And Knowing is Half the Battle

Okay, I'm going to sound old and crotchety for a moment but....leave my childhood alone!!!! I grumbled a little when Care Bears returned to the stores. I outright laughed when I saw Strawberry Shortcake toys. I even cast aspersions on the Transformer movie with its new merchandise (Hello Bumblebee is a Beetle). But this has now gone too far. They are making a live action film of G.I. Joe. Why can't you leave my childhood in peace????

I've always been a big believer in new stories and new ideas so this premise is pretty repulsive to me on that level. Why can't movie makers come up with their own ideas rather then raid old 80s cartoons? But beyond that, why must every cartoon or toy I ever loved be recycled into some variation of itself and sold to today's kids. I know what will happen. This movie will come out amid a flurry of merchandising. All the kids toys will be huge, hulking, muscle bound figures, completely unlike the more lifelike and honestly more fun figures that I collected as a child. Oh fear not, my parent's basement still holds Snakeyes and Duke figures. With their little attachable guns and backpacks. (Strange that I loved this show, even as a pacifist all the way back then).

To add insult to injury I have found that Brendan Fraser will be in the film. Now I love Brendan. I think he can have amazing depth as an actor (See School Ties or Gods and Monsters) But everything he does lately becomes something of a joke. He is brilliant at campy material. And it looks like G.I. Joe will be a cross between the Mummy and X-Men (both fun movies in their own right). I'm just not sure I'm going to be willing to sit through it with another of my favorite childhood memories.

I'm dreading the fact that eventually I will find out that they are making some odd Smurfs movie or be walking through the toy store to find Thundercats figures (of course this time the Twins will look like they've been doing steroids for years). And again I know I sound old and a little cranky but why can't they leave my favorite shows alone. Transformers was great fun as a cartoon. We had all the original METAL characters. I grew up with those characters. And now a new generation has claimed them as their own. Perhaps the one good thing out of this new movie is that they will release all the old cartoons on DVD. Then I can relive bits of my childhood.