G.I. Joe: The Movie
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| G.I. Joe: The Movie | |
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| Directed by | Don Jurwich |
| Produced by | Joe Bacal Tom Griffin |
| Written by | Ron Friedman |
| Starring | Don Johnson Burgess Meredith Sgt. Slaughter Bill Ratner Michael Bell Chris Latta |
| Release date(s) | 1987 |
| Running time | 93 min. |
| Language | English |
G.I. Joe: The Movie is a 1987 animated film spun off from the animated series G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, based on the original Hasbro toyline.
Created at the height of the G.I. Joe craze in the 1980s, G.I. Joe: The Movie was intended as a theatrical release to be closely followed by The Transformers: The Movie. However, the G.I. Joe film encountered unexpected production delays which allowed the Transformers feature to be released first. Due to the poor box office performances of the Transformers film and My Little Pony: The Movie, G.I. Joe: The Movie was instead released direct-to-video as well as aired on television in syndication, first in feature length format and later split into a five-part mini-series format as part of the show's syndication package.
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[edit] Synopsis
Shortly after a musical introduction where G.I. Joe prevents Cobra from destroying the Statue of Liberty on New Year's Eve, the film starts off where the series ended, with Serpentor now in command of Cobra and Cobra Commander scheming to rid himself of his usurper. As Cobra Commander and Serpentor take turns at accusing each other's stewardship of Cobra as the root cause of the organization's continued failures, a mysterious woman breaks into the Terrordrome. Cobra Commander leads the counter attack, but in an attempt to rid himself of Serpentor, allows the intruder to escape. Reaching Serpentor, the intruder reveals herself as Pythona, who comes from a secret civilization known as Cobra-La, and that they were the ones responsible for causing Dr. Mindbender to create Serpentor through dream manipulation. At her urging, Serpentor plans to capture G.I. Joe's newest device, the BET (Broadcast Energy Transmitter).
Serpentor leads an assault on the Joes as they test the BET in the Himalayas. During the battles the Joes use the BET to activate their automated weapons systems and beat back the Cobra forces. Serpentor and Duke engage in a one-on-one brawl, pitting the Cobra Emperor's superior physical prowess against Duke's skill and ingenuity. Duke eventually defeats Serpentor and Cobra Commander seizes upon this as an opportunity to eliminate his rival. He calls for a retreat, leaving Serpentor to be taken prisoner by the G.I. Joe forces after foiling Cobra's attack. Cobra Commander then leads his troops into the mountains, promising them he knows of a safe haven.
As the Joes celebrate their victory and the capture of Serpentor, a new group of rookie Joes are brought onto the team, most notably the allegedly clutzy female ninja Jinx and the rebellious slacker (and half-brother to GI Joe leader Duke) Lieutenant Falcon. Falcon and his half-brother Duke dislike each other, due to Falcon's immaturity and irresponsibility.
Meanwhile, pursued by a cadre of G.I. Joe troops (featuring many of the main characters from the cartoon at the time, most notably Snake Eyes, Quick Kick, Lady Jaye, Shipwreck, Snow Job, Dusty, and Roadblock, who appears to be the leader and have the most important role.), Cobra Commander leads his forces to Cobra-La. An army of insect-armor wearing soldiers attack the Joe forces and imprison them within the Lovecraftian living environment of Cobra-La. The villains are met by Cobra-La's leader, Golobulus.
Golobulus orders Cobra Commander arrested as the rest of the group learn the secret origin of both Cobra-La and Cobra: Cobra-La was an ancient civilization that ruled the earth, in part due to their advanced scientific knowledge, which allowed them to manipulate and convert living creatures into advanced bio-organic technology. Their society however was erased by the onset of the Ice Age, forcing those few survivors into hiding in caves deep within the Himalayan mountains.
As centuries passed, Cobra-La slowly rebuilt their society in secret. Mankind flourished and evolved, developing the technology we know today and took the Earth as its own. Golobulus, hating humanity due to their polluting technology and ecologically unfriendly ways, vowed to wipe them off the face of the earth and found an agent in the form of a former nobleman who was working on biological weapons of mass destruction. The nobleman's experiment ended badly; a lab accident caused his face to be exposed to chemicals that caused permanent facial disfigurement in the form of spontaneous creation of multiple eyes on his face. Equipping him with a specially designed featureless silver facemask (which featured circuitry allowing his multiple eyes to work normally) as well as a full body military uniform that allowed him to pass as human, the nobleman became Cobra Commander and was charged with the task of going forth into the world and conquering it for Cobra-La. However, Cobra Commander continually failed and led to Golobulus to secretly arrange for Serpentor's creation.
With this in mind, Golobulus decides to punish Cobra Commander for his crimes by exposing him to the now finished biological weapon Cobra Commander disfigured himself working on years earlier: a strain of mutative spores that slowly transform Cobra Commander into a large snake. He escapes however and makes his way to the Joes camp with Roadblock, the two providing mutual aid to one another, as spores have temporarily blinded the rhyming soldier. Zarana is sent to the G.I. Joe main base, where she seduces Lt. Falcon into letting her inside the base where she surveilles Serpentor's holding cell. Lt. Falcon abandons his post to flirt with Jinx, believing the holding cell to be impregnable. The Dreadnoks attack and free Serpentor, with the considerable aid of Golobulus' large henchman, the Nemesis Enforcer, severely injuring several Joes. For abandoning his post, Lt. Falcon is arrested and placed in the stockade by General Hawk, to be court-martialed.
With Serpentor now before him and willing to do anything his master desires, Golobulus orders the rest of Cobra to aid him in his scheme to destroy humanity. The remaining COBRA heavyweights— Destro, Baroness, Dr. Mindbender and the Dreadnoks—agree to help, mainly out of fear of the consequences they could face from Golobulus and Serpentor. Golobulus seeks the experimental Broadcast Energy Transmitter (BET) kept under G.I. Joe's guard. Once in his possession, Golobulus will launch several hundred mutagenic spore pods into orbit and use the BET's power to hatch the spores in the coldness of space and mutate all of humanity into mindless animals to be controlled by Cobra-La.
Meanwhile, Lt. Falcon is sentenced to the "Slaughter House" where he is to be whipped back into shape by Sgt. Slaughter and his new team of soldiers known as "Renegades." While on a recon mission to Cobra's Terrordome headquarters, Slaughter and his crew learn of Cobra's plans with the spores. The Joes mobilize to protect the BET, leaving Falcon and the new recruits behind. When Cobra attacks, the recruits take it upon themselves to help the Joes.
Cobra mounts a large offensive and successfully steals the BET device. In this battle, Serpentor is nearly able to kill Lt. Falcon. However, Falcon is saved by Duke at the last moment. Selflessly, Duke shields Falcon from Serpentor and takes the spear-attack meant for his half-brother, falling into a coma. Horrified at his brother's fate, Falcon, the Renegades and the new recruits head to the Himalayan mountains to stop Cobra-La once and for all. The G.I. Joe team is lead to Cobra-la's lair by Cobra Commander, who is slowly losing more and more of his mental faculties as the affect rapidly proceeds in his body. As he becomes more and more bestial, Cobra Commander is surprisingly humanized in terms of character. By the end, Cobra Commander is nothing more than a large python-type snake, though he has the hood of a cobra. The new recruits are able to prove themselves as valuable soldiers as the Joes rescue their captured teammates and foil Golobulus' plans.
During the pitched battle, several of the film's and series' main characters are given their own moment to shine (among them Scarlett giving the Baroness a thorough beating by repeatedly punching her in the face). Sgt. Slaughter successfully uses popular professional wrestling moves on his far-stronger opponent, Nemesis Enforcer. Together, Sgt. Slaughter and Jinx allow Falcon the chance to reconfigure the BET and defeat Golobulus in the process. The BET unit is used instead to incinerate the spore pods in space, destroying them. The overloading of the machine, however, makes it explode destroying also the Cobra-La lair. As the Joes celebrate their victory, Doc announces that Duke has come out of his coma.
[edit] New characters
[edit] Rawhides
Seen under the charge of Beach Head, the Rawhides are probationary recruits for G.I. Joe that have yet to complete their training for the team.
- Lt. Falcon, a Green Beret and Duke's reckless half-brother.
- Jinx, a female Japanese martial arts expert with a reputation for bad luck (and alternately, 'blind luck', as her martial arts skills are unmatched when she wears a blindfold).
- Law, a military policeman, and his bomb-sniffing canine companion, Order.
- Tunnel Rat, infiltration expert.
- Chuckles, here played as silent (minus the frenzied yelling), contrary to his filecard description and his comic portrayal.
- Big Lob, who speaks in sports commentator jargon; apparently created solely for the film, having no action figure or comic book counterpart. However, he was later listed as a reserve member of G.I. Joe during the America's Elite comic series and is seen on a map as having been deployed as part the Joes' efforts to battle Cobra Commander's forces worldwide during the World War III storyline.
[edit] Sgt. Slaughter's Renegades
Led by Sgt. Slaughter, the Renegades are a loosely-affiliated Joe team used for unconventional warfare as well as a form of training and punishment for Lt. Falcon.
- Mercer, an antagonistic ex-Cobra Viper.
- Red Dog, an ex-football player banned for unnecessary roughness.
- Taurus, a muscular former circus acrobat.
[edit] Cobra-La
A race of ancient, humanoid creatures and the supposed origin of Cobra Commander.
- Golobulus, genocidal ruler of Cobra-La. The upper half of his body appears human, however his lower half consists of a long, segmented tail.
- Pythona, formidable femme fatale assassin, who is bald save for a ponytail tuft of hair
- Nemesis Enforcer, the bat-winged mute leader of the Royal Guards.
- Royal Guards, arthropod-themed soldiers of Cobra-La. According to their file card, the Royal Guards were Cobra-La citizens who had living insect bodyparts permanently bonded onto their bodies as their armor and were lobotomized to ensure complete loyalty.
Golobulus, the Royal Guard, and Nemesis Enforcer were afterwards all marketed as action figures in a single packaging.[1] Pythona was never produced as an action figure.
[edit] Legacy
The writers did not originally intend for "Cobra-La" to be the name of the rival civilization; this was merely a placeholder name in the drafts until a more alien label came to mind, but Hasbro executives fell in love with the name and forced the writers to keep it.[2] The film did not feature a soundtrack. The background music comes from either earlier G.I.Joe episodes or other Sunbow Cartoons such as The Transformers.
[edit] Duke's re-cover
Despite popular misconception, Duke's death was not planned as a result of Hasbro ordering the writers of The Transformers: The Movie to kill off most of the original Autobot characters. In all actuality, Duke's death was the inspiration for killing off Autobot leader Optimus Prime.[2] The writers for G.I. Joe had asked for permission to kill Duke, to which Hasbro agreed on the condition that Prime also be killed off in Transformers. Production had begun on G.I. Joe first, and was thus expected to be released first. During the production of the two films, G.I. Joe's production schedule got held up while Transformers finished production, the release dates were changed and Transformers received a theatrical release in 1986.
Optimus Prime's death sparked some backlash among fans (for killing off such a popular character) and from parents (from having their children in tears after the scene.) Hasbro backtracked on allowing Duke's death and had new dialog inserted, stating Duke was only in a coma and that he was able to come out of it off-screen at the end of the film.[3] Duke reappeared as a prominent character in the DiC series in two episodes: The Mind Mangler and Chunnel, indicating that his recovery from the injury and coma was complete enough that he was able to return to active duty as part of G.I. Joe. According to story consultant Buzz Dixon, however, if you watch the "Duke goes into a coma" sequence with the volume turned down, it's obvious that Duke actually dies at the end of the scene. In fact, in the Japanese language Laserdisc release of the film, the issue of Duke's death was actually left unedited.
[edit] Cast
[edit] External links
- G.I. Joe: The Movie at the Internet Movie Database
- G.I. Joe: The Movie at Allmovie
- G.I. Joe: The Movie on Joepedia, an external wiki
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.yojoe.com/action/87/golobulus.shtml | Golobulus, the Royal Guard and Nemesis Enforcer action figures
- ^ a b G.I. Joe Interview - Buzz Dixon
- ^ G.I.JOE - A REAL AMERICAN F.A.Q. at YOJOE.COM
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