Bittersweet Tragedy

You see things quite differently as an adult than you do as a child.

(I apologize that this post is going to be a bit emotional, but this is really serious).

I had a really simple childhood. I was an only child and my parents both worked essentially opposite shifts for most of my "middle years." Mom went back to work when I was in 4th grade and stayed through I was in high school. Dad worked at the local mega-industry from before my birth to his retirement, which closely coincided with my high school graduation.

I never knew that we had things tough. I don't know how tough we had them to be honest. I just remember going and staying with one grandmother when my parents' work overlapped a bit. My other grandmother came to babysit me at my house on occasion as well. I don't really remember ever wanting anything and I certainly had no concept that we were poor. I knew that we weren't as rich as some of my classmates and I learned quickly the difference between a blue collar and a white collar neighborhood (we were in the former).

As an adult, I have come to cherish memories of my childhood. Yeah, we weren't high class folks, but we were good people. For that reason I say the following:

Damn you Stephen Sommers. Damn you Stuart Beattie, David Elliot, and Paul Lovett.

You four have taken one of the greatest aspects of my childhood, GI Joe, and absolutely made a mockery out of it and everything it stood for. No matter what house I was at growing up, no matter what the situation was, I always had a GI Joe with me to occupy my time and keep me focused. Now, you have collectively destroyed this for me by ruining this franchise.

The trailer to the new GI Joe movie makes it look absolutely twobob. Utter tripe. There is nothing good about it whatsoever. It looks so bad that I am considering not even watching it.

This creative team has managed to do the impossible. They have taken one of the most intricately developed comic books of all time (and we have to admit up front that Larry Hama is a genius) and completely fucked it up beyond all recognition. There is nothing at all, aside from the character names, that makes this GI Joe. Nothing.

Case in point: the scene with the suits. Apparently it doesn't matter that these guys are the most highly trained and skilled operatives in the world. No. We now have to dress them up in "acceleration suits" so they can run 90 miles an hour and dodge missiles. If you have an "acceleration suit," you would think that you could just put the average run-of-the-mill soldier in it and do the trick....so why invent this concept and make it a central part of the GI Joe movie??? It makes no sense? It is almost as bad, and will actually probably be worse, than the big spider that helped ruin the already bad Wild Wild West movie.

I mean really, the Transformers did great I know...but that doesn't mean that you have to put high-tech machines in every toy movie that you produce. I am waiting for the super high-tech My Little Pony movie to come out where they implant the ponies with infrared vision and stealth fur and they go kill bin Laden. That would actually be a better plot than the GI Joe movie.

Here is a spoiler, so don't read this if you are actually planning to see the movie. Cobra Commander in this one? He looks utterly atrocious with this clear helmet on and a breathing tube coming out of it....almost like a transparent Mysterio from Spider Man. That will be bad...but what makes it worse is that he and Duke are now old war buddies! Some vicious malady befalls CC and skips Duke and it drives CC bonkers. What the hell? Gone is the terrorist genius who just became evil because corporate America had stepped on him so many times. No...we have to go with a simple, non-subversive storyline where a guy takes an acid bath and comes out on the other side as Hannibal Lecter.

The creative team made some good casting decisions and then squandered them with some abjectly stupid ones. Chris Eccleston as Destro is awesome. He was a good Doctor Who and should own the role. Mr. Eko from Lost as Roadblock, er....Heavy Duty is another good one. That is where it stops. The guy playing Duke is a nobody and I actually hope they kill him off in this one and bring in Don Johnson as Lt. Falcon, as they did in the animated movie. Marlon Wayans as Ripcord is nonsensical. He apparently wanted the role because he was a fan of the old line....it is too bad that he couldn't keep the producers from making a mockery of it.

Yeah....thanks Hollywood for taking one of the few unadulterated memories of my childhood and making it worthless.