Growing up with Marines for parents, GI Joe was a hero of my childhood - I used to imagine my dad being part of the team. When plans were announced to make it into a feature film I was excited. Now it has come to light that GI Joe is not going to be an American special forces unit but an international task force that may or may not contain American military characters.
This is absolute crap! GI Joe has always been Americans helping to save the world. The idea that GI Joe is now going to be distinctly not american is to totally eliminate the distinctiveness of the character. I mean the essence of Joe is american. If they actually go through with this, then I will probably boycott the film for this stupidity - and that would truly be a shame.
I admit I had no plans to see this particular film, anyway. But I agree 100%. G.I. Joe is know world-over as a specifically American term. If they feel a need to internationalize it, why not have the plot involve a foreign soldier coming to study G.I. Joe methods?
YanıtlaSili agree that just about any other plot device would be better than to make the team not american.
YanıtlaSilHave you ever heard of any other nation's soldiers being called GIs? I haven't.
YanıtlaSilGI Joe IS American. I can't believe they are doing this. (Actually, I can believe it.)
I suspect the reasoning is either (1) the movie won't sell well in Japan/Germany if it is too Amero-centric, or (2) they don't want to draw any parallels to the Iraq War and the politics around it.
YanıtlaSilIf (1) is the issue, then DON'T MAKE THE MOVIE. If there is anything that we have seen with the Transformers, Lord of the Rings, and Narnia adaptations it is that you MUST respect the source material (though not be slave to it). Making GI JOE not American is a complete misreading of the source.
If (2) is the issue, then set it as a PERIOD PIECE. Put it out as being during WW2 or in the 1980s when the Soviet Union was a true "Evil Empire." The enemy here - COBRA - was always an evil megalomaniacal madman bent on world domination. You can easily work that into the WW2 mythos, or the Cold War mythos.
This is not rocket science.
Very well said, Anonymous.
YanıtlaSil