Y'know, as much as it's fun to speculate, I don't think I want a GI Joe show or movie if they feel the need to modernize it with Hollywood's obsession with military realism. I'm okay not Clancy-fying it. Adding my vote for Resolute being about as realistic as I want it. I want it a bit absurd but respectful to the source material. Actually if I ran the world? It's a period piece in an alternate timeline, keep it in the 80s. Keep the backstories of Snake Eyes and Stalker and all, pretend the hellhole of a future we ended up in never happened. Cobra Commander in bad 80s clothes and his mask screaming at people. Miami Vice soundtrack. Belly shirts for every Dreadnok.
I AMOST suggested this, with Vietnam being their backstory.
No argument.
Agreed.
I'm with this. When I think about any science fiction elements, I cringe because I think of Rise of Cobra and I just really didn't like the super suits or whatever those were. I don't need military realism either, definitely not into flag waving, etc, just a cool team trying to stop disasters and attacks around the world, some mystery element, with a deep and fleshed out backstory that gets revealed over the season, and so on.
Yeah, I think the master stroke of this IP and why we keep talking about it all this time later it's neither jingoistic flag waving (or rather, it's the good kind? Like there's an actual kind of earnestness to it we've lost over the decades?) nor pure sci-fi. It's got a near-future, kinda ridiculous sci-fi element that isn't full sci-fi and definitely doesn't take itself seriously, but it also kinda unironically wants you to hope the good guys win. And the thing I think every attempt to reboot it in live action has failed to do - the characters are FUN and don't need to be completely recreated from scratch for a modern audience. There's good bones to this house, don't knock it down, right?
Oh just watch it and go buy your techno-viper. I already told you no one here wants to deal with any more of your nonsense. Doc is getting pretty angry about your pessimistic attitude and I'm really not sure how much longer I can hold him back from writing a truly scathing expose on your behaviour.
Yeah, I'm down for this. I think making it an alternate 1980s rather than modernizing is the way to go. And it preserves plausible deniability that whatever you say in the movie isn't about now or here. It's about this fictional version of our past that doesn't and can't exist rather than speculative fiction about what our military might look like in 10 years -- something I'm generally not a fan of.
Yeah, that sucked. But that's why I don't like the speculative military futurism stuff where some filmmaker is trying to imagine what warfare might look like ten years from now, instead of doing a fun sci-fi version of what we imagined military futurism in 1990 might look like in 1980. That's way more fun. And way more charming, really. There's something just so perfect about M16s on your main crew but also their experimental technology buddy has like... a backpack-fed laser gun? Yes. Do that. Unashamedly do that.
And to add emphasis here, though you're right throughout, but this part especially... There are some aspects of the original marvel run they can just USE as is. Some scenes could be ripped right from the comic. If they could add some elements from the cartoon and make it work, even better.
First off, I appreciate your honesty and upfrontness. Secondly... I kinda wanna read that though! I think I'm psyching myself up for putting my books more out there so getting scathed like that may be good practice!
And speaking of, I realized as you described this that I did exactly this with my books. Not military so much, but they're set in an alternate late-90s.
Great point. I would stay away from things likes Wedding Singer when they see a Rubik's Cube and say "oh, this will never catch on!" Those kinda jokes grind my gears.
I'm utterly in love with this idea.
*tears up my "tell Ru to just buy the purple figure and be joyful* manifesto*
Absolutely..so many of them are kinda dumb on their face and would take a lot of work to make a great movie or show now, but being fun AND respecting the concept itself is so key, and apparently difficult.
Exactly.
Heh, yeah... And I agree about that movie. There are elements of that movie that are very 80s as far as being fun yet buying fully in its premise.
The temptation is to say "it writes itself" but really it's just a matter of being so immersed in that style and era.
Haw!!! Message received though. I appreciate the techno viper intervention and the heartfelt place it came from. The cockles I assume. The cockles of the heart.
I'm not really gonna give you a hard time about not buying the techno-viper. In this economy? Cobra Commander can do his own IT work. (But the upthread comment about the purple ones hanging out with Mindbender got me thinking about what the good doctor's personal guard would look like. The Aubergine Guard or something.