The Real GI Joe

I recently reviewed GI Joe: the Rise of Cobra and was pretty generous. I gave the movie 2 and a half stars. Well I'm taking those stars back after I saw this little gem.

The Ballad of G.I. Joe from Olivia Wilde

Better costumes, better cast and all with a smaller budget. I know its a parody but this is GI Joe. The characterizations are spot on. Hollywood once again proves its clueless. This is what we want, not some wimpy movie about an international peace keeping force wearing power ranger's costumes battling the MARS corporation. A movie too scared to put Cobra Commander in costume because we don't want to offend.

Mr. Sommers are you listening?

Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go watch Destro and Baroness practice the clarinet.

Bone Returns

At comic-con Jeff Smith announced some new Bone projects!





From the official Bone Website:

Last night I announced two new BONE projects; BONE: Tall Tales and BONE: Quest for the Spark.

Tall Tales, pictured above, is a major repackaging of a book I did with Tom Sniegoski a few years ago called Stupid, Stupid Rat-Tails. This new book, which takes place after the Bones have returned to Boneville, revolves around Smiley and Bartleby telling tales around a campfire to a group of young Bone Scouts (their names are Ringo, Bingo, & Todd!).

One of the tales will be the long out of print story I did for Disney Adventures that was not in the BONE books, and will now be returned to the BONE cannon with a beautiful coloring job by Steve Hamaker. Another will be the The Adventures of Big Johnson Bone, Frontier Hero, which appeared in black & white as Stupid, Stupid Rat-Tails. Tom Sniegoski, who wrote SSRT, has written two new Johnson Bone stories, both of which are pretty incredible. All now in glorious Hamaker colors! I will be writing all the new Smiley and Bartleby stuff.

BONE: Quest for the Spark is a slightly different kind of thing. It is not a comic; it’s a novel. A series of three novels written by Tom Sniegoski that follow a new generation of Bone characters into the Valley.



I was a bit unsure about this project when Tom first suggested it, but when I read the first book I laughed so hard, I agreed to do it. Scholastic was so blown away by it, that they decided to make it available in hardcover and wanted the illustrations, of which I think I’m going to do about twenty, full bleed and in color.

While not an official sequel to my comic, it will be fun to see some the characters again, like the stupid rat creatures, and Roderick the racoon.

BONE: Tall Tales is scheduled for Summer of 2010, and BONE: Quest for the Spark volume one, is set for 2011.

Looney Bay: The Snake Hunter

Its sunday so you know what that means.


Biblical Lesson: Jesus walking on the water

Script: A snake is loose in Looney Bay and Church Mouse is scared to death. The Amazing Who hypnotizes Church Mouse into not being scared. Church Mouse proceeds to beat the mess out of the snake. Amazing Who then informs Church Mouse that he really didn't hypnotize him. Church Mouse loses faith and the snake starts chasing him, until the owl shows up.

Thoughts: I'm still recovering from Al Flu so I was going to write myself out of the script. Somehow I ended up writing myself in every scene. Whoops.

Ad Libs/Blunders: I'm still trying to name the owl. This week I had Church Mouse call him Hooty which caused Church Mouse to break out into Hooty and the Blowfish songs. Back to the drawing board.

Overall: Okay day

No Joe!

Thursday I recommended giving the GI Joe movie a chance... I sure hope you didn't listen to me.




Full spoilers below.

So the movie opens with the line "In the not to distant future..." at which point my brother and I both broke out into the Mystery Science Theater 3000 theme song. Not a good sign.

The movie is non stop action and doesn't make a lick of sense. I thought the bad guys were cool but the Joes were horrible. Besides Scarlett and Snake Eyes I wanted them all to die a painful death. Especially Duke... he was boring as all get out. Horrible actor, they should have cast Brendan Fraiser instead.

Then we had Breaker, the arabic geek on the team. He was one of the most whiny characters ever and I kept expecting to see him in a dress. It was ridiculous.

Heavy Duty was okay but never really did anything.

And then we had Ripcord played by Mr. Wayans. The klutzy comedy relief. He ends up hooking up with Scarlet (what?!?). Half the time he seemed to be in love with Duke. Seriously I thought they should have almost gotten married instead of Duke and Baroness.

Yeah that's right there's a whole love story between Duke and Baroness that falls apart due to her kid brother dying but not really dying.

Oh and the plot... well Destro develops a weapon for nato and then steals it but then needs to kidnap a civilain scientist (Baroness's husband (not Duke)) to weaponize it since he can't do it himself being a weapon's designer and all.

Oh and we never hear the word Cobra until the last 15 minutes of the movie... What?

The movie is watchable and even entertaining at points but quickly falls apart over and over due to shoddy writing and accelerator suits. It was kinda like someone saw an episode of GI Joe Sigma 6 and thought this would be a great movie. The last 30 minutes are decent enough but the movie ends with Cobra Commander and Destro being captured and Baroness switching sides.

I give it 2 and a half stars out of 5. Not the worst movie I've seen but it could have been so much better. I know this movie was rushed out the door due to the writer's strike so I tell you what. Hire new writers and recast the Joe team and I'll think about seeing the sequel... I'll think about it... no promises.

I'm eagerly awaiting the riff trax. If you want to watch a great GI Joe move, please watch GI Joe Resolute instead and wait for this one to air on FX.

Don't you forget about me

John Hughes died of a heart attack yesterday.

Another architect of my childhood is gone. Ferris Bueller's Day Off, the Home Alone series, Planes Trains & Automobiles, the Vacation series. So many great movies that I watched over and over again as a child, especially Ferris Bueller.



John Hughes you're my hero and you'll be missed.

And knowing is half the battle

As a child of the 80's (actually late 70's but close enough) I was obviously a huge fan of GI Joe. The cartoons, the characters, the toys, it was all good. The plot was simple. GI Joe (America) vs the Cobra (the bad guys). That's all you needed to know. Cobra was always going to have some crazy plot involving weather dominators or red rocket burgers and the Joes were always going to be there to stop him.

Then came change. Two new characters were added: real life Sgt. Slaughter and Serpentor. I liked these two, but I missed the days when Cobra Commander was running things. This was followed by an abysmal animated movie featuring Cobra LA and Cobra Commander turning into a snake. What had happened to my Joes?



Soon GI Joe returned with new episodes by a new production company. The show was turned into a cheaply animated comedy and beyond ruined. At the same time the toyline completely ran out of gas with crappy characters like the Ice Cream Soldier.

I was done with GI Joe... or so I thought.

It was around this time that my brother Tim and I discovered GI Joe comics. This was during the gulf war and the body count was through the roof. This was definately not the cartoon show. I soon refell in love with these cool characters especially Snake Eyes. All thanks to one man Larry Hama.

And that is why I'm giving the movie a chance. Larry Hama served as a consultant on the film. He has given the movie his blessing. He wrote every issue of the GI Joe marvel comic run. Everything you love about GI Joe is because of him.

Sure people hate the accelerator suits in the movie. But there was a lot of silly sci fi going on in the old cartoon, so lets overlook that.

Check out the cast: Dennis Quaid, Ray Park, Mr. Eko, Christopher Eccleston, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Sienna Miller, Arnold Vosloo. That's a heck of a cast. On the other hand you have Marlon Wayans... but I think the good outweighs the bad.

Now some (myself included) have complained about how Cobra Commander looks. Well apparently this is just a temporary suit and he'll have his classic duds in the next movie.

So what am I saying? Give this movie a chance. Will the movie be perfect, no. Will you have fun, probably. We could be seeing the birth of a really cool franchise here but it will never happen if no one goes and sees it. I for one would love to see the dreadknocks, Shipwreck, BATS, Serpentor, the twins, Springfield, and more. But we'll only get that if we get a sequel.

Sick days be gone - and the storm clouds lifted

I'm at about 85% today so this will be our last sick day on the blog. It looks like the flood waters have subsided as well. Lets step outside and see what's going on.



Screw you sun! At least the moon gets my name right!

Normal posting resumes tomorrow with my thoughts on the GI Joe movie.