Rated X wrote:Black Hat wrote:Rated X wrote:Black Hat wrote:Speaking of Hasbro movies, it's a shame G.I. Joe is basically dead because even as someone who honestly never grew up with it, I wouldn't mind a proper G.I. Joe movie that took advantage of just how silly the whole thing was. So no attempts to make it too "cool" or "edgy" or whatever; by all means modernize some of the designs so they look good on screen, but aim for that absolutely ridiculous 80s cheese charm. Everyone has laser rifles, Cobra are completely incompetent, Cobra Commander is a screeching lunatic (get Scott McNeil to play him!), etc etc. Don't be mean spirited towards the source material, but give it an affectionate parody. So not "G.I. Joe is sacrosanct and must be treated as a serious work of art" but not "The original sucked, let's insult it and the people that grew up with it" either. More "G.i. Joe was ludicrous, and that's why we love it". And for the love of god, keep political/social virtue signalling out of it.
Thats what cartoons are for. The moment you use live actors and have them be "less cool" you just have a parody.
Dude, it's hard to get less cool than the 80s G.I. Joe or Transformers cartoons. Not to say they're unwatchable, but they aren't
good. They're fun because they're so, so silly.
I was 8 years old in 1984 when those cartoons came out. So I feel I was like the perfect age for them....not too old, not too young. With that being said, I can admit there was a certain amount of silliness in those cartoons. But that silliness is from an adult perspective looking back at them now.
Well of course. But "I enjoyed it as a kid" =/= "It is objectively good". I've been watching through G1 (last ep I watched was Hoist goes Hollywood) and some of the episodes are so, so bad. Enjoyable, but still bad. Not to say kids' cartoons can't be good (look at Beast Wars or Animated) but G1, as much as I love it, was ludicrous.
Believe me, there were cartoons that came on before GI Joe/Transformers (usually played back to back) that were more silly and meant for 5 year olds. And those more silly cartoons made GI Joe/Transformers cartoons seem pretty serious to an average 8 year old.
Again. To an 8 year old, maybe. But we aren't 8 anymore. I'm 21 and you're 42. If you tried making a Transformers movie that was just like an episode of G1, and it took itself completely seriously, it'd tank. If you're going to make a live-action movie of something as silly as Transformers or G.I. Joe, you have two options.
1: Remake it from the ground up with a completely different tone and very little resemblance to the original show.
2: Keep the tone of the original but don't take yourself too seriously.
Especially in 1986 when characters actually got killed in the cartoons. (Or mortally wounded like Duke in GI Joe)
You mean "Got killed off to make room for new toys, which almost never happened again after the insane backlash"? I mean, dude, I like the 86 movie a whole lot, but it's still not a serious work of art. It was still, at the end of the day, a kinda shallow attempt to sell toys, albeit one with pretty awesome music and animation.
Also some episodes in Transformers had a very adult message. Go watch a particular episode called "The Gods Gambit". In a nutshell, it basically alleged that gods are fictional characters used to levi taxes on a gullable population by its leaders. And then the Transformers arrive and the Decepticons conspire with the leaders pretend to be the gods. Meanwhile the Autobots try to convince the general public that gods are fake and they are really aliens. So basically youve got the entire premise of the show "Ancient Aliens" 25 years before it premiered. Try putting that topic in a kids cartoon today. I guarentee it wouldn't make it on the air.
I've watched The God Gambit. Even with the (admittedly interesting, if ham-fisted) message, it was still very, very daft, not to mention horrendously animated. Serious social commentary it ain't. And it was probably one of the only episodes that tried doing anything even remotely different- the rest of the series (ESPECIALLY season 2, the one everyone remembers) is pretty much 100% cheese (whilst God Gambit was 95%). As for "It wouldn't air today", I wasn't aware you were a TV executive with insider knowledge.
See, here's the thing. I like G1, G1 is funny and it has some fun characters. But if you want to make a serious,
non-comedic live action movie based on the premise of robots that turn into vehicles, you're going to have to make some changes. You can't just do the G1 cartoon again. The only reason the franchise has survived as long as it has is because it's continually re-invented itself to appeal to different demographics over time. If they'd just tried to do G1 forever and ever it would be dead and buried. In fact, I'd argue that if it weren't for Beast Wars, which not only completely reinvented the story but also dramatically improved it, the Transformers fandom would not exist. It'd just be another 80s cartoon everyone forgot about. The munky saved the trukk.
Not to say we should throw away G1 altogether of course, that would be silly. But believing it to be sacrosanct and any form of deviation from it to be heresy is just stupid. If you wanna watch G1, hey, you can. But that doesn't mean that we should never try anything new with the brand ever again.
