GI Joe: Bound for failure

You heard it here first. The GI Joe movie will be a dud of spectacular porportions. Yes, I’m predicting box office failure without even having seen the script or even final the movie. Why am I so confident in making this prediction? Simply because as a premise, this movie fails.

If you recall your GI Joe lore, GI Joe is supposed to an elite American military force formed to fight against Cobra, an international terrorist group. When I was watching the cartoon back in the 1980s and reading the comic books a little later, all that seemed to be somewhat plausible. People thought back then that big wars won by conventional armies were still relevant.

The experience of the two Iraqi wars and the conflict in Afghanistan has reeducated the American public on the notions of warfare and international conflict. Terrorists don’t fight your army out in the open, wearing blue uniforms emblazoned with the Cobra logo. One of the greatest difficulties experienced with the American soldiers in Iraq is distinguishing friend from foe. Terrorists blend in local populace, use bombs and make suicide attacks. They do not attack your army using conventional armor and aircraft.

On the left, what terrorists may actually look like. On the right, the terrorists of GI Joe.

Further, the Iraq experience has taught America that American military forces are not thought of the freedom-liberating forces in other parts of the world. Significant portions of the Iraqi and Afghan populations would be delighted to see the American leave their countries post haste. While they saw an American military deliver them from an oppressive government, they’ve also seen that same military inflict significant collateral damage, torture their citizens and pretty much make a mess of their society.  This is also a viewpoint shared by citizens in Europe, Asia, South America and Africa. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the international audience will view this movie with a perspective greatly different than that of an American audience.

This may be the most compelling reason to catch this film: to see Snake Eyes (Ray Parks aka Darth Maul).

I’m also troubled by the idea that the GI Joe organization in the film will be an international counter-terrorist force. I understand that to make a movie work, script writers and producers may have to make significant changes, even core changes to the canonical structure of a franchise. I don’t think the idea of changing GI Joe into an elite anti-terrorist force is a bad idea…it beats the idea of keeping the organization as a conventional military force. However, I don’t buy the idea that an international team can be put together to deal with something as elusive as terrorism.  America and its allies just don’t have that level of cooperation - at least they don’t right now.  When I think of international organizations, I think of the United Nations, and the last I checked they are not effective at stopping anybody.

Let’s assume for argument that you can put these premise flaws aside, that GI Joe can work around the idea that terrorists don’t fight you head on and that international cooperation can actually be effective. Even with that, the movie has some huge hurdles to overcome.  The biggest one: how to get rid of the overpowering campiness of the cartoon series.

For anyone who hasn’t seen the mid-1980s cartoon, take a look at this sample.

Like it or not, the cartoons have left an indelible mark on American culture. To the blue Cobra uniforms, shouts of “GI Joe!” before engaging the enemy and the the Joe public service announcements, it’s going to be hard for a movie to overcome a lot of that. I mean how seriously can you take a movie that has an opposition group called ‘Cobra’? What you may end up with is something resembling the Street Fighter film.

With so much to overcome, I thought it was a joke when I heard that this film was actually going to be produced. The joke became real when they cast stars such as Dennis Quaid (General Duke), Sienna Miller (the Baroness) and Ray Park (Snake Eyes). So far, there’s a hardly a lick of news of this movie on the Internet with the exception of a few promotional pictures and a promotional video. There is a teaser site that they put up recently, but it’s largely empty.

I actually hope that this prediction of mine will be wrong and I’ll end up eating my words. That by some miracle, GI Joe the film, pulls off an Iron Man, and make lots of money. But I doubt it.  GI Joe is just the wrong film for the times we live in.

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