Why has the G.I. Joe franchise failed to gain any significant traction in the post-millennium era?
Even in an age where nostalgia rules over pretty much everything, G.I. Joe in particular just can't seem to get a foothold on it to the same level as Hasbro's other stuff.
Is it just the subject matter since CURRENT YEAR seems to hate all military and police or is it something else that is holding it back?
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I think part of it is tone confusion. GI JOE is associated as a children's cartoon, meaning film producers want the largest audience possible, and yet the premise itself is rather adult. Political red tape, war, PTSD, espionage, etc. You could theoretically let it off the rails with a Resolute style series while also acknowledging the absurdity of the characters, but that would require Hasbro signing off on it. Maybe another factor is character focus. Who do you focus on in terms of protagonist? Duke? Scarlet? Snake Eyes? Roadblock?
Another thing is the self insert.
It’s easy for Bumblebee to meet a teen human and become friends and change their boring life around for the better. Audiences self insert as the teen or at least find them relatable.
Non-veterans won’t relate to modern G.I.Joe. And actually veterans may find it too goofy.
(Again, not counting adults who were fans of the franchise growing up)
>actually veterans may find it too goofy.
When I was in grad school around 2009, I became friends with an undergrad who was an Iraq war vet. He was about thirteen years younger then me, but we both love comics. Thing is that he obviously had some issues from his time in Iraq and his brother had just completed AIT, which I could see worried him. I had him read issues from the original 80's RAH run because there were a lot of storylines that dealt with issues that veterans could relate to.
It's amazing to see how many serious issues that the RAH comic dealt with rereading it as an adult and this was a comic made to sell action figures to kids in the 1980's.
I think that's a valid point where GI Joe seems to steer too hard into realism that it will disconnect with some people.
The 80s cartoon portrayed Cobra as a largely incompetent terrorist organization that is so outlandishly silly it's hard to take them as credible, especially when Serpentor came into the mix with ancient snake magic, but I think in a post-9/11 world where terrorism is taken a lot more seriously people don't want to be reminded that terrorists are groups that are very real and very dangerous, and the superhero/supervillain self-insertion that fans often do is harder to engage with because of how it is in reality.
After their 80s iterations ended, Hasbro kept relaunching new versions of GI Joe and Transformers in the 90s and 2000s, but GI Joe never had it's own Beast Wars or Unicron Trilogy to reinvigorate the brand and bring in new generations of fans. The live action movies were lower-budget than the Bayformers movies, with less promotion and less attention.
Basically, GI Joe had around 20 years of performing OK, just getting by, and getting outperformed by Hasbro's other big brand, and increasingly focusing itself on the aging 80s fanbase they have left.
Then despite Retaliation doing better than Rise of Cobra on a lower budget, Hasbro basically abandoned GI Joe for most of the 2010s, focusing on other toy brands, while the third movie was stuck in development because they wanted to turn it into a launchpad for a Hasbro Cinematic Universe.
is sadly right that we live in such a self-hating, de-balled society that something patriotic and pro-military like GI Joe just won't fly with too much of the media/entertainment complex unless you corrupt it utterly.
Joes had two series in the mid 90s that they tried to make their “Beast Wars”:
Sgt Savage (a Captain America take on a soldier)
And G.I.Joe Extreme (very 90s)
You need the cartoon and the toys to make it work. Sgt Savage only had one cartoon episode, on a promotional video packed with a toy, and only had a handful of characters. Extreme's cartoon lasted 2 seasons, so must have done something right, but Hasbro pulled the plug on the toys really quickly. In both cases they failed to hold on to the 80s audience and failed to bring in a new audience either.
>but Hasbro pulled the plug on the toys really quickly.
They didn't sell. Because they were ugly, barely poseable junk.
It was as if Hasbro were trying to compete with the Todd Macfarlane "action figure as barely articulated mini statue" while not making them detailed enough to appeal to that audience, and not "action figure" enough to appeal to kids. Iron Klaw was still cool though.
They were copying the current X-Men toys, if I remember right.
Kenner went full moron with Extreme. GI Joe's appeals of last iteration were articulation and vehicles. They went to 5PoA, preposed so they looked strange, and were not scaled to work well with vehicles. Basically they copied the approach from Aliens, but with things that it wasn't suitable for and didn't have a huge a massive successful movie behind it. Even the approach they had to Batman might have worked better, but still lacking in posing.
Maybe it’s too real for modern audiences?
Military vs domestic and international terrorists.
With Transformers, it’s so unrealistic with alien robots, that you can just go to the theater or tv and enjoy it as a fantasy.
Maybe G.I.Joe vs Cobra is too real for people to be immersed in and enjoy?
(Not counting the adults who grew up with the franchise as kids and are nostalgic)
>Maybe it’s too real for modern audiences?
>Military vs domestic and international terrorists.
It's too real for what modern comic writers can make. We had the GWOT for over a decade. Who's the highest profile active duty combat vet in the big 2?
Call of Duty made huge ass bucks.
Overwatch made huge bucks...and buckets of cum.
Snake eyes in Fortnite sold well.
METAL GEAR SOLID made fricking billions.
This is 100 percent a lack of skill and imagination of the movie and comics people.
>Pro-America, pro-military media
>owned by fricking Hasbro
>in 2023
There's no way they could allow it to be good. Same reason you'll never see something as based as pic related.
He was retconned into being a different guy, used by the government, brainwashed to evil, and died many decades ago. Even the Red Skull he fought was just a communist impersonator.
80's GI Joe WAS a reboot itself; they ditched all the elements of the 70's Adventure team, which itself was a reboot of the 60's line. ARAH did adapt with the times up until the 90's(and contrary to popular belief, early 90's sales were doing well, even though they faltered with the Sgt. Savage and Extreme stuff)
My theory is that contrary to the idea that military toys don't sell, GI Joe stagnates because it didn't properly cash in on the zeitgeist of military fiction like CoD or Metal gear,which kids actually like too. Joe just ended up looking corny to newer generations. Which is a shame because 80's ARAH, especially the comics, does feel like Metal Gear before Metal Gear.
There's this line of bullshit that keeps getting thrown out; military doesn't sell, patriotism doesn't sell. Yet military video games are incredibly popular. Toys of military characters from those games are selling. What do they have that Joe doesn't? For one, the media of video games is a better fit for this kind of storyline than any other media has been lately. Then aesthetically, CoD and other military games have a more contemporary look that appeals to people more now. The few things of ARAH that have held up are Snake Eyes and some of Cobra, mainly CC, Baroness, and the basics of destro. Maybe a few other Joes too, like Beachhead. but overall the rest are really dated set most would find corny. I'm not saying to just ape realistic military shooters, but at least take influence from Metal Gear, which is the closest spiritual successor to ARAH.
I agree that adopting the IP to a great video game franchise is the way to make the brand popular again. Toys would come after.
Why Hasbro hasn’t done this yet is beyond me?
That's like asking why more triple A superhero games aren't greenlit. Batman and Spider-Man are really the only things available right now
The problem is making a great one. With the exception of the arcade game, they've sucked or barely caught attention like the recent one. You'd need something like a Robotech Battlecry, War for Cybertron or a Transformers Devastation quality team.
You're forgetting that anti war sentiment and politics also helped sink sales, Vietnam in the 70's case that lead to the 80's reboot. 80's mostly avoided that because of tensions between Russia. Desert Storm also helped but eventually Gi Joe started running out of ideas and recycling concepts heavily, and the rise of domestic terrorism and 9/11 were a heavy blow.
9/11 was 21 years ago. There was a boom in war games from the 2000's onward and a lot of it was little kids playing with them. The thing is guys like Snake, Ghost, or Master Chief are way cooler than Duke or Shipwreck.
Yeah, and mostly on the strength of their multiplayer. Most of them don't actually give a hard shit about the story mode, so buying into Gi Joe style adventures is going to be a harder sell to that audience.
they don't give a shit about the story, but they do give a shit about buying skins of different characters and outfits
COD is basically the modern incarnation of the GI Joe idea, military adventures for teens with an international cast of cool operator dudes.
Koijima was a MASSSIVE fricking GI joe fan.
The children of the 80's had no problem relating to GI joe.
Solid snake is literally based on Snake Eyes.
I was expecting a complete trashfire. Wasn't Gi Joe enough, and producers put too much into asian snake eyes, and not enough into Snake eyes is a Ninja AND a commando.
>Koijima was a MASSSIVE fricking GI joe fan.
proof?
>Solid snake is literally based on Snake Eyes.
Frick off. You could've gotten away with vaguely gesturing at the absurd codenames throughout Metal Gear saying "See how GIJoe that is?" and I'd've bought that. But Solid Snake is discussed at nauseating length by Kojima and other Komani staff to have been inspired by Snake Plisken. They have him use the name Plisken in MGS2 when he's infiltrating a terrorist takeover set in New York to rescue the president.
People don't love the military/army like they did in the 80s. It just doesn't have the staying power Transformers does.
You can still make a pro military movie and be successful. I just think the movies suffered from not being that good. I don't think a commercial of Marlon Wayans bouncing around in an Iron Man suit was that enticing to audiences.
And I like GI Joe enough and everything, but its getting really annoying seeing Hasbro force it into other stuff as part of more failed attempts to make it big again.
Keep in mind , G.I Joe was originally going to be the 80s version of S.H.I.E.L.D. in the modern (at the time) Marvel Universe.
Just look how S.H.I.E.L.D. is in comics nowadays.
Not exactly. Prior to writing the GI Joe comic, Larry Hama had pitched a Marvel comic called 'Fury Force' about a SHIELD strike team led by an OC son of Nick Fury (not either of the later canon sons of Fury). Hasbro's GI Joe toys weren't based on a failed Marvel comic pitch at all, but Hama may have recycled some of his Fury Force characters' personalities for the early Joes. Depending on how far along the pitch got, some of the early comic issues may have been adapted from plot outlines Hama already had in mind.
Marvel really fricked up SHIELD in the 2000s. Thanks, ultimate line writers.
You may have covered all the named ones.
Uhhhh... that hypnotizer one? The figure was pretty cool.
>Big Boa
I loved that Mad Max reject like you wouldn't believe, wonder if he got stolen or I have him somewhere.
>Wild Weasel
Cool one.
Oops, meant for
Crystal Ball.
His file card was written by Stephen King.
Oh wow
A lot of franchises live and die by the starpower of its villains and I think Cobra and by proxy Cobra Commander hit a little too close to home for some people.
The live action GI Joe movie did alright. I don't understand Hasbro's decision to kill off most of the cast including Duke and Baroness so that the Rock could take over as the star of the show
Who are the top 20 Cobras?
Individuals, not nameless soldiers.
I know everyone’s top 12 is
Cobra commander, Destro, Baroness, Xamot, Tomas, Zartan, Mindbender, Firefly, Storm Shadow, Major Bludd, Zaranna, Serpentor.
Who would your bottom 8 be?
Zarana goes in the bottom. Along with the rest of the Dreadnoks.
I want to frick Zarana's abs, so that isn't true.
>Cobra Commander, Destro, Baroness, Xamot, Tomax, Zartan, Mindbender, Firefly, Storm Shadow, Major Bludd, Zarana, Serpentor
Let's make that up to 20 with Scrap Iron, Wild Weasel, Copperhead, Croc Master, Buzzer, Ripper, Torch, Zandar, Thrasher and Monkeywrench. Basically the 82-86 Cobras, and Croc Master are the ones people care about. Big Boa, Road Pig, Metal Head, Overlord and the Cobra-La characters do have their fans.
I don't really dislike any of them enough to make a bottom 8.
My list is basically yours except Monkeywrench and Croc Master.
Because you listed 22.
If we said top 25, I’d add Croc Master, Monkeywrench, Big Boa, Road Pig, and Pythona.
Both movies were just short of being really good, maybe that's it. The first one had the moronic drama in and the second one just started by killing off tons of Joes and a few favorite villains.
Haven't bothered with the Snake Eyes one.
>and the second one just started by killing off tons of Joes and a few favorite villains.
In fairness, Duke is the only Joe from the first movie who was shown to have died, and that's because Tatum wanted out.
For the Cobras, Destro is left behind to die early on, but a sequel could have potentially worked around that if they wanted him back. Storm Shadow changing sides, Zartan and Firefly dying was maybe too much of a loss to Cobra's ranks in one movie though.
Destro was left to rot in jail, he could have easily come back.
He was left to rot, but the jailbreak blew up part of the jail. It's possible everyone left down there died, but it would have been easy enough to say he was safely sealed away.
I think the explicitly show him in a tube before they blow up the prison.
>In fairness, Duke is the only Joe from the first movie who was shown to have died, and that's because Tatum wanted out.
They could have just added a scene showing Duke's alright, even as a callback to the animated movie.
It's unnaceptable that they had Roadblock leading when Flint was right there, though, even if he was The Rock.
I have to add, you explicitly said not nameless soldiers, but there's too many awesome looking ones to not mention. Iron Grenadiers, Crimson Guards, Cobra Officials etc.
>They could have just added a scene showing Duke's alright, even as a callback to the animated movie.
Reconstructive surgery as an excuse to re-cast?
>It's unnaceptable that they had Roadblock leading when Flint was right there, though, even if he was The Rock.
They made a choice to play Flint as a rookie rather than an officer, for some reason.
>Haven't bothered with the Snake Eyes one.
I enjoyed it, but it came across more as the ninja movies that I remember from the 80's than a GI Joe movie.
>I don't understand how gi joe didn't explode in popularity when 9/11 happened
It did. The Devil's Due Publishing relaunch of the comic literally came out on 9/12 and I had to go to a few comic shops to find it. The toy line was relaunched in 2002 and was immensely popular. Near as I could tell, it was Iraq that happened.
I don't understand how gi joe didn't explode in popularity when 9/11 happened
Hasbro marketing team was asleep at the wheel.
The Bush administration made the u.s. military very unpopular, even at home.
>This is 100 percent a lack of skill and imagination of the movie and comics people.
I remember finding that the Retaliation action figures kinda sucked, but I love the classic versions so I dunno if those new ones were more popular.
>I enjoyed it, but it came across more as the ninja movies that I remember from the 80's than a GI Joe movie.
That actually sounds awesome, though It was a turn off to see they just had to racebend Snake Eyes for it.
I just remembered, as cool as the ninja action was, they put TOO MUCH focus on it. It was Snake Eyes and The Rock movie. It's like they did with Wolverine in the X-Men movies.
I love Valor vs Venom
Well, whatever they need to do, it's certainly not attaching them at the hip to the Transformers.
Why not?
An crossover once in a while or a lose shared universe are fine.
But do it too much and one side will start to feel overshadowed by the other (most likely to happen to the Joes since Transformers is the bigger brand).
And add to that Transformers fans who don't really care for the 'Autobots and the Millitary team up' stories.
i liked the first movie, it was way better than the second IMO
I think it says a lot that at the apex of the American War on Terror they came out with two GI Joe movies and the results where to mediocre that they failed to make a third.
So, just some general thoughts...
So, I'm 30 (too young for when RAH ended in 1994) and in my lifetime they've tried to revive G.I. Joe at least three times.
>G.I. Joe Extreme
I was a little young but every kid I saw have them, they looked like bad toys. And I didn't recognize any of the characters. They weren't cool enough like Power Rangers or Beast Wars and they weren't even stupid cool enough like Street Sharks or something.
>G.I. Joe: Spy Troops/Valor Vs. Venom/Sigma 6
I remember seeing the Valor Vs. Venom movie on tv and thinking it was kind of neat but nothing came of it and I was to busy asking my parents for DBZ and Digimon. Sigma 6 was better but it was competing with a lot of per-established shows.
>G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra/ Resolute/Retaliation
I was in high school and really enjoyed the Resolute cartoon. I really felt that was the way to go but I guess after a while it just petered out. Never saw the live action one because I didn't like the Micheal Bay transformers movies and it looked like crap.