All I know about G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is that the worst of two scenarios panned out after this 2007 posting. That same link, however, shows some hope that the big-screen G.I. Joe might have some right-wing content. At this point, the trailers are simply baffling. It’s not encouraging that the studio has to note that the G.I. Joe team is “comprised of the best soldiers from across the world.” On the other hand, there’s a villainess noting that she’s in the presence of “real American heroes.”

That last term is a nice throwback to the G.I. Joe cartoon of the 1980s—which was neutered for a big-screen version back in the Reagan Era. It might be true that G.I. Joe: The Movie never even made it to theaters after the failure of an animated Transformers film. The 1987 production still had our American heroes fighting actual serpent people instead of the usual terrorists of the Cobra organization. That really might have been because of political pressure. The film was called Action Force: The Movie overseas—although the above graphic shows that the G.I. Joe brand survived a translation into Japanese.

At least the opening for G.I. Joe: The Movie is truly all-American. Here it is, and you’ll find lots of overgrown kids noting that—as with Watchmen—the opening credits are the best part of the movie. It really is all you need to see from the film. Well, there’s also a part at the very beginning where the G.I. Joe team is getting ready to solve the world’s energy crisis. They’re in a frozen wasteland that looks like the Swiss Alps, but you can pretend they’re drilling in Alaska.

 

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