I absolutely cannot say enough for my site visitors. I have a couple of guys in the UK who absolutely went above and beyond to bring us these reports. Dave Tree talked about the footage he saw a little over a week ago, and now Russ Sheath has taken considerable time and effort to do this write up for GeneralsJoes as well. They get no payment for this, they do it because they enjoy the site and they want G.I. Joe fans to get an idea of what to expect when June 29th comes.
I feel extremely honored that they would choose GeneralsJoes as a place to post this information, and cannot thank them enough. Fantastic, fantastic coverage.
Russ is a regular contributor to Aint it Cool News, and he sent them one screening report, and then wrote up a specific post geared towards Joe fans for GeneralsJoes as well. Awesome. Russ and Dave, you guys are both awesome.
This screening report encompasses about 10 minutes of footage, and could be considered rich spoiler material, so tread forward with caution. There is a LOT of detail here, and Russ went through a ton of work, so hopefully folks can read it through, enjoy it, and get a good idea of what to expect come June 29th. I know I am extremely excited.
First of all, I apologize for the delay in getting this posted. I am in Kansas City on business and every once in a while, the job’s gotta come first. 😉
Now that my belly is full and our corporate visions for the next year are decided, time for G.I. Joe! The guys over at HissTank.com not only got screen grabs, but also uploaded the ET Footage to YouTube, and holy hell is it awesome.
We get Cobra Commander firing from some cool looking Cobra helicopter, we have Zartan wounding himself and healing (with trademark blue skin!!) and we have mutha fuggin HISS Tanks. HISS. TANKS. Woah. If I’m getting this geeked out over the footage from ET, how is the trailer going to hit me? Anyway, check out the ET footage embedded below, courtesy of HissTank.com.
As part of the press blitz over the next couple of days, we should be seeing more and more of these interviews posted. The Hollywood Reporter’s blog site “Heat Vision” spoke with Jon Chu a bit about G.I. Joe: Retaliation and specifically about casting Bruce Willis and the process of reinventing the film property for the sequel.
A couple of very interesting insights to me. First and foremost, the decision to re-cast much of the film:
“THR: What prompted the decision to reboot the cast and everything? Was it really unavailability or was that a choice you and/ or the studio came to?
Chu: Part me, part not me. And by the time I came in they had a script already — but not fully there, and we added a lot of things. Like Joe Colton wasn’t in the movie. We added that and Roadblock and things like that that weren’t just in there yet, but we knew we wanted to create a different world. You can’t discount the first movie at all — it was a huge and people loved it — but for me what I love about Joe is that everybody has interpreted theirs different ways. The comic book interprets it in one way. Even in the cartoon series, they switched theme songs in the middle, and so everybody interprets it in a different way. So for me I was like, let’s jump to a different part of the Joe world. It’s the same world, but at a different point. So when I pitched it, that was the idea — let’s pay homage to the old stuff, but also do new stuff. G.I. Joe was ultimate mash-up before mash-up ever existed, so that’s perfect right now. And all the kids who don’t know anything about G.I. Joe, who only know Call of Duty, who stole all their stuff from G.I. Joe, let’s reclaim it and do it better.”
I cannot properly express how much I love the above paragraph. To a lot of people, G.I. Joe = Call of Duty, and I really don’t think that’s accurate. There is so much more to the G.I. Joe mythology than simple “dark and gritty military”. It sounds to me, like Chu gets that. He understands it. The whole “mash-up” concept is brilliant. Throughout the years there have been space properties, ninja properties, disguise properties, cops n robbers properties, etc… over the past 30 years, G.I. Joe has been all of that. It’s been outlandish super hero laser-fights, it’s been dark and realistic military, it’s been aliens and super-powered clones. It does it all. I think it really takes the right mindset to figure out how to tie that all in together. Obviously we won’t know if Jon Chu has that mindset until somewhere on the night of June 29th, but the above paragraph is a great start.
Secondly, the following quote interested me as well:
“THR: Do you fully address getting rid of the guys from the previous film at the beginning of the movie, or how does that sort of work?
Chu: Yes and no. We address a little bit, but also leave some of it up in the air. But in my mind the movie was never about them, the movie is about our characters that you introduced from the beginning. We wanted people to come into this movie, and if you haven’t seen the first movie, be totally okay, which is actually pretty tough, because Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow are hard to explain to somebody who had never seen G.I. Joe. But we leave some of it open, so you’ll see.”
I think this is great, too. It’s the whole “reboot without a reboot” process, which I’ve been clamoring for since day one with the film sequel. They can build on what happened in the first film without being 110% accurate to it. Just gloss over the stuff you don’t like, write off some of the weirdness, but don’t forget about it. I think that concept works. The idea that the fate of previous characters is left “in the air” is also good, too. It would be tough to imagine a G.I. Joe without Duke and Scarlett, so now, even though they are expanding the film universe and moving on without those characters, that doesn’t mean they’re gone for good.
Check out the full interview on The Hollywood Reporter, and stick right here at GeneralsJoes for the next 48 hours of G.I. Joe assault. Yo Joe!
While Joe fans were loving all of the character posters we got last week, there was one prevailing thought… “where the hell is Flint??” Well, with big thanks to Jon Chu’s Twitter feed, that question as now been answered! The Flint character poster was saved for last, and now has been unleashed on the web.
I have reposted the entire gallery below with every character poster we’ve gotten so far…and yes, I must own them ALL.
Don’t forget to follow Jon M Chu on Twitter for the latest and greatest G.I. Joe: Retaliation intel!
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Flint is being played by DJ Cotrona, and the film launches June 29th, 2012! Follow the latest and greatest G.I. Joe: Retaliation news right here on GeneralsJoes!
Consider this just a bit of rumor and a bit of insight, but I would just expect to see some nice G.I. Joe: Retaliation updates in the next week. Call it a hypothesis, or maybe it’s even wishful thinking, but judging by the barrage of posters, some of them international, and combine that with the fact that Dwayne Johnson and Jon Chu are apparently travelling to Las Vegas to do some G.I. Joe: Retaliation related press, and I think there’s a good chance we could see some new stuff this week.
Also, BCYOJOE from HissTank reported that a new trailer has been submitted to the Alberta film ratings website, which means something is destined for release very soon. Tough to tell exactly what to expect, but the stars are aligning, I think, so Joe fans should be keeping their eyes open.
