DVD Review: Catch Up With Animated ‘G.I. Joe’ Before ‘Rise of the Cobra’

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CHICAGO – “Yo Joe!” Before Paramount unleashes “G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra” in theaters on August 4th, 2009, viewers should catch up with the height of the phenomenon with Shout Factory’s “G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero: Season 1.1,” now available on DVD.

DVD Rating: 3.0/5.0

G.I. Joe is the code name for America’s daring, highly-trained special missions force, a group of soldiers defending humanity against Cobra, the ruthless terrorist organization trying to destroy the world. Relive the generation-defining adventures of Duke, Scarlett, Snake Eyes, Flint, Lady Jaye, and the rest of the Joe team before you see Dennis Quaid, Channing Tatum, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the cinematic reboot of the franchise.

G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero: Season 1.1 was released on DVD on July 14th, 2009.
Photo credit: Shout Factory

In the film version, Tatum plays Duke, Marlon Wayans plays Ripcord, Dennis Quaid plays General Hawk, Ray Park plays Snake Eyes, Arnold Vosloo plays Zartan, Said Taghmaoui plays Breaker, Rachel Nichols plays Scarlett, Byung-hun Lee plays Storm Shadow, Gordon-Levitt plays Cobra Commander, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje plays Heavy Duty, and Christopher Eccleston plays Destro.

The four-disc set of “G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero” includes 22 episodes of the landmark animated series, running just over eight hours in length. The episodes included in the set aired from September of 1983 to October of 1985 and are largely broken up into multiple-episode arcs that aired originally as mini-series. For example, the first disc includes the five episodes that comprise “A Real American Hero: The M.A.S.S. Device”. The second disc is “The Revenge of Cobra,” and the third “The Pyramid of Darkness”. The fourth disc is untitled but includes seven more episodes.

The first three discs of “G.I. Joe” include the three-part feature “Looking Back With Writer Ron Friedman”. The final disc includes “Knowing is Half the Battle” PSAs, G.I. Joe’s Original 1963 Toy Fair Presentation, Printable “Jungle Trap” Script, and Archival Hasbro Toy Commercials.

Critically, there’s really not much to say about “G.I. Joe”. How can you look back at a formative TV show of your youth with a critical eye? Like a lot of people of my generation, I grew up with G.I. Joe and Shout Factory’s set is like a product pulled from a time capsule of my youth. The technical presentation is a bit so-so and the special features could have been more extensive, but I look forward to the day I introduce one of the shows of my youth to my own son and now I know I can do that with the Season 1.1 set. And knowing is half the battle.

By BRIAN TALLERICO Content Director HollywoodChicago.com brian@hollywoodchicago.com