The production histories of Transformers: The Movie and G.I. Joe: The Movie were deeply intertwined, and the choices Hasbro made on one film directly reshaped the other.
Several key pieces of this history ... especially around Duke's death, the Optimus Prime backlash, and the late‑stage audio change. I am more interested in the Zarana factor, but to make sense of this all, I do have to somewhat touch on other factors.
This might be a bit NSFW under the jump, so read at your own risk. And knowing is half the battle! Yo Joe!
The Death Mandate:
Both films were developed by Sunbow/Marvel Productions at the same time, using overlapping creative teams and a shared mandate from Hasbro:
Introduce new characters
Retire old ones
Push the brand into its next toy line phase
This is why both films originally featured major heroic deaths: Optimus Prime's death and Duke's death.
In The Transformers: The Movie, Optimus Prime was scripted to die early and definitively.
The film was released first, and the backlash was immediate and intense. Kids cried, parents complained, and Hasbro was blindsided by how emotionally attached audiences were to Prime (even though they were warned by the people who made the Transformers cartoon).
In G.I. Joe: The Movie, Duke was likewise scripted to die, stabbed in the heart by Serpentor’s snake spear, saving the life of his half-brother, Lt. Falcon.
In the aftermath of the battle, Serpentor, Cobra, and Cobra-La forces escaped with the B.E.T., and Doc tended to Duke, but really, all he could do was give him something to make him comfortable.
It was also interesting, for as rocky as Lt. Falcon and Jinx's relationship was, she repeatedly showed concern for him time and time again. She clearly had deep feelings for him even before "he got his act together."
Doc grimly motioned to Lt. Falcon to speak to his big brother in his final moments. Falcon, in this moment, was nothing but the little brother. All his false bravado was gone, and he wanted nothing but his brother to be ok.
Duke weakly spoke, "I guess.. I can't look out for you anymore, kid..."
Falcon was choked, holding back tears, "D-don't say that! Doc will fix you up!"
"No! You did it to save me!" Falcon spat out, at this point agitated and really fighting back tears.
Duke, to the end, kept his word to their mother to keep an eye on Falcon, and asked of his younger brother, "Promise me you'll try to get your act together... be a credit to your country..."
"I ... I'll make you proud. You'll see," Falcon said with desperation in his voice, but before he could go on, Duke's eyes glazed over, his final words, "Yo.. Joe...," as he fell back dead in the hands of the women he loved, Scarett.
Everything went away in this moment. No music, no sound effects, only the sound of ongoing blazes in the background.
Duke had died.
There was a greater credibility to the intention behind Duke's death vs. Transformers, because, regardless of how much you dressed it up, G.I. Joe ultimately revolved around soldiers and war.For as trippy as G.I. Joe: The Movie was, for as controversial as it was because of the Cobra-La factor, this was, this one time, the G.I. Joe animated series going to show the real cost of war. I can't think of any moment in the series where G.I. Joe team members cried.
Scarlett was in tears, emotionally torn apart, at the lowest point in her life. Falcon, crying, hugs his brother's body.
General Hawk stepped up and put his hand on Falcon's shoulder.
General Hawk said, "Falcon, we'll do everything we can for Duke," and then he turned away from the men he commanded, crying, said, "Yo Joe..."
However, the REAL line was, "Prepare a funeral for a friend fallen in battle...," and then he lowered his head and whispered while crying towards the camera, "Yo Joe."
There was intended to be a funeral sequence.
General Hawk would stand over a flag-draped coffin. Lt. Falcon, certainly other major players in the movie, like Jinx, Sgt. Slaughter, Beachhead, but all the Joes would be on hand and watch solemnly as Hawk gave a eulogy. I'm sure Scarlett would have been given a big spotlight too in this moment.
"You gave your life for all of us, Duke. We can not repay your sacrifice, but we can remember it, and we will. Until there shall be no need for warriors, and we shall meet again. Goodbye. "
And then together, the G.I. Joe team said, "Yo Joe", for their fallen comrade.
Because Transformers hit theaters first and the outrage was so strong, Hasbro panicked. They ordered Sunbow to change Duke's death.
The animation was already finished, so they added last-minute ADR from Scarlett, and then a voiceover at the end of the movie.
"He’s gone into a coma!” and "Duke's gonna be okay!"
Riggght. You don't survive a snake biting into your heart.
I even understood that, as a child, without knowing all the behind-the-scenes business issues, I understood that this was a change from what was intended. Duke was supposed to die.
Hasbro always misunderstood their in-house IP. G.I. Joe trended older because it was military. Transformers, for its part, trended younger because robots captured the imagination of children.
Zarana Fan Service Cut Down:
So, what did all of that have to do with Zarana?
G.I. Joe: The Movie was originally pitched as older, darker, and more PG‑13‑leaning than the TV series.
Early on, Serpentor would be captured after Cobra's first attempt at stealing the B.E.T. from G.I. Joe. This would lead to Zarana, pretending to be a fangirl bimbo "Heather," playing to Lt. Falcon's ego to get the lowdown on the building they had Serpentor imprisoned in.
That was until Duke showed up and shut all this down. "A camera, you let her bring a camera in here? I'll be taking that film."
"Film and visitors are forbidden here, Lt. Falcon. You are supposed to be aware of those regulations!"
"Jinx, escort this young lady off the base, on the double!"
She'd leave, go to a lake, undress, Thrasher would hit on her, "... taking a dip, luv?" and for his troubles get tossed in the lake. "Zarana, I didn't know it was you..."
"Neatly done, sister. I trust your mission was equally well executed," Zartan said, praising his younger sister.
Again, early concept art and internal discussions aimed to push boundaries toward a PG-13 tone. Zarana was intended to be partially undressed, though her nipples would never be visible; it'd all be implied, such as sometimes you'd see in live-action PG-13 movies. A side boob, what have you.
Zarana had weaponized her femininity against Lt. Falcon, and this presentation was meant to post-mission highlight her feminine appeal further, so we understood why she was such a good spy. Men drop their guard around her.
We even see this through Thrasher, who should have known better; he thought Zarana was just some local floozy going skinny dipping.
Zarana would only be wearing her lower garment. Zartan would hand his sister her top, and she'd cover up.
The Dreadnoks did have a casual, chaotic family dynamic, but Zarana, the only woman, would want to cover up all the same... because typically a woman wouldn't just have a conversation with a bunch of guys topless. Zarana, also, hated the rank-and-file members anyway and they hated her.
(also,umm, it's kind of creepy that her older brother, Zartan, and her twin brother, Zandar, would see her nude chest, lol)
So, originally, it'd have looked more like this:
This was dialed back as Hasbro ordered the film toward a safer, more toy‑friendly tone after the Transformers backlash. Sunbow, for whatever reason, did half measures with this sequence.
The finished scene had the exact same beats, but now Zarana was wearing a one-piece bathing suit (painted over? or they were too lazy to not use the storyboard? Not sure). Sunbow went forward with the sequence with the original staging, but now with added modesty.
The animation still showed:
Zarana undressed
Zartan handed her a top
Zarana put it on as if she needed to cover up
In the original version... Zarana needed the top for modesty.
In the aired version... Zarana put it on because the animation requires her to, not because the story did.
Pythona and Nemesis Enforcer were just chilling at the bottom of the lake and showed up, causing one of my favorite quotes in the movie, "Blimy! It's a blooming sea monster!" and they would use the stolen intel to break Serpentor out.
So, it'd look a little more like this instead, originally:
I'm not sure if it's fair to call it "censorship," as ideas get altered all the time in production, but one thing was certain: it was immersion-breaking. Animation, script, and voice acting all have to work together for a cartoon to be successful.
Removing all the other characters from the scene, we can take a better look at Zarana's one-piece bathing suit vs. the two-piece.
This is why the moment feels so awkward: the physical logic of the scene no longer matched the revised visuals. When that happened, a kid's "spidey-sense" would go off, there'd be a disconnect, even if the kid couldn't articulate why.
Some other G.I. Joe fans would be angry about Cobra-La and what not, but me? I was more concerned with internal logic within the context of what was happening.
There's another factor with Zarana, a guy named Mainframe, was she just gonna let him be mutated? But that's a story for another day... Yo Joe!
When I was a kid, whenever I watched the movie, if any of my family were in the room, when Torch said his line, it always made them laugh. Something about those Dreadnoks the whole family could enjoy.
ReplyDeleteYeah, Duke gets his heart bit by a poisonous snake, volumes uf blood gushing out of his chest. Duke will be alright and just walk it off, when we get back after these messages!
GREAT WRITE UP!! Really enjoyed it, THANKS!!
The weirdness of the Tiger Force Duke figure... always made him a Cobra clone when I was a kid
DeleteDuke's scripted funeral would've been weird with the remaining GI JOE leaders using lasers to disintegrate his coffin. Since when do GI JOE lasers have a disintegrate setting? And why?
ReplyDeleteThe funeral sounded terrible. Missed opportunity for a traditional 21 gun salute at Arlington...Ready, Aim, Fire!
DeleteScarlett should get the flag from Hawk, "On behalf of a greatfull nation." Also, would have been a great opportunity to see Joe´s in their dress uniforms for Duke.