treasuretrove_vip I can't agree with those who called this a great movie. One wonders if they worked for the studio or for Hasbro. Some of the feedback was completely over the top – much like the GI Joe franchise itself. And that's the shame of it, because the GI Joe series had the potential to be really great. But unfortunately Ron Friedman and the studio never fully understood why the show worked, which was largely in spite of their handling of it.We liked GI Joe because the characters were so interesting. Everyone eagerly looked for their favorites to appear in individual episodes, wanting to know more about them and wanting to see them succeed, even if they happened to be members of COBRA. Would it have been too much to ask for just ONE of Cobra Commander's plots to be successful? But unfortunately the writers and producers felt it necessary to dumb-down practically every aspect of the show, deeming the audience either too squeamish or too stupid to accept any form of realism.Despite the fact that the show's basic premise was based on domestic warfare, GI Joe's creators felt it necessary to safeguard their viewing audience from any hint of reality. Cartoon violence that would have been necessary for the show to have any substance was replaced by outright buffoonery on both sides. Most fans kept watching in spite of the writing – willing to overlook the most ridiculous story lines and plot holes because we loved the characters. So naturally, the studio execs did what all executives do when they don't understand their fan base – they took away the show's best redeeming quality. Starting in season 2 they began robbing us of those original characters, replacing them abruptly with new ones that were predictable and uninteresting – all in the name of selling more toys. GI Joe The Movie represents the sad pinnacle of this strategy, with a whole new group of GI Bozos created to take over the franchise, including the absolute worst two ever created – Big Lob and Chuckles, and the completely unnecessary Lt. Falcon. I suspect this new batch was brewed up just in case we had grown attached to any of the Season 2 characters, who no doubt would have been jettisoned in Season 3. We saw so little of some of the original Joes in the movie that I had to check the credits just to make sure they had made a cursory appearance. Needless to say, the franchise collapsed under the weight of such inept leadership and fan ignorance, and a third season was never produced.The movie did have a few high points. Chris Latta gave his usual strong performance as Cobra Commander, Michael Bell had a chance to expand Duke's character, and Burgess Meredith with his gravelly voice brought a good menacing quality to Golobulus. One of the darkest (and best) lines of the entire series is when he said to Falcon "I will stain my hands with your blood." But memorable lines like that were few and far between in the series. Kudos to Friedman for (finally) trying to interject some realism with the death of Duke, but even that was thwarted in the end. We often make fun of his coma scene, comparing it to Futurama's lengthy list of coma patients in the embedded soap opera 'All My Circuits'.Like every agent of COBRA, GI Joe The Movie misses the mark. It's sad because the series had tremendous potential. But the writers consistently went wrong in so many ways, turning action/adventure into unintentional comedy. In their insistence of trying to lower the collective IQ of their viewers, they guaranteed that certain things would always happen during any episode of GI Joe. For starters, COBRA can't shoot straight. You'd think at least one member would have been sent down to the firing range for some target practice. Second, GI Joe has the worst security on the planet. Zartan, Zarana, the Baroness and Firefly could come and go at will and should have just been issued EZ passes for the front gate. Third, the animals were smarter than their human counterparts and in the case of Polly, were more articulate (at least as far as Bazooka was concerned – don't they have IQ tests to get in to GI Joe?)Fourth, there was more depth in the characters' 2-D drawings than there ever was in their development. Despite being the leader of the most lethal terrorist organization on the planet, Cobra Commander has the military prowess of Col. Klink from Hogan's Heroes. Duke on the other hand is one of those fortunate people who goes through life never having to second guess himself because he's so perfect. Other characters like Shipwreck, Bazooka and the Dreadnok's are forever doomed to play the fool for comic relief.Fifth were all the things that make you go 'huh?' For example, why do COBRA soldiers never remove their helmets, even in the gym? (how do they shower?) Why does Quick-Kick wear no shirt or shoes in the snow, and Barbecue his suffocating fire-suit in the desert? How DOES Deep Six go to the bathroom in that get-up? And how many times has Lady Jaye gotten knocked unconscious – shouldn't she have been discharged by now for post-traumatic concussion syndrome? I guess since GI Joes never lose a fair fight, the only other option is to either dog-pile them with a dozen enemy soldiers, or bash them over the head with blunt-force trauma.Sixth is that one GI Joe is all it takes to bring down an entire COBRA armada (we call them "One Shot Joe"). A single handgun, a magic javelin, or a piece of fruit was enough for any Joe to win the day. Which raises the final point: GI Joe can never lose – COBRA can never win. End of story, and the premature end of the franchise.

thesar-2 I strongly admire the ambition of 'G.I. Joe: The Movie' from 1987. As 2-D as it was, modeled after the same quality of the TV show, it absolutely yearned to be more than what it was. I grew up on three toys/cartoon series: Transformers, He-Man and G.I. Joe. So, it was a nice refresher to see this big-screen adaptation again. Unfortunately, watching as an adult for the first time (and I must've seen it 3 dozen times as a kid) I can see the truth in critics/parents calling this simply an "advertisement." Oh, it sure was. They prove that with 5 new Joes they let loose, not to mention a lot of new Cobra baddies, a lot of vehicles and sets to buy (NOW!) The main idea revolves around the break-down of Cobra under Cobra Commander's leadership and their new backing of an ancient evil of Cobra-La whose intention is, no doubt, world-domination and the equally dysfunctional Joe team to stop them. Will the Joes work together to defeat the organic enemies? Obviously. But, knowing is always half the battle. It's truly amazing both teams, good and bad, can actually work together to solve any problem, but that's the message about teamwork and individuality that saves the day. Unfortunately, the movie solely relies on sales and models from the year's before theatrical release of 'Transformers: The Movie' which, was so similarly based, they used some of the same music scores – cheap tatics. Still, it had one up on the cartoon feature length of 'Transformers': it didn't feel the need to kill off multiple characters (as 'Transformers' did) in order to introduce a new line of toys. Nevertheless, despite its extremely low production quality (even for 1987) it was enjoyable, especially for those who grew up on the TV series.

DarthBill After an exciting opening featuring a great, powerful rendition of the GI Joe theme and a fierce battle between the Joes and Cobra before the Statue of Liberty, we get treated to a ludicrous story about a city full of giant bugs called Cobra-La, which spawned Cobra Commander and had a hand in the creation of Serpentor, reaching out to Cobra to get them to capture the latest in sci-fi technology, the Broadcast Energy Transmitter or BET, so that they can use it to cook up some giant spores floating over the Earth to turn us humans into ugly monsters while the Cobra-La folk hang out safely in their ice dome. Only GI Joe, the real American Hero, stands in their way, and with many Joes incapacitated in some way or another, it's up to the Rawhides - including Duke's smart ass half brother Lt. Falcon, female Asian martial artist Jinx, silent Chuckles, cynical Tunnel Rat, good natured Law and his dog and the in movie only sports man Big Lob - along with Sgt. Slaughter's Renegades - Mercer, Red Dog and Taurus - to step in and lend a helping hand.I use to watch this over and over as a kid because it was the easiest access I had to GI Joe when I couldn't catch the reruns, but even as a kid I thought it sucked, mostly because the Cobra-La thing just didn't gel in with the rest of what I knew about GI Joe. Apparently having Cobra Commander be a scion of Cobra-La stemmed from an idea one of the show's writers had that CC was really just a front man for a much larger, more sinister organization. Even by 1980s kid show standards this whole movie's plot was just a little too far fetched.Still, I think this was a little bit better than the Transformers movie, but like Transformers the GI Joe movie suffers from trying to push out the characters we already loved in favor of new characters we never got to know very well (like the Transformers movie, this was supposed to bridge the gap to a 3rd season, but GI Joe's 3rd year never happened), which takes a lot of fun out of the movie. There's also the thing about Duke - they say he went into a coma, but after taking a friggin snake javelin right in the heart, the man was clearly dead. Apparently they had to change the death, originally set because Duke was being phased out of the toy line and the writers were tired of fighting with the toy owner Hasbro to keep him in the show, because of the backlash to Optimus Prime's death in the Transformers flick. Personally I think GI Joe could have gotten away with killing Duke (not that I wanted him to die); Optimus Prime need not have died. Too bad, because the brush with death, right when Duke rasps "Yo... Joe..." for the last time (and let's face it, no one yelled "Yo Joe!" better than Michael Bell, with Duke easily being the best role of his voice over career) was actually proving to be very touching, but the coma line ruins it. The writers themselves admitted it sucked and have pointed out that if you watch it without sound and go just by the reactions of Scarlett, Falcon and General Hawk, and the way our favorite rugged blonde man's head rolls to the side and his grip loosens, then it's quite evident that Duke dies.The thing about Falcon being Duke's half-brother was also a bit tacky, though Don "Miami Vice" Johnson read the part fairly well, especially since they really look nothing alike; Falcon was originally supposed to be General Hawk's son, and they really should have stuck to that. But with the beret he could have passed as a relative of Flint's.Flint, so prominent in the cartoon, has very little to do here, sadly, as do many other beloved GI Joe characters.On the plus side, the animation is great, the action sequences are above par and so is the music. The opening is probably the best thing about the movie (and probably would have made a better plot for the movie).

shpoodog I grew up with the GI Joe cartoons and Toys as well as the Transformers, Star Wars, Kung Fu movies, The A-Team, and everything you'd expect a kid to watch in the 80's. I remember seeing this on TV in the early 90's, and I liked it then.I picked up the DVD last year (it's worth it for the "knowing is half the battle" PSA's), and I can say that I enjoyed it more on some levels, and less on others.For the good, it had Don Johnson and I knew who he would give his voice to before he spoke. I kind of got a kick out o that. There was also the typical GI Joe/A-Team fire fights, where shots were fired and stuff blows up everywhere, but nobody is hurt. Is it in any sense realistic? No. Is it fun to watch? Actually, yes.They also kept much of the score from the cartoon intact, which preserved some of the feel.None of the new characters really grated me, but I felt like they drowned out the old familiar ones. I've never been a huge Serpentor fan, so I would have liked more Destro and Cobra Commander action. The new Cobra history was iffy, but it doesn't really take away from the movie.Now what the movie is really missing is ninja action. Sure, we have Jinx, but she is nothing compared to Snake-Eyes and Stormshadow. We do get to see Snake-Eyes looking hard core in the background here and there, but that's it and Stormshadow is only in one scene at the beginning. Come on! It's GI Joe: The Movie (even if it never hit the big screen). Don't hold back. Give us an epic Stormshadow vs. Snake-Eyes fight.All in all, it felt like a longer episode of GI Joe, but not like an all out movie. It's still enjoyable, but could have been more.