I just got out of the Hasbro seminar and done with my volunteer duties, and before I take pics of the abso-freaking lutely AWESOME Pursuit of Cobra stuff for 2011 (and while I wait for my camera batteries to charge) I wanted to just drop some information about the new animated series coming to The Hub this fall.
These are some notes I jotted down that can be found at the “Read the rest of this entry” link below.
G.I. Joe: Renegades
- Not tied into Resolute at all. A new expression.
- Not CGI. Very soft, artistic, and colorful animation
- This is a “Year One” look at a new G.I. Joe team
- Season 1 features the team “on the run” from a mysterious threat
- As a “Year One” look, we will see these characters from the beginning. We will see how they become what they are. It was strongly hinted that Snake Eyes will not be disfigured or mute when the series starts, but will progress to that point very early in the first season.
- Expect lots of cameos. Since the Joes are “on the road” it will give them the chance to meet up with familiar faces along the way. Specific characters hinted at were Snow Job, Shipwreck, and Jinx.
- Lots of “Geeks” are at the helm of the series, and they all want to incorporate as many fringe characters as possible.
- A very linear storyline throughout the season.
- Characters will grow and evolve as the series progresses. If someone gets hurt in Episode 2, the ramifications will still be felt in Episode 3.
- Expect adult level storytelling. While the audience is mostly geared towards 7 year olds, they are NOT going to write down to that level. They want the 7 year olds to be “smart” 7 year olds.
- Series will start with a 2-part pilot, and I got the impression it would involve the Snake Eyes/Storm Shadow conflict, and may possibly lead to Snake Eyes’ disfigurement.
- 26 Episodes in Season 1
- There were strong hints that characters could and might die.
- However, due to standards and practices, expect weapons to fire lasers, not bullets. The reasoning is they don’t want the kid audience to see anything they could find in dad’s gun closet.
- Cobra Commander will wear his classic mask
- Destro will wear a mask, and will have a specific reason for it.
- NO NANOMITES!
- From the people involved, expect stuff along the lines of Clone Wars, Batman:TAS and Starship Troopers. One of the folks deeply involved with Starship Troopers is now involved with G.I. Joe: Renegades.
- There will be a core team that may grow as we meet more Joes, but it’s also likely when they meet a specialized new Joe character, the team may move on without that character, and they would stand alone as a “guest star” instead of being a core team member.
- While the series is most likely rated TV-G, nothing that they are currently writing would be allowed to be shown on Disney Channel or NickToons.
- Expect signature weapons, and unique vehicles that are almost characters unto themselves.
- Expect classic vehicles, though they may be reimagined
- Mixture of old favorites and some new voice actors
They also showed some character art for Duke and Snake Eyes, but unfortunately we were not allowed to photograph it. I will describe it as best I can.
- Duke wore a full green military bodysuit, with a tan flack vest covering it. The Flak Vest was slightly reminiscent of the reactive armor. It was angled, and sleek (not loaded with pouches like Resolute), but the overall look was reminiscent of the familiar tan and green. He held a pistol, and had short-cropped blonde hair.
- Snake Eyes wore a sleek body suit of black and dark gray, similar in design to Duke’s armored vest. A sword was on his back, he wore his visor, and he had baggy black combat pants. The look was somewhat “Sigma 6” like in appearence, from the body suit angle.
They also talked about the Hub in general, as well as the production team.
- The Hub’s CEO is Margaret Loesch, who was the executive producer of G.I. Joe, Transformers, Visionaries, and Jem (among others) back in the 80’s. Also had a strong role in Fox Kids and the resurgence of children’s animation there with Spider-Man and X-Men.
- Boys Action Programming will be a major focus of the Hub, and they plan on making a whole new run of high octane action programs for young boys in the same spirit as Renegades.
G.I. Joe: Renegades Production Team
- Aaron Archer – Hasbro’s inhouse director of intellectual property.
- Ted Biaselli – Director of Hub Programming
- Jeff Kline – Series developer for Roughnecks: Starship Troopers, worked on Max Steel, Men in Black, and many other properties, now deeply involved with G.I. Joe: Renegades
- Mike Vogel – Background with Disney, now involved with the Hub.
My overall vibe? Surprise, surprise, I’m optimistic. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sold on it going in, but if they can accomplish everything they claim they will accomplish, we could have the first credible G.I. Joe animated series.
and here I was really hoping for it to be Sgt Slaughter and the Renegades!
aw shucks 😛
Sounds good! I’m looking forward to seeing more. I hope this channel gets placed on the Choice Directv package. I really don’t want to have to upgrade.
A year one approach is nothing new. Sigma 6 basically started out that way before it went off the tracks. But it sounds like this is nothing like Sigma 6 so for that I’m glad. The toys were great but the cartoon sucked. If we can’t have Resolute (and why CAN’T we have it exactly?) then this sounds like the next best thing.
Did they show any video or just stills?
Any word on when we’ll know who is in the voice cast?
Sounds pretty positive; bringing up the Starship Troopers cartoon is a a definite positive to me. That cartoon accomplished pretty well merging all the cool stuff from the book and the movie into a fairly decent middle ground.
What’s up from the Shore!
Todd, I think if you have Discovery Kids (which I believe I have since I have the same DirecTV package you do), it’ll change over to Hub when the conversion happens.
I can’t use another different Snake eyes back story, minor or major changes… I’ve got too many that I don’t use already.
Still, it should be fun to see. The “on the road” description kind of fits my overall path of life thing(the Joes will always come along!).
I like the point (or information) of signature weapons and vehicles. That’s something I’ve always kind of liked about many of my favorite Joes… unique accompaniments.
Thank you for posting convention info!
Sounds very cool for those who want to see the story reimagined, I was in hopes that this would be like a season 3 to Sunbow, but I for one will take what they give, as they have promised a complete season!
Sounds great.
Mysterious Stranger – No video, just stills, unfortunately. We can’t have Resolute because it’s just too violent for mainstream media and mainstream consumption. They’re still branding this for a young audience.
Eduardo – No mentions of voice cast. They couldn’t mention it yet. Michael Bell was mentioned by the audience, and the producers smirked, but said they couldn’t say anything.
“No mentions of voice cast. They couldn’t mention it yet. Michael Bell was mentioned by the audience, and the producers smirked, but said they couldn’t say anything.”
hhhhmmmmm……….. Could Mr. Bell be returning to GIJoe?
Thanks for the report. I wonder how one can submit music ideas/portfolio/demo reel for consideration in joining the HUB. 🙂
Sounds interesting, but I more or less hate “Year One” adaptations of stuff.
I’m pretty sure that B:TAS and JL & JLU all used bullets instead of lasers and, those were all directed to the same age-group. Glad to have new Joe something on the tube but, LASERs = [b]lame[/b]
Bullets or lasers, I couldn’t care less about that minor point. No, what pisses me off already is that we no more than get another cool run of Joe toys after the ludicrous RoC crapline, and Hasbro yanks the rug out from under us by, once AGAIN, reimagining the franchise and kicking the classic origins to the curb in favor of a whole new beginning.
It wasn’t bad enough that IDW has until recently ignored the original comics and origins, but now we’ll be forced to accept the same from the new cartoon? I know there are a ton of you guys who just don’t give a crap as long as it has a Joe logo splashed on it, but I think this sucks big time, considering we’ll be hit with 2 quick Resolute sets and no follow up to that in ‘Toon format, then get a few quick waves of figures to start and wrap up PoC, literally within MONTHS of getting them in our hands, only to be sideswiped by this new Renegades thing, (I can only HOPE that the figures don’t end up like the Star Wars animated Clone Wars figures, looking all cartoony compared to the majority of all of the other Joes figures out there in the 3 3/4 lines. Then, to really smash us in the gonads, we’ll get the sequel to that $#!tty RoC movie, and the subsequent movie line to go along with it, in 2012. I can only hope the sequel doesn’t blow goats like the first one did…
Revamping the line for the sake of revamping the line is total BS. PoC was looking to be off to a really good start, and seemed to have something for just about everyone it looks like. Now it’s all ended before it even began for most of us. What a rip off!! This is why Hasbro pisses off so many fans, like Alpine, myself, and others that I know…LOTS of others.
I hope that the Renegades deal is one hell of a cartoon and toyline for Hasbro’s sake. For me though, IF I even buy into any of it, I won’t be accepting it as a separate thing. The characters will become who they already are currently, which is to say that SE will be the SE that everyone knows from day one 1982 till now, when/if I buy the toys at all. Same with Duke, Scarlett or any of the rest. If a character version sucks or deviates too far in appearance, it will be either a new character or straight up rejected. That is the only way I’m going to accept a whole new “beginning”.
So, considering what Hasbro has done to us already with Resolute and the PoC toylines, by throwing a few figures at us and then stopping things in favor of a brand new beginning (which will likely end in 2012 when the stupid movie sequel rolls out anyway), I have little faith in what they are offering, which means they will get very little of my money…again. I hope they can keep me onboard, but from my experiences with them, I’ve found that to be a fleeting possibility at best, soooo… F#@! Hasbro.
Sounds great. Really excited, but I was hoping it would be TV-PG or TV-14. Something that would finally be for the older people like us. The kids can have the old series, we deserve one. And don’t say Resolute, because that sucked. It was nothing like G.I. Joe, but thats another story.
Here’s to hoping we get the Joe show we deserve dudes.
I’ve gotta say that my biggest fear regarding this new cartoon is teh announcement that it will focus on a core group. While this sort of approach works well in comics and TV shows, it doesn’t translate all that well into toys.
What was great about the old GIJoe is that the comics and cartoon were there to sell toys. So every year we got new toys and the comic and cartoon adapted to teh new characters/uniforms. Having a toyline that follows a cartoon instead isn’t that great. We know Hasbro LOVES producing Dukes, Cobra Commanders, Snake Eyes and Storm Shadows by the dozens and this core group idea favors all the tendencies Hasbro already has.
My continuing interest in this line is based on new ideas. Yes I loved 25th, getting my old favorites in new, much superior sculpting was a dream come true, but we’ve moved on. PoC waves 3 and 4 are already a little disapointing (as far as character choice only) and that comes with knowing we’ll get the core charactesr again at the end of 2011 in the Renegades line and then yet again in 2012 for the RoC sequel and then probably again for season 2 toys for Renegades in Fall of 2012.
And Hasbro doesn’t just give us lots of new sculpts of these guys, they also load cases in favor of them. I don’t think there was an RoC case released that didn’t have a Duke, Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes crammed in there (whether that character was part of that wave or not). And looking at Wave 1 for PoC, I see that Duke, Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow have 2 each packed into a case, while a figure like Alley-Viper that people want to army build is only 1 a case.
Renegades is a promise of GIJoe reborn into greatness. But I guess originally that was what we hoped for in RoC as well. I really hope they can take the original concept and base it off of that, but then continue on and grow as it’s own continuity. Since the original GIJoe run I feel like I’m reading endless issues of Marvels “What If?” comics and I’m not looking forward to going over every characters story again only slightly different. That’s incredibly boring. Been there, done that….several times. How about something new?
I’ve heard this is a “prequel” to the 80’s series? Not sure if this info is right since it is a “new expression.” Here’s hoping its different than the movie and at least is more mature than Sigma Suxx. Everyone loves the toys now, its “retro cool”. Just the figures, no one really takes the show seriously.