The Energon Pub

Omega Charge wrote:No offense to the many Joe fans, but BOOOOOOOOOOOO! To me, NOTHING'S better than Transformers.

I agree with you. Transformers in general are the greatest thing to ever touch the surface. But in movie wise, Transformers is beaten by Batman and Star Wars

Personally, After seeing many teasers and trailers for Joe... I have no intrest in seeing it. I am not a fan of those enhancer suits they wear and am not big on the cast selection for the key characters eithier.

Not to mention it seems aimed for a younger audience then an older audience like Transformers was.

I also highly doubt this movie will come close to reaching the success ROTF has had thus far worldwide, but hey...I have been proven wrong before.

Just got back from watch G.I.Joe Rise of Cobra and it was pretty great movie. I truely believe that it does go toe to toe against transformers rotf. The wayans brother in the movie believe it's Marlan or not sure but he give the movie a big boost as well as the baroness, oh yeah i'll be having some sweet dreams of her in that leather outfit! I truely loved the movie but one thing i did notice is that the theatre wasn't as full as it was with transformers which at least in conroe, texas i conclude that transformers rule supreme, oh yeah. I highly recommend the movie, it's great.

i just got back from seeing the flick....

....and it was a really really cheesy movie with crappy cg. it was kinda like watching a sci fi channel original movie and the cg looked like video game cinematics. not to say i didnt like it, cause it was alright. to be honest, gi joe had my attention throughout, unlike rotf where i kept drifting off cause it got confusing or uninteresting....

.... but after reading the article, gi joe beat rotf in four ways out of the six.... i still like TFs better though

I saw the midnite showing and was going in thinking that I might actually like this better then ROTF, avoiding all kinds of news on the movie and I walked away from this movie kinda "meh". I also couldn't help but continue to compare and contrast the two a lot and I wish that was something that I could have gotten out of my head. The characters and actors were all fine, but something was just not clicking in it for me. I do have an issue with how 1 character was portrayed, but I won't get into that here, cause it's kind of a spoiler.

It won't hurt anyone to see this movie, but I prefer ROTF to GI Joe.

Who wrote this article. Personally, I think a woman, and not being sexist or anything, but ROTF was a guy movie. Every guy I talked to said it rocked, every girl said there was too much fighting. And ROTF was a great movie. This preson clearly cannot follw movies or see differences between characters, cuz it sure as heck was easy for me and a whole lot more other ppl.

This guy article should not be taken in consideration!

He is GI Joe fanboy,he even says that he didint like the transformers cartoon and always though Gijoe cooler!

Theres a difference when a Transformers fan dont like the movie and when a Gijoe fan say that he doesnt like the movie and Transformers overall.

chuckdawg1999 wrote:One of the things that I really don't like about the movie is that they made the team an international force backed by NATO. Hence why all the Joes aren't American and the Cobra agents aren't all bored/spoiled Eurotrash.

Cobra has had agents from all over CD.
Zartan and the Dreadnoks come from all over and hang in Florida.
Storm Shadow and the ninjs they employ are from asia.
a large contingent of their bulk forces are US.

Then again the RAH Joes also have international members (not many but they do) and not just defectors but members like Back-stop who's Canadian.

accidental double post due to crap computer.

Mods can delete if they wish.

*SPOILERS*



















....a couple issues gi joe bothered me with....

- Why the hell was the gi joe base filled with random military personnel as workers. It wouldve been way better if each of these people had a name and a costume, so that the whole cast of characters in the gi joe universe couldve been filled. It wouldve been cool to see shipwreck, gung ho, and a whole bunch of other guys hanging around the base. A good example is the x-men movie, you had you main cast of heroes, but around the xavier institute you were introduced to a number of different mutants who had their cameos.

- Duke. Fire this guy and get a new actor.

- Cobra Commander sucked. And why did they give him an identity. CC was cool because we've never seen his face and we dont know who he is, but the movie ruined that mystery....

- .... the same goes for storm shadow, it woulve been cool if he kept his ninja mask on the entire movie, so we never really know who he is.

- Duke and Baroness relationship. NO.

- The neo viper designs were inappropriate. Dont get me wrong, they looked cool, but i think they were in the wrong story.... they reminded me more of the Combine from Half Life. But i guess you could say that these were in fact MARS soldiers and that by the next movie the Cobra soldiers would be more cartoon accurate.

.... end fanboy rant ....

I saw GI JOE at the midnight premiere, I cannot say it is better than Transformers. They are too different asfar as action and effects they are about on the same level. I liked it . It was totally different than the 1980's cartoon but COMEON, IM TIRED OF PEOPLE BITCHIN...just be happy someone let us have a live action toy movie.

Editor wrote:

chuckdawg1999 wrote:One of the things that I really don't like about the movie is that they made the team an international force backed by NATO. Hence why all the Joes aren't American and the Cobra agents aren't all bored/spoiled Eurotrash.

Cobra has had agents from all over CD.
Zartan and the Dreadnoks come from all over and hang in Florida.
Storm Shadow and the ninjs they employ are from asia.
a large contingent of their bulk forces are US.

Then again the RAH Joes also have international members (not many but they do) and not just defectors but members like Back-stop who's Canadian.

You're right but the ranking officers of Cobra were all European (Destro, Baroness, Tomax, Xamot, Maj. Bludd?) right?

Saw Joe today and I have to say I liked it better that RotF.

Don't get me wrong, I liked RotF, but the thing it lacked (as is expected in a Bay film) is character. In TF2, if you weren't Prime or Sam, you really had zero character development.

What Joe did a lot of was depth of character. Sure, Shakespeare it ain't, but you got to know these guys to one degree or another. You got to know why they were wailing on each other and cared, or at least understood more than "they're evil, we're good."

On the negative side, some of the effects could have been better. There were a few bits that were just bad CG, which was a shame because a lot of it was well done. Lips on Snake Eyes? Lame, maybe a little distracting, but ultimately not an important point. CC having an origin? Interesting, new, not as cool as his origin from Cobra Reborn, but different. The Joes NOT being ARAH? I thought I would hate that, but they glossed over it, and in context it worked fine and sort of makes sense if you think about it (or don't think about it too much, whichever).

On the plus side, you had cool tech, fun fights, crazy world dominating schemes, and big-ass hidden bases built in remote locations. After just watching the old show over the past few weeks, it carried over many, many elements of the cartoon!

Will it make as much $$$$ as TF2, not likely, but it definitely does not deserve the panning some movie reviewers are handing out. I swear to God, not one but TWO move reviews I heard, bad of course, were from people that didn't even SEE the f'n movie!

It fits squarely in the realm of must-see popcorn flick. Way better than Wolverine, not as good as Star Trek, and on par with (but different from) RotF.

Me, I can't wait for the sequel!!!
Yo Joe!!!

Honestly, I think GI Joe looks retarted. I have been to see ROTF 8 times and I loved it even more each time if that is at all possible! I friggen loved it the first time I saw it! It was awsome! GI Joe looks a little... silly to me, but hey! If your a fan and wanna see it, that's fine too!

I'll probably get thrown in the Smelting Pools for this, but.....I liked G.I. Joe more than ROTF. I just did. I walked out of ROTF going "This is everything that was wrong with it". W/G.I. Joe, I had minimal knowledge on the franchise to begin with, so I had considerably less to complain about. The things I did know about, they didn't bother me in the least. Good movie for me.

rpetras wrote:Saw Joe today and I have to say I liked it better that RotF. ....

i agree.... in terms of movies, gi joe was better than rotf.... but since im a TF fan first and foremost, id still still choose TFs over gi joes any day

Six Ways the GI Joe Movie Could Be Better Than
Transformers 2


1. Diminished Expectations

Ridiculous. I watched the movie and it went above and beyond all of my expectations. I not only had a good time, but it was a good...nay, excellent film.

The only thing I see diminishing, lately, are people's brain cells. And not because of the movies. There's so much wrong with this article, it's not funny. But, I'll cover that in detail.

Six Ways the GI Joe Movie Could Be Better Than
Transformers 2

2. The GI Joes Have Faces

One of our least favorite aspects about Michael Bay's Transformers movies is how impossible it is to distinguish one robot from another, particularly when their start their rock-em-sock-em thing. The robot designs might turn on auto-fetishists, but they've completely stripped away all of the personality the Transformers had in the cartoon series, especially in the faces. Fine, noses and ears don't really work on robots, but Bay's Transformers designs do a terrible job of conveying emotion and, aside from Optimus Prime and Bumblebee, any casual fan would be hard pressed to name any of the other Transformers out of a line up. Thankfully, the GI Joe cast is actually made up of honest-to-god actors, with eyebrows and mouths, and the ability to make us give a damn about them, if they're good enough. And, while there isn't a Tom Hanks or Angelina Jolie in the bunch, it's a fairly solid group of actors, with most having a few impressive credits next to their names (heck, even Marlon Wayans was awesome in Requiem for a Dream). That alone might elevate the cast above Optimus Prime's creepy CGI robot lips.

Blah, blah, "We couldn't figure out what was going on, blah, blah, blah." Then open your friggin' eyes. I'll admit that during the forest battle, the uninformed could become quite confused by what's going on and who did what. The rest of the film, however? If you couldn't figure out who was who, then you had your head shoved down your date's throat, or your head up your ass.

Fortunately, the people have spoken and the critics lost this time. ROTF is not only one of the biggest money makers, in the history of cinema, it's in the top 10 domestic all time charts. Obviously the audiences embraced it enough, to keep coming back for more, no matter how badly the critics hated it.

To the author of this article, quit eatin' your own crap, pull your head out of your ass, and go see movies for the exact reason they're made: TO HAVE ESCAPIST FUN.

Six Ways the GI Joe Movie Could Be Better Than
Transformers 2

3. The Accelerator Suits Might Just Surprise Everyone


Anyone who's seen the early previews for GI Joe has probably made a sarcastic comment or two about the clunky, beyond-cartoony accelerator suits that the Joes wear into battle in one major sequence, these hulking exo-skeletons that look like some of Tony Stark's discarded designs for Iron Man. They've been one of the major causes of fan backlash since the first trailers premiered. However, there have been some early screening reports suggesting that the trailers completely fail to capture the giddy, crazy-ass fun of the accelerator action scenes. If there is ANY scene in GI Joe that has the potential to completely shutdown its critics, it's this one, and we think it has a 50/50 chance of working. While there was some beautiful robot wreckage in Transformers 2, there was no single action sequence that we were still talking about weeks later, and the concept of the accelerator suits alone just seems like such a great mixture of amped-up speeder-bike mayhem and total vicarious wish fulfillment. They might fall flat on their face, but if they don't, it'll be the most talked about action sequence of 2009.

Most talked about? I'm not entirely sure it'll be in a good light.
I will say that the scene was a hell of a fun romp from beginning to end. Impressive CGI visuals, impressive stunt work (It should be illegal for Snake Eyes to pwn so much. It really should.), and the chase itself (not so much the final, on film execution, but the ideas used in it) was just a sit back in your seat and go "WHOA..." moment. A lot of fun, but I'm not sure it's the most talked about action sequence. I think once people get their hands on ROTF on DVD/Blu-Ray, and they can go back and forth, and watch the forest battle in detail...that's the one they'll be talking about.

Six Ways the GI Joe Movie Could Be Better Than
Transformers 2

4. Stephen Sommers Is Better at Delivering FUN Than Michael Bay
GI Joe director Stephen Sommers

This might sound ridiculous, but Michael Bay movies take themselves very, very seriously. That's right, Michael Bay movies. (And, yes, we're counting Bad Boys 2.) Even with their ridiculous premises, there is an arrogance, a pomp, a slick, pre-packaged, out-of-the-box desire to be EPIC to Bay's movies that can be entertaining, but also can occasionally suck all of the fun out of a movie theatre thanks to their painful efforts to be either cool or profound in every second of every frame. On the other side of the spectrum, there's Stephen Sommers, and let's be honest, there is NOTHING cool about Stephen Sommers. If Bay was the high school kid who spent all of his energy being cool, Sommers is the class clown, the class speed freak, the kid in your class who'd skateboard off the roof just to make his friends laugh. This doesn't mean that Sommers makes great movies - he doesn't. Deep Rising is a hysterical B-movie, The Mummy is a fairly solid popcorn flick, The Mummy Returns is bat-s*** insane, and Van Helsing is so over-the-top it's almost Kabuki. However, all four of those movies are never boring and were obviously made by a guy who was trying to make every second of every frame pure sugar-sweet FUN. And, at this point in history - with the economy in the toilet, two wars, ugly partisan politics, massive unemployment, and even worse on the horizon - we've lost all interest in cool. We want FUN when we go to the movies - one of many reasons why our favorites of the summer have been Star Trek and Up - and GI Joe probably has way more potential to be fun than Transformers, thanks largely to Sommers' involvement. Sure, it also has much more potential to suck, but... eh, you can't have everything.

Wow, that wasn't biased at all, was it? There's so much unrelenting Bay hate in there, I can't even say this was a level headed argument.
Yes, Bay is pompous, yes, he does try and sell his movies as being SERIOUS BUSINESS, but he does, in fact, take these movies as a fun diversion and doesn't really promise anything but. Just because he's arrogant and cocksure, doesn't mean that's the type of film he's bringing us.

In fact, ROTF was one of the most fun times I've had in theaters in a good long while. I laughed, I got choked up, I was thrilled, I was shocked, but most of all...I enjoyed my time in the theater, and would gladly buy another ticket for that sensation. And I'm doing so, tonight. A double feature of G.I. Joe and ROTF at the drive in.

Sommers films are good, no doubt, but as time goes on, they all kinda lost their flair. Deep Rising never interested me, so I can't really comment, but I heard that it's considered his best film. The Mummy... one of my absolute all time favorites, but received rather lukewarm reviews, unlike DR. The Mummy Returns, not a favorite so much, but a great flick, but again, a decline. Van Helsing...was just awful. It was a crapfest on film. I'm surprised the methane didn't ignite when the spark that lights the projector, kicked on.

G.I. Joe has enough awesome in it that it might just save his career. If he made more movies like the first Mummy, and TROC, he'd have just as big of a career as Bay, if not more so.

Six Ways the GI Joe Movie Could Be Better Than
Transformers 2

5. Sexist Male Rationale #59280

We're not proud of stooping to this level, but if we have to, we will. In our editorial opinion (our male editors, at least), GI Joe's Rachel Nichols (she plays Scarlett) is way hotter than Megan Fox. (That sound you hear is the internet breaking in half.) Maybe we just prefer redheads, but Nichols is a classic beauty; that Marilyn Monroe tattoo on Fox's arm is extremely lame; Fox blew off Seth Rogen, which isn't cool; and Nichols proved to us on Alias (and with a strong performance in the stinky P2), that she's a pretty amazing actress, MUCH better than Fox. And, for all you fanboys, Nichols cameo-ed as the green alien slave girl in this summer's Star Trek, so she gets some geek points for that, right? Right? (We apologize to our wives, mothers, and daughters.)

Okay, for once, I agree. She's genuinely beautiful, and puts Fox to shame. Inside and out. But, doesn't that say something? You have to stoop so low (borrowing this douchebag's words, I admit it) as to drool over T&A to help make your point, That's pathetic, and it's grasping at straws to come up with yet one more reason why they think ROTF sucks....without hearing people complain that they're wrong.

It couldn't be that she's a versatile actress with real talent, minus the ogling T&A mentality? Of course not. This sack of monkey nuts has to appeal to our primal urges just to win his argument.

Six Ways the GI Joe Movie Could Be Better Than
Transformers 2

6. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Was a Terrible, Terrible Movie


Yes, it made a crapload of money and will probably top the box office for 2009, but let's get this straight - Transformers 2 is no Dark Knight. Heck, it's not even Spider-Man 3. We totally stand by our reviewer's assessment of the film when it came out. Transformers 2 is an unqualified mess. It takes everything we hated about the first Transformers - uneven tone, lame sense of humor, awful pacing - and amplifies it to 11. Yes, it's a populist hit, but, in our minds, it's one of the worst movies of the year, so, honestly, the bar that GI Joe: Rise of the Cobra has to clear to be a better movie than Transformers 2 isn't very high. Do we honestly think that GI Joe can, in any way, make more money than Transformers 2? NO. No way in hell. But, do we think it could possibly be a better and more fun moviegoing experience? YES. We're a little nervous about the buzz, the review lockdown, and several other aspects - like casting Adebisi from HBO's Oz as the hero in a kids movie - but we have to admit that it has a definite chance of being a better movie, because, c'mon, that shouldn't be that hard.

WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.
Do you not get it, slapnuts? There's obviously more to the film than just a crapfest that got lucky. People LOVE it, to the tune of almost 900 MILLION dollars. WORLDWIDE. If the movie truly is as bad as they claim, there's no chance in hell it would've made it past the first week. I mean even Rolling Stone gave it a F-, and they'll give almost any piece of crap a passing grade. Yet the film continued climbing the ladder. The total boxoffice take still hasn't been tallied yet. Just because YOU, sir (and I use that term loosely) didn't like the film (opinion), doesn't make it a bad film (fact). Was it perfect? Absolutely not. But it was far better than the first film, made a heck of a lot more sense, too.

And complaining about the casting choices in a kid's movie? WRONG. G.I. Joe is no kids movie, not even by a long shot.
Either TF film really isn't family oriented either (and most definitely not a kid's flick...) so let's break this down, shall we?

TF/ROTF:

-Half dressed skanks.
-Unnecessary sexual humor that pushes taste boundaries.
-Violence that usually affects obviously unrealistic characters.
-Foul language that shouldn't be uttered in a TF film.

On the flipside:

-No gore.
-Characters kids could relate to and connect with.
-Superheroes for kids to believe in.
-The REAL Military took part in the film.

G.I. Joe:
-Excessively violent in some scenes.
-Violent stabbing, slashing deaths involving human characters only.
-Bordering on gore in some scenes.
-No characters that were real enough for kids to connect to.

On the flipside:

-No half naked whores.
-No reprehensible sexual humor.
-No unrelenting use of profanity.

On the flipside:

-Both movies were a LOT of fun.
-Both movies had impressive visuals worth the price of a ticket.
-Both were silly and detached from reality.
-Both movies are worth the repeat business.

Do I think G.I. Joe will beat ROTF? No.
Do I think either one's the better film? No.
Do I think both could use improvement? Yes.
Do I think the negatives are enough to ruin the enjoyable experience? NO.

Go see both films folks, go ENJOY both.

Relax, have fun, live a little, even if it means watching a goofy & silly movie.

Interesting.

I completely 100% agree with your final break down of the 2 movies, but I almost 100% disagree with you point by point analysis. Wierd, right?

Autobot032 wrote:

Six Ways the GI Joe Movie Could Be Better Than
Transformers 2


1. Diminished Expectations

Ridiculous. I watched the movie and it went above and beyond all of my expectations. I not only had a good time, but it was a good...nay, excellent film.

The only thing I see diminishing, lately, are people's brain cells. And not because of the movies. There's so much wrong with this article, it's not funny. But, I'll cover that in detail.

It think you completely missed the point here. The diminished expectations were for the initial viewing. I know I walked into Joe expecting it to suck eggs. The trailers did nothing to help me, and the more I saw them the worse I thought it would be. Therefore anything better than sucking eggs would be an improvement over my expectations. And, as you seem to agree, Joe was really fun.

Six Ways the GI Joe Movie Could Be Better Than
Transformers 2

2. The GI Joes Have Faces

One of our least favorite aspects about Michael Bay's Transformers movies is how impossible it is to distinguish one robot from another, particularly when their start their rock-em-sock-em thing. The robot designs might turn on auto-fetishists, but they've completely stripped away all of the personality the Transformers had in the cartoon series, especially in the faces. Fine, noses and ears don't really work on robots, but Bay's Transformers designs do a terrible job of conveying emotion and, aside from Optimus Prime and Bumblebee, any casual fan would be hard pressed to name any of the other Transformers out of a line up. Thankfully, the GI Joe cast is actually made up of honest-to-god actors, with eyebrows and mouths, and the ability to make us give a damn about them, if they're good enough. And, while there isn't a Tom Hanks or Angelina Jolie in the bunch, it's a fairly solid group of actors, with most having a few impressive credits next to their names (heck, even Marlon Wayans was awesome in Requiem for a Dream). That alone might elevate the cast above Optimus Prime's creepy CGI robot lips.

Blah, blah, "We couldn't figure out what was going on, blah, blah, blah." Then open your friggin' eyes. ...

Fortunately, the people have spoken and the critics lost this time. ROTF is not only one of the biggest money makers, in the history of cinema, it's in the top 10 domestic all time charts. Obviously the audiences embraced it enough, to keep coming back for more, no matter how badly the critics hated it.

...

I think the author is just making the point that a lot of the TF characters, other than Prime & BB, (and to a lesser degree Megs 'Screamer and the twins) got exactly zero character development. They were basically interchangeable props. Did it matter that it was Ironhide, Ratchet Sideswipe or Arcee? No. Those could have been any robots. They could have just as easily used Trailbreaker, Tracks, Elita 1 and TopSpin. With Joe, because you are using Human actors, you don't have to work as hard to develop character. Because you are much more familiar with people than 20 foot alien robots, an audience just has to look at a person and "get" what they are about.

Six Ways the GI Joe Movie Could Be Better Than
Transformers 2

3. The Accelerator Suits Might Just Surprise Everyone


Anyone who's seen the early previews for GI Joe has probably made a sarcastic comment or two about the clunky, beyond-cartoony accelerator suits that the Joes wear into battle in one major sequence, these hulking exo-skeletons ...

Most talked about? I'm not entirely sure it'll be in a good light.
I will say that the scene was a hell of a fun romp from beginning to end. ...

You actually made his point. The Accelerator suit scene looked lame from the previews, to me and to a lot of the people judging by the buzz. But, as you say, it was a fun romp. That scene, that a lot of people, myself included, were expecting to suck, was a helluva lot of fun.

Six Ways the GI Joe Movie Could Be Better Than
Transformers 2

4. Stephen Sommers Is Better at Delivering FUN Than Michael Bay
GI Joe director Stephen Sommers

This might sound ridiculous, but Michael Bay movies take themselves very, very seriously. That's right, Michael Bay movies. (And, yes, we're counting Bad Boys 2.) Even with their ridiculous premises, there is an arrogance, a pomp, a slick, pre-packaged, out-of-the-box desire to be EPIC ...

Wow, that wasn't biased at all, was it? There's so much unrelenting Bay hate in there, I can't even say this was a level headed argument. ...

I don't think it is "Bay Hate" at all, just an observation. Michael Bay's films, all of them, have a certain "feel", and that "feel" tries to be as epic as Ben Hur, but with more explosions. Do a search for "The Dark Knight by Michael Bay". It is done tongue in cheek and was not actually written by Bay, but A) It's funny as hell, B) you can see the MB formula at work. A Micheal Bay film is a certain thing, love it or hate it, you know what you are getting before you go in.

Six Ways the GI Joe Movie Could Be Better Than
Transformers 2

5. Sexist Male Rationale #59280

We're not proud of stooping to this level, but if we have to, we will. In our editorial opinion (our male editors, at least), GI Joe's Rachel Nichols (she plays Scarlett) is way hotter than Megan Fox. ...

Okay, for once, I agree. She's genuinely beautiful, and puts Fox to shame. Inside and out. But, doesn't that say something? You have to stoop so low (borrowing this douchebag's words, I admit it) as to drool over T&A to help make your point, That's pathetic, and it's grasping at straws to come up with yet one more reason why they think ROTF sucks....without hearing people complain that they're wrong.

It couldn't be that she's a versatile actress with real talent, minus the ogling T&A mentality? Of course not. This sack of monkey nuts has to appeal to our primal urges just to win his argument.

Both movies have hot chicks. Hot chicks sell tickets. We're all on the same page here.

Six Ways the GI Joe Movie Could Be Better Than
Transformers 2

6. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Was a Terrible, Terrible Movie


Yes, it made a crapload of money and will probably top the box office for 2009, but let's get this straight - Transformers 2 is no Dark Knight. Heck, it's not even Spider-Man 3. We totally stand by our reviewer's assessment of the film when it came out. Transformers 2 is an unqualified mess. It takes everything we hated about the first Transformers - uneven tone, lame sense of humor, awful pacing - and amplifies it to 11. Yes, it's a populist hit, but, in our minds, it's one of the worst movies of the year, so, honestly, the bar that GI Joe: Rise of the Cobra has to clear to be a better movie than Transformers 2 isn't very high. Do we honestly think that GI Joe can, in any way, make more money than Transformers 2? NO. No way in hell. But, do we think it could possibly be a better and more fun moviegoing experience? YES. We're a little nervous about the buzz, the review lockdown, and several other aspects - like casting Adebisi from HBO's Oz as the hero in a kids movie - but we have to admit that it has a definite chance of being a better movie, because, c'mon, that shouldn't be that hard.

WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.
Do you not get it, slapnuts? There's obviously more to the film than just a crapfest that got lucky. People LOVE it, to the tune of almost 900 MILLION dollars. WORLDWIDE. If the movie truly is as bad as they claim, there's no chance in hell it would've made it past the first week. I mean even Rolling Stone gave it a F-, and they'll give almost any piece of crap a passing grade. Yet the film continued climbing the ladder. The total boxoffice take still hasn't been tallied yet. Just because YOU, sir (and I use that term loosely) didn't like the film (opinion), doesn't make it a bad film (fact). Was it perfect? Absolutely not. But it was far better than the first film, made a heck of a lot more sense, too.

First, the $$$ a film makes is no indication that it was a good film. Enjoyable maybe, but good cinema, no. Lots of movies that suck still make money (I'm looking at YOU Star Wars prequels), so that argument is not a solid one, but all the critiques he mentions for RotF are spot on. The pacing was rough, there was a loooong drag point in the middle of the film (I thought Joe had excellent pacing, BTW). Some of the humor WAS terrible. The Wheelie leg humping scene, while funny in a very, very juvenile way, was unnecessary, I told people with younger kids (5-ish) to avoid it for that reason alone, and there was a lot of stuff like that. And I'll add complete lack of character development. Sure, Sam had character development, but he was it. (Again, I thought Joe had lots of great character development.)

OK, so after disagreeing with 80% of your points, I will completely agree with your breakdown here. Odd how 2 different views on the fine points come to the same analysis.

... so let's break this down, shall we?

TF/ROTF:

...

Not gonna repeat all that.

But I will reiterate your final point, which I think is most important.

Go see both films folks, go ENJOY both.

Relax, have fun, live a little, even if it means watching a goofy & silly movie.

This article was just the writer, "CoolerKing", giving reasons why he doesn't like Micheal Bay. He's literaly hoping that a director, who hasn't directed in five years and previous project bombed, will whip out a summer smash out of his ass.

Optimist_Prime wrote:This article was just the writer, "CoolerKing", giving reasons why he doesn't like Micheal Bay. He's literaly hoping that a director, who hasn't directed in five years and previous project bombed, will whip out a summer smash out of his ass.

You are correct, sir!

GI Joe will be all forgotten next week when District 9 comes out.

chuckdawg1999 wrote:
You're right but the ranking officers of Cobra were all European (Destro, Baroness, Tomax, Xamot, Maj. Bludd?) right?

If you are going by traditional RAH Backgrounds

Destro - Scotland
Baroness - Unknown/Classified
Crimson Twins - Mediterranean Most likely Corsica, France
Major Sebastian Bludd - Sydney, Australia

so you are 4 for 5.

That said:
Cobra Commander - Classified/American
Storm Shadow - San Francisco
Copperhead - Florida
Firefly - South-east Asia
Blackout - American
Roddy Piper - Saskatoon, Canada
Chacal Noir - Quebec, Canada
Ripper - Tasmania, Australia
Torch - Botany Bay, Australia
Scrap-Iron - Providence, RI

So a number of high ranking and other personalities are from North America, Asia and Down Under. For Europe you could also add Buzzer from England. Wild Weasel from where he first gained notice is quite possible to be from South American or African.

Autobot032 wrote:

Six Ways the GI Joe Movie Could Be Better Than
Transformers 2


1. Diminished Expectations

Ridiculous. I watched the movie and it went above and beyond all of my expectations. I not only had a good time, but it was a good...nay, excellent film.

The only thing I see diminishing, lately, are people's brain cells. And not because of the movies. There's so much wrong with this article, it's not funny. But, I'll cover that in detail.

Six Ways the GI Joe Movie Could Be Better Than
Transformers 2

2. The GI Joes Have Faces

One of our least favorite aspects about Michael Bay's Transformers movies is how impossible it is to distinguish one robot from another, particularly when their start their rock-em-sock-em thing. The robot designs might turn on auto-fetishists, but they've completely stripped away all of the personality the Transformers had in the cartoon series, especially in the faces. Fine, noses and ears don't really work on robots, but Bay's Transformers designs do a terrible job of conveying emotion and, aside from Optimus Prime and Bumblebee, any casual fan would be hard pressed to name any of the other Transformers out of a line up. Thankfully, the GI Joe cast is actually made up of honest-to-god actors, with eyebrows and mouths, and the ability to make us give a damn about them, if they're good enough. And, while there isn't a Tom Hanks or Angelina Jolie in the bunch, it's a fairly solid group of actors, with most having a few impressive credits next to their names (heck, even Marlon Wayans was awesome in Requiem for a Dream). That alone might elevate the cast above Optimus Prime's creepy CGI robot lips.

Blah, blah, "We couldn't figure out what was going on, blah, blah, blah." Then open your friggin' eyes. I'll admit that during the forest battle, the uninformed could become quite confused by what's going on and who did what. The rest of the film, however? If you couldn't figure out who was who, then you had your head shoved down your date's throat, or your head up your ass.

Fortunately, the people have spoken and the critics lost this time. ROTF is not only one of the biggest money makers, in the history of cinema, it's in the top 10 domestic all time charts. Obviously the audiences embraced it enough, to keep coming back for more, no matter how badly the critics hated it.

To the author of this article, quit eatin' your own crap, pull your head out of your ass, and go see movies for the exact reason they're made: TO HAVE ESCAPIST FUN.

Six Ways the GI Joe Movie Could Be Better Than
Transformers 2

3. The Accelerator Suits Might Just Surprise Everyone


Anyone who's seen the early previews for GI Joe has probably made a sarcastic comment or two about the clunky, beyond-cartoony accelerator suits that the Joes wear into battle in one major sequence, these hulking exo-skeletons that look like some of Tony Stark's discarded designs for Iron Man. They've been one of the major causes of fan backlash since the first trailers premiered. However, there have been some early screening reports suggesting that the trailers completely fail to capture the giddy, crazy-ass fun of the accelerator action scenes. If there is ANY scene in GI Joe that has the potential to completely shutdown its critics, it's this one, and we think it has a 50/50 chance of working. While there was some beautiful robot wreckage in Transformers 2, there was no single action sequence that we were still talking about weeks later, and the concept of the accelerator suits alone just seems like such a great mixture of amped-up speeder-bike mayhem and total vicarious wish fulfillment. They might fall flat on their face, but if they don't, it'll be the most talked about action sequence of 2009.

Most talked about? I'm not entirely sure it'll be in a good light.
I will say that the scene was a hell of a fun romp from beginning to end. Impressive CGI visuals, impressive stunt work (It should be illegal for Snake Eyes to pwn so much. It really should.), and the chase itself (not so much the final, on film execution, but the ideas used in it) was just a sit back in your seat and go "WHOA..." moment. A lot of fun, but I'm not sure it's the most talked about action sequence. I think once people get their hands on ROTF on DVD/Blu-Ray, and they can go back and forth, and watch the forest battle in detail...that's the one they'll be talking about.

Six Ways the GI Joe Movie Could Be Better Than
Transformers 2

4. Stephen Sommers Is Better at Delivering FUN Than Michael Bay
GI Joe director Stephen Sommers

This might sound ridiculous, but Michael Bay movies take themselves very, very seriously. That's right, Michael Bay movies. (And, yes, we're counting Bad Boys 2.) Even with their ridiculous premises, there is an arrogance, a pomp, a slick, pre-packaged, out-of-the-box desire to be EPIC to Bay's movies that can be entertaining, but also can occasionally suck all of the fun out of a movie theatre thanks to their painful efforts to be either cool or profound in every second of every frame. On the other side of the spectrum, there's Stephen Sommers, and let's be honest, there is NOTHING cool about Stephen Sommers. If Bay was the high school kid who spent all of his energy being cool, Sommers is the class clown, the class speed freak, the kid in your class who'd skateboard off the roof just to make his friends laugh. This doesn't mean that Sommers makes great movies - he doesn't. Deep Rising is a hysterical B-movie, The Mummy is a fairly solid popcorn flick, The Mummy Returns is bat-s*** insane, and Van Helsing is so over-the-top it's almost Kabuki. However, all four of those movies are never boring and were obviously made by a guy who was trying to make every second of every frame pure sugar-sweet FUN. And, at this point in history - with the economy in the toilet, two wars, ugly partisan politics, massive unemployment, and even worse on the horizon - we've lost all interest in cool. We want FUN when we go to the movies - one of many reasons why our favorites of the summer have been Star Trek and Up - and GI Joe probably has way more potential to be fun than Transformers, thanks largely to Sommers' involvement. Sure, it also has much more potential to suck, but... eh, you can't have everything.

Wow, that wasn't biased at all, was it? There's so much unrelenting Bay hate in there, I can't even say this was a level headed argument.
Yes, Bay is pompous, yes, he does try and sell his movies as being SERIOUS BUSINESS, but he does, in fact, take these movies as a fun diversion and doesn't really promise anything but. Just because he's arrogant and cocksure, doesn't mean that's the type of film he's bringing us.

In fact, ROTF was one of the most fun times I've had in theaters in a good long while. I laughed, I got choked up, I was thrilled, I was shocked, but most of all...I enjoyed my time in the theater, and would gladly buy another ticket for that sensation. And I'm doing so, tonight. A double feature of G.I. Joe and ROTF at the drive in.

Sommers films are good, no doubt, but as time goes on, they all kinda lost their flair. Deep Rising never interested me, so I can't really comment, but I heard that it's considered his best film. The Mummy... one of my absolute all time favorites, but received rather lukewarm reviews, unlike DR. The Mummy Returns, not a favorite so much, but a great flick, but again, a decline. Van Helsing...was just awful. It was a crapfest on film. I'm surprised the methane didn't ignite when the spark that lights the projector, kicked on.

G.I. Joe has enough awesome in it that it might just save his career. If he made more movies like the first Mummy, and TROC, he'd have just as big of a career as Bay, if not more so.

Six Ways the GI Joe Movie Could Be Better Than
Transformers 2

5. Sexist Male Rationale #59280

We're not proud of stooping to this level, but if we have to, we will. In our editorial opinion (our male editors, at least), GI Joe's Rachel Nichols (she plays Scarlett) is way hotter than Megan Fox. (That sound you hear is the internet breaking in half.) Maybe we just prefer redheads, but Nichols is a classic beauty; that Marilyn Monroe tattoo on Fox's arm is extremely lame; Fox blew off Seth Rogen, which isn't cool; and Nichols proved to us on Alias (and with a strong performance in the stinky P2), that she's a pretty amazing actress, MUCH better than Fox. And, for all you fanboys, Nichols cameo-ed as the green alien slave girl in this summer's Star Trek, so she gets some geek points for that, right? Right? (We apologize to our wives, mothers, and daughters.)

Okay, for once, I agree. She's genuinely beautiful, and puts Fox to shame. Inside and out. But, doesn't that say something? You have to stoop so low (borrowing this douchebag's words, I admit it) as to drool over T&A to help make your point, That's pathetic, and it's grasping at straws to come up with yet one more reason why they think ROTF sucks....without hearing people complain that they're wrong.

It couldn't be that she's a versatile actress with real talent, minus the ogling T&A mentality? Of course not. This sack of monkey nuts has to appeal to our primal urges just to win his argument.

Six Ways the GI Joe Movie Could Be Better Than
Transformers 2

6. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Was a Terrible, Terrible Movie


Yes, it made a crapload of money and will probably top the box office for 2009, but let's get this straight - Transformers 2 is no Dark Knight. Heck, it's not even Spider-Man 3. We totally stand by our reviewer's assessment of the film when it came out. Transformers 2 is an unqualified mess. It takes everything we hated about the first Transformers - uneven tone, lame sense of humor, awful pacing - and amplifies it to 11. Yes, it's a populist hit, but, in our minds, it's one of the worst movies of the year, so, honestly, the bar that GI Joe: Rise of the Cobra has to clear to be a better movie than Transformers 2 isn't very high. Do we honestly think that GI Joe can, in any way, make more money than Transformers 2? NO. No way in hell. But, do we think it could possibly be a better and more fun moviegoing experience? YES. We're a little nervous about the buzz, the review lockdown, and several other aspects - like casting Adebisi from HBO's Oz as the hero in a kids movie - but we have to admit that it has a definite chance of being a better movie, because, c'mon, that shouldn't be that hard.

WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.
Do you not get it, slapnuts? There's obviously more to the film than just a crapfest that got lucky. People LOVE it, to the tune of almost 900 MILLION dollars. WORLDWIDE. If the movie truly is as bad as they claim, there's no chance in hell it would've made it past the first week. I mean even Rolling Stone gave it a F-, and they'll give almost any piece of crap a passing grade. Yet the film continued climbing the ladder. The total boxoffice take still hasn't been tallied yet. Just because YOU, sir (and I use that term loosely) didn't like the film (opinion), doesn't make it a bad film (fact). Was it perfect? Absolutely not. But it was far better than the first film, made a heck of a lot more sense, too.

And complaining about the casting choices in a kid's movie? WRONG. G.I. Joe is no kids movie, not even by a long shot.
Either TF film really isn't family oriented either (and most definitely not a kid's flick...) so let's break this down, shall we?

TF/ROTF:

-Half dressed skanks.
-Unnecessary sexual humor that pushes taste boundaries.
-Violence that usually affects obviously unrealistic characters.
-Foul language that shouldn't be uttered in a TF film.

On the flipside:

-No gore.
-Characters kids could relate to and connect with.
-Superheroes for kids to believe in.
-The REAL Military took part in the film.

G.I. Joe:
-Excessively violent in some scenes.
-Violent stabbing, slashing deaths involving human characters only.
-Bordering on gore in some scenes.
-No characters that were real enough for kids to connect to.

On the flipside:

-No half naked whores.
-No reprehensible sexual humor.
-No unrelenting use of profanity.

On the flipside:

-Both movies were a LOT of fun.
-Both movies had impressive visuals worth the price of a ticket.
-Both were silly and detached from reality.
-Both movies are worth the repeat business.

Do I think G.I. Joe will beat ROTF? No.
Do I think either one's the better film? No.
Do I think both could use improvement? Yes.
Do I think the negatives are enough to ruin the enjoyable experience? NO.

Go see both films folks, go ENJOY both.

Relax, have fun, live a little, even if it means watching a goofy & silly movie.

Quoete For the Win!

I've been a fan of both franchises since the beginning but the films have left me down. That said, unlike GI Joe, I was ready to leave ROTF after half an hour. In the meantime, mainly due to the IDW comics, I wanted to give ROTF another chance and I have come around.

With both TF films, it was the designs, especially the twins and the Allspark story that spoiled it for me. What was wrong with having the traditional Decepticons stealing Earth's resources. The aliens in Independence Day were about the same thing and that was a great film. Plus Megatron not shrinking down but the Allspark does, c'mon? Don't get me wrong I love all my sci-fi to be grounded in reality and can understand them trying to go for realism in designs but it's still fantasy. I would have been happy to suspend disbelief and see some G1-esque designs. Oh not loving the meteor/protoform thing either.

However as I grew to love the first TF film, I will never feel the same about Revenge. TF1 was genuiniely funny but Revenge tried too hard and was ruined for it.

GI Joe, I approached with lowered expectations and ended up enjoying it. Again like Revenge, I felt it's main fault was focussing on the annoying characters. Duke and Ripcord were cliche and boring. In fact Ripcord was annoying and the fact that Scarlett would even give him the time of day is an insult to the Scarlett/Snake-eyes dynamic that was a huge part of the original Joe comics. Again, the Baroness-Duke thing annoyed me for similar reasons.

Breaker annoyed me for an admittedly stupid reason, I just kept thinking that should be Dial Tone.

The Cobra characters were enjoyable, much like Revenge's Decepticons though Destro lacked the air of finesse and honour that was always associated with the character.

I look at films like these and harry potter and wonder how millions can be spent making such lousy films. They are enjoyable to a certain extent but they could surelt afford better writers/directors.

The 1990 Ninja Turtle film cost only 7million to make, was extremely respectful of the source material and was a fantastic film. In fact, it was for a while, the most successful independant movie of all time, I remember reading somewhere.

Looking at Ironman, the Hulk and Wolverine in the last 2 years, makes me wish Marvel still had the Joe and TF licences since they're doing amazing jobs with their own characters.

OK.
So I saw the movie yesterday. I have to say i was pleasantly surprised and was alot better than i thought it was going to be. I (like many) wasn't impressed by the previews, and they left a sour taste in my mouth. But after actually watching the movie most of what i saw panned out. That's not to say that it didn't have its problems. First I'll start with what i liked.

Character development: I felt they did a good job of relating the characters to the audience. Most of the actors had a relevant part in the movie and were portrayed well.

Story/plot: I think the story was staright forward, and not overly complex. Good for a movie like this.

Action: Action was good and well paced.

Female aspect: Yes, I'm sorry to say, the girls in G.I.Joe were hot. Baroness and Scarlet (especially Scarlet) were great eye candy!


Now what i didn't like:

Comedy: Was virtually non-existent. While G.I. Joe has always been serious, from the the 80's cartoon series, to comics to the recent "Resolute" movie, i felt the movie needed some comedy to break it up. While it did have some, it wasn't well placed and very cheesy. (more so than ROTF) A movie like this needs some comedy relief.

Accelerator suits: Lame. Just plain lame and stupid. While i get they were part of the Sigma 6 series, they were lame and that part could have been used to introduce a new vehicle. Which brings me to my next point...

Lack of cool vehicles: While there were a few jets, other than the Hummer with the snow plow and the snow mobiles, there weren't any cool tanks, trucks, Jeeps etc. One of G.I.Joe Main attributes have always been the cool vehicles. There was a serious lack of any.

Marlon Wayne: He is a horrible actor,and much better comedian. He should have stayed on "In Living Color". His character as "Ripcord" was lame cheesy, and his attempt at humor was insulting considering he his background in comedy. He brought the movie down for me.

The "love story": Man, and you thought Micheal Bay was bad at love stories? While i understand this is needed for the general public, Duke and the Baroness being in love was lame and Ripcord's lame attempt to get Scarlet was even worse.

Cobra Commander: I didn't like his appearance. He (like megatron to TF movie verse) was unrecognizable. I do understand that update in character designs are needed, but his overall design was lame. Reminded me more of Darth Vader than Cobra Commander.

Baroness: She didn't have her trade mark accent. But much like Soundwave, i got over it.

CGI: Sucked. Thats all there is to it. In this day in age, there was no excuse for this.

Despite all this.....

I still did enjoy the movie. It did just what a movie like this should. Entertain. But still, i just didn't scream G.I.Joe to me. Although i don't feel isn't really fair to compare the two considering one is live action, and the other is live action with CGI. But if i had to pick one which iliked better, I'd have to pick ROTF. Mainly due to the comedy and better executed action scenes.

rpetras wrote: I think the author is just making the point that a lot of the TF characters, other than Prime & BB, (and to a lesser degree Megs 'Screamer and the twins) got exactly zero character development. They were basically interchangeable props. Did it matter that it was Ironhide, Ratchet Sideswipe or Arcee? No. Those could have been any robots. They could have just as easily used Trailbreaker, Tracks, Elita 1 and TopSpin. With Joe, because you are using Human actors, you don't have to work as hard to develop character. Because you are much more familiar with people than 20 foot alien robots, an audience just has to look at a person and "get" what they are about.

This is one of the reasons its not really fair to compare these movies. The character development was far easier to do in G.I. Joe since like you said, there humans and not 20 foot alien robots.

rpetras wrote:First, the $$$ a film makes is no indication that it was a good film. Enjoyable maybe, but good cinema, no. Lots of movies that suck still make money (I'm looking at YOU Star Wars prequels), so that argument is not a solid one, but all the critiques he mentions for RotF are spot on. The pacing was rough, there was a loooong drag point in the middle of the film (I thought Joe had excellent pacing, BTW). Some of the humor WAS terrible. The Wheelie leg humping scene, while funny in a very, very juvenile way, was unnecessary, I told people with younger kids (5-ish) to avoid it for that reason alone, and there was a lot of stuff like that. And I'll add complete lack of character development. Sure, Sam had character development, but he was it. (Again, I thought Joe had lots of great character development.)

This is one point that i can't agree with. What qualifies as "Good Cinema" is completely subjective. The movie is making a killing, many are going to see it multiple times, its breaking records left and right and this is all before its even made it to DVD. You wanna tell the millions of people that enjoyed it that its "not good Cinema"? If someone enjoyed it, willing to recommend it to others, and the sales shows this, then the people have spoken what they feel is "Good Cinema". Not a fly by day Critic.