Armed Forces (Or Why I’m Tired of Hearing About The Upcoming G.I. Joe Movie)

A fellow blogger gave me a smirk the other day when he overdubbed the trailer for G.I. JOE: RISE OF THE COBRA with some slightly more appropriate music. I was happy to finally get a bit of joy out of the silliness that this upcoming film is, since I think it looks absolutely awful.

But perhaps the only thing more annoying than the hype surrounding this awful-looking movie, is the amount of rants it is spurring in the blogosphere. Allow me a rant about ranting after the jump.

Permit me a moment to qualify myself – I am this movie’s target demographic. The toys on which it is based hit shelves when I was four years old; the cartoon following behind when I turned seven. G.I. Joe was what I watched every day after school, they were what I asked for every Christmas and birthday, and they were what my friends and I pretended to be every recess (I was always Flint).

When this movie was greenlit, Hasbro and Paramount were counting on me, and all my old school chums, to drop our grown up dollars and remember being seven years old. Unfortunately, they screwed up the product along the way, so they likely won’t get as many grown up dollars as they would have hoped. It’s Hollywood – such things have happened before, and I promise they’ll happen again.

Here’s what gets me though. Blogger after blogger has gone on and on (and on) about how Paramount in general (and director Stephen Sommers in particular) has mucked with a sacred entity.

To those, I beg – sit down, shut up, and stop it.

This isn’t the same as a poor adaptation of an award winning novel. It isn’t even the same as a long-running comic book being misinterpreted to the big screen because Eric Bana wasn’t a believable Bruce Banner. This is in no way, shape or form a sacred property. This is a movie based on a cartoon that was created for one reason, and one reason only – to sell. more. toys.

To those who bemoan the fact that Sienna Miller will be a horrible Baroness, or that acceleration suits an out and out horrible idea, I have to ask – have you watched that cartoon we grew up on? I mean really watched it…through adult eyes, setting aside all nostalgia? If you haven’t, get your hands on an episode – try to make it one of the ten where Duke falls into a coma. You will notice something without much difficulty: it really isn’t that good. Further, as a Canadian it’s a tad off putting how blatantly flag-waving American they are!

Geeks are ruling the roost in Hollywood these days, but I really think the geeks need to pick their battles better. Not everything The MTV generation grew up with is a holy relic. This is important to remember because as I type, there are adaptations of The Smurfs, He-Man, and Thundercats being tossed around Hollywood. I’d set odds at 5-1 that they all suck when/if they finally hit screens.

They made us happy when we were kids, which is swell, but it’s no reason to rail on about how they must be handled with kit gloves when it comes time to turn them into a movie.