Yesterday I covered the first figure in the most recent shipment of the G.I. Joe Collectors’ Club Figure Subscription Service. Today, I’m reviewing the second one. Combined these two figures have been far and away the best two figures released in the FSS thus far, and reviewing them both was a blast.
Great figures, great packaging, great accessories. Lots to love here, and I’m really excited that the Collectors’ Club invested the time and money to bring these to us, and I really can’t wait to see and hear more about FSS Series two! I’m trying to avoid spoilers here for folks who still don’t want to know, so just click the link below to get to the G.I. Joe Collectors’ Club Review Page:
I haven’t seen an official announcement anywhere from Paramount as of yet, but on HissTank.com TheGabrielAngel has revealed a fantastic website called G.I. Joe: Retaliation “Tools of the Trade”. This immersive, exciting web application allows you to view details about all of the different characters from G.I. Joe: Retaliation, not only on the G.I. Joe side, but the Cobra side as well. You can read digital filecards, watch character profiles, and check out extremely detailed 3D images of the weapons and other instruments of destruction.
Check out this web based application right here, and a big thanks to TheGabrielAngel for the heads up. I suspect the official announcement of this will be coming shortly.
We’ve seen video features for all of the characters… now we’re getting one for the director, Jon Chu! Check it out at Paramount International’s YouTube Channel, or embedded below.
With the film premiere in Korea and Australia complete and things moving forward towards the UK and the United States, apparently the set visit reports, which were previously embargoed, have been green-lit and are ready for launch! We have a bunch of various websites reporting on these visits and writing up different articles in regards to G.I. Joe: Retaliation. Let’s go through them:
Screen Rant made their set visit before the film’s delay, now quite a while ago, and do a great job breaking down the visit and summarizing various interviews with cast and crew. They visited Fort Pike, the NASA facility in New Orleans and write up a fantastic run down of various things we can expect based on their experiences.
Wow, the folks at Latino Review go all out for this set visit. There’s a full blown video blog with El Mayimbe, Frosty (from Collider), and George from Arcade Sushi, and they break down the visit as well. The links you see above are various different things that Latino Review brings to their site with the set visit, including tons of cast interviews, the video blog itself, and a whole lot more. I think they really nailed this one.
Collider also posted the video blog recap that Latino-Review mentioned above, but dove into their set visit report, too, breaking down 25 (yes TWENTY-FIVE) things to know about the upcoming G.I. Joe: Retaliation film. Now, granted, they didn’t go as crazy as Twitziller with his 40 reasons to catch G.I. Joe: Retaliation, but 25 ain’t no slouch. It’s a great article that you should definitely check out. Also, as you can see above, they have posted a plethora of actor interviews straight from the set of the film.
You know what I love about these set visits? Everyone is really doing something different. Latino Review loads up on the interviews and does a video blog… Collider runs with 25 things to know, and ComingSoon.net goes old school with some great G.I. Joe themed filecards, which each link to a different interview, up to eight in total. A very unique way to present that. I dig it.
IGN also made a visit, and does a terrific set visit report, too. Rather than posting separate interviews with each cast member, they take some interview highlights and weave them into the content of the story itself, which is an effective tact, to be sure. It’s very thorough and well presented.
As you all can see there are a ton of details here, a ton of links, and a veritable avalanche of G.I. Joe: Retaliation content. Let it envelop you! Two weeks to go!
After the massive influx of video and images yesterday, you can’t help but know that the movie is fast approaching! Twitziller is keeping right up to date as well, bringing us the 15th reason, and it’s one that we are all very familiar with at this point.
#15:
Popular sentiment at this point, especially among G.I. Joe fans, is that there is a tendency for ninja overload in the G.I. Joe universe. The marketing angle for G.I. Joe: Retaliation has been very Arashikage focused, and that’s hit the fandom a bit the wrong way. But like it or not, the ninja elements are huge in A Real American Hero. The entire foundation of the Snake Eyes/Storm Shadow dynamic depends on it. Certainly I’d agree that tying in Firefly and even Destro and Baroness to an extent, was overkill, but the base ninja fundamentals are pretty critical to G.I. Joe lore.
For that reason, I’m glad there is a very specific Snake Eyes vs. Storm Shadow duel planned in the film, even if we have seen a lot of it already through various clips, trailers, and TV spots. These two characters have a long and varied history, from blood-enemies to sword brothers, and they need to be closely linked. The duel accomplishes that nicely, from what we’ve seen.
Now these figures have been in mailboxes for like 2 weeks… has it been long enough that I can avoid spoilers? I know there are a number of folks who are drastically avoiding the discovery of which figures are shipping when, and I’m trying to honor those requests.
I kind of have to talk about them eventually, though, right?
Okay, these featurettes have been flying hot and heavy over the past few days, so let’s catch a breath and get them all gathered up in one place shall we?
We’ve had “behind the scenes” we’ve had TV spots, and we’ve had the great 20 second character profiles. All of them, when assembled, make for some very cool pre-film hype. I can tell you, I’m flipping out over here right now. Lots of great footage, I can’t even believe we’re almost within 2 weeks of this thing.
Click the “Read the Rest of the Story” link below to get a nice, well-organized rundown of all of the character profiles that have aired so far:
Apparently Paramount was not satisfied to simply reveal video today, they also wanted to blast out a few promotional images as well. We get great high quality pictures of the White House, Storm Shadow, and Cobra Commander flanked by his troops. More coolness from Paramount and G.I. Joe today! I first saw the images on Comingsoon.net, check them out mirrored below.
We originally saw this featurette recording from a smart phone camera as it aired on WWE Raw, but now IMDB has the video in HD quality, and it is awesome. Yes, the same footage, yes the same music, but with some added behind the scenes stuff, this is a really great look at the film.
Between the character vignettes, the TV spots, and now this… wow. G.I. Joe: Retaliation video overload. Unfortunately the video is not embeddable (yet), but check it out at IMDB.com.
Big thanks to John from JoeArmory for the heads up.
Now with an embed, thanks to nailbiter111 from Comic Book Movie.
Ha! I was just on Twitter talking back and forth with nailbiter111 from Comic Book Movie, and said that the only possible video vignette there was left to do would be one for Jinx. Then, all of a sudden, there it was. Paramount International has loaded up on video today. Check out Jinx below!
The formula remains similar… scattered new footage, lots of re-used footage… a whole metric ton of AWESOME.
