Q] Was the movie released in cinemas?

A] No, it was a video only release. Most fans presume that the box office failures of Hasbro's other toy movies -Transformers, My Little Pony and Care Bears II -led to G.I. Joe: The Movie not being given a cinematic release. However, Buzz Dixon (story consultant for the film) mentioned in an interview that the reason the G.I. Joe movie never saw a cinematic release was due to an argument Sunbow had with a distributor about the Transformers movie.


Q] Was Duke supposed to die originally?

A] Yes. In the original script, Duke dies, and the Joes later hold a funeral for him. But when the Transformers movie was released, there was an extreme fan and parent backlash over the death of the good guys leader, Optimus Prime. So for the G.I. Joe movie, the script was changed at the last minute so Duke goes into a coma. Some extra dialogue was added to the end of the film, as Doc radios in to the Joes that Duke has woken up from his coma and is going to be alright -despite clearly having a snake thrown into his heart. Duke would make appearances in the DiC G.I. Joe seasons.

Buzz Dixon has said that if you watch the scene without any audio on, it is clear from the visuals that Duke has died. In the Japanese dub of the film, Duke does actually die.


Q] What's the deal with the name "Cobra-La"?

A] "Cobra-La" was just a placeholder name until the writers could think up a better name. But when Hasbro heard the name "Cobra-La", they loved it, and demanded that it was just left as that. So it was. On the Shout! Factory DVD commentary, Buzz Dixon apologises for this name. "I'd like to apologise right now for the name Cobra-La. It was a placeholder name. I thought, surely they'll recognise Cobra-La is derivative of Shangri-La, the famous lost civilization in James Hilton's novel, Lost Horizon, and they would recognise Cobra-La was not the final name, it's just a placeholder to refer to. Well, they fell in love with it and wanted to call it Cobra-La. If I had even suspected that would happen, I would have called it "Granny's body house" as a placeholder name."


Q] Does Major Bludd die?

A] No. Some fans think that, because Duke shoots him down at the very start of the movie, Bludd must die as he doesn't seem to have a parachute and would have fallen at least 130 feet. On the DVD commentary, Buzz Dixon says that this scene was Bludd's "only appearance in this movie". However, Bludd actually does show up again later on -he's very briefly seen inside the Cobra base, standing in the background between Destro and Baroness, as Cobra Commander criticizes Serpentor. Bludd would go on to appear in the DiC G.I. Joe series.


Q] Why did Ron Friedman get the "written by" credit?

A] Ron wrote the original script for this film, and had a deal that he would get the sole "written by" credit -even though his script would be heavily edited, to the point where, according to Buzz Dixon "we basically went back to square one". Buzz says that they did use one of the characters that Ron came up with -Nemesis Enforcer -but just how different Ron's original script was compared to the final script remains to be seen.

The same thing happened with the Transformers movie, which Ron also wrote a script for. This script has been made available to the public, and is radically different to the final script.


Q] What happened after the release of the movie? Why didn't Sunbow do a third season of G.I. Joe?

A] Sunbow lost the rights to the series. There were some ideas for a third Sunbow season put together by the writers. The Cobra-La organization would have been destroyed, so Tomax and Xamot create a new organization known as "The Coil". Cobra Commander would still be around, but still as a snake, and would remain in the shadows for the first half of the season. He would be revealed as a mutated monster in the second season, and wants to get G.I. Joe and The Coil to destroy each other, so he can rebuild Cobra.

This season never happened. Instead, DiC picked up the rights to G.I. Joe and started their own series, in 1989. The DiC produced G.I. Joe went in a completely different direction to what is mentioned above. Within the first few episodes, Baroness turns Cobra Commander back to his human form, whilst Serpentor ends up being turned into an iguana! Golobulus, despite seemingly surviving the movie, is never seen. Other characters, like Xamot and Tomax, are never seen either.


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