Mirage had a cool back story, he was a rich noble before the war and is now kinda James Bond-ish in his espionage function. And the rest of the autobots don't really trust him. He's kinda aloof, and its pretty obvious he yearns for the days of old when he was doing whatever the hell a rich robot does. So Optimus fears what would happen if one day Megatron tries to entice him with promises of a restoration of his wealth and power. So there's back story there, its just the movie chose to ignore it, and I'm not sure people would've gone for it anyways because how do you apply human traits to giant robots without it seeming goofy?
Owel, unfortunately what I've written is so long that no one will actually sit through and read this. I guess I can say anything now, like in high school, I accidentally killed this guy when stopping him from sexually assaulting this girl I had a crush on, and instead of going to the police and claiming self defense, we dumped the body and kept it secret ever since. I did get some messed up sex out of it.
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no subject
Date: 2007-10-31 05:47 pm (UTC)Movies don't necessarily need to stand out, they just need to make x amount more than their budget. If a GI Joe movie can do that, then good for them.
And dude, they would HAVE to have the baroness in it, although I don't know who could do her part justice.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-31 06:38 pm (UTC)And I liked the Transformers movies. Its prolly unreasonable of me to expect the characterization from the comics or even off stuff listed in the tech specs that came with the toys, as I'm pretty sure I'm one of a small minority that actually knows anything about that. I mean, kids are more impressed with it being a robot that turns into a car or jet, not its personality or life history! But Transformers can get away with because its still unique in that the movie features robots that transform into vehicles and things. So I can still think of it as Transformers. Whereas in the aforementioned Resident Evil, the whole zombie plague concept is not unique, and the movies don't feature the video games actual spin on the concept.
Which is why to me the G.I.Joe movie won't feel like true G.I.Joe to me because it won't have all the history that separates it from the elite military team concept. I mean, Snake Eyes, Storm Shadow, Cobra Commander, Firefly, Zartan, Destro, the Baroness, their histories tie together in so many ways that would be too long to be covered in a movie anyways.
Like the Baroness, the whole reason she became a terrorist was because way back in 'Nam (or "unnamed Southeast Asian conflict that takes place more recently") she thought an American serviceman (a pre-disfigured Snake Eyes) killed her brother. A couple of Cong did a driveby on Snake Eyes, Stalker, and Storm Shadow (who served in the same recon unit) in Saigon, and Snake Eyes chased them through the streets. He lost track of them for a little while, and they meanwhile went to meet with her brother. He was a wealthy European donating medical supplies to the innocents caught up in the conflict, and he had discovered that they were stealing the supplies and selling them on the black market to raise money for the VC. So he confronts them, they shoot him, and Snake Eyes finally catches up to them and shoots them. Young Anastasia (the Baroness' real name), who was a teen at the time, comes upon the scene, sees her brother and the two Cong dead, and an American soldier with a smoking gun standing over them, and she assumes Snake Eyes killed all three. This is the pivotal moment that causes her to become all anti-West and become a terrorist! But I could go on for hours on how all their lives intersected even before there was a G.I.Joe or Cobra.
But we won't get that. She'll end up being played by a hot chick and will end up being generic hottie evil femme fatale. The same for the rest of the Cobras, they'll have some generic take over the world motivation. And the Joes will prolly have Duke as All American leader guy. There are talks that Clooney is up for the role. Already a poor casting choice. I've always felt Clooney would be perfect for Flint. I mean, Flint can be smarmy. Clooney is smarmy. Flint would be very similar to Clooney's characters in The Peacemaker or Three Kings. Duke is the total opposite of that, his attitude would be very similar to R Lee Emery (but younger), because he is this hard-ass sergeant type, not the dashing officer.
But they'll have Scarlett as the hot good chick, Roadblock as the big black guy, maybe someone like Tunnel Rat to be the comedic sidekick. They'll possibly have Snake Eyes as the quiet bad-ass, but he'd be like Donnie Yen's character in Blade II, just standing in the background, not saying anything, but doing bad ass things. Which is fine, but Snake Eyes is such a central figure in the series that it'll be disappointing to see him reduced to such a one note depiction. Hell, I bet they keep Duke, Scarlett, Roadblock, and Snake Eyes, and just make up the rest of the joes as generic stereotypes. Who knows, mebbe they'll surprise me and the movie will be good and still touch on all that history, but I'm not holding my breath.