No, not that dreadful Nick Cage thing from a few years back... SNAKE EYES as in YO JOE!The first images from the upcoming GI Joe live action movie are up, a couple shots of Ray Park as the silent assassin, and I wasn't prepared for how geeked I would be to see Snake Eyes (and crew) brought to life!!!
I was a huge GI Joe fan circa 1983, when the new fully poseable 3.5" toy line launched, and they were so richly detailed and such strong character designs. I mean those toys were bad ass! The vehicles alone, the tank, the dune buggy, the Cobra tank etc, were just the coolest, and built for war! What 12 year old boy doesn't want to blow shit up and stage epic battles with their friends for 24 hours straight in their bedrooms (sounds kinky). Not to mention, the packaging? Holy shit, GI Joe was the full meal deal, you got these kick as ID cards with each figure, with a backstory and awesome painted artwork of Scarlet, or Roadblock, or whoever. Then there was Cobra Commander, with 2 cool faceless designs... but come on, the thing that put GI Joe over the edge? It was always Snake Eyes. Everybody loved him, what with his bad ass all black ninja inspired, visor wearing design? He was the coolest of the cool!
Then you add on some serious marketing synergy, the comic (of which issues 1 and 2 probably still rank in my all time top 10), and the cartoon?!? Man, good stuff, and good times (again, Gerber, you will be missed).
So, decades later when they finally announce a GI Joe movie, after scores of reboots to the toys and such, and me not having been a fan in 20 years... and they attach a director, Stephen Sommers, who's VAN HELSING only ever put me to sleep (similar to Underworld - cool to look at, but the visual equivalent of a bedtime story), I didn't for a moment really stop to care. Sure, cool, I'll look forward to it, but actively wait for it? Or geek about it? Nah.
Well, that's changed. Man, Snake Eyes... you bad ass mofo. Can't wait!
In the immortal words of Joe, now I know, (and if you can't fill in the rest, you're no fan of Joe)!!!
