Hollywood, please don’t kill my childhood
I guess you could call me a “child of the 80′s”. Born in the 70′s, my childhood spanned the decade of the 1980′s. It was a great time to be a child. I would call this the golden age of toys. It was a magic time when toy companies figured out they could market a toy line by bundling it with a story and a cartoon series (and comic books too). However, it was an era before they figured out they could over exploit this concept. This created a fantasy world that sparked a child’s imagination. Two of the biggest toy lines to come out of this decade, and my personal favorites, were the Transformers and G.I. Joe. Just the names alone conjure up fond memories.
In recent years, Hollywood has latched on to the concept of remaking stories from the 80′s into big budget live action movies. At the center of this has been some of the toy lines. I’m not sure if they did this for lack of original story lines, or to tie into the built in market as Gen X approaches their middle age years. Probably both. For whatever reason, we are now seeing these blockbusters hitting the theaters. When I first heard of these concepts I had mixed emotions. Obviously, I felt the excitement of seeing my childhood toys and heroes coming to life on the big screen. However, I was also nervous because I knew the potential of Hollywood ruining the original concept that I have fond memories of.
The first of these movies to hit the silver screen was the Transformers, a particular favorite of mine. Prior to release, I poured over the production stills online and watched the trailer over and over again. I knew the childhood cartoon would not translate well to live action and CGI, but the familiar robots of my childhood looked so different and almost scary in movie form. I was bothered by the fact GM had a major product placement deal with the movie. The movie started to look like a Hollywood sellout. My fears started to subside when I heard the original voice of Optimus Prime from the 80′s cartoon, Peter Cullen, would again be the voice in the movie version. However, I was still skeptical.
When I finally saw the Transformers movie in the theater, I must admit I was impressed. While it didn’t stick completely to the original storyline, it stayed true in spirit. The filmmakers took creative license when needed, but never violated the original concept of the Transformers. They paid tribute to the original while still blazing a new trail. By no means was the movie perfect, nor was it a theatrical masterpiece, but it was exciting and fun to watch! For me, it did was it was suppose to do, I saw the toys of my youth come to life on the big screen in a way that did justice to my childhood memories.
My excitement for Hollywood remakes was on a high, however, this euphoria was short lived. Last summer another 1980′s favorite of mine (although not a toy series) returned to the theaters. Lucas and Spielberg launched another Indiana Jones movie 20 years after the last debuted. Again, I was excited. Unfortunately, my childhood memories were not treated with as much respect as they were with the Transformers. The movie was a disappointment. While it fell short of a disaster, it was the weakest of the series by far. They strayed from the original concept by introducing aliens and packing the movie with cheesy over the top action sequences. While Hollywood didn’t completely “ruin it” for me, they came very close.
Now it’s time for another 80′s toy line to be redone by Hollywood. G.I. Joe is up for their big makeover and I am more nervous than ever for this series. While the Transformers deal with alien robots waging war around us, and Indiana Jones is a world traveling archeologist, G.I. Joe is the “real American hero”. It almost seems like the movie studios are treading on sacred ground this time. Hollywood has been a big backer of the liberal agenda and has released a rash of anti-war movies in recent years. Now they are tackling the icon of American toy soldiers. There is an obvious conflict of interest.
Once again I returned to the Internet to watch the trailer and pour over stills. Initially, it looks like they stayed true to some of the original concepts and characters. Favorite characters like Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow look true to form and the Baroness looks as attractive as you would expect on the silver screen. However, one detail really stood out to me. Where is the “real American hero” slogan? The logo is now dark with the red, white, and blue strangely absent. In place of the famous hero tag line is “The Rise of Cobra”. I understand you have to start with an “origins” movie, but the omission of “real American hero” troubled me. This prompted me to do some research online and what I found was most disappointing.
It didn’t take much digging to reveal that Hollywood has problems promoting a war movie in a time where the United States is engaged in two wars. This alone is an understandable situation to be in. Maybe America (and the world) is ready for the escapism of giant waring robots from another world but fictional soldiers fighting a war against a fantasy terrorist organization hits a little too close to home at the moment. It seems the respectable thing to do is to pass on making a movie of G.I. Joe at the moment and move on to another 80′s toy series. Maybe He-Man. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Paramount has decided to make our “real American heroes” more politically correct. No longer is G.I. Joe an American special operations unit. It is now a group of joint international forces that is based, out of all places, in Brussels.
In a follow-up to their confirmation that Stephen Sommers will direct G.I. Joe, Variety offers this new description of the team: “G.I. Joe is now a Brussels-based outfit that stands for Global Integrated Joint Operating Entity, an international co-ed force of operatives who use hi-tech equipment to battle Cobra, an evil organization headed by a double-crossing Scottish arms dealer. The property is closer in tone to X-Men and James Bond than a war film.”
Yes, you read that correctly. The movie studio has chosen to change the meaning of the classic WWII slang term that refers to U.S. soldiers. No longer does G.I. refer to “Government Issue” and nor does it pay tribute to all those that have served America in past wars. Instead it is now a part of a politically correct marketing campaign. I assume that G.I. Joe will no longer fight terrorism or wars, but instead engage in “overseas contingency operations”.
I still hold out a shred of hope for the movie to change course as the reports I read are from the early stages of filming. However, based off of the preview, they certainly did stray from the “American hero” core concept as all references are absent. Unless I can get more confirmation that the film respects the original concept, I can assure you that they will not be getting my admission dollars. Not only do I view this as an attack on my childhood memories, but as an adult, I view the “politically correct” undertone as an insult to my country and those that have and are serving our nation in the military. When I was a kid, playing with toy soldiers and military action figures instilled a sense of pride in American and respect for those in uniform. Changing the base concept of G.I. Joe doesn’t just trample on the concept of a toy, it crosses a sacred line and ventures into the realm of offending my pride as an American.
Yup. They’ve changed the message completely. From IMDB: “Channing Tatum originally didn’t want to act in this film because he felt it glorified war. When he read the script, however, he understood the story was more a sci-fi action thriller than a war film. He was also encouraged to sign on by his friend and Stop-Loss (2008)-co-star Joseph Gordon-Levitt.”