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“Why do geeks love cartoons going “live-action” ? ”

The truth is, we don’t.

Sure, blockbuster hits like Transformers might suggest otherwise, but when it comes down to geekly opinion and worship – we think that these movies suck. While it is cool to see your favorite cartoon characters “brought to life”, there is a lot lost in translation.

Cartoons allow us to suspend a bit of disbelief as they are visually “not real”. If a character falls and hangs in mid-air, or drops his jaw to the floor when a buxom she-male rabbit walks by, we never question it. It doesn’t even remotely register as odd, and hey – we’d probably nail the he-she-bunny too.

But the moment something becomes “real”, even in an entertainment fashion, we expect it to adhere at least loosely to some semblance of reality. Which means: Unless a cartoon-to-real-life movie is bagging on itself pretty hard, we’re not going to REALLY enjoy the show.

No matter how badly we want to.

Giant robots turning into real cars and zooming around is something we’ve all dreamed about, but when you see it on the big screen it fails to live up to the cartoon version from our youth. But a live action Scooby Doo movie? DAMN entertaining.

Why?

Because it poked fun at itself, our memories, and the plot holes that children tend to overlook while getting their cartoon fix. Like the notion that a group of mystery solving teenagers could repeatedly foil the elaborate and often supernaturally themed plans of dangerous criminals without getting shot, even once, in the face. Everyone and their brother knew how to build a glowing and ghostly robotic Bigfoot, but no one ever thought to pick up a gun or just stab the piss out of a group of meddling kids and their creepy talking dog.

It was made live action in an obviously tongue-in-cheek manner, and it brought to life one of the hottest and most lusted after characters from our childhood fantasies: Velma Dinkley.

Velma was just a Pandora’s box of repressed sexuality and mystery.

We weren’t sure exactly WHAT she was hiding under that huge, baggy, puke colored sweater – but we were pretty confident that she’d let us see, and probably even touch a bit. Velma was smart, geeky, and not at ALL out of our league when it came to the possibility of the Mystery Machine bouncing like a fat kid with epilepsy. Sure, there was the POSSIBILITY that underneath those layers of rusty wool she was shaped like a human beanbag chair, but at least we knew she was as hard up for human contact and attention as we were.

Unlike Daphne who was the personification of “High School Princess” and probably did all of the trendy things that hot teenagers did, like date football players, became Prom Queen, and peak at age 17.

And even with the self-ribbing and plucking of strings of our nostalgia and memory, the Scooby Doo movie was merely entertaining. A way to kill a couple of hours laughing at what we once thought was cool, and in part, at ourselves. They weren’t going for edge-of-your-seat “good”, and they weren’t trying to live past the cheesiness they were born from.

Now flash to the up and coming G.I.Joe movie.

The G.I.Joe movie wants to be the next big dollar, action-packed movie franchise, and unlike Scooby-Doo, they want to be taken seriously. They focus more on the fighting and the training and the elements of war and battle, and much MUCH less on what they should be making us remember…

…our childhood.

Because as “crack special forces” and “elite military units” go, G.I.Joe was realistically, helmet wearingly RETARDED.

First of all, no highly trained military personnel dress in brightly colored, elaborately designed costumes. Not only is this not cost efficient and can greatly detract from your credibility during a combat situation, but it has the tendency to make you a giant f***ing target in the field of battle.

“Shit. They’re all dressed in camouflage and neutral colors! I’m not sure which to shoot at with my technologically advanced high caliber sniper rifle!”

“…. … dude. Who the f*** are we fighting?”

G.I.Joe uniforms were anything *but* uniforms. They were meant to single out a character and were worn as a way of separating a common soldier from a title figure. They were impractical, over designed, and often made absolutely NO frigging sense outside of that specific action figure’s genre. Wearing a bright white, fur lined parka during jungle combat might have been your gimmick, but it also explains why “Snowjob” died of heat stroke ten minutes into the conflict.

And all G.I.Joe characters had clever code-names of that sort. Navy Seal? Wetsuit. Computer specialist? Mainframe. Gung-ho Marine?

….Gung-Ho.

They didn’t even TRY to be clever. Mostly because they ran over on the “impractical yet overly-elaborate uniform” budget and had to cut corners when it came to things like military intelligence or lessens at the rifle range.

Because no one has ever been shot in a G.I.Joe cartoon.

Ever.

Sure, they blew the piss out of jeeps and buildings and shot down billion dollar experimental aircraft by the score – but no one actually got HURT. In fact, if someone DID get hurt in the middle of a full out G.I.Joe versus Cobra battle? Everyone stopped what they were doing and ran over to help.

Then they looked around guiltily, like a bunch of kids who just broke a window playing baseball, and they scattered before the REAL authorities showed up and everyone got in trouble. Because try filling out the endless piles of military paperwork on THAT one.

“How did Dusty get wounded?”

“… … …you are so f***ing court marshaled.”

And before those of you among us who take these things too seriously point out that characters died all the time in the movies and in the comics, let ME point out that these weren’t mainstream events. They happened in special circumstances in media outlets that weren’t on directly after school.

Yes, as time changed G.I.Joe DID get edgier and darker, but the true G.I.Joe of our youth wasn’t about getting shot in the face and killing off title characters – it was about laser fights, code names, and special moments in which a giant rhyming black guy taught you not to jump your bike over downed high voltage wires.

Which brings us back to the original question.

We don’t love live action cartoons – we love the notion of them. They appeal to our childhood memories and “what-if” conversations that made up every day life. We were children and we were innocent. We honestly WANTED to be a ninja, or have a giant green bird poop on our shoulder as we spoke in cliché naval jargon.

But we didn’t know any better.

Which is why now, when we hear that shows like this are going “live action”, we actually get excited. For that instant we are transported back to our childhood, back to that innocence, and back to the possibility of shooting laser rifles at faceless robot soldiers or making out with Lady Jane even though we now know that she more than likely bats for Team Flannel And Work Boots.

Although, that’s kinda hot in its own way.

-Coyote