Just a reminder that GeneralsJoes is still planning to be in the house for the charity screening tonight, and will be Tweeting my adventures on the way down to Rhode Island starting at about 1:00pm Eastern Time.  I’m making a trip of it, fully planning on hitting as many stores as possible on the way down through, just to take advantage of the fact that I’ll be out of the boondocks for one day.  If you’re not following me on Twitter, think about it!  I can’t promise an insane level of coverage like the guys at HissTank and TNI are promising…after all, I’m going to support a Hospital, see a movie, and have a great time, not necessarily to break down quotes, interview folks, and take a ton of pictures.  But who knows what will happen?

Less than twelve hours until the Hasbro Charity Screening airs tonight in Warwick, Rhode Island…  ever since I was eight years old, it’s been a dream to see G.I. Joe characters on the big screen, and there were times that I was convinced it simply would never happen.

Throughout the early 2000’s, G.I. Joe came back in a big way and was making a splash in the toy aisles, yet never once did it ever seem poised to be popular enough to warrant a multimillion dollar budget, big name Hollywood producers, and stars that Joe and Jane America would recognize.  In fact, I’d argue that the property still wouldn’t be popular enough if not for the huge impact that Transformers made in 2007.  Thanks to those pesky robots, G.I. Joe was able to get a clear path to production, and, for better or worse, we are on the verge of seeing our favorite property fizzle or go through the roof.

Sure, there are plenty of folks out there who will never consider this THEIR G.I. Joe, and they have every right to that opinion.  But anyone who knows me knows that I’m a diehard Joe fan who stuck with the brand when a lot of other folks jumped ship, all the way through Sgt. Savage, G.I. Joe Extreme, the t-crotch times, and yes, even Sigma 6.

There have been a lot of ups and downs…ironically my biggest “down” time was probably during the Anniversary era, when everyone else considered it “the peak” of recent G.I. Joe memory, but in spite of those mountains and valleys, I’ve stuck with it, and now, I’m about ten hours away from finally seeing my favorite characters on the screen.  The backstories are different, the specifics of many of the characters are different, but from everything I’ve seen the “spirit” of G.I. Joe still goes strong.  So much more than simply a realistic military story, G.I. Joe has always had on foot firmly in the fantastic, and this movie appears to be no different.

Without spewing too much hyperbole, I don’t think I’ve been looking forward to seeing a film this much in a long, long time.  The best thing is, I now know what to expect, and I’m still excited, and that’s not something I could boast even two weeks ago.  This is a great time to be a G.I. Joe fan, in spite of what many folks would have you believe, and I’m ready to jump foreward with a property that might possibly reach the heights that it reached twenty-seven years ago.

Yo Joe!