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Yeah…  wow.  I’ve read and heard a lot of comparisons between the new G.I. Joe: Rise of COBRA film and some less-than-stellar films of years gone by, most notably the low-budget Street Fighter movie.  And at first, without anything to base any opinions on, it was tough to argue…  yeah, we all knew they were throwing 170 million dollars at it, and we knew there were some notable names attached to the film, but there was simply nothing else to go on.

Until today:


Video courtesy of ENewsi.com

And really, the two words in the title pretty much say it all.  Oh my.

At the risk of sounding corny, from the time I was 8 years old, there was probably nothing I would have rather seen than a live-action film featuring the franchise of my youth.  Seeing the characters I was growing up with come to life on the movie screen is something that I always thought would be incredible, but something I really doubted would ever happen.  There have been rumors through the years, but you always got the feeling no one really took the property seriously enough to really make a G.I. Joe film that people would take seriously.  I’ve seen scripts of the 90’s treatment, and…well…  yikes.

But now…  thanks to Paramount and Transformers we finally have some solid backing to do a “real” G.I. Joe film.  Note, I didn’t say “great”, or even “good”, I said “real”.  And like it or not, you can’t argue the fact that at least this Hollywood production is “real”.  This is a studio putting it’s money where its mouth is…this is a special effects company actually putting some serious time and effort into making G.I. Joe and COBRA into viable Hollywood brands.

The argument will be eternal as to whether or not this ends up being a good film, but at least we can hope for a successful film.  In the long run a successful film will do more for our brand than anything Hasbro has done in the past ten years, and an unsuccessful film could be more damaging than the worst thing.  Opinions will vary as they always do, so I can only hope that money talks and that the movie-going public will be interested enough to spend their dollars to see this film.  This trailer has done a TON to alleviate some of my fears.

But it’s not just the trailer…it’s what surrounds the trailer.  ComingSoon.net broadcast the fact that they had the “World Exclusive” (and the deluge of people viewing the trailer crashed their servers).  AintitCoolNews.com’s talkbacks were absolutely FLOODED with responses.  Not all positive, of course, but there is BUZZ.  Good or bad, “buzz” can make or break a movie, and honestly I kinda doubted that G.I. Joe might be buzzworthy.  But today, G.I. Joe has been exceptionally buzzworthy.  Today, G.I. Joe is on the tip of a lot of geek tongues, and that’s 6 months before the movie hits theaters.  If that buzz can continue, build, and grow towards August, whether or not the film is “good” will be irrelevant, as long as its successful.  Success builds brands, and anyone who gets any enjoyment at all from G.I. Joe should be hoping that even if they feel like this film is stomping on what they consider to be the “true meaning” of G.I. Joe, as long as it’s successful, that’s good for all Joe fans.  Paramount is taking this by the horns, and it’s going to be a fun ride.