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G.I. Joe: Season 1 Part 2 -Rhino Home Video (1985)
Summary Thousands of soldiers continue not to die in the war between G.I. Joe and Cobra. My Thoughts The G.I. Joe adventures continue with this four disc set. Yeah, I know this has been out forever, but I didn’t get this volume until recently. It’s worth taking a look at now, especially since it’s so freaking expensive. The price for a new set is about twice as much than the retail price for a used copy and even more for a brand new copy on sites like Amazon.com and eBay. Is this set really worth it? Let’s find out.* G.I. Joe Season One: Part 2 starts out with a whimper with the craptacular episode entitled, “The Germ." I’m used to some pretty stupid plots in the Joe series, but this has got to be one of the worst. In order to fight a mega-sized germ, the Joe team shoots apples at it. Why? Because everyone knows apple seeds contain a tiny amount of poison, so a million apples must be able to stop anything! It’s beyond ridiculous when you see apples shooting out of Bazooka’s gun and the Joes' vehicle mounted weapons. Sometimes I wondered if they even tried with some of these plots. Here are some other highlights in no particular order: “The Viper is Coming”: Now this episode seems pretty dumb on the surface, but when I was a kid I thought it was great. When you're ten you don't have that high of expectations. At that time the ending was pretty unexpected and funny. Apparently the Joes think its funny too, because they laugh like a bunch of idiots. “Cobra Quake”: The series gets a little bit better here. The Joes are in Japan, so you know what that means: ninjas! Storm Shadow manages to make an appearance along with about fifty look-alikes. Sweet indeed. “Bazooka Sees a Sea Serpent”: I love it when Cobra Commander bosses his cronies around in this episode. At one point, a machine is asking if the enslaved Joes and Cobras will work or not. Cobra Commander turns to one of his men and says, “Say no to see what happens.” The man dutifully complies and when he says 'No' to the machine, he's quickly taken away by some horrible metal tentacles to a gruesome fate. When the machine asks Cobra Commander the same question, he responds by screaming, “Yes!” like a frightened woman. This further proves that lackeys are indispensable to a super villain’s survival. “Worlds Without End": This is one of the great two part episodes in G.I. Joe history. A band of Joes is trapped in an alternate future where Cobra rules and the rest of the Joe team members are dead. I’d almost have to say that these two episodes are my favorites in the whole set. There are some stupid moments as with every Joe adventure, but you can tell a lot more effort was put into these to tell a good story than the average episode. “An Eye for an Eye”: I always liked this one as a kid, but I'm not sure why now. It begins with an innocent family that loses their home in a battle between the Joes and Cobra. The dad goes mental like the Punisher and goes after Cobra Commander himself. I can only imagine what he’d do if one of his kids actually got killed, talk about over reacting. “The Gods Below”: has got to be one of the most fucked up G.I. Joe episodes I’ve ever seen. The G.I. Joe team gets together with a bunch of Egyptian gods to defeat Cobra. At the end of the episode they're flying around in Anubis’ boat and shooting down Cobra Rattlers. It’s one hell of an LSD adventure for everyone involved. “Memories of Mara”: is an excellent episode involving, of all things, a woman who’s turned into a mermaid by Cobra’s experimentations. There’s plenty of great characterization to go around in this one. It's surprisingly deep for a Joe episode, despite the fact that the oft times annoying Shipwreck is one of the key players. “The Wrong Stuff”: is notable for how true to life it is. Cobra takes over everyone’s TV and replaces the programming with their own brand of propaganda. At one point the Joes are watching the original King Kong, except that Cobra Commander had the ending changed to have King Kong winning. George Lucas must have gotten his habit of re-editing from this episode. “Cold Slither”: is one of the most interesting Joe episodes, because it is both really stupid and funny. The Cobra organization runs out of money so Cobra Commander orders the Dreadnoks form a band to cash in the big rock and roll phenomena that was sweeping the nation. The song they come up with hypnotizes everyone who hears it, taking the fear parents had in the 80s about heavy metal to 11. Get it? 11? I'm so hip. The most surprising thing about "Cold Slither" is how catchy the titular song is. I swear it's better than any thing Kiss ever released. Anyway, the episode also has one of the dumbest endings I’ve seen. After Cobra is defeated, the Joes do whatever military unit would do to keep a rock crowd happy, form an impromptu band called the “Average Joes” and sing a rocking version of the G.I. Joe theme song.
For anyone who's ever seen an episode of G.I. Joe, you know the animation borders between decent and completely shitty. These episodes are no exception, and in fact, are probably worse than some of the other Joe sets I've reviewed in the past. There are times where elements are missing any color. Still, you have to like it or not because there's nothing that's ever going to "fix" those kinds of mistakes. The picture quality is about as good as I expected and it’s pretty damn good. There is some particle contamination, but it’s not any worse than the other G.I. Joe releases that I’ve reviewed. Maybe someday there will be a great interest in trying to restore these episodes for a better DVD edition, but since that's never going to happen this is the best we get. As for the sound, out of the two mixes the 5.1 digital mix is the way to go. The 2.0 was nice at first, reminding me of when I used to watch the series on television, but the volume on some of the sound elements was so low that it was annoying to listen to during action sequences. If you can't live without G.I. Joe and don't support bootleggers, then expect to pony up the cash for this set, because it's well worth it. If you can live on fond memories alone or can shake off feeling the dirty grime of purchasing bootlegs, then skip this edition entirely. Extras This set is almost exactly the same as the previous release, complete with the motion menus that either are the same or almost just like those that came before it. In the packaging you’ll find a nifty little animation cell and a little booklet that gives blurbs about the plots for each episode along with the writing credits and original airdates. The only other extra that isn’t an Easter egg (I don’t review that kind of content) is an interview with the actors who played Flint, Bill Ratner, and Lady Jaye, Mary MacDonald-Lewis. Let me tell you, I was more than a little hesitant to watch this since shall we say, I’ve always had a thing for Lady Jaye. All I can say is she’s not exactly how I imagined her, but she’s a lot closer to Lady Jaye than Ratner is to Flint. Jeebus! The interview itself is rather interesting if you’re any kind of G.I. Joe fan. The fun fact that I learned is that MacDonald-Lewis is the voice of Onstar. Damn, I've got to get a new GM now.
Episode Average: 7.5 Extras: 4.0 Edition: 7.0 -Paul *You might be wondering why there aren’t any episodes available after the Season 2 Part 1 set. Apart from the danger of running into the completely bad episodes of G.I. Joe in later seasons, the reason lies in the fact that Sony bought the G.I. Joe rights from Rhino. My inquiry into their possible plans (or complete lack there of) for releasing any more episodes has so far gone unanswered. Thank you Sony, for your spectacular customer relations.
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