G.I. Joe: The Movie

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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 5-part mini-series format as part of the show's syndication package.

[edit] Synopsis

The film starts off where the series ended, with Serpentor now in command of Cobra and Cobra Commander scheming to rid of himself of his usurper. As Cobra Commander alleges that it is Serpentor's stewardship of Cobra that has been the root cause of Cobra'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 is Pythona. Pythona reveals that she comes from a secret civilization known as Cobra-La and that they were responsible for causing Dr. Mindbender creating Serpentor through manipulating his dreams. At her urging, Serpentor plans to capture G.I. Joe's newest weapon, 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 alleged 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, and Shipwreck), 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 it's own. Golobulus, hating humanity, 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 allowed 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. The Dreadnoks attack and free Serpentor. For abandoning his post, Lt. Falcon is arrested and placed in the brig by Duke.

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 mutation 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 main Terrordome headquarters, Slaughter and his crew learn of Cobra's plans with the spores. The Joe's 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. As he becomes more and more bestial, Cobra Commander is surprisingly humanized in terms of character. He appears more tragic in his failure and might even seem repentant for his past crimes, if it didn't seem that the Joes were his best chance at survival and revenge. By the end, Cobra Commander is nothing more than a large python-type snake. 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] Cast

[edit] New characters

Beachhead (far right) breaks in the new recruits: Chuckles, Tunnel Rat, Big Lob, Jinx, Law (minus Order).

G.I. Joe: The Movie was intended to bridge a gap between the end of the second season of G.I. Joe's animated series and leading into a third season. Among new characters introduced in the film were the Rawhides:

• Lieutenant Falcon, a Green Beret and Duke's reckless half-brother.
• Jinx, a female Asian martial arts expert with a reputation for bad luck (and alternately, 'blind luck').
• Law, a military policeman, and his bomb-sniffing canine companion, Order.
• Tunnel Rat, infiltration expert without pause.
• 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, although it is possible he is an early concept of Hardball, a baseball attired Joe character introduced in 1988.

Sgt. Slaughter (left foreground) and the Renegades clip Falcon's wings.

There were also the Renegades, a trio of reformed bad apples under the supervision of Sgt. Slaughter, consisting of:

• Mercer, antagonistic ex-Cobra Viper.
• Red Dog, roughhousing ex-football player.
• Taurus, a musclebound former circus acrobat.

These new characters were intended to become prominent players in the third season, but due to behind-the-scenes production issues, they only went on to appear in the comic books.

Pythona.		To what extent agents of Cobra-La were to factor into the third season is unknown, but its characters included: Golobulus, genocidal ruler of Cobra-La. Though his action figure has him having a snake tail as opposed to actual legs, for the bulk of the movie his lower half of his body is shown as being a floating sphere-type vessel, which splits open to reveal his snake-like torso for the film's final confrontation. Nemesis Enforcer, the bat-winged mute bodyguard for Golobulus. Pythona, formidable femme fatale assassin, created for the film. 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 asked the writers to keep it.^[2]

Duke in dire straits.

Despite popular misconception, Duke's death was not planned as a result of Hasbro ordering the writers of Transformers: The Movie to kill off most of the original Autobot characters. In all actuallity, Duke's death was the inspiration for killing off Autbot leader Optimus Prime^[2]. However, the Transformers film was released before GI Joe: The Movie and received much backlash for killing off such a popular character. 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.^[3]

[edit] Notes

• In the Japanese language release of this film on Laser Disc, the issue of Duke's death was actually left unedited. The same scene in which Scarlett is cradling Duke as he speaks, his final "Yo...Joe...", Scarlett repeatedly states, "He's dead...He's dead."
• Several scenes were storyboarded but never animated. One featured recurring character Hector Ramirez (who was listed in the end credits of the film) reporting from the UN building after the spores are launched into orbit. Another scene featured Jinx with her blindfold on and holding a sword, trying to stop the Thunder Machine from escaping with Serpentor: Falcon sees her and pushes her out of the way; they start to argue, but then they quickly notice smoke coming from the stockade, which leads to Falcon running into Hawk.
• There are several instances where the sound effects used were directly lifted from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, the two most notable being Pythona's infiltration into the Cobra fortress, and the Arctic attack on the BET. The first contains audio from the duel between Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi, while the second contains audio from the final Death Star battle. During the shot of Duke hanging from Serpentor's glider, the sound of TIE Fighters, instrument panel beeps, and even Darth Vader's breathing can clearly be heard.
• However, the version that was eventually released on video featured re-used music cues from the TV series (including some themes from other Hasbro animated TV series, such Transformers, My Little Pony and MoonDreamers).
• For the release of the movie in Europe it's name was changed to "Action Force: An International Hero" also the battle cry of "YO JOE!" was changed to "FULL FORCE!"

[edit] External links

• Internet Movie Database entry

[edit] References