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G.I. Joe at SDCC '08 G.I. Joe Panel, Custom Figures, New 25th Anniversary Figures & Vehicles, and Photo Gallery
G.I. Joe is currently enjoying a great resurgence of popularity not felt since the 80s. The 25th Anniversary figures, upcoming movie, and new web cartoon are vaulting the Joes back into the general public's consciousness. G.I Joe may be big now, but next year with the release of the new cartoon and movie the popularity is going to explode. The Hasbro: G.I. Joe panel at San Diego Comic-con detailed their G.I. Joe plans for the coming year. The panel began with the preview animation for the new web cartoon, G.I. Joe: Resolute, which was the same preview shown at JoeCon. If you till haven't seen it yet, Duke and Roadblock are in a jungle running from Cobra troopers. They run into a small building, but are pinned down by the troops' relentless gun fire. Snake Eyes then jumps down from the trees and takes out every Cobra trooper, finishing his killing spree by violently twisting his sword after stabbing the final poor Cobra lackey. At the end of the clip Roadblock said, "I didn't know we had a ninja," and the words "NOW YOU KNOW" slammed on-screen. Resolute is more violent than the old cartoon from the 80s and is basically rated PG-13. Resolute is being written by Warren Ellis and is a series of 5-minute episodes that will premier online. Sometime after they will be released on DVD and aired on TV most likely late at night, possibly on Adult Swim. They talked a little of the animation about how they dated the technology about ten years out. A still of Resolute's new U.S.S. Flagg was shown, looking more futuristic, but somewhat plausible for a future aircraft carrier. Some other slide shoed changes they are making to well know characters. For example, Stalker is sporting dreadlocks and Destro will have a robot arm. A robot arm! During the panel Ellis sent producer Juaquim De Santos a message saying that he was sitting in his living room naked collecting Hasbro's money. The G.I. Joe movie was the next topic. Larry Hama is involved with the movie to make sure that everything stays as true as it can for the characters and has the feeling of the old G.I. Joe comic stories he created. Producer Lorenzo Di Bonaventura talked about the characters a bit and was showing slides of them. However, the pictures were nothing more than the same characters debut photos that everyone has already seen posted online. A big part of the movie will be relationships between certain characters. Aside from Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow, the other two announced relationships were questionable, and many in the crowd looked uneasy when hearing that Duke and the Baroness, and Scarlett and Ripcord were two of the main "couples." There wasn't any explanation given about why these characters would be paired with one another until later, when questions were being taken from the audience. See, Duke and the Baroness used to be engaged and Duke pretty much left her at the alter. The Baroness is probably really pissed at that. Scarlett is the super smart girl that graduated college at the age of 12 and doesn't understand her sex appeal. Ripcord wants to get with Scarlett, but Snake Eyes seems to always be around. A wave of relief washed over the fans after hearing that the Snake Eyes & Scarlett relationship would be preserved and that Ripcord is interfering throughout the movie.
Lorenzo said that they wanted Snake Eyes to say one line, but Hama was there to keep them in check. Everyone applauded Hama's efforts of keeping Snake Eyes silent. I can't even imagine the uproar that would erupt if Snake Eyes said a single word in the movie. It would absolutely destroy the movie for fans. Lorenzo continued discussing some of the main characters. The values of the Joe team are embodied by Duke. Dennis Quaid was so good as General Hawk that they added 10-15 more scenes with him. As for who is really the bad guy of the movie, Destro starts as the main villain, but it is called "Rise of Cobra" for a reason. The Baroness ends up having torn loyalties, probably because of her relationship with Duke. During the panelists' chit-chat some slides of the movie were shown. One was an scene in the arctic with some possible characters in snow gear and a very M.A.R.S. technology-looking snow mobile. Another was of the Baroness walking down a burning street with two troopers and a third was of a character running through a tunnel filling with water with someone in his arms. Well, if they get one thing in the movie right it's that the Joes will be hopping around to different locales trying to save the world. There are four main action sequences in the movie that are big and get bigger. The scenes were said to last about ten minutes each, but then it was stated that they might actually be 15-20 minutes each. The budget for the movie was bigger than Transformers, so if you were completely blown away by that, you'll be even more so with G.I. Joe. That's if you're using the expensive movie = balls to the walls awesome action theory, at least. Although, another questionable addition to the movie was something called the accelerator suit, of which a slide was shown. The accelerator suit makes a person run up to 55 mph and one scene in the movie is a car chase with only one car. I'm sure there are people that think that's cool, but it sounds a bit ridiculous to me. For something really cool though, Larry Hama will have a cameo in the film as a general. It was questions from the audience time. One fan asked why Heavy Duty was in the movie and not Roadblock. There wasn't a specific reason, it was just that Heavy Duty set in the writer's mind more so, but Roadblock could appear in the sequel if there is one. Another fan asked about Hasbro's action figure plans. The Resolute figures will be out in the Spring, with the movie toys in the Summer. All the figures will be 3 3/4" scale because it is a proven format. Hell yeah it's a proven format. There will be a few vehicles for the Resolute line, but the movie line will have a lot of vehicles. A lot. It was mentioned that if you think the 25th Anniversary stuff looked good, wait until the movie stuff comes out. For other merchandise there will be the tie-in movie prequel comic from IDW. As for the future of G.I. Joe, Hasbro is already planning things that are 10-15 years out. Down at the Hasbro booth on the main convention floor, they were showing off some of the soon in-coming figures, vehicles, and multi-packs for the G.I. Joe 25th Anniversary line. The real treat though were the custom figures. Like the customs shown at last year's SDCC, they are just for show and won't be produced. With all the new 25th Anniversary figures that are being released though, you'd think Hasbro would run out of main characters and have to make some of these. At least I'm hoping because I need one of those Techno Vipers. And a Buzz Boar. If you are familiar with the old cartoon and super-rad toys of M.A.S.K. you will no doubt recognize the figure named Specialist Trakker. This is Matt Trakker, leader of M.A.S.K. wearing his old jumpsuit and a helicopter backpack. I'm wondering what happened to M.A.S.K. if Trakker is now with G.I. Joe. Was V.E.N.O.M. finally defeated and the M.A.S.K. team had no one left to battle every afternoon at 3 o'clock? I also wonder if we can expect any other M.A.S.K. characters to make the jump to G.I. Joe and 3&3/4 inches of glory. For more G.I. Joe from Comic-con action be sure to read to read my upcoming Transformers at SDCC '08 article. It will be posted soon, but right now check out the below photos of the customs and some of the cool new figures and vehicles that will arrive in stores soon. Update: A regular reader and friend named Greg from back in my hometown emailed me to tell me that the custom Buzz Boar looks a lot like General Grievous' Wheel Bike and the Predacon pod looks like the one that came with a Geonosian Warrior figure. Greg has the biggest Star Wars collection of anyone I know so I would tend to trust his say on anything Star wars. I looked the two up online and sure enough, the Buzz Boar looks like Grievous' ride minus the legs and plus the side doors. The pod is the Geonosian pod painted with added stickiness and accessorizing. Thanks, Greg. Now my readers know. - Shawn - 07/31/08
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