When The Hub launched 4 years ago, one of their first original series brought back the GI Joe franchise, with a decided twist.
GI Joe Renegades recasts a small group of Joes as fugitives accused of a crime they didn't commit. Consider also that Cobra's involved (naturally), and you can figure out the rest.
Co-executive producer Jeff Kline came over from Sony, where he worked for their animation department (Adelaide) in the 90's and oversaw Men In Black and Jackie Chan Adventures, among others. Some of the character designs suggest that some of the Adelaide animation staff came with Kline. The creators drew inspiration from the 1983-7 series, The A-Team, which had been rebooted in theatres earlier in 2010 with Liam Neeson and Bradley Cooper. That franchise, of course, is a spiritual cousin to The Fugitive, making Renegades a part of a very large family tree, if you will.
Shout! Factory holds the rights to the video distribution of the series, likely as part of a merchandising deal with Hasbro. Here's the open:
Back in the day, it'd been teased that Scarlett & Snake Eyes were potentially a couple. It was noted in Renegades that they trained together, and therein lies an emotional connection. Well, it's a start. There'd been talk of a new GI Joe series in the pipeline, but with The Hub giving way to Discovery Family next month, it's also been reported that Hasbro has talked to Time Warner about future projects. Recall that Cartoon Network had been home to a previous GI Joe entry (on [adult swim]), and also has had a couple of Hot Wheels series. Chances are pretty good, then, for Hasbro to work with CN down the road, provided they're not asked to dumb things down.......!
GI Joe Renegades gets a B.
2 comments:
I rather liked this show and was disappointed the adventures didn't continue - although the finale was decent. In fact, I thought it was the best animated show on the network at that time.
I was curious about the Scarlett/Snake Eyes thing. They were teacher and student at his dojo, and Scarlett's father wanted him to look after her as a bodyguard of sorts. It was funny how she could read his body language whenever he was trying to communicate with the team.
I earlier incarnations of GI Joe, romance was hinted at for Scarlett and Duke, but being a kids' show it wasn't going to go far! I wondered if they were going to go in that direction in this version.
I'm curious about yet another new version of the characters - I do hope it doesn't turn into a G.I. Joe GO!
Ditto that. In the original series, Flint & Lady Jaye became a couple---they were even seen kissing on screen---, and that was hinted at on this show, too. Seems The Hub gave up on it too soon.
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