Is there any movie adaptation that misses then entire fucking point of its protagonist more than Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins???

[El Bombastico]

So let me get this out of the way up front: I am not a huge GI Joe, at least in comparison to say, Transformers. I was born in 1990 so bad the time I was cognizant the original 80s cartoon had stopped airing long ago so it never impacted my childhood. I DID watch GI Joe Extreme, and I remember liking (I know, I know) but nowhere nears as much as some of the other cartoons airing around the same time. I did eventually start reading some of the comics and watching the original 80s cartoon, so I am aware of most of the main characters and their traits. And like many people, my favorite character is Snake Eyes.

Now, let's think about Snake Eyes' most defining traits:

-He's a highly trained and skilled Ninja
-He never talks
-He never takes off his mask and you only see his face in fleeting glimpses if at all
-He was an non-Japanese (usually but not always Caucasian) orphan adopted by a Japanese Ninja clan
-His arch-enemy is Storm Shadow, another member of said Ninja clan who was essentially his adopted brother. THey grew up together from boys into adults.

So let's take this fucking film, which I finally saw yesterday because it was up on Paramount+. And like I said, I'm not a huge GI Joe fan, but I know the characters and especially Snake Eyes.

So, who is this?

WHO THE FUCK IS THIS DORK!?

Because he sure as SHIT is not Snake Eyes. Now, unlike a lot of right-leaning assholes, I didn't mind at all that they changed his ethnicity from White to Asian. The original characterization kinda reeked of the Mighty Whitey trope, since Snakes is almost always stated to be the Ninja Clan's best ever student. So changing him to Asian is perfect fine with me.

But everything else?

Who is this guy that's constantly talking? Why do we always see his face? Why does he only encounter the Ninja clan as an adult instead of being raised by them since childhood? Why should we care about the end of his friendship with Storm Shadow when, rather than knowing each other since children and being raises as brothers, they know each other for only a few months at most here?

I don't know who this loser is, but he is NOT Snake Eyes.

And like, even if we ignore all this, the rest of the movie is fucking terrible. Its 2022 and we still have fucking shaky cam in fight scenes. Give me a break.

Oh and one more thing.

What the FUCK was up with the giant snakes that don't eat you if your heart is "pure" or some fucking bullshit? Where did that fucking shit come from!?

 

[Darkmaigle]

This movie is so godawful

And I like pretty much everything


Not this shit tho

 

[Drakeon]

I legit forgot there was a snake eyes movie until I saw this thread.

 

[InfiniteKing]

Remember how folks were like 'oh who cares if he doesn't wear the mask or talks'

also lmao where's that gi joe amazon show now?

 

[Razgriz-Specter]

Honestly as a GI Joe fan the ninja thing is one of my least favorite aspects

 

[Hero_of_the_Day]

It's crazy to me that enough people thought this was a good idea to fund it and make it reality.

 

[Soj]

Probably not. It's pretty terrible.

 

[Duncan]

goggles > visor

 

[dubc]

I watched it a couple days ago (finally free) but he did talk prior to the helicopter accident in the Hama Snake Eyes origin comics (#26-27). I recently read them for the first time so I was aware of the back story…and I don't understand why that story isn't the movie. It's a good plot for a movie.

 

[Sargerus]

Reminded me when they made Storm Shadow a good guy in GI Joe Retaliation.

 

[Version 3.0]

Gonna be a short thread, because nobody saw this movie. I didn't; I clicked your thread to see how bad it was. Sounds pretty bad.

 

[Unknownlight]

I know nothing about GI Joe, but the first thing to come to mind when I read the thread title was Light Yagami Turner from the live-action Netflix adaptation of Death Note.

 

[El Bombastico]

I know nothing about GI Joe, but the first thing to come to mind when I read the thread title was Light Yagami Turner from the live-action Netflix adaptation of Death Note.

Click to shrink...

That and Vicious some hobo in a shitty wig and a costume from Spirit Halloween Store in the Netflix Cowboy bebop series.

 

[Razgriz-Specter]

It's crazy to me that enough people thought this was a good idea to fund it and make it reality.

Click to shrink...

Quality aside it makes sense,
They think GI Joe could be valuable but there is so much baggage from the last attempts.
So they just tried to take the most popular character and launch from there.

 

[El Bombastico]

Quality aside it makes sense,
They think GI Joe could be valuable but there is so much baggage from the last attempts.
So they just tried to take the most popular character and launch from there.

Click to shrink...

By changing him so fucking much he might as well have been a completely different character.

I just love Hollywood Logic sometimes...

Remember in the first when Baroness was Duke's fiancee and Cobra Commander's sister who he brainwashed to be evil?

Click to shrink...

Don't forgot fucking Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Cobra Commander, which is Eisenberg-as-Luthor-levels of shit casting.

Oh, and the Iron Man knockoff suits that inexplicably appear halfway through but then are never seen again.

 

[ryseing]

They somehow snuck a Yo Joe in there.

Bizarre fucking movie and I feel bad for Henry Golding that this was his franchise shot.

 

[Razgriz-Specter]

Reminded me when they made Storm Shadow a good guy in GI Joe Retaliation.

Click to shrink...

Remember in the first when Baroness was Duke's fiancee and Cobra Commander's sister who he brainwashed to be evil?

 

[deimosmasque]

Yes.

 

[El Bombastico]

Yes.

Click to shrink...

I mean, he still at least eats people there.

Imagine if they made a Hannibal film were he was a Vegan instead...

 

[deimosmasque]

I mean, he still at least eats people there.

Imagine if they made a Hannibal film were he was a Vegan instead...

Click to shrink...

I now want to see a movie where Hannibal Lecter is a vegan

 

[dancingphlower]

Instead of doing an origin story they should have skipped straight to him being a mute ninja, although that wouldn't have fixed the shaky cam fights lol

 

[808s & Villainy]

These shitty adaptations deserve to fail

 

[Punch_Rockgroin]

They keep trying to make GI Joe happen, but take the weirdest roads to tell their stories. Rise of Cobra is so cartoony, you wonder why they bothered with live action at all. The Cobra Commander reveal was just ugh. And it's inconsequential in the sequel.

Edit: I didn't even bother with Snake Eyes.

 

[El Bombastico]

These shitty adaptations deserve to fail

Click to shrink...

They keep trying to make GI Joe happen, but take the weirdest roads to tell their stories. Rise of Cobra is so cartoony, you wonder why they bothered with live action at all. The Cobra Commander reveal was just ugh. And it's inconsequential in the sequel.

Click to shrink...

Each GI Joe movie has made less than the one before.

Each new movie retcon/reboots the previous one.

And yet somehow they keeps making these films. I argued in another thread that it might be impossible nowadays to make a GI Joe that appeals to many people, since the jingoism usually displayed is just off-putting for a large chunk of the US and the world at large nowadays...

 

[B.K.]

The Transformers movies made Optimus Prime into a murderous psychopath.

 

[wenis]

The movie was cool OP. Nothing to get in an uproar about. It's also his origins.

 

[boontobias]

I think the producers hoped people would be excited to see a new GI Joe film and wouldnt trip over all that. Big miscalculation.

 

[Cross]

The Mandalorian shows that you don't need to see the characters face to like them or relate to them, and get a good body actor, you know, build a mystery torwards the characters face, that when the reveal happens it actually has an impact. They really fucked up and did the opposite of that.

 

[El Bombastico]

The Mandalorian shows that you don't need to see the characters face to like them or relate to them, and get a good body actor, you know, build a mystery torwards the characters face, that when the reveal happens it actually has an impact. They really fucked up and did the opposite of that.

Click to shrink...

The previous 2 GI Joe films already did that. Ray Park never says a word but everyone agrees he's the best part of those films (which, admittedly, speaks about just how bad the other characters were that a mute non-emotive ninja in considered the best one, but still)...

 

[Cuburger]

Snake Eyes seemed like the one GI Joe movie they could make cool to usher in a connected universe or whatever to have more GI Joe stories. Sounds like they blew their chance at that.

The bar was low for making a cool Ninja movie.

 

[Astral]

The Transformers movies made Optimus Prime into a murderous psychopath.

Click to shrink...

I almost love this. It's so extreme to the point that it's comical.

 

[LauraLaMer]

So, it's kind of like the opposite of Origins Deadpool.

 

[Random Painted Highway]

Just realized this is on paramount+ so watching it now! Very excited to finally watch this dreck.

 

[Dis]

I remember watching this with my wife and sister in law. I know literally nothing of the gi Joe stuff as I'm not American and we didn't have it, nether did they know anything. I've watched plenty of bad films, my wife has watched plenty of them and not been bothered by them being bad etc, we all just were so confused why this film was so fricking bad and why people would ever like the series or characters.

It's good to know the movie just fucked the entire thing up to be honest because I was really questioning how anyone could legitimately find this IP good and wondering why I've seen so many Americans be into the IP even if they enjoyed it as kids. Knowing the film was just absolute shit and didn't care about the IP itself and it's history makes it a lot easier to understand that the IP itself probably is enjoyable in other media forms than this trash film.

 

[Tamanon]

Snake Eyes is the layup movie, the easy one. The clear origin and clear character. They fucked it up. It's not like they're trying to do a Shipwreck origin.

 

[Deleted member 36578]

I thought the movie was pretty damn bad. I don't have any real nostalgia for snake eyes so i didn't care about the changes to his character, but the movie itself was so dissapointing.

 

[Naijaboy]

It could have been more acceptable if it wasn't so generic.

 

[KDC720]

Yeah I watched it last week and it's a total mess.

At first I thought they were going for more grounded and gritty but then

Spoiler

giant snakes and mystical artifacts show up

and it goes off the rails. Which is fine I guess it's based off a cartoon but the actual GI Joe and Cobra connections are so tertiary to the overall story. Otherwise its basically a generic ninja action movie.

Total waste of Andrew Koji, Henry Golding, Iko Uwais, and Samara Weaving.

 

[Lightning Count]

Stallone - Judge Dredd

The moment he takes his helmet off and starts spouting shitty one liners it all goes massively downhill.

Also Dredd getting into a relationship with Hershey, no just no.

 

[Rookhelm]

I'm trying to figure out this habit of putting faces on formerly faceless characters. Boba Fett, master chief, and snake eyes come to mind.

Like, is it that they don't think audiences will relate? Is it the actor that wants face time? Some requirement to humanize the character (even though them being faceless is one of the reasons for their popularity)

 

[Deleted member 25606]

Technically snake eyes wasn't an orphan. Maybe they changed it but the comics and toys (both written by Hama and for years was "canon") snake eyes wasnt an orphan. After vietnam his family was killed and Storm Shadow (they served together) took him in and the family trained him.

 

[MikeProtagonist]

Stallone - Judge Dredd

The moment he takes his helmet off and starts spouting shitty one liners it all goes massively downhill.

Also Dress getting into a relationship with Hershey, no just no.

Click to shrink...

Never watched Snake Eyes, but this, so much. Him always wearing the helmet is a fact bordering on parody, with him literally wearing it while showering. And then Stallone couldn't wait five minutes to take it off and basically not wear it for the rest of the movie.

Another one that made me rage unreasonably much is The Lost Bladesman, a completely pointless Donnie Yen movie based on Guan Yu of Dynasty Warriors/Three Kingdoms fame. He's the one character who was actually physically described in the novel and has a iconic look across all adaptations (except possibly the ones where he's a girl). He's imposingly tall, he has a ruddy complexion, thick eyebrows and a fabulously long beard, and he's always depicted as being dressed in green, armed with the Green Dragon polearm and, at the time the story takes place, riding the famous Red Hare horse.

So what do we get? We get slightly unshaved Donnie Yen (he actually cuts his beard early on), dressed in blue, mostly fighting with any old sword. They play this off as "the true story behind the legend" thing, but it's just as bad as western equivalents like the modern Robin Hood or King Arthur movies.

Considering Guan Yu is iconic to the point of deification, I can't think of a worse adaptation.

 

[excelsiorlef]

Counterpoint Snake Eyes was a blast

 

[zaxil456]

Emma Stone's Cruella movie is up there with this for completely misunderstanding the character, but that movie was at least enjoyable and stylish. Cant say the same about Snake Eyes.

 

[CrocodileGrin]

From start to finish, I feel like they were depending on this movie to build to either a sequel or main GI Joe movie to do more with his character, and that definitely isn't happening anymore, so it builds up to nothing. It was a throwaway movie with weird scifi infinity stones and mystical snakes tossed in. I know nothing other than the basics of Snake Eyes, so that stuff was just non-sense to me. I didn't mind the first half and would have given it a solid 3/5, but the movie just kept getting worse the longer it went.

 

[Kinthey]

Having a protagonist who doesn't talk would be pretty difficult but that poses the question why you'd even make a snake eyes movie to begin with. And sure you can say "But adaptions need to change things" but what is the point if there's literally nothing left that defined the character

 

[kurahador]

From the fame director of RIPD and Divergent movies.

 

[Richiek]

This reminded me that the original 1984 cartoon of Snake Eyes was pretty different from all other incarnations (he was mute, but he had no link to Storm Shadow, no ninja skills).

 

[AMAGON]

I actually like this movie for what it was, could be better if this was not a origin story so yea

 

[Random Painted Highway]

I just wish they would cut to the chase with this failed universe building and give us an absurd 300m serpentor/cobra la CGI fest. Just something complete insane and then call it a day