Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos (1986) - A Look Back

Halloween Costumes: a mask and a bib are all you need...

With Halloween fast approaching, I thought I’d examine an industry that has greatly improved over the decades. If you go to the Disney store or anywhere else for that matter, you’ll see Halloween costumes that have authentic materials and actually look like the licensed characters they’re supposed to portray. But if you were growing up in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, chances are you wore a crappy costume from either Ben Cooper, Halco or Collegeville. How crappy? Well, it’s amazing to think that a hard plastic mask with a fragile elastic band and what amounts to a garbage bag with simply the character’s picture on it to cover your torso were the norm for literally decades, but they were. Kids never complain when they donned their Batman mask with a plastic bib displaying a graphic of Batman doing an action pose. Nowadays, costumes are far more sophisticated with the costume actually looking like the character rather than a walking billboard advertisement for them.

These costumes were uber popular for decades, but really – they were still garbage bag grade plastic draped over your body. So, why were they the dominant force in Halloween attire for so long? Simple: they were cheap and they were everywhere! Ben Cooper, Halco and Collegeville were the masters of mass production. And they licensed the crap out of just about anything you can think of. Sure, there were Peanuts, Bugs Bunny, Superman and other bread-and-butter mainstays, but there was also Small Wonder, Krull, Fire and Ice and Scott Baio costumes, just to mention a few. So come with me now on a trip down memory lane, to a time when your breath would liquify in your semi-toxic hard plastic mask and your garbage bag costume would flap in the cold wind on a Halloween night.

First off, costumes that aren't that bad:

As you can see, some of the costumes actually looked like what they were supposed to. For all you kids of the 90's and 2000's, yes, Freddy was marketed to kids. These were the 80's. Every R-rated movie was marketed to kids because everybody knew they were watching. Oh, and for the uninitiated, the dude up top is Max Ray from the Centurions cartoon and toy line. But that's not the most random costume.

There were many more costumes based on video-games. But these might be two of my favourites (aside from the Missile Command costume, the mask of which I can't find a picture of -- was it a missile on your face or something?). Q*Bert was already the subject of cartoons and colouring books, etc. at this time, but here he gets the typical plaster-a-graphic-of-the-character-on-a-bib treatment common to these costumes. And Asteroids! I mean, you're basically making a costume on an abstract concept. There are no characters in that game. The mask is a frickin' asteroid for eff sakes! What was everybody thinking when they made this costume??

And what kid wants to dress up as Jackie Kennedy wearing a sweater?? (and no, I'm not joking. That really is a costume of Jackie Kennedy wearing a sweater).

Ah, the ever famous costume of Tattoo from Fantasy Island. I can just see kids in the Woolworth agonizing over whether to get the Spider-Man costume or this gem. Truth be told, Fantasy Island was a hit with the kiddies. But then again most everything was when your parents watched stuff like Love Boat and St. Elsewhere and you had no choice in the matter. sigh

I know My Little Pony was popular and all, but what girl wants to be a horse?

Yes folks, kids could even dress up as their favourite food, although why you would pick peas over candy to dress up as is anyone's guess.

Even sitcoms were not free from the wrath of Halloween costume licensing. Small Wonder is relatively obscure today but was inexplicably popular for about 6 months. That said, Tiffany Brissette should sue for this likeness. Not only is she creepy, but she looks 47.

Remember when Rambo walked around with a shirt that had a picture of himself on it? Yeah, me neither.

Today, due to their camp value and the fact that they represented any and every fad in pop-culture in their time, these costumes are heavily prized possessions on the collectors’ market and have risen in price over the years. Sure, you can get masks of this era (some of which are actually pretty cool looking) for a couple bucks on e-Bay, but others, like the 60’s Spider-Man costume fetch upwards of $100.

These sites have a bunch of cool pictures of more costumes. Some are quite good, but a majority are too astonishing for words:

http://www.retrocrush.com/archive2003/costumes/

Worst costumes ever! EVER!:

http://www.retrocrush.com/costumes/

A scan of the 1980 Ben Cooper catalog:

http://www.plaidstallions.com/bencooper/index.html

Until next time,

Deceptisean

Photon: flashlights have never been cooler!

Alright all, in keeping with our new format I'm going to be looking at one interesting footnote in pop-culture outside of movies. One forgotten craze with an even more forgotten TV series under its belt. That's right, I'm talking about PHOTON!!

Just what the hell is Photon? In the early 80's, Photon was a craze that took the U.S. (and Canada to some extent) by storm. It's probably better known by its knock-off comeptitor Lazer Tag. Basically you strapped on awkward acessories that included a big honkin' receiver to your torso and run around with a "Lazer Pistol" that you would then shoot at someone's receiver while they tried to shoot at you in a sort of high-tech paint-bell-esque game. Photon actually came out before Lazer Tag and, in its hey-day, openned over 40 "Arenas" around the U.S. where families could go and shoot each other sensless with glorified flash-lights shaped as pistols. In all this fury, the folks who dreamt up Photon partnered with toymaker LJN to produce toys based on the property. But LJN needed more than just cheap guns to base a figure line on. And so the Photon TV show was born. And this wasn't some cheap cartoon. No, no! This was in live-action, no less.

Ah, the 80's! It was a time that embraced care-free high adventure and joyful violence with larger than life colourful creatures. And that's just what this show did. By today's standards, the show has such cheese-ball special effects, with just about everything enmired in bluescreen effects. But this stuff was incredibly ambitious for its time. Half the cast is animatronic for eff sakes. And it's 1986!

Basically, the story revolves around an earth kid who gets recruited into an intergalactic team who protects Photon, a light that has been around for eons and is important for some reason (the bad guys want to extinguish that light of course). The good guys consist of a talking lizard named Leon, a big booger-looking creature named Pike, a masked, female chauvanist (I wish I were lying) a big robot dude with a mullet (!) and some orphan earth child genius (and yes, you guessed it, he's annoying), not to mention the highly eye browed new recruit Bhodie Lee whom the show revolves around.

It's a fun little show and all the creatures are wicked. The action is very Star Wars esque with lots of flips and jumps before actually shooting someone. And the music! Every top 40 hit is here from Dancing on the Ceiling to Whip It is here whenver the action gets heavy. It's all about the cheese, people! Looking at the toys and the cool looking characters, it really is a shame that the Photon TV series didn't catch on with kids. Still, it remains an interesting footnote in pop culture and a virtual time capsule of 80's campy adventure series.

And now, I leave you with the first episode of this masterpiece:

Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CG1WNXgfJYQ

Part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LUIhGV1YIg&feature=related

Part 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ss2OLv3UmWo&feature=related

Part 4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__xlJ-XOH7w&feature=related

Part 5

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fb5t9SRNu44&feature=related

Until next time,

Deceptisean

Open letter to Hasbro and the studios behind the Transformers movies

Dudes,

I keep hearing stupid comments from the dumbasses that “wrote” the Transformers movies, saying that they don’t know what to do for future installments of the Transformers. They’re “tired” and the concept is getting “stale”. This pisses me off to no end. As a Transformers fan, I know that Transformers lore presents endless possibilities for stories and villains. Just because Orci and Kurtzman are bereft of any creativity and because they know nothing about he Transformers mythos while professing to be fans, now the whole franchise has to suffer while it could have gone on for another 4 or 5 more movies or even beyond. Don’t believe me? Read on:

Unicron and Primus:

They still haven’t done a movie featuring Unicron, the Chaos Bringer. Unicron was a god before the Universe existed and sought peace through the destruction of all life. He accomplished this by destroying everything, even the stuff of space itself leaving nothingness, and slumbered in deep sleep. But he wasn’t thorough enough in his destruction, and small fragments of the old universe reacted with each other and formed a new Universe. In this Universe, Primus, Lord of Light was born. Unicron awakened and proceeded to destroy everything again, but Primus shifted the fight to the physical plane, our Universe, and without time to properly generate their energy forms, Primus entrapped both himself and Unicron in two barren asteroids. Unicron learned over the eons to shape his asteroid into aplanet, then again into a robot. Primus, fearing that if he too shaped into a robot the conflict that destroyed the former universe would resume, decided to instead to turn his asteroid into a planet, Cybertron, inhabited by robot beings that could, like Unicron, alter their forms and eventually defend the Universe against the inevitable Unicron threat. Unicron awakens and proceeds to eat planets for sustenance. He zeroes in on Earth and the Autobots feel they must convince Primus to turn Cuybertron into an enourmous robot to stop Unicron by delving into the core of Cybertron and awakening the spark of Primus. Primus can battle Unicron and fail, resulting in the Transformers facing the truth that they are the ones that were created to destroy Unicron. Autobots and Decepticons team up and defeat Unicron before there is no more universe for the Decepticons to rule or the Autobots to defend. They delve into the core of Unicron and destroy his spark, blowing up Unicron's body just before he's about to devour Earth. Unicron’s head can blow off his destroyed body in the end and orbit Earth or something. This would be an epic movie. Too bad you won’t make it.

Galvatron:

Have Megatron get defeated by Optimus during the Unicron story and get Uncron to remake him as Galvatron to take the Matrix of Leadership from Optimus, the only thing that can defeat him.

Dinobots:

I’m tired of everybody saying that they don’t know how to justify the Dinobots’ Dinosaur forms. Is everybody stupid? Grimlock and his Autobot mercenaries are hardened bounty hunters scouring the universe in protoform for their Autobot brethren and destroying Decepticons. They happen upon Optimus’ message from the end of the first Michael Bay movie and come to Earth. They don’t care about disguise as they don’t care who sees them. All they care about in an alternate form is something bulky, combat ready and intimidating. Not satisfied with Earth’s machines and vehicles as an alternate form, Grimlock takes interest in Earth’s animal life, but looks back to a time when Earth’s life was huge and terrifying, the Jurrasic period. Grimlock and his team (Swoop, Slag, Snarl and Sludge) scan fossiles of their chosen forms, alter them to their preference, and become the Dinobots, ready to take on any threat with their new powerful bodies. Add in a story arc where Grimlock disagrees with Optimus’ less aggressive methods against the Decepticons, breaks off from the Autobots on his own destructive path but eventually learns that he is doing more damage than good and becomes a team player with the Autobots, and you have an enduring character that borrows heavily from his cartoon and comic heritage and still remains fresh. Too bad they don’t give any personality to the robot characters in these Transformer movies though.




Quintessons:

Five-faced, tenticaled aliens who come to Earth promising to fix our problems with their superior technology, but bare a terrible secret. They want to bring new life to Unicron and use him to control the Universe. They also reveal a link to the Transformers’ past, where they had attacked and colonized Cybertron eons ago and enslaved the Transformers. The Transformers had rebelled, driving the Quintessons off their planet and the Quintessons have been seeking revenge ever since. The Transformers have to team up to stop the Quintessons from re-activating Unicron and fend off the Quintessons’ army of Sharkticon troopers.

Jhaxius:

Iron-fisted, self-appointed new ruler of Cybertron from G2 continuity who believes in Transformers as Cybertronians, not Autobots and Decepticons, and vows to destroy all Autobots and Decepticons who oppose him. He also “mechaforms” planets, recreating organic planets in the image of Cybertron, destroying all life on them. He sets about remaking the universe this way, setting his sights on Earth, until Optimus and crew can stop him.

Liege Maximo


Introduced on the last page of the last issue of the G2 comic and expanded in the unofficial Simon Furman penned novella Allignment, Liege Maximo is a fallen god who is the father of all Decepticons and wants to ascend to godhood, a process that could destroy the universe altogether. The Autobots and Decepticons would have to team up to stop him.

Nebulos:

This is the planet from the American cartoon and comic continuity inhabited by humans that inherit the Autobots and Decepticons’ war accidentally. Some Autobots flee to this planet to escape the war and hide in peace, but he Decepticons follow them there and discover a world ripe for conquering.

Head Masters

I was never fond of the American version of this concept, where Nebulons and humans fused with the heads of characters and could transform from that character’s head into another robot while the character can turn into whatever vehicle they transform into. I perferred the Japanese version where Transformers learn to deal with harsh conditions by uploading all of their processing functions into their heads and ejecting their heads from their bodies in an elternate, smaller robot form to escape sticky situations or evade capture. They can also switch heads and adopt the powers of different character’s heads, so a more intelligent or powerful transformer can swap their head with someone else’s body and embue that body with their abilities to get out of a jam. This would be an interesting addition to the movie lore, but may go over the heads of audiences weened on testical and pot jokes.

Characters I would like to see done right for once:

Fortress Maximus and Trypticon

They already effed up Scorponok, so let’s get these other giants right. Enormous, rolling battle stations that form gigantic robots! What the hell is more spectacular than that?? And Fort Max was the leader of the Autobots in the American Headmasters comic and the Japanese Headmasters series for eff sake!

Scorponok

Getting back to Scorponok, can we please bite the bullet and bring him back as the huge scorpion battle station/robot? He had a striking design and was extremely popular. If you’re all woried that you’ve used the name Scorponok already, then just call him Zarak or Mega Zarak like in the Japanese G1 series. He was the leader of the Decepticons in the Japanese Headmasters series (he even blew up Cybertron with Galvatron stranded there!) and played a huge roll later in the Japanese Masterforce series. Heck he was the leader of the Decepticons in the American Headmasters comic. And that little crappy robot in the beginning of the Michael Bay movie is how you pay tribute to that??

Scourge and Cyclonus

You already screwed up the trio that was Megatron, Starscream and Soundwave. Don't screw up Galvitron, Scourge and Cyclonus. Scourge the Tracker can be an experienced bounty hunting Transformer who joins the Decepticons with his team of Sweeps, drones who serve Scourge to hunt his prey. Cyclonus would be a loyal and powerful right-hand-man of Megatron/Galvatron.


Star Saber

Future leader of the Autobots in G1 Japanese continuity (from the Transformers: Victory series), he respects all life and would fight to the death to defend it. Could be a successor to Optimus for a movie or two. I always liked this guy.

Deszaras

Leader of the Decepticons in G1 Japanese continuity (from the Transformers: Victory series), I always thought he was a cool leader, with his chest plate that pops off and transforms into two different flying characters. Could be a successor to Megatron/Galvitron for a movie or two.

Devil Z

Evil entity from the far reaches of the universe who leads the Decepticons in the Japanese Masterforce and Zone series. This character would have to have a back story developed as he was never really explained in the Japanese series, but that shouldn’t be too hard and would serve as more fodder for movies.

There are other characters and concepts, but really Transformers can go in so many directions. I’m really getting fed up with the lack of creativity and interest coming out of Hollywood. It destroys franchises that could go on past 4 movies if the studios put some thought and care into them, rather than piling on memos of what trend or pandering idea they can shoehorn into the next film to make that opening weekend boxoffice and appease their shareholders. You’ve already run roughshod over two movies and you can’t sustain that attitude for long until the audience feels it’s had enough. Let’s buckle down with the next few Transformer films and really tell great stories with blistering action and enduring characters (robot characters – eff Sam and Mekaela!). Come on guys, let’s really pull this one out of the gutter before it's too late (which it might already be).

-Deceptisean

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen comic adaptation review

I haven’t seen Transformers 2 yet. No real rush. I hated the first one and all the stupidity I keep hearing about with TF2 like the sambo-bots, Devastator’s testicles, Bumblebee crying and still not able to speak, not being able to differentiate Megatron from the other Decepticons, sex jokes, pot jokes, etc. really soured me on wanting to see it. I’m a big Transformers fan – and when I say fan, I don’t mean that I saw the first Michael Bay movie and ran around proclaiming I was a fan, like James Thoo on Joblo.com. I mean I’ve known the TF franchise and all its moving parts since I was 5 or 6 and Transformers first appeared in North America. Now, I’m not a pig about it. I know that because there have been different incarnations of Transformers and different generations to experience them at different times, there will be those out there who have their favourite. Some people are fonder of the Beast Wars era than G1 or what came after. Some probably liked the one-off Robots in Disguise series. And there are young ‘uns who will worship Armada, Energeon and Cybertron (the so called Unicron Trilogy) when they’re older. And – Lord help us all – when kids today grow up, there will be a fan base for these trashy, non-sensical, disrespectful Michael Bay Transformer movies.

I picked up the comic adaptation for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen because I was curious to see this sequel with all the jokes, the noise, and most of the action distilled out. Let’s just look at this thing from a story perspective.

Overall, in comic form, Transformers 2 isn’t half-bad. The plot holes and logic leaps aren’t as gaping as G.I. Joe. The story is generally what you know: Thousands of years ago the Primes stole energy from suns of uninhabited solar-systems to supply Cybertron with power to run their planet. One Prime (the Fallen) wanted to steal energy from a particularly juicy sun (Earth’s sun) and the other Primes refused because our planet was inhabited. So, the Fallen kills all the Primes save for one. That Prime hides the Matrix so the Fallen can’t power his sun destroying machine and seals it in a tomb contructed of parts from the other Pimes and seals it with his “own life essence”. Anyhoo, there is a young Prime who is constructed around this time who turns out to be Optimus and doesn’t know his connection to the matrix and sun destroying machine. In current times, the Decepticons are still hanging around Earth, the U.S. government blames it on the Autobot presence, but really the Decepticons are looking for Megatron. They find him and somehow Megatron is able to communicate directly with The Fallen, like the Fallen is the Emperor to Megatron’s Darth Vader. Optimus is defeated by Megatron, Megatron is looking for the Matrix of Leadership in order to power a sun-destroying machine that is covered by the Pyramids (yes, those pyramids), Sam finds the Matrix first, radios the two military guys from the first movie to drop off the dead husk of Optimus at the Pyramids so he can use the Matrix to revive him, he does and Optimus goes toe to toe with the Fallen.

As a story, all the fundamentals are sound here. This adaptation seems to come from a script stage before all the jokey ad-libbing and animation flourishes like Devestator’s testicals and Skids and Mudflaps’ jive-talking attitude were thrown in. Gone are the pot jokes and stuff. The only stupid thing I didn’t like was Bumblebee blowing up the Witwickeys’ house in the beginning because a couple of household appliances came to life via the All-Spark shard that Sam has (not only does Bumblebee not speak, but he is apparently a dumbass too). Skids and Mudflap add absolutely nothing to the story, only appearing alongside Bumblebee throughout. This might explain why the filmmakers felt the need to beef up their appearance in the movie, so you knew they were there, by adding all the “cap in yo’ ass” language – for the “kiddies”. Megatron gets a lot of speaking lines in this adaptation, along with Optimus. Optimus is shown to be a hero that everyone from human to Autobot respects and leans on in a crisis, which I like. As for Megatron, he and Starscream bicker in one scene (after Megs is revived), then Starscream fights alongside Megatron for the rest of the movie. There is one scene I liked in the adaptation where Megatron takes over all of Earth’s communications and appears on every TV at once demanding that Earth hand over Sam in 24 hours or the Decepticons will rampage through Earth. This reminded me of General Zod in Superman II when he calls out Superman on TV. Is this in the movie? If so, that's frickin’ cool! Just Megatron threatening Earth on the world’s TVs is cool. All other characters get short shrifted. Soundwave speaks alot in this adaptation, but he's still a stupid satelite, so he just hovers over Earth telling the Decepticons where to find everything. What a waste of a popular character. Ironhide and Ratchet are back and do nothing. Arcee disappears after the first scene. Bumblebee still doesn’t speak. Another thing that struck me was how serious the Agent Simmons character was (John Tuturro) in this adaptation. He still works at a pizzeria like in the movie, but gone are references that he lives with his “mummy” and he’s the one that actually kills Devastator (this probably happens in the movie too – as I’ve said I still haven’t seen it) but he’s actually useful in this comic. The two army guys from part 1 are pointless except for carting Optimus’ lifeless body to Egypt.

After reading this adaptation, I couldn’t help think that Transformers 2 could have been awesome had they went in the direction of this comic (which represents some sort of early script stage) and just beefed up the robot characters more, like give Ratchet and Ironhide more history with Optimus and more importance in the Autobots’ operations. And give the Decepticons more screen time to actually speak and develop personalities, like maybe teasing human “fleshlings” for sadistic fun, or have some Deceps join with Starscream while others are more loyal to Megatron. As it is, Devastator appears at the very end and the Constructicons never appear before that scene. And Fallen hovers somewhere for the entire movie and shows up at the end when the Matrix is finally taken from Sam. It’s stuff like that that makes me shake my head. There was certainly room to add more depth to the robots if they cut most of the useless human stuff (do we need a five-minute pot-gag?). If they concentrated less on the stupid human characters like Sam, skanky Mekaela, Alice the useless Pretender Transformer who fails, Leon or whatever Sam’s friend is called, Agent Simmons, etc. and more on the Transformers whom this movie is named after, this could have been much better. And stop with the stupid jokes already. This adaptation doesn’t have any of that stuff and it’s fine!

Anyhow, this adaptation is okay. It still didn’t make me want to see the movie anytime soon. It also makes me wonder how much longer this current run of Transformers movies lasts with the already flimsy foundation they’ve built for it. As I said, the movie seems like it could have been much better had they concentrated more on fleshing out story and characters. I’ll still watch Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen eventually, plugging my nose and holding my breath.

2.5/5

Deceptisean

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra comic adaptation review

HEAVY SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!!!!!!!! BEWARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, with G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra set to assault theatres in about a month or so, I picked up the comic adaptation (should it be out in stores this early?) and decided to take my chances and read it. I love spoiling movies, I just can’t help it. We’ve heard a lot about this film in the past couple of years, with a lot of what we heard being not very good. I can only review the comic at this point – obviously I haven’t seen the movie yet. Overall impression: if this is the movie, then it’s pretty bland and uneventful for the most part. I think the action scenes will be expanded more in the actual film (stuff like the accelerator suit chase is sort of shown in a couple panels here). A good chunk of the middle is set in "The Pit" (underground fortress of the Joes, just like in the comics) with the Joes getting constantly attacked by Cobra (or whatever they're called here -- it's unclear). What is funny though is how much this sticks to the Joe/Cobra backstory moreso than the Transformers movies, albeit with the typical Hollywood consolidation of characters – you know, let’s make this guy the son of this guy, or this girl the sister of this guy, etc. For the most part, none of those changes are atrocities in my opinion (die hard Joe fans may beg to differ).

The story is basically that Destro creates nano-mite technology that can wipe out whole cities and stuff. He needs the special warheads that G.I. Joe is protecting in order to weaponize his nano-mites and constantly attacks G.I. Joe throughout to get them. Later he acquires one warhead and attempts to blow away France (this is foiled by Duke by him activating a “kill switch”, but only after the Eiffel Tower is destroyed). Duke is captured, reconciles differences with old flame Baroness (more on that below), G.I. Joe saves Wachington D.C. and Moscow from being wiped off the face of the earth, Destro and Rex (Cobra Commander – again, more on that below) escape, the end. There’s a lot more to it than that though:

-Duke apparently dated this blonde chick named Ana Lewis and fought alongside her brother Rex at in the Middle East. Duke promises Ana that he’ll protect Rex, Rex supposedly blows up in a premature air strike, Ana hates Duke, etc.

-Baronness has that name because she marries a Baron (of course) who also happens to be a missile expert who can help Destro whether he knows it or not.

-Well, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the disfigured Rex is Cobra Commander, and Anna dyes her hair black and becomes Baroness.

-Rex wears that stupid black mouth piece thingie we’ve all seen for the whole movie. Nobody ever calls him Cobra Commander and nobody ever calls the organization Cobra. Rex is basically Dr. Mindbender with a different name as he experiments on people with various disgusting methods. At the very end he dons that all silver mask we've seen from toy packaging pics and proclaims himself “Commander” (again, no mention of Cobra).

-Duke and Ripcord join G.I. Joe after their mission conflicts with G.I. Joe (a classified, top-secret military special ops unit made up of different countries). Duke is portrayed as an experienced military man who is determined at all costs to complete his mission. Ripcord is a one-liner spouting comic-relief dude who dreams of flying jets. He gets his chance as he saves Washington and Moscow by being nano-mited (is that a term?) by blowing up their respective nano-mite missiles in space, thus redeeming himself as “A Real American Hero” (sorry, couldn’t stop myself).

-Destro: He is Scottish arms dealer James McCullen XXIV, just like the comics. The thing is, James McCullen does business with the Pentagon, so everybody knows him. That’s why he wears a black mask when doing dastardly things as Destro. And make no mistake, the mask is black metal. In the beginning of the comic adaptation, there’s a scene with the first Destro hundreds of years ago who is accused of treason by the French for selling arms to France and its enemies (which is why the current Destro attacks France in the movie) and they punish him by putting a bright metal mask on his face for the rest of his life (the shiny mask we all know). Later in the comic, the current Destro digs out that same mask and later wears it in honour of his ancestor. It’s supposed to be the proper mask. He wears it literally at the end.

-What I don’t understand is that James MacCullen cooperates with NATO and G.I. Joe to create and transport the nano-mite technology only to attempt to steal it as Destro. If he made it, why not avoid telling anyone and use it for himself. The answer, I suppose, is that Destro needed the money to make the stuff and got it from NATO, in which case he had to tell them about it and then try to steal it as Destro once it was made . . . or something . . . and if he does need money for those weapons, then where did he find the funds for all those neat M.A.R.S. trooper outfits and those wicked vehicles??

-Zartan: Comes off as a prick in the comic adaptation. Also, he’s drawn as bald with no face make-up. He’s not really a master of disguise here, but Rex experiments on him and physically changes his appearance into another person. That other person is revealed to be the President of the United States of America on the last page of the comic. And it looks like Bush! I guess that was how they were going to end the movie originally, when it was written during the Bush administration, and I guess that was going to be an explanation as to why Bush sucked so bad…(I’m not making any of this up)

-Ripcord, the Marlon Wayans character, is annoying even in comic form. He says stupid laugh lines and hits on Scarlet a lot. Anyway, Ripcord is comic relief, which I can tolerate if nobody else is joking around as well, which it looks like.

-Cover Girl looks like she’s the secretary of the Joes – and is killed in one second by Zartan!

- Did I mention Scarlet was Canadian? Score one for our side! Scarlet in this comic adaptation is “close” to Snake Eyes. “He’s like a brother”. So, no, they’re not an item here. And Scarlet gives Ripcord a kiss as payoff for all the flirtation he does to Scarlet throughout, and also ‘cause Ripcord could possibly die on his final mission to save the U.S.A. and Russian capitals at the end of the story.

-Other Joes include Heavy Duty, General Hawk (who gets partially paralyzed part way through), and I think Breaker and some other dudes.

-Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow are rivals yet again and are both part of the Arashikage Clan just like in the comics, although the Hard Master is Storm Shadow’s father, not his uncle. Young Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow are shown, in flashbacks, to be rivals throughout their childhood and Storm Shadow kills the Master (in jelousy? I dunno. It’s not clear). Anyhoo, the two rivals fight in the end and Storm Shadow appears to be killed – or is he? And I loved Stormshadow in a jet-pack in one scene. That was cool! Hope they have that in the film.

All-in-all, it could have been worse, although I still don’t get this drive to tell the “beginning” of the story. As it is, I didn’t really see the Cobra organization “rise” like the title suggests. At least in the comic adaptation, Cobra isn’t even mentioned and the “Commander” is a horrible basterdization of an iconic character. He never looks or acts anything like Cobra Commander, and never goes by that name anyway. The threat is passable I suppose, with those stupid “nano-mites” -- they could have gone for some realistic threats and have the bad guys shoot stolen nukes at countries or something. They also muddle what the nano-mite threat is by having Rex/"Commander"/Cobra Commander, or whoever he is, inject it into soldiers to subtract their fear and/or make them feel no pain – or change peoples’ appearance with the nano-mites, instead of eating through a city. This won’t be a stellar film, nor will it live up to expectations of what a G.I. Joe movie could be. A lot of it reminded me of the old JCVD Street Fighter movie where they attempted to relate to kids by adapting a beloved franchise, but went in a "new direction" for no good reason when the original direction would have worked fine. Like really, where are all the bold designs we all latched on to as kids, and where is the drive to bring this story into the preseant day, like have Cobra be a leader among today's terrorist groups or threaten the world with Nukes or global destabilization of some sort? Nano-mites?? That's the best you could do?? But it’s an okay comic adaptation. We’ll just have to wait and see what the movie is like. Oh, and no “Knowing is half the battle” reference lines?? Isn't that a pretty big opportunity to miss?? That’s weird…

2.5/5

Deceptisean

Movies based on toy lines – What did you expect?

There have been a rash of posts on web-sites ever since the first Michael Bay Transformers movie came out and irked fans with its brazen stupidity, crassness, disrespect and lack of coherent story or enduring characters – posts on websites that rebut fans’ dissention against movies like Transformers or the underwhelming and stupid-looking clips put up for the upcoming G.I. Joe movie with statements along the lines of “But it’s based on a toy line. What did you expect?”. I remember one comment from a posting (I can’t remember where I saw it) saying something like “Did you want a guy in a sailor suit running around firing a laser pistol with a friggin’ parrot on his shoulder??” Okay look, no I don’t want the exact image of the cartoon interpreted into live-action on the big screen. Of course you update it, but still remain true to the original, so that there’s something left of the original brand to actually experience. However, I really don’t like the snarkiness of these comments and this attitude people have devaluing something because it’s based on a toy. The truth is that anything can be made into a great movie – you just have to be creative enough to treat it right. The filmmakers behind the Christopher Reeve Superman movie in ’78 had an uphill battle because everyone saw comic book movies and characters as being fodder for campiness and stupid jokes. Superman was made into a movie that took the subject matter seriously and became a huge hit, a big franchise and is now a classic film. All you have to do is treat your subject matter seriously and the audience will follow. What do I expect from these movies, released and forthcoming, that are based on toy lines? Well, a whole hell of a lot:

Transformers – What people say: “It’s stupid and jokey, just give me big effin’ robots fighting each other and shit blowing up. What did you expect?”

Well, I expected the robots to be the stars of the movie, having endearing personalities and relationships with each other and the human characters. Optimus is the stalwart leader who doesn’t do comic relief, he takes Bumblebee under his wing as someone who has potential to be a great warrior in the future, Optimus is flanked by Iron Hide and Ratchet (a warrior and a medic that have been through many battles with Optimus and are dear and trusted friends because of it) and Jazz is a robot who falls in love with Earth and its pop culture enough to want to defend it to the end. Megatron is constantly threatened with usurpation by Starscream as ruler of the Decepticons, and I expected the other Decepticons to actually say something, maybe be extremely loyal to Megatron or team with Starscream or something. I expected a coherent story with Megatron trying to plunder Earth’s energy-rich resources and Optimus defending Earth and feeling guilty that the Autobots inadvertently lead the Decepticons to this innocent planet.

See? Is that so bad? What the hell was all that about a cube with powers I still don’t get and glasses they have to find that have a map to the cube but it doesn’t matter since the cube has been moved to the Hoover Dam and the robots don’t talk at all and all of the humans are comic relief that don’t take anything seriously? What the hell was that??

G.I. Joe – what people say: “I just want to see shit blow up good! Those masks and stuff from the cartoon would look cheesy today. It’s based on a toy! What do you expect?”

I don’t know if you’ve noticed on the news, but terrorists with masks and hoods over their heads that kidnap innocent Americans and threaten death are common place today. So how would masked villains look goofy? Make Cobra a threat by having them obtaining nuclear weapons from the former U.S.S.R. on the black market and holding the world ransom by threatening to nuke a country every hour until Cobra is given the North American continent as their base of operations to rule the rest of the nations of the world. They start by nuking an innocent country in the first act, killing millions, Lifeline and Doc are dispatched to help with the devastation, the American government gathers its best of the best in the military, each guy specializing in their own task, the governments of the world support them through the U.N. and together they figure out where Cobra’s base of operations is, a search that leads them all over the world until they locate a small island in the Pacific (Cobra Island) and mount a counter attack, destroying Cobra’s weapons delivery systems and recovering the nukes. Throw in an infiltrator to the Joe ranks in disguise (Zartan) who throws them off until discovered, motor-bike riding street thugs recruited to join Cobra and mount guerilla warfare against the Joes in locations around the world (the Dreadnocks), a sub-plot with Snake Eyes settling an old score with Storm Shadow, an arms dealer who supplies Cobra its nukes (Destro), a front operation corporation that funds Cobra headed up by mysterious twins (Tomax and Xamot), a masked ruler of Cobra who releases messages to the world’s media (Cobra Commander) and young, tough recruits headed up by General Hawk (Duke, Bazooka, Roadblock, Scarlett, etc., etc., whoever else you want), as well as cool weaponry and vehicles on both sides – and bullets and missiles instead of lasers. All this would make for a stacked and exciting movie. Gee, what the hell is so hard about that?? That’s what I expect. Not some shit movie about nanites and cheap villains in business suits instead of masks.

Masters of the Universe – What people say: “He-Man looks gay. He shouldn’t be a kid that turns into Fabio like the cartoon. That’s gay. I just want to see sword fighting and shit blowing up. Yeah!! It’s based on a stupid toy line! What do you expect?”

Well, I expect all the coolness that comes with a concept of swords and sorcery combined with high tech. Adam, Prince of Eternia, is a kid that his father, King Randor, believes to be useless, especially against the criminal horde ruled by Skeletor who wants to rule Eternia his own evil way and have free access to all of its resources. Adam discovers the ancient ruins of Castle Greysull where a sorceress dwells who sees potential in Adam and bestows upon Adam the power to become the embodiment of one of Eternia’s champions of the past, and possess all of his power whenever he wills it with his magical sword: He-Man! He-Man makes himself know in a battle between King Randor’s forces and Skeletor and is recruited into the King’s ranks, but the King doesn’t know He-Man is in fact his supposedly useless son Adam. Mix in core characters Orko (the bumbling sorceror), Man-At-Arms (leader of the King’s Guard who takes Adam under his wing and knows he’s He-Man), Teela (who thinks Adam is useless but loves He-Man – and whom Adam has a crush on), Mechanec (leader of the King’s mechanic pool who creates weapons and vehicles), Ram Man (who is the very best of the King’s Guard) – and of course the villans Beast Man (who leads Skeletor’s beast battalion), Trap Jaw (who creates Skeletor’s weapons, vehicles and trooper drones), Evilynn (Skeletor’s Sorceror, second in magical power to Skeletor himself) and Skeletor who was scarred by Rador in a fight many moons ago and wants revenge. This is not that effin’ hard, people! This is what I expect, but I’m sure this will be watered down to be “realistic” (i.e. boring) whenever the He-Man movie is released.

The thing is, when these toys came out they were accompanied by stories and characters that were fleshed out by shows and comics to the point where each line had a lore to it that was fine for any TV show or movie. There isn’t a lot to change. Hell, even the smaller toys that would be seen as worthless by fickle, bitter message board posters on most geek web-sites would still make cool movies if their stories and characters were treated seriously.

Hell, even shit like Sectaurs: A technologically advanced planet is destroyed by dangerous experiments that turn the surviving population into half-man, half-insects. A primitive kingdom-based society develops over the years, possessing not nearly a quarter of the previous civilization’s technology. Prince Dargon, still young but coached by loyal father figure and veteran warrior Pinsor, leads a team to find “The Hyve”, ruins of an old lab that may have caused the disasters of the previous age, before evil warlord General Spydrax obtains its powers and secrets and uses it to rule the planet. Mix in the giant flying and land crawling insect steeds that the characters ride and it would be a wicked, epic film.

Even Starriors! This from Wikipedia: “In the future, solar flares threaten all life on Earth. Earth's scientists build three Classes of intelligent machines, Protectors, to restore the Earth for human use, Destructors, to ward off any potential alien invasions, and Guardians to protect humanity after they go into a hibernative state underground. The brains of the Starriors, called control circuits, are crafted in the human image. The leader of the Destructors, Slaughter Steelgrave, becomes craven at the thought of deactivation upon the restoration of the humans, and enslaves the Protectors after what he believes to be a successful attempt to destroy all of the Guardians. Eventually, the human race and the Starriors' mission is forgotten as a reality and regarded as a myth--none of the Starriors had been activated when the humans disappeared. Then the Protector Trashor, Nipper, discovers a human skull. A band of Protectors, eventually joined by a few dutiful Destructors, sets out to release the humans from their overly prolonged hibernation.” -- Add in Slaughter Steelgrave heading up a group to stop this band and a climax with the humans getting revived and you've got yourself a pretty cool movie.

Hell, even Bravestarr: In the future, human kind has expanded to the far stars with colonies on many planets and settle on one planet lovingly called “New Texas” where they mine for riches, make do with the limited technology they have by mixing old-west tech with space-age tech, and live peacefully with other alien life-forms. That is until Tex Hex, outlaw gang leader of the “Carrion Bunch” with powers bestowed upon him by a mysterious force far beyond the settlers’ comprehension, initiates raids and bullies the settlers to the point that no man or woman would dare be Marshal in New Texas. In comes a young, strapping, mysterious and charming Native man calling himself Bravestarr who decalres himself Marshal and teaches the people of New Texas how to fend off the criminal hordes while standing up to Tex Hex himself. Mix in Bravestarr discovering his partner Thirty/Thirty (a half-horse, half man with a giant gun he calls “Sarah Jane”) in New Texas, wild west themes with futuristic high tech, cool Carrion Bunch members Thunder Stick (a robot), Vipra (a serpent woman), or Howler (a Cyote man), just to name a few, and fun characters like Handle Bar (the green-skinned tough bartender of the saloon), the undertaker character who smiles in anticipation of booming business and eagerly measures people for their coffins whenever a battle is brewing, and Judge J.B. McBride, the attractive female judge who was assigned to New Texas and has romantic tension with Bravestarr. This thing just writes itself.

See? This is what I expect! Epic stories with neat characters and cool, inventive things I haven’t seen before in live-action. All too often, people go on and on about wanting to see shit blow up or what not, but movies like that are forgotten and have no resonance. When a Transformers or G.I. Joe or whatever comes along in the theatres, I want a great story with characters and cool action that sets up a solid foundation for sequels. I don’t care if it’s even based on bubble gum. Anything can be turned into a great movie. So – why is that not happening?

-Deceptisean