I think that crazy winged thing is a Night Viper.

Dear Santa-
I want all of these.
That will be all.

I'm still convinced that the movie would have been infinitely better had they just used a classic familiar look for Cobra Commander.

All else could have been forgiven...but I digress, I know this isn't the right post for that argument.

Yeah, the unknown awesomeness has to be a Night Viper.

I will have to reserve my judgements on the movie till it airs on FX or USA as for the figures, total win

I disagree. I think the awesomeness is Snake Eyes with head gear standing next to a tree.

"How does this not get conveyed to the filmmakers? Why did the movie flip adult fans the bird and just went for the kids who didn't know anything about G.I. Joe?"

For an answer, go look up Kevin Smith's rant about when he tried writing the Superman script. If a Hollywood director feels SUPERMAN needs to be altered, then what chance does G.I. Joe have?

I think that crazy winged thing is a Night Viper.

As imagined by Hideo Kojima. ;)

On a more serious note, as Rob has observed, this is what the G.I. Joe movie should have looked like. I mean, just take a look at Beachhead here:

http://theterrordrome.com/forums/download/file.php?id=8444

Is that not objectively more interesting to look at than Channing Tatum in a lackluster black bodysuit?

It all has to do with Intellectual Property rights. A good example is your post about the rights to Superman a few days ago. The Siegels have the rights to the character, his costume, etc and DC owns his powers, kryptonite, etc. By changing the franchises they are creating IP that they, themselves, are the owners of even though they are based upon existing, properly licensed, characters/ideas. Also it’s possible that they only licensed the names of the characters/title and not the actual character designs themselves.

An example would be the Crunchberry Cobra Commander. If anyone in the future wants to use his likeness/design/back-story they need to pay to the studio that created him and I’m sure Hasbro gets their cut as well. Although I’m not sure why anyone would want to use this god-awful character again I’m sure it will happen.

HAHAHA!!!
When I first glanced at the pic, I thought Zartan's extra head and torso was some kind of Willow figure!
HAHAHA!!!

Also, has anybody figured out why the 12-inch Cobra Commander figure had Destro's burned head underneath, when he's just a normal, slightly scarred face in the movie?

As if this (http://theterrordrome.com/forums/download/file.php?id=8408&mode=view) Cobra Commander looks any better. Is that some generic Ninja Gaiden enemy or a reject from The Running Man?

I really hated the Snake-Eyes costume from the movie. The head-gear looks really retarded in live action. Does Ray Park have a gargantuan planetoid head? It's huge! Personally I think Snake-Eyes ver. 1 or ver. 3 would have been better even though most people remember the Geordi LaForge visor look. This Snake-Eyes (http://theterrordrome.com/forums/download/file.php?id=8410&mode=view) looks more kick ass. It looks like a hybrid of ver.1 and ver. 2 Snake-Eyes.

Now looking at the other pictures, Beachhead, Wetsuit, the Masamune Shirow inspired Night Viper, Fire-Fly and Snowboard Duke look pretty cool, but tank-top Duke, Jungle Storm Shadow, Recondo, and the Short-Fuze/Flash inspired looking Snake-Eyes with Timber suck ass. And of course the Cobra Commander sucks ass kinds of ass.

To Kris:
The 12" CC has that burned head because Hasbro went the lazy route. Rather than sculpt a new head, they just reused the head from the Action Man villain "No Face" with a different paint job.

Is Zartan a Falconer? ArtF I agree I thought that was some sort of "small Person". Maybe the Dreadnaughts could have been into midget tossing.

It all has to do with Intellectual Property rights. A good example is your post about the rights to Superman a few days ago. The Siegels have the rights to the character, his costume, etc and DC owns his powers, kryptonite, etc. By changing the franchises they are creating IP that they, themselves, are the owners of even though they are based upon existing, properly licensed, characters/ideas. Also it’s possible that they only licensed the names of the characters/title and not the actual character designs themselves.

For all your harping over Crunchberry Cobra Commander, you seem to be forgetting that the movie visual designers went right ahead and used Snake Eyes' iconic visor, rather than going with some generic "sci-fi" face-mask as they did with Cobra Commander.

That "awesomeness" you speak of is a jungle-themed Neo-Viper with a camouflage cape.

But Atomic Jay, what's odd about it is that the head is a perfect likeness for Christopher Eccleston as Destro at the end of the movie, right before he gets the metal mask. It's almost as if who becomes Cobra Commander was changed partway through production. Otherwise, why use that specific head instead of any other normal bald head?

Rob, you are a dick for ragging on those two movies.
Now, if I may rag on some movies for a bit...
Why does TF 2 get all the crap for being a bad movie? Have we not seen TF 1? I mean it's not like the bar was set ridiculously high and the sequel couldn't measure up. I personally found TF2 to be exactly as good as TF1, which was not a particularly good movie to begin with. The main reason this upsets me is that with all of the hate showered on Michael Bay's baby, we have given a bye to the horrible abomination that was Terminator Salvation. I mean Transformers at least has a plot. Not a good plot, but still a plot. I can watch and say, 'These characters are taking these actions because of the stuff that happened earlier.' I can't do that with Terminator. Ignoring the franchise, even within the movie the motivations make no sense. Am I really the only one that feels this way? If I am, than I apologize for wasting everybody's time. I'm not trying to start a flame war or anything I just honestly want to know. I was still in the Navy when Terminator came out so I could have just missed the sh!tstorm. If that is the case then I apologize again for the time wasting. And now, I am a dick.

PS add a third to thinking that Zartan's extra parts was a different figure. I kept wondering when the midget joined COBRA. And that, uuhhh, Night Viper? is awesome and I need that.

@maachubo: The general reaction to Terminator was that, given who was involved, it should have been better, but it wasn't all that bad.

Also: Transformers, in spite of being a "smaller" franchise in that it didn't have blockbuster status since 2005, has a much wider reach than Terminator ever could hope to. No kid grows up without playing with Transformers or watching Transformers on TV; Terminator's peak was in 1991 and hasn't been heard from since with the exception of a disappointing threequel and a short lived TV series. If Terminator gets screwed up, not many people in the geek community notice.

But fuck with Transformers, and you fuck with something that just about EVERYONE cares about on some level. That seventeen-year-old kid who remembers Armada wasn't even born when T2 was in theatres. Even GI Joe doesn't have that same connection; remember, Transformers has been on TV continually since Beast Wars, and only was off TV for about three years total since 1984.

As for the Night Viper: awesome, but it looks way too much that horrible angel wing redesign for Wing Zero from Endless Waltz. I thought Japan was done with making everything an angel motif - is Hasbro just late to catch up?

@Geoff - So it is more about the belovedness of the franchise than the quality of the individual movie? Hrm. I can accept that.

And I was picturing the Night Viper with my Front Mission and Evangelion figures, go the Gundam comparison isn't that far off.

One day I'm going to wake from this nightmare and Hasbro will actually insist on the movie and the toys from the aforementioned not looking like jagged messes or bland Mego-esque knock-offs of the 80's toylines.

The new Cobra Commander figure is at least better than what's on shelves now. Destro as Hoth Solo looks pretty cool though.

"I think that crazy winged thing is a Night Viper. "

Nah, that's Fumbles. It was always... Fumbles.

@Templar

NOTHING is better than looking at Channing Tatum in a lackluster black bodysuit. You know this.

Toylines have always contained stuff (that's usually awesome) which wasn't in the movie...

@ maachubo:
I agree your not alone.
@ Geoff:
Wing zero custom was a sweet design.Key word was. Still cool but new stuff has come along. I don't like the stuff form gundam 00.

On the toys:
Because Channing Tatum said no.
Also were would it have fit in the movie?
Then it really would have been a giant toy commercial.

Because Channing Tatum said no.
Also were would it have fit in the movie?
Then it really would have been a giant toy commercial.

What the hell are you talking about? It was a giant toy commercial, and for toys orders of magnitude less cool than these.

because the studio that make the films are using creative licensing. and some of the things like balls on Devistator Hasbro does not want to be in the hands of kids their core group. as for the figures love the Zartan that is how he should have looked and the midget type thing think its suppose to be Zartans disquise

@GreyFox 00 - You say cool, I say masturbatory. Pota-to, Po-tat-o.

Could GI Joe have been better if someone shouted, during some moment of stress, "PORK CHOP SANDWICHES!"?

I'm just glad Hasbro has apparently got a bigger budget for the 2010 line and we will see less repaints and more awesomeness.

@templar
An even bigger commercial. with crappy and intentional product placement like baroness saying i;m thirsty and grabbing a coke form the conveniently place vending machine/ refrigerator or cooler then looking at the camera and saying that was soo worth it or that was good.