Should Hasbro give GI Joe the X-Men 97 treatment with media and toys?

I've always been of the thought the Joe worked best in print or animated. A GI Joe story, at least to me, always hit best when you had 3/4 military action/suspense/thriller with 1/4 scifi/mystical/absolute WTFness tossed in.  On screen its hard to get that across and have the audience buy in on it I think.  A revisit to the ARAH verse is a grand idea, as long as whatever direction they decide to expand, is heavily tied to the comics. I don't think anything else would gel well.

But, I will see I do want to see something new out of the Joe-verse. I have been vocal before about actually liking the first wave redesigns of the figures. For me if I can instantly recognize who the character is when its be redone, I'm good and it's met its intent. I take a look back at the animated Justice League show and how it worked so well because the took each character and presented a consolidated and comprehensive version of that character, and it just hit on all cylinders, and I would love to see that in Joe.

While I think it would probably be commercially viable, at least for a little bit, I don't know that I'd have any interest without a creative team attached. 

X-Men 97 was good not just because it continued the animated series. It was good because it did so while also having a very clear, very strong individual point of view. That show is about something. It's got the X-Men animated stuff in there too, and they use the older audience to work in all the sexiness and melodrama and death they couldn't on a kids show, but the strength of the show is that it's got a perspective on not just the X-Men, but why the X-Men are worth still telling stories about.

I don't know if anybody has that for GI Joe right now, at least not in the same way. And Joe would be harder, because, by design, it's going to be saying something about war, and the military, and terrorism. And those things just don't mean what they meant when we were all in elementary school anymore. 

@canprime, I'd say yes, but maybe not in the way you're thinking.

I don't think the stories of G.I. Joe have as much traction as the characters of G.I. Joe.  Like, I'm a big ol' Joe fan from the 80s, and even I couldn't name two significant stories that I'm begging to be updated to the big or small screen.

But where I say yes is that I think Joe (and Transformers and Jem) are properties of the 80s and would hook really well as retro throwback shows.  Stranger Things and Bumblebee show there's a real interest in the historical/mythical 80s and, just as X-Men '97 was a real zeitgeist, putting G.I. Joe back in the Cold War feels natural.

So that's my pitch.  G.I. Joe '84, a time where we don't have to be sensitive about modern geo-politics and can just fall back on loosely-remembered Cold War events.  Where Ace still gets to fly his F-14 Tomcat XP-14F Skystriker, Stalker can still have served in 'Nam, Shipwreck's uniform is accurate, and everything gets a rockin' soundtrack.

I'd watch it. Especially if it's as good as XMen 97 was. XMen was amazing.

I can already hear the internet (mostly people who aren’t GI joe fans or have only engaged with the brand when a major media product comes out) complaining about how “woke” it is to have female and minority representation in the cast.

I vote no, but mostly because I dont want to see the brand tarnished by the “controversy” that would follow. Also, I dont know that terrorism really means the same thing it did in the 1980’s. The mainstream connotation of the word is an association with “extremism” and particular tactics. Terrorism is not usually associated with the kind of ‘make profit’ and/or ‘rule the world’ schemes that Cobra was up to.

Also the’s an issue with tone. Modern tv shows are a lot more violent that the old cartoon, so for a show about special forces fighting terrorists to make sense these days, we’d need to see a lot more deaths (or have them implied offscreen). Additionally, there’s a thin line between patriotic and jingoistic, and I’m not sure I’d trust a show to walk that line. We dont live in the America of the 80’s, I dont think the ideals of that original show would be welcomed by a lot of Americans these days. It’s sad, but I’m not going to pretend it’s not the case.

@supreme_d True.  

However Hasbro has done a lot of toning down of the American patriotism in the last couple decades.  Even removing the "real American hero" tag line.  Then of course the movies tried to hint, at least, at the international aspect of the team.  So going forward they will probably keep doing that.

As for death, I think the landscape has changed drastically for animation over the years.  So much more of it is not geared towards kids anymore, but rather adults.   Then of course there is anime which stretches what we would call acceptable animation for kids all the time, and it seems to be more popular than ever.  So why not GI Joe?  As someone else pointed out, it isn't like GI Joe is a kids property anymore so why not lean into it?   Nothing wrong with character death in a animated show so go ahead.   Does it have to be gory, or needlessly bloody?  No of course not, but it can be a show geared more towards the existing adult audience than kids.

Frankly I don't see too many kids being interested no matter what in a military cartoon so lean into I say.

I mean.. I really enjoyed Resolute. I think a 'serious' Joe cartoon aimed at fans of the original that can still appeal to a younger generation is absolutely possible and SO worth doing. We just have to accept that Joe exists in a world that became more fantasy than it started out. By that I don't mean the science fiction elements. I mean that many of us have grown up to understand the kind of things the Joes would fight for are, in fact, the evil things we imagine them to be fighting against.
We have to be able to leave that at the door a bit and live in that Joe universe where politicians are largely doing the right thing and an 'International' group of special forces soldiers really can try to save the world by fighting an evil terrorist megalomaniac. It's no less fantasy than The Good King defeats The Evil Rebels or whatever. But that doesn't make it bad.

As a hardcore Lefty anti-war guy, I can still enjoy the absolute insanity that is something like the Ghost Recon franchise, so why not G.I. Joe?

@theknightdamien Yep.

That is basically what entertainment is meant to do right?  Leave your troubles at the door for a little while and suspend your disbelief.  

Also while companies want to reach the widest possible audience and consumer base, the reality is that not everything is for everyone and shouldn't be.  Sometimes it is ok to have product the is more specific in nature and not try to be everything to everyone.  Lean into what makes your brand, your brand.  Nothing wrong with trying to update it, but as the Classified team learned, sometimes those updates may have to be smaller than you originally intended.

Posted by: @supreme_d

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I can already hear the internet (mostly people who aren’t GI joe fans or have only engaged with the brand when a major media product comes out) complaining about how “woke” it is to have female and minority representation in the cast.

 

This is exactly what I fear. I won't even try to lie, I learned some core lessons from the "more you know" segments, and you're exactly right it would be ripped apart.

I think continuing Resolute in some way would work best. I know some fans didn't like it, even hated it, but it was a great way to modernize gi joe. It embraced everything, the military, absurd missions, over the top CoCo, the mysticism(watch until the end of the credits). 

At the end of the day though the fan base for '97 was foaming at the mouth it seemed since it was announced. I don't know if trying to either of the original cartoons would as well.

I personally hope they focus on they toys instead of making anything else.  We're already going to get a Transformer x Joe crossover movie toys I have to imagine, and if it's anything like the last Joe movie, that will throw a wrench into getting more retro-inspired figures.  So like, yeah I'd probably enjoy watching an animated GI Joe show, but I'd rather just have more toys.  If this line starts to flounder and needs revitalizing, then sure.

Posted by: @supreme_d

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I can already hear the internet (mostly people who aren’t GI joe fans or have only engaged with the brand when a major media product comes out) complaining about how “woke” it is to have female and minority representation in the cast.

[repeated joke]
Man, Star Wars was so much better in 1977 before it got all woke...

I too loved Resolute. I think that more serious tone is what a new show would need to embrace. I do think a new show, not a continuation of any series is what is needed though. Too much baggage and time passing to continue any series easily at this point. I like the idea of a period piece set in the 80’s to keep the Cold War and Sci-Fi vibes.

I’ve been liking the Energon Universe stuff with Skybound. Pulling stories from the comics and previous shows could work really well. Who doesn’t like a good MASS device or Weather Dominator? Cobra civil war? Lots of good story lines to adapt.

Death needs to be on the table. It shouldn’t be used for shock value like at the beginning of Resolute but having stakes makes things worthwhile. Losing a Duke or Major Bludd would be a huge loss to either side that should be used strategically for story rather than mere shock value.

@canprime Definitely. I mean, maybe I'd push back a little on the escapism thing as a general rule for entertainment because a LOT of entertainment is actually intended to make you think about real life differently rather than leave it at the door for fun. Depends on what you're watching. But like.. it CAN be that, and I think Joe probably SHOULD be that just because there's probably no real way for a socially-conscious version of G.I. Joe. Especially not one that's going to appeal to two very different sides of the political spectrum.
And you need that because Joe's fanbase is VERY divided in that regard. Many Joe fans grew up to be anarcho-communist evil antifas.. or something. And many grew up to be MAGA nutjobs. If you want to appeal to all of them, you need to be really nebulous about what it means to be 'the bad guy' and 'the good guy.' Cobra Commander is evil because he's evil, and it's good to beat him and his men up because they are bad guys. PERIOD.

Is that shallow? Oh yeah. But it can still be entertaining.

@buttmunch  I really love the idea of a Joe cartoon actually being set in the '80s. Would be a nice step in a different direction from the various attempts to modernize the Joes with Resolute, the movies, sometimes the comics, even the toys. It also neatly sidesteps a lot of the problems with modern media where we ignore how the entire plot would change if anyone remembered they owned a cellphone.

@theknightdamien True and times have changed as well with the rise of the "anti-hero" as someone to aspire to rather than the clean cut good guy.  Also the whole who is the bad guy really depends on your point of view, and each bad guy has to have motivations (or doesn't think they are the bad guy), makes things murkier than in the 80s. 

If they were to do anything I would hope that they can keep coming up with cool vehicles.