G.I. JOE: RESOLUTE

[BWprowl]

Eh, I always though that the BAT looked badass, personally, so getting one in those colors worked just fine for me. Plus, its very existence debases the credibility of Resolute's 'Gritty Realism', and I'm all for that.

My love for Greenshirt Duke is at least 70% influenced by his binoculars. Actually, now that I think about it, he would go pretty well with Greyshirt Hawk, and I don't even have a version of that character yet. There's still a few of that comic pack lingering at stores here...

[onslaught86]

I have my theories about Ellis. I am not familiar with his work specifically, only having read some of his "Iron Man" run. But, I am thinking that Hasbro/CN shelled out money for Ellis for the street-cred he would bring. Ellis took the gig, and one of 3 things happened.
-Ellis, a guy known for being big into counter-culture, is not likely to be at all fond of "GI Joe". He may well have written a deliberately crass story.
-Ellis simply did not care, and just collected a check.
-Hasbro told Ellis something like, "We are pretty sure the fans want *this*, please give it to them." As stated in several posts above, "death-depth" for many people, especially Joe fans.

Dom
-not a fan of the "Resolute" Duke figure.

Not familiar with Ellis? I'm surprised, Dom, I'd expect you to have read Transmetropolitan. It'd be right up your alley, methinks, since it's basically Hunter S. Thompson does cyberpunk. The genre studies and current:future cultural parallels are fantastically presented, it's among my favourite comics. I'd hazard a guess that the people who harp on about it have put you off - don't let them.

Besides, it's the source of one of the world's best insults: "The best part of you dried up on your mother's thigh."

[Dominic]

That insult could work a few ways....none of them nice.

Right now, I am trying to cut my comics buying, as I am behind in that, and my reading. But, I will keep "Transmetropolitan" in mind.

Dom

[Onslaught Six]

The second major arc involves Spider covering an election between what is essentially two evils. I believe I read through it right when the election last year was starting to heat up, so it was surprisingly relevant.

[Dominic]

GI Joe Resolute:

Oh, lordy.

A friend of mine had it on his DVR. The listing for the show decribed it as "an adult oriented" remake of the old series. "Adult oriented." Whenever a cartoon presents itself as "adult oriented", I usually expect the worst. There may well be an "adult oriented" cartoon out there that actually is written maturely, but most of the time "adult oriented" means "the kind of sex and violence that parents do not let kids watch and most adults have out-grown a need for". The fact that "Resolute" writer Warren Ellis is known for his counter-culture appeal was also a source of morbid curiosity.

I have only read a bit of his work, and it is not bad. But, why anyone would think that Ellis would be a good match for a coporate owned, and inherently conservative, property like "GI Joe" is a mystery. I do not blame Ellis for taking the job. But, the results are...what you would expect. "Resolute" is either a grotesque parody, or Ellis simply making a workman-like effort to deliver on a contract. Ellis mixes and matches elements from both the old cartoons and comics, while adhering to neither and rewriting many characters just for the heck of it. (Storm Shadow is no longer a Greek style character, and is not just a straight-fowardly corrupt thug.)

"Resolute" delivers on the kind of hard-core "Joe" fans claim they want, (because it is realistic, or mature or somesuch foolishness), but Ellis makes the mistake of killing off a handful of pre-1986 characters, which troubled many long-time fans. (And, remember, "long-time" is pretty much the only type of fan "GI Joe" has.)

Even putting aside Ellis' handling of the property, "Resolute" is just a plumb awful movie. It is, in the end, a bad action movie. At this point, some people are likely chuckling and thinking that "bad action movie" is a redundant term. But, even putting aside genre snobbery, this movie is bad. It lacks even the layered badness of "Total Recall", (a movie that I am ashamed to have enjoyed in my youth), or even the earnest oafery of "Under Seige" (a movie that came out too late for me to truly enjoy).

There is plenty of PG-level language, peppered in to show how mature "GI Joe" is. There are two ways this sort of language comes up in real-life. The first is basic habit. (My family is largely from East Boston and Chelsea. As one of my uncles put it a few years back, "Every other f*ck*in' word that comes out my mouth is "f*ck" ya know." The other way is "children trying to seem mature". I went through this stage, and there are children now who are as well. And, as one grows, they grow out of it. (Remember, habitual swearing is much different than swearing to seem kewl.) And, it appears that after 25 years, "GI Joe" has hit this developmental stage, with soft-naughtly language being shoe-horned in through-out "Resolute". The most egregious example of this is Cobra Commander giving a speech that should be worthy of any demagogue.....and managing to sound more like an inarticulate drill-instructor, declaring to his troops that there will be "none of your crap!" Wow. Crap.

The entire story takes place over the course of twelve hours, and there are little references throughout the episode to cue viewers as to how long some events are taken. And, those references are needed, because in-context time is nothing if not vague.

In more than one place, one might reasonably assume that characters are doing nothing, (and I mean *nothing*, they are outside of the time-stream), when they are not on camera. At one point, Tunnel Rat and several name-less guys are carrying out a very dangerous demolitions op at a high altitude, (20 miles up to be precise). The nameless guys fall, along with some debris. Some time later, Tunnel Rat has to jump (from 20 miles up). Tunnel Rat has one of those wonderful, all-purpose, never fail, cartoon parachutes. And, apparently, so did the nameless guys. There is a shot of the whole crew parachuting down together. Yes, Tunnel Rat is parachuting down with his team of nameless bozos, despite said bozos having taken a plunge long before Tunnel Rat, and having a head start. Maybe the nameless guys waited around in mid-air, frozen, while Tunnel Rat completed the mission. Of course, that theory has a hole in it, as Tunnel Rat would have drifted away from the location they fell from, meaning that they would have had to drift below him. And, if they could control their drift, it would make sense that they could fly, or at least have avoided falling in the first place.

These sort of inconsistent physics and incoherent narrative plagues "Resolute". At one point, the USS Flagg is bombed, and the aircraft on it are destroyed. Putting aside questions about how long it would take to put out the resulting fires, it was truly amazing to see so many air-craft taking off from the Flagg, undamaged, when the Joes needs them later. Apparently, Cobra's clever plan to cripple the Joes came apart because Cobra Commander just forgot about the Joes having magic aircraft that just materialize when needed.

The idea of convenient consequences applies even more to the characters. The Joes and Cobras are as lucky as they need to be in a given scene. When luck fails, they are simply immune to consequence as is required by the story. Duke and Scarlett spend a fair amount of time getting shot at, (in enclosed spaces), getting knocked around, and being caught in/around several explosions. Nobody's ear-drums are blown out. No scorching or burning. Scarlett gets up and walks away from an explosion that sent her hurtling (head first!) into a wall. But, despite some spectacularly bad marksmanship by Cobra soldiers, Duke takes round in the ribs. It is unclear if it pierced his armor, (as blood only appears even from open wounds when the animators feel like putting it in), but it clearly hurt him. In fact, it hurts him so badly that he tells Scarlett to leave him behind, as he cannot stand.

Think about this. The same guy who is able to stand meters away from explosions, and take some real falls, is whimpering because of an injury to his ribs. (Said injury heals up completely within a few hours (in context), when Duke is needed to lead the assault on Cobra head-quarters.

As far as the spectacularly bad marksmanship by Cobra troopers goes, it is.....monumental. Alley Vipers, (Cobra's urban warfare troops, presumably trained in close-quarters fighting) not only manage to not hit Duke and Scarlett with a hail of bullets, but they also manage to stand so closely together that it only takes one grenade to kill them all. (Cobra troops bleed inconsistently, but they die pretty easily.) Later, a bunch of troops surround Duke and Scarlett, leading Duke's convenient-for-the-plot rib injury.

While the old cartoon had a very low body-count, (despite the sheer amount of explosions and gun-play), it made sense in context by virtue of consistency. For whatever reason, the world of "GI Joe" assumed that death by warfare was just very unlikely. (A handful of Cobra troops died, but that was rare enough.) In the case of "Resolute", most of the Joes are damned near invulnerable. In fact, the only Joe casualty, Bazooka, was killed by a ninja. And, ninjas are awesome. (Do not get me started on ninjas. I am still reeling from "Sabertooth: Death Hunt", where the awesomeness of ninjas is used only to illustrate the awesomness of Sabertooth.)

There is a logical explanation for the unbalanced body-count, it is very mature and sophisticated. No, really, it makes perfect sense. Over the years, the Joes seeded Cobra with dozen, perhaps hundreds of deep-cover agents. These brave men and women wore Cobra uniforms, waiting for the chance to betray Cobra. Of course, openlu betraying Cobra would reveal the plot, and ruin years of careful work and sacrifice. Acts of resistance would have to be subtle, such as "accidently" missing when fighting the "enemy", the Joes. Each deep-cover Joe operative would be so deep-cover that even his fellow Joes, (often working in deep-cover themselves), would not recognize them. And, even if they did, they would have to maintain the ruse.....at all costs.

All costs. Sometimes, it might be necessary to kill one's comrades, or to be killed by them. Al for the mission. Those Alleyviper that Duke and Scarlett killed, along with the dozens of other troops who had them surrounded, were not Cobra agents. At least most of them were not. They were Joes working in deep-cover, bravely sacrificing their lives in a thankless effort to stop Cobra.

And, Duke knew this. He knew of their sacrifice. And, he knew they had to die.

For the mission.

The pain in Duke's ribs was not caused by a bullet, for he was never hit. The pain was caused by the burden upon his heart, the burden of knowing that his mission required him to kill loyal Joes. Duke is immune to shrapnel from a grenade, but he is wounded by the shrapnel of his own shattering heart.

(Well, it makes as much sense as anything else you could come up with to explain "Resolute".)

To be fair, "Resolute" is not all bad. The entire cast consists of 4 voice actors, none of which seem to have fewer than 4 roles. While some of the voices are redundant, there is suprising variety. In all seriousness, my hat is off to those guys and one gal.

Grade: F "Resolute" almost made me nostalgic for "GI Joe: Reloaded".


Dom
-was also forced to sit through "Yo Gabba Gabba" and "Wonder Pets".