The G.I. JOE Conundrum
- Thread starter Fred Broca
- Start date
Didn't say it was possible, but it would go a long way towards un-fucking the situation if it was.
Eh, the way I hear it the video game industry is some pretty dire straits itself.
Hrm. Not too suprising. Most games seem to be pretty cookie-cutter at this point. Motion technology doesn't seem to be the big hit that I think everyone was expecting.
Short of some huge new development in tech, I'd agree with your assesment.
Short of some huge new development in tech, I'd agree with your assesment.
GI Joe: GTA would be those Mercenaries games. Not that it's a bad thing.
I need to finish Arkham. I'm nearly done, from what I can tell.
I need to finish Arkham. I'm nearly done, from what I can tell.
I'm not an ARAH fag, but a good fps (Halo Reach) in true ARAH style would certainly get my attention. Piloting all of the old vehicles and having the team assist you would be golden.
I just don't see a fps working well with GI Joe. It severally limits the characters. It's basically just you, with a few random Joe AIs at your side. Sure there can be cameo appearances by characters, like Wild Bill flying you into the combat zone at the start of a mission. But this would make these extras feel like throw aways. Plus, you never see the character you are playing as. Changing it to a 3rd person shooter could help in that regard though.
I think Joe would work best as a strategy game, whether its real time or turn based is another topic. Or make Joe into an RPG or MMO. That way all characters can be included, and the GI Joe world can be more extensive and immersive.
I think Joe would work best as a strategy game, whether its real time or turn based is another topic. Or make Joe into an RPG or MMO. That way all characters can be included, and the GI Joe world can be more extensive and immersive.
I loved the interaction with Noble Team in Reach and the cutscenes setup the story well. Playing the campaign with 3 of your friends (all Joe characters) would be great. A multiplayer horde mode against Cobra would be tits!
Way to go BDB! He expressed it perfectly. I'm behind that as well.
I also liked the OPs statement that Hama was the best AND worst thing that happened. I enjoyed the comics but the whole SE thing went way to far and CCs back story could be a bit better imo.
I also liked the OPs statement that Hama was the best AND worst thing that happened. I enjoyed the comics but the whole SE thing went way to far and CCs back story could be a bit better imo.
BDB's could work, I reckon. I'd like it for the official retail line/continuity.
I'm keeping my '70s-'80s Joeverse, full of salty Vietnam vets, guns that shoot bullets, LBFMs in Subic Bay and face-punching America's enemies, be they Cobra or the Communists, though we don't always come out on the winning end.
That's the great thing about this line, the story is what you want it to be.
I'm keeping my '70s-'80s Joeverse, full of salty Vietnam vets, guns that shoot bullets, LBFMs in Subic Bay and face-punching America's enemies, be they Cobra or the Communists, though we don't always come out on the winning end.
That's the great thing about this line, the story is what you want it to be.
Man, if I were a producer I'd throw shitloads of money at you to turn that into a real script.
I think it's a whole mix of things. Hasbro, retailers, modern kids, the economy and the political setting of the world.
• Hasbro—by my best educated guesses in actually knowing how to advertise shit (because my job has been "advertising shit" for the better part of a decade)—has majorly dropped the ball. There's barely a media tie-in with the toys, and when there is, it's ill-timed and never lines up with the release. I'm talking MONTHS apart, not weeks. They also don't seem to know how to leave something alone long enough for it to take effect. This is in part due to...
• Retailers. They want some hair-brained "core group" of characters, despite that being quite boring to always have the same 6 guys on the shelves. And of course, Hasbro reinvents the line every 6-18 months. They even do this with Transformers, which is strong enough to hold out likely because the media tie-ins are timed to coincide with the toylines, plus the movies have done REALLY well despite being pretty much awful stories.
• Modern kids are half-fucking-retarded. They have zero attention span, and the web and mobile gadgets don't help. They couldn't give two half-shits about story (or reading real books) and don't seem to be very creative or imaginative as a whole, and video games seem to trump our childhood staples of action figures, comic books and playing outside.
• The economy is shit. Well, it's crawling out of it, but it's still been pretty nasty. Combine that with gas prices, and plastic toys have taken a huge hit. Not to mention the prices are at that $9.99/+$10.00 threshold where moms stop buying single action figures, and, well, there you go.
• Then we've got the political setting of the world. In Reagan's 80's, it was bad-ass to be an American kid. The Cold War made us out to be the saviors of freedom. Now, post-9/11, we're the douchebags to the rest of the world, and war toys aren't exactly the thing that seem to be selling well.
Plus, shit changes.
Personally, I think G.I. Joe's not quite done yet. But if they want it to survive, they need to plan shit out for a 2-3 year arc, and not give up on it and change it 2-3 times in-between. Of course, this would require the suits and retailers (read: old, already-rich board members) to give a shit, and they don't... They want to make a quick buck and cash out, not keep a silly army brand alive for any length of time so it's profitable down the road for someone else. And they need a media tie-in that's actually fucking remotely tied-in. Not missing the mark by 9 goddamn months by being ridiculously early or late, and then under-produced or mis-distributed. And advertise! Jesus Christ, how hard is that? I'm not talking using a maximum budget, but commercials during popular TV shows with a similar demographic if they can't seem to run an animated series for any length of time to draw kids in.
And I think that they can reinvent the core characters from ARAH while peppering in some non-silly nostalgia to draw in us old ARAH fags. I mean, if we get our kids to watch it, what's the harm in that? It's already a built-in audience and a source that won't require as much farming to get our kids onboard. And they need more characters besides the usual suspects. The thing that I think doesn't work about Sigma Six, Renegades, TF: Animated or TF: Prime is that the teams are SO small, that they suffer from a lack of characters. I'm not talking about losing character development just to have a slew of faces in, or having the gallery of characters from ARAH, but 5 team members? The thing I always loved about the X-Men, TMNT, G.I. Joe, Transformers, etc. as a kid was that they had a basic group that were in nearly every episode, but they alternated in returning support characters all the time. Not to mention a decent rogue's gallery. And it doesn't mean that the team has to stay the same over 2-3 years... Just don't reboot it and start from scratch every season. No wonder Renegades didn't do any better than it did... Getting dropped before Season 2 could carry on the story and before any season 1 characters made it into stores probably did as much damage as postponing the Joe flick another 3/4 of a year after releasing the toys this May.
If they don't do something soon, though, it's dead in the water. And I mean, soon. Otherwise, they're going to need to bury it and wait 5 years for people's memories to fade and try bringing it back again, or leave it dead and call it done.
• Hasbro—by my best educated guesses in actually knowing how to advertise shit (because my job has been "advertising shit" for the better part of a decade)—has majorly dropped the ball. There's barely a media tie-in with the toys, and when there is, it's ill-timed and never lines up with the release. I'm talking MONTHS apart, not weeks. They also don't seem to know how to leave something alone long enough for it to take effect. This is in part due to...
• Retailers. They want some hair-brained "core group" of characters, despite that being quite boring to always have the same 6 guys on the shelves. And of course, Hasbro reinvents the line every 6-18 months. They even do this with Transformers, which is strong enough to hold out likely because the media tie-ins are timed to coincide with the toylines, plus the movies have done REALLY well despite being pretty much awful stories.
• Modern kids are half-fucking-retarded. They have zero attention span, and the web and mobile gadgets don't help. They couldn't give two half-shits about story (or reading real books) and don't seem to be very creative or imaginative as a whole, and video games seem to trump our childhood staples of action figures, comic books and playing outside.
• The economy is shit. Well, it's crawling out of it, but it's still been pretty nasty. Combine that with gas prices, and plastic toys have taken a huge hit. Not to mention the prices are at that $9.99/+$10.00 threshold where moms stop buying single action figures, and, well, there you go.
• Then we've got the political setting of the world. In Reagan's 80's, it was bad-ass to be an American kid. The Cold War made us out to be the saviors of freedom. Now, post-9/11, we're the douchebags to the rest of the world, and war toys aren't exactly the thing that seem to be selling well.
Plus, shit changes.
Personally, I think G.I. Joe's not quite done yet. But if they want it to survive, they need to plan shit out for a 2-3 year arc, and not give up on it and change it 2-3 times in-between. Of course, this would require the suits and retailers (read: old, already-rich board members) to give a shit, and they don't... They want to make a quick buck and cash out, not keep a silly army brand alive for any length of time so it's profitable down the road for someone else. And they need a media tie-in that's actually fucking remotely tied-in. Not missing the mark by 9 goddamn months by being ridiculously early or late, and then under-produced or mis-distributed. And advertise! Jesus Christ, how hard is that? I'm not talking using a maximum budget, but commercials during popular TV shows with a similar demographic if they can't seem to run an animated series for any length of time to draw kids in.
And I think that they can reinvent the core characters from ARAH while peppering in some non-silly nostalgia to draw in us old ARAH fags. I mean, if we get our kids to watch it, what's the harm in that? It's already a built-in audience and a source that won't require as much farming to get our kids onboard. And they need more characters besides the usual suspects. The thing that I think doesn't work about Sigma Six, Renegades, TF: Animated or TF: Prime is that the teams are SO small, that they suffer from a lack of characters. I'm not talking about losing character development just to have a slew of faces in, or having the gallery of characters from ARAH, but 5 team members? The thing I always loved about the X-Men, TMNT, G.I. Joe, Transformers, etc. as a kid was that they had a basic group that were in nearly every episode, but they alternated in returning support characters all the time. Not to mention a decent rogue's gallery. And it doesn't mean that the team has to stay the same over 2-3 years... Just don't reboot it and start from scratch every season. No wonder Renegades didn't do any better than it did... Getting dropped before Season 2 could carry on the story and before any season 1 characters made it into stores probably did as much damage as postponing the Joe flick another 3/4 of a year after releasing the toys this May.
If they don't do something soon, though, it's dead in the water. And I mean, soon. Otherwise, they're going to need to bury it and wait 5 years for people's memories to fade and try bringing it back again, or leave it dead and call it done.
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Yeah, Hasbro has become a pussy like the rest of the country. They let Ningas slowly infect the line like Progressives infected our political parties.
God forbid you call Low Light a Sniper
So a kid growing up today thinks the military is full of oversized bazookas and blade wielding Ninjas. They can't even put an American flagg on their US Military figs, they have to go with some bar code. LOL
that's true and I don't mind the ninja thing. SS and Se are great characters. I prefer their Nam backstory over the ninja dojo thing they have been using lately but they are okay. When they start bringing in slice and dice, jinz, kamakura, red/blue/green ninjas etc etc. It's old.
I see the same thing killing off GI Joe today that caused the death of GI Joe in the 70s. Ignorance is like cancer, if you don't get it all, it comes right back. Hasbro did do some things right. For crying out loud, we got a Skystriker.
My wife bought me Michlig's book on the history of GI Joe and then chief designer Levine pulled no punches. First, the political winds shifted post-Vietnam. A military toy was firmly rejected by progressives and their willing dupes of women. Suddenly, women were fine with getting knocked up by a guy with no intention of being brave enough to raise a kid, but God forbid that kid play with a toy that might teach him to have courage.
So, they (Hasbro) tried changing things up. They created the Adventure Team. Now, I know the older guys get all wet-eyed with nostalgia, just like we do with the little guys, but while I was at the Great Texas GI Joe Show last year, they had this huge display of the entire history of the 12-inch guys and I'm sorry, most of it looked pretty stinking silly...just like the ninjalicious stuff we're seeing, well, right now.
GI Joe is trying to adapt to a changing market for kids who grew up parked in front of an HDTV, with a game console controller in their hand, welded permanently in place. These kids have an attention span of a ferret on crack. They would be bored to tears by a backstory that you and I would soak up like a sponge. As would the kids we raise. This is why mine are homeschooled. The guys here are smarter, better read, and better educated than most adults out there. I bet if you took a poll here, most of us have two things in common, some sort of formal, post-high school education (college or vocational training) and a background close to or in the military.
We are fighting the same thing our Dads did back in 1982. And in a few years, hopefully the societal winds will shift again and we will be proud of being Americans again. Until that day, we fight the ignorance.
My wife bought me Michlig's book on the history of GI Joe and then chief designer Levine pulled no punches. First, the political winds shifted post-Vietnam. A military toy was firmly rejected by progressives and their willing dupes of women. Suddenly, women were fine with getting knocked up by a guy with no intention of being brave enough to raise a kid, but God forbid that kid play with a toy that might teach him to have courage.
So, they (Hasbro) tried changing things up. They created the Adventure Team. Now, I know the older guys get all wet-eyed with nostalgia, just like we do with the little guys, but while I was at the Great Texas GI Joe Show last year, they had this huge display of the entire history of the 12-inch guys and I'm sorry, most of it looked pretty stinking silly...just like the ninjalicious stuff we're seeing, well, right now.
GI Joe is trying to adapt to a changing market for kids who grew up parked in front of an HDTV, with a game console controller in their hand, welded permanently in place. These kids have an attention span of a ferret on crack. They would be bored to tears by a backstory that you and I would soak up like a sponge. As would the kids we raise. This is why mine are homeschooled. The guys here are smarter, better read, and better educated than most adults out there. I bet if you took a poll here, most of us have two things in common, some sort of formal, post-high school education (college or vocational training) and a background close to or in the military.
We are fighting the same thing our Dads did back in 1982. And in a few years, hopefully the societal winds will shift again and we will be proud of being Americans again. Until that day, we fight the ignorance.
And they've been a joke for almost as long. It has become particularly onerous since they've turned Snake Eyes into a second-rate Wolverine knock-off.
I said it in that Unpopular Joe Opinion thread over yonder, and I'll say it here. Snake Eyes is the Wolverine of G.I. Joe. One-dimensional, overpowered and overexposed.
Great analogy.
Wolverine was cool when his past was a mystery and he was not overused. A Wolverine appearance sold a comic because it was somewhat rare. Now he is on seven or eight different teams and shows up in every comic Marvel publishes. I'm sick of him and i used to love him!
Snake Eyes is much the same. He was awesome cause he never talked and we didn't know what was under that mask. We got snippets of story about him once in a while that told us a bit but still left us thirsty for more. Now Hasbro treats him as the Superman of GI Joe. He fixs everything and is unstoppable. Boring. GI Joe is becoming nothing more than "Snake Eyes and his sidekick Duke and some other fellas" just as X-Men has become "Wolverine and some muties".
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I stand corrected. 3 pack has Beachead with an American Flag & Ranger patch. Colors are similar to recent ACU's also just not in digitazl camo. Awesome new webgear too.
I'm going do him up but what's cool is I don't have to do a complete paint over, just apps and mods.
Big Daddy Blue The Tank has this thread going http://www.hisstank.com/forum/g-i-joe-live-action-movie/263026-your-dream-gijoe-film.html, with your permission I'd like to post the comments you made because this is one of the cinematic versions of JOE I would want to see.
The thing I love about the early ARAH characters was while many were military soldiers, they combined technical training and somewhat theoretically possible science fiction with Joe characters. They started moving away from that, pushing ninjas.
I don't think they necessarily need push to modern realism, but I think they allowed the brand to get behind the technological curve. At the same time, they've done nothing to build the landscape that the ARAH exists in. It's GIJoe versus Cobra and they've never once tried to create other opposing forces without making them an underling to Cobra.
I don't think they necessarily need push to modern realism, but I think they allowed the brand to get behind the technological curve. At the same time, they've done nothing to build the landscape that the ARAH exists in. It's GIJoe versus Cobra and they've never once tried to create other opposing forces without making them an underling to Cobra.
And too fucking predictable. Evidenced by the latest issue of SE.
I liked SE when he was a comical Deus Ex Machina that you forgot was in a scene in the comic until Hama wrote himself into a corner and needed something in SE's to save the group. At least that was sparingly done. As soon as he became a ninja, he went downhill and that was nearly 30 years ago.
There was Headman, and in the early Marvel comics, Wingfield, but your general point is taken.
I'd love for Hasbro to fully embrace the Red Shadows.
I'd love to see a newer take of GI Joe.
Step one (No YOU won't like it but its not for you.)
Bring back the adventure team, but as a young kids show. Where Joe is an adventurer, rescuer, explorer. Think seseme street meets science show. Have Joe teach kids about science, math reading. (Like SS make 15-20 shows & run the continuously as educational TV) This will also be the young kids toy market, & outsource the licencing to anyone willling to put a Joe logo on their product. (Just like the 80s did)
Step 2 older kids
This will be the gateway for the Joe toys for older kids. Similar Charactors to ARAH, but like Ironman & punisher updated stories. It doesn't matter what war they were in, just that they it was part of their past. Introduce new charactors regularly.
Step 3
Renegades season 2 - Call it whatever you want, keep the storyline rebrand Renegades eps if you need to package more eps to get a Monday - Friday timeslot. This show needs to display the current lineup of figures, which means getting back to designing figures 1-2 years ahead of time.
Step 4
Set Joe up to be the replacement when Star Wars toys stop selling (& yes SWs as a toy line is past its expected lifecycle & Hasbro shouldn't expect Lucusfilm to come up with something that will equal past sales.)
Step 5
Next Get every viable film toy rights (expendables etc) & market them either compatable or subsets of GI Joe. This gives stores a reseason to keep Joe on the shelves for a full years vs the 3 months if your lucky cycle that we get now. They do movies toys anyways lets change the model to get repeat business.
Step one (No YOU won't like it but its not for you.)
Bring back the adventure team, but as a young kids show. Where Joe is an adventurer, rescuer, explorer. Think seseme street meets science show. Have Joe teach kids about science, math reading. (Like SS make 15-20 shows & run the continuously as educational TV) This will also be the young kids toy market, & outsource the licencing to anyone willling to put a Joe logo on their product. (Just like the 80s did)
Step 2 older kids
This will be the gateway for the Joe toys for older kids. Similar Charactors to ARAH, but like Ironman & punisher updated stories. It doesn't matter what war they were in, just that they it was part of their past. Introduce new charactors regularly.
Step 3
Renegades season 2 - Call it whatever you want, keep the storyline rebrand Renegades eps if you need to package more eps to get a Monday - Friday timeslot. This show needs to display the current lineup of figures, which means getting back to designing figures 1-2 years ahead of time.
Step 4
Set Joe up to be the replacement when Star Wars toys stop selling (& yes SWs as a toy line is past its expected lifecycle & Hasbro shouldn't expect Lucusfilm to come up with something that will equal past sales.)
Step 5
Next Get every viable film toy rights (expendables etc) & market them either compatable or subsets of GI Joe. This gives stores a reseason to keep Joe on the shelves for a full years vs the 3 months if your lucky cycle that we get now. They do movies toys anyways lets change the model to get repeat business.
I'm a army builder at heart, when it comes to raw man power it to hard to customize every figure, so I get Our war figs and our war vests for my joes. but the our war articulation is crap, and the green shirts are a Vietnam holder-over . I want products like GI Joe: Ranger assault team and Urban warfare squads-. I want bulk modern joes. I know the Joe design team wants it want it want to do it, so why not! I want the return of the comic pack, but with modern warfare joes. You can keep the ARAH characters in a special line, but have them be modern, just to make the fans happy. Have Lance Steinberg (aka clutch) drive a Humvee. modernize the hiss, It would look epic if it din't look like a box or a futuristic spacecraft.