G.I. Joekemon: Gotta Catch ‘em All
Posted August 11th, 2009 by Howard TaylerI saw G.I. Joe last night with my brother. When the Joe snowmobiles popped out of the Joe VTOL he laughed, turned to me and said “so many vehicles.” And that was before the big fighter-sub dogfight, during which we repeatedly hummed the Cheat Commandos “Buy All Our Playsets And Toys” theme. (It’s okay, though. We were in the handicapped seating so the “seats” next to us were empty slots for wheelchairs.)
I haven’t been to WalMart recently. Is there an entire aisle of new G.I. Joe toys coming off of this film?
My expectations were pretty low, and the movie was pretty campy, but I had a great time. Listening to my heart here and asking myself at which of these films was I having the most fun, here’s where it fits in:
1. Star Trek
2. Up
3. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
4. Terminator: Salvation
5. Angels & Demons
6. G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra
7. Transformers: ROTF
8. Land of the Lost
9. Night at The Museum 2
10. Wolverine
The threshold of disappointment is somewhere between #6 and #7. Transformers definitely disappointed. Joe came close, but cleared the bar.
The chase scene in Paris was big fun. Michael Bay could learn a lot by watching that scene. It was comprehensible! It told a story! But stuff still blew up with big crunchings!
I laughed pretty hard when the self-destruct mechanism (not a spoiler — come on, you know there’s going to be one) results in icebergs coming off the bottom of the polar ice-cap and sinking to crush the base (okay, that WAS a spoiler. Sorry!) I can buy into a submarine that looks like a fighter jet, because technology maybe could do that. But if the filmmakers are going to change something as basic as the density of solid water they should offer an explanation. Ice really, really, REALLY wants to float, and anybody who has ever made a cold drink knows that.
Looking back at this list you may see what appear to be inconsistencies. The list is not about “how good the movie was,” it’s about answering the question “how much fun did you have at the show?” It has nothing whatsoever to do with re-watchability. I’d probably rent Wolverine, but never Night at the Museum 2 or Land of the Lost.
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August 11th, 2009 at 8:35 am
To be fair, they do talk about the ice being full of tunnels and other metal structures, and you do see some of them falling, so it isnt entirely unbelievable..
August 11th, 2009 at 10:25 am
G.I. Joe has -always- been about the toys. The 80’s just gave us the campy, oddly just-unrealistic-enough toys with incredible cool power. In that regard the new movie is perfectly in line with G.I. Joe.
One of my friends said that the absolutely most disappointing thing about the movie was that they never took the opportunity to add a campy PSA somewhere in the middle of, or at the end of the ending credits.
August 11th, 2009 at 10:34 am
My physics gripe was all the underwater explosions. Explosions don’t lose power under water like they do in our atmosphere. So those tiny little bursts would have done quite a bit of damage to *everything* around them
So underwater dogfight cool in theory (bondesque even) but the physics annoyed me.
August 11th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
I watched a presentation about bad physics in movies and the first shown was some b-flick that the professor had seen in college where a submarine is being bombard by sinking icebergs. At this point the future physics professor couldn’t take it anymore and yelled out so everybody could hear, “Ice floats!”. Nobody in the theater could take the movie seriously again.
August 11th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Well, maybe Cobra’s nuclear reactor was in the iceberg, and as such they made the iceberg out of Heavy Water….
[/joke]
August 11th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
from wikipedia:
Only ordinary, hexagonal ice is less dense than the liquid. Under increasing pressure ice undergoes a number of transitions to other allotropic forms with higher density than liquid water, such as high density amorphous ice (HDA) and very high density amorphous ice (VHDA).
So clearly, they just manufactured immense quantities of an exotic substance to use as ballast.
But yeah, there’s a dozen or so types of ice. I remember reading a short story once where one of Jupiter’s moons was colonized because it had an exceptionally suitable type for building with (which IIRC is true).
August 11th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
Howard–I know you like to be entertained, but I’m sorry you spent your money on G.I. Joe. The more money these types of movies make, the more of these types of movies Hollywood will continue to make. I haven’t (and won’t) see it–everything in the trailers makes it look like a live-action Team America. At least Team America was meant to be funny.
August 11th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
My only disappointment with the movie was the ice. As a plot device, it worked by giving the good guys time to escape, which is classic G.I. Joe, as well as Hollywood in general. But, you could do the same thing by blowing out the walls and letting the water flood the base, slowly.
Otherwise, I had a great time. Even though they modernized the look, they did not try to re-invent the franchise, like so many movies do with cartoons and comics. They stuck to the old formula and it worked. I also liked the fact the movie was very kid friendly. The action was so over-the-top most kids recognize it’s just make-believe just like, well, cartoons.
My wife did not like seeing the Jules Verne restaurant destoryed, even in make-believe, we had a great lunch there back in May.
August 11th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Actually, believe it or not, Antarctica is the only place in the world where ice doesn’t float in the drinks.
August 11th, 2009 at 7:33 pm
@Ben-oni: Okay, go ahead and tell us what you mean by “ice” and “drinks” in that sentence. Most Antarctic ice sits on land, but floats just fine as it flows out onto the various shelves over the ocean. It calves into icebergs just like Arctic ice does, and floats away no problem.
Now, if Antarctic folk like drinking olive oil for its caloric content then I expect the ice won’t float in their drinks.
August 11th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
Dauric Says: Well, maybe Cobra’s nuclear reactor was in the iceberg, and as such they made the iceberg out of Heavy Water….
Cobra can obtain all the heavy water it needs from the bottom of the ocean.
(Unless the giant tube worms get them)
August 11th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
From what I understand, they’ll chip ice straight off the glaciers. It’s been compressed for so long, the molecular shape of the ice has actually changed to a higher density structure. Combined with the lower density of alcoholic drinks, the ice sinks. At least, this is how I’ve been informed. If it’s wrong, blame PBS, not me.
August 12th, 2009 at 1:15 am
my problem with the car chase sean was no matter how good it was having sean the trailer for the film I knew how it was going to end as they show the out come in the trailer :(
August 12th, 2009 at 2:24 am
my problem with the car chase sean is that as I saw the trailer I knew how it ended as they showed you the ending to it so it kind of runined the suspence (this is my second atempt to post this dam internet)
August 13th, 2009 at 10:48 am
Actually, the Real GI Joe had a combo fighter-submarine:
http://www.yojoe.com/vehicles/84/sharc/ .
S.H.A.R.C. [Submersible High-speed Attack and Reconnaissance Craft]
I still have mine, somewhere…. :)
August 13th, 2009 at 10:19 pm
Wow, that predates the submacopter by a good deal of time.
August 16th, 2009 at 12:10 am
Pretty much all the ice on earth is the normal-density variant, except a tiny bit in the extreme upper atmosphere that forms cube-ish crystals. The other 13 or so ice variants occur only at hundreds of degrees below zero, or under ridiculously high pressures, or by some other exotic mechanism, none of which occur naturally anywhere on Earth.
Plus, as Howard noted, Antarctic ice floes do indeed float when they break away from the continental shelf. So perhaps PBS was in error there.
August 16th, 2009 at 5:32 am
We went to see the movie last night. At least I knew what we were in for. Ice is supposed to float.
Oh well, I turned off the brain and enjoyed.
August 17th, 2009 at 9:13 pm
I enjoyed the movie. A few more realism comments.
1. The “super Hummer” driven by the Cobra team would have had to weigh a hundred tons or more to ram through traffic like it did.
2. Conservation of momentum : the energy weapon the Cobras used that knocks people back would have had to knock back the person firing the weapon with the same amount of impulse.
3. The “nanomites” wouldn’t have had the energy to cut through the Eiffel tower like they did. Simple physics : at the nanoscale, nuclear energy sources won’t work (lack of critical mass) and chemical energy sources, no matter how dense, don’t have the energy density to turn an entire building into green goo. (since the warhead was man portable)
4. The black jet wouldn’t have had the propellant to catch up with two missiles, period, unless it had engines that were vastly more efficient in terms of specific impulse than the rockets it was chasing. Why did the ballistic missile fly like a cruise missile in it’s terminal phase?
5. When I saw cover girl, I imagined the sexual harassment hazards she represents. Boy, that woman was a walking time bomb. Good thing for the brass that she got killed in action like she did. Seriously, going to a superior officer’s quarters at night to have him “sign some paperwork”, dressed like she does? That’s just asking for trouble.
August 20th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
Habeed: (Note: I haven’t seen it, but it doesn’t sound like the sort of thing where I care about spoilers.)
2. Energy weapons tend to have very little recoil. Usually when an energy weapon noticeably knocks the target about it does so by causing an explosion, either in the target or in the air next to the target.
3. Isn’t the oxidation of iron exothermic?
(And has any movie ever treated nanotech realistically?)
August 22nd, 2009 at 2:03 pm
> I can buy into a submarine that looks like a fighter jet, because technology maybe could do that.
Umm, has done? The “Deep Flight Super Falcon”, one of the accessory craft to Tom Perkins “Maltese Falcon” yacht… There’s a related TED talk too, they’ve shipped a couple.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/03/06/eod.luxury.submarines/index.html