BWprowl wrote:Onslaught Six wrote:We may actually never know Duke's fate in the original cut. (Actors and the director have repeatedly refused to actually acknowledge Duke's "death," so that says to me that he might never have died in the original cut to begin with.)
Obviously, he ends up going into a coma.
Why do we hate Channing Tatem, again? I legitimately don't think I've seen a single movie with that guy in it.
I actually don't! I make fun of his name because there's a funny way to do it (Channing Tater!) but other than that...
Here's the thing. Joe fans hate him because he's a "pretty boy," or something. He's not The Rock or Stallone or Bruce Willis or something like that. I reason that Duke has always been the smiling, happy face of the GI Joe line and isn't *supposed* to be grizzled or badass or gritty at all. Duke is a guy who's killing terrorists and is happy about it. He's America's poster boy and wants you to eat your vitamins and say your prayers and join the Goddamn Army to save it from the dirty Commies and brown people. He's Captain America circa 1942. He's Superman in the 50s. That's what Duke is.
I challenge anyone to find a more whitebread, boring-faced actor today than Channing Tater who is more appropriate to play Duke. Seriously. Of everything that was wrong about ROC, Duke was one of the best things about it. (The real problems lay in the film's plot, which twist around character motivations and effectively ruin major characters for future installments. It's a wonder Cobra Commander got out of there intact, and it's a shame JGL isn't back for Retaliation.)
Channing Tater falls into the same category as dudes like Chris Hemsworth, to me. He 'is' a pretty dude. That's what Duke (and Thor, for that matter) need to be.
...but you're right, besides GI Joe I actually haven't seen anything with him in it. (21 Jump Street looked like something I might rent if I can't find anything better. Other than that...)
Tigermegatron wrote:That JOE2 movie is gonna be horrible. If anyone is expecting a great movie then there in for a huge surprise.
I disagree! New director, almost entirely new cast, a great fucking plot, and two consistently-delivering action stars headlining in it? It'd be pretty hard to fuck this one up. But we'll see what happens come March. The weird thing is, the entire reason Joe 2 was originally supposed to come out last year was so Paramount would have a big flagship action movie for the summer, since Trek 2 got delayed to 2013...and now Joe 2 is hitting in 2013 as well! So the reality is that this is when the movie was supposed to come out in the first place.
Also, I had a dream about Retaliation's "follow up line." You know, its Allspark Power or its NEST or whatever. The original plan after ROC was to do "Pursuit of Cobra," and it largely featured new versions of movie characters who were (NEST or HFTD style) "hunting" Cobra across the globe. Obviously ROC didn't do as well, and the line got retooled to excise all the movie stuff from it, so in the end you got this weird toyline that didn't really fit anywhere, but was full of awesome stuff and really hard to find (because retailers didn't want it.)
Anyway, the dream's premise was that the new toyline took place after Retaliation's film. In the Hasbro version, after the end of the film, GI Joe as an American military unit is still disbanded. Even though they overthrow Cobra Commander and expose the corrupt regime (or whatever happens), the current team leaders Joe Colton and Roadblock instead choose not to return to active service. They instead form an international mercenary and rescue team known as the GI Joe Adventure Team. Because for some reason Joe fans fucking love Adventure Team. In this incarnation, though, they're instead focused on, like I said, various mercenary and rescue efforts. Basically it's an excuse to pack figures with shitloads of cool scenario gear, like POC did, only under the excuse of being a "rescue/adventure" team. They'd still have guns, of course, but it'd also be a positive way to shuffle the GI Joe brand away from gun and military violence--at least for a year or two. The line would have a few classic characters (Joe Colton, Roadblock, possibly Duke if a new edit of the film keeps him alive) but also focus on newer characters (either entirely new, or characters from the Spytroops/VvV era) and late-80s/early 90s characters who haven't had good new toys yet.
The villains in this one wouldn't actually be straight Cobra operatives. Instead, it'd be focusing on various Cobra figurehead characters leading subfactions and splinter cells. Cobra Commander is presumed dead or is MIA, and hasn't reappeared. (This entire setup makes the whole thing very similar to NEST/HFTD, in that there wasn't really a central Decepticon leader, just lots of little offshoot splinter factions.) Firefly is leading a mercenary group known as the Black Dragons. A guy who goes by Headman is into international drug trade and leads his own group called the Headhunters. Overlord is the head of the COIL. And Dr. Mindbender is working on his own secret project known only as Serpentor...
This would give us opportunities to see all kinds of cool new troop builders and also original characters or returning obscurer favourites. (Interrogator, for example, could easily be part of the Black Dragons or the COIL.)
Obviously it was a dream, so it's not happening, but I think it'd be a cool way for the Joe line to simultaneously pay homage to its past and also look forward to the future. Thoughts?