"Stuff I've Just Noticed" or "It ain't just D**e Who Dies!"
Posted: 14 Jan 2014 00:12
SPOILERS AHEAD, FOLKS! Just in case anyone still hasn't seen it....
My hearing isn't all that great anymore, and quite often I'll watch a film with the subtitles switched on, but not simply the ENGLISH subtitles; I'll select ENGLISH FOR THE HEARING IMPAIRED. I'm not really deaf, but sometimes I can't place or identify a sound, so this helps because ENGLISH FOR THE HEARING IMPAIRED subtitles often identifies sound-effects for the viewer, as well as specifying who is doing the talking in each scene.
Recently, I was watching Retaliation (for the umpteenth time!), but this time with the "subs" switched on. I discovered some very interesting stuff!
If you haven't seen the film yet, be warned; I'm about to talk about the (*supposed) deaths of several prominent GI Joes. (*Let's not forget that
Stormie made a post-mortem comeback for 
Cobra! 
)
Before his unceremonious blasting,
Duke leads a mission into a nuclear facility. During the mission, he keeps talking to someone over the radio. According to the subs, that someone is... 
Shipwreck!
During the fight, Duke also calls out for another Joe, namely Clutch, to roll-up in their getaway vehicle.
After the battle, Duke tells a Joe to go and get a beer. Again, according to the subs, this very Joe is Shipwreck.
I played the whole scene back for myself from the moment the Joes hook up their lines before descending from their aircraft. Unless I'm mistaken, Shipwreck is the chap who moves between Duke and
Roadblock.
Hoping for more insight, I switched over to the Director's Commentary. I think that the chap playing Shipwreck is one of the men identified as a real-life soldier who was brought onto the film to heighten realism.
Later on, I looked on imdb to see if Shipwreck had a real name. I couldn't see one..., but I did see an actor listed for Clutch! His name is Jim Palmer. Now, I don't remember actually seeing him in the film, although I have heard of an extended cut on Blu-Ray, which as yet I haven't seen....
On imdb, I also saw...
Grunt! He was played by Ryan Hansen, who you may have spotted in the same scenes as Shipwreck.
Soon after Shipwreck goes for that fateful beer, the
Cobra Pilots show up. If you hit pause just as they step into the light above the well, you can see that their helmets are quite a similar shape to those on the original toys, but with a bifurcated chin-guard instead of a bandana across their jaws, and with a mounting bracket for a nightscope on the top.
Soon after, we discover that all but three of the Joes on that mission were killed; Duke, Shipwreck, Grunt, Clutch, and even little Mouse are all killed-off... (until some clever writer decides to bring any or all of them back!)... and those who remain are then off to meet 
Snake Eyes and 
Jinx.
Towards the end of the film, I was surprised to hear the "Russian Leader" (as he's called in the credits) say that it was possible to disarm a certain proportion of nuclear weapons by 2016. Indeed, the banners in the background state that the date of the film is 2012..., so much for (previous director) Stephen Sommer's time-frame of approximately 2024. I guess they dropped that idea for this film!
The revelation of all those major character deaths, (at least, they were major characters in the comics and cartoons!), got me wondereing if I'd missed anything from the first live-action film, Rise of Cobra. So I watched it again, too....
A few things leapt out at me; the man known as "Doctor", who eventually drops that identity in favour of
"Commander", mentions that he has created 20 Neo- 
Vipers, (only 19 are shown as the 20th is that guy in the Presidential Bunker later on), 20 of those dudes with the shiny, silver, mechanical looking helmets. In that case, who were those chaps attacking Duke's convoy at the beginning of the film? I rewound to that scene, and realised that these troopers wore darker helmets with features more skull-like than mechanical. Also, their chest-plates were smoother then the segmented armour of the Neo-Vipers.
These guys looked familiar! A quick rummage about, and soon I was comparing a Cobra Viper Commando action figure to the characters I'd freeze-framed and zoomed on the screen! So, these guys were Cobra's footsoldiers before the "Doctor" created the Neo-Vipers and wrested all remaining control of Cobra away from his opposite number; the leader of Cobra's public face (M.A.R.S. Industries), namely James " 
Destro" McCullen.
Later, I noticed that when Duke leapt aboard the Cobra Typhoon, the aircraft was being flown by two Neo-Vipers, and later still, the Cobra submarine, the Trident, was helmed by two more Neo-Vipers. Who controlled those vehicles before the Neo-Vipers were introduced? Perhaps the black-masked, Cyclops-like Elite Vipers seen in Cobra's Ice Base? Well, no. If you look earlier in the film when McCullen steps off the bridge of the Trident and gives his "NATO's fault!" speech, look past him; you can see two normal, everyday looking fellas at the helm, before they were replaced by (or turned into!) Neo-Vipers.
As for the Typhoon, the simplest thing would be to say either the Viper Commandos or
Baroness flew it, but I'd prefer to imagine it was 
Firefly, because A) he's the action figure that came with the toy of it, and B) because it strengthens his back-story with Cobra, rather than just having him turn up out of the blue at the start of the 2nd film.
Something else I couldn't believe I'd missed previously; when the Joes are busy getting arrested by the French police, for a few seconds we see them from Snake Eyes' point-of-view.... I never noticed his visor had a built-in Heads-Up-Display before!
So, have any of you chaps and lasses rewatched either of these films lately? Did you spot anything you'd missed previously? Let us know!
GOGGLEBOX SPACE COMMANDER
My hearing isn't all that great anymore, and quite often I'll watch a film with the subtitles switched on, but not simply the ENGLISH subtitles; I'll select ENGLISH FOR THE HEARING IMPAIRED. I'm not really deaf, but sometimes I can't place or identify a sound, so this helps because ENGLISH FOR THE HEARING IMPAIRED subtitles often identifies sound-effects for the viewer, as well as specifying who is doing the talking in each scene.
Recently, I was watching Retaliation (for the umpteenth time!), but this time with the "subs" switched on. I discovered some very interesting stuff!
If you haven't seen the film yet, be warned; I'm about to talk about the (*supposed) deaths of several prominent GI Joes. (*Let's not forget that
Stormie made a post-mortem comeback for Cobra! ) Before his unceremonious blasting,
Duke leads a mission into a nuclear facility. During the mission, he keeps talking to someone over the radio. According to the subs, that someone is... Shipwreck! During the fight, Duke also calls out for another Joe, namely Clutch, to roll-up in their getaway vehicle.
After the battle, Duke tells a Joe to go and get a beer. Again, according to the subs, this very Joe is Shipwreck.
I played the whole scene back for myself from the moment the Joes hook up their lines before descending from their aircraft. Unless I'm mistaken, Shipwreck is the chap who moves between Duke and
Roadblock. Hoping for more insight, I switched over to the Director's Commentary. I think that the chap playing Shipwreck is one of the men identified as a real-life soldier who was brought onto the film to heighten realism.
Later on, I looked on imdb to see if Shipwreck had a real name. I couldn't see one..., but I did see an actor listed for Clutch! His name is Jim Palmer. Now, I don't remember actually seeing him in the film, although I have heard of an extended cut on Blu-Ray, which as yet I haven't seen....
On imdb, I also saw...
Grunt! He was played by Ryan Hansen, who you may have spotted in the same scenes as Shipwreck. Soon after Shipwreck goes for that fateful beer, the
Cobra Pilots show up. If you hit pause just as they step into the light above the well, you can see that their helmets are quite a similar shape to those on the original toys, but with a bifurcated chin-guard instead of a bandana across their jaws, and with a mounting bracket for a nightscope on the top. Soon after, we discover that all but three of the Joes on that mission were killed;
Duke, Shipwreck, Grunt, Clutch, and even little Mouse are all killed-off... (until some clever writer decides to bring any or all of them back!)... and those who remain are then off to meet Snake Eyes and Jinx. Towards the end of the film, I was surprised to hear the "Russian Leader" (as he's called in the credits) say that it was possible to disarm a certain proportion of nuclear weapons by 2016. Indeed, the banners in the background state that the date of the film is 2012..., so much for (previous director) Stephen Sommer's time-frame of approximately 2024. I guess they dropped that idea for this film!
The revelation of all those major character deaths, (at least, they were major characters in the comics and cartoons!), got me wondereing if I'd missed anything from the first live-action film, Rise of Cobra. So I watched it again, too....
A few things leapt out at me; the man known as "Doctor", who eventually drops that identity in favour of
"Commander", mentions that he has created 20 Neo- Vipers, (only 19 are shown as the 20th is that guy in the Presidential Bunker later on), 20 of those dudes with the shiny, silver, mechanical looking helmets. In that case, who were those chaps attacking Duke's convoy at the beginning of the film? I rewound to that scene, and realised that these troopers wore darker helmets with features more skull-like than mechanical. Also, their chest-plates were smoother then the segmented armour of the Neo-Vipers. These guys looked familiar! A quick rummage about, and soon I was comparing a Cobra Viper Commando action figure to the characters I'd freeze-framed and zoomed on the screen! So, these guys were
Cobra's footsoldiers before the "Doctor" created the Neo-Vipers and wrested all remaining control of Cobra away from his opposite number; the leader of Cobra's public face (M.A.R.S. Industries), namely James " Destro" McCullen. Later, I noticed that when Duke leapt aboard the Cobra Typhoon, the aircraft was being flown by two Neo-Vipers, and later still, the Cobra submarine, the Trident, was helmed by two more Neo-Vipers. Who controlled those vehicles before the Neo-Vipers were introduced? Perhaps the black-masked, Cyclops-like Elite Vipers seen in Cobra's Ice Base? Well, no. If you look earlier in the film when McCullen steps off the bridge of the Trident and gives his "NATO's fault!" speech, look past him; you can see two normal, everyday looking fellas at the helm, before they were replaced by (or turned into!) Neo-Vipers.
As for the Typhoon, the simplest thing would be to say either the Viper Commandos or
Baroness flew it, but I'd prefer to imagine it was Firefly, because A) he's the action figure that came with the toy of it, and B) because it strengthens his back-story with Cobra, rather than just having him turn up out of the blue at the start of the 2nd film. Something else I couldn't believe I'd missed previously; when the Joes are busy getting arrested by the French police, for a few seconds we see them from
Snake Eyes' point-of-view.... I never noticed his visor had a built-in Heads-Up-Display before! So, have any of you chaps and lasses rewatched either of these films lately? Did you spot anything you'd missed previously? Let us know!
GOGGLEBOX SPACE COMMANDER
Scarlett targets one of the Commandos in the eye, but the helmet which appears on her tiny screen, (no doubt added into the shot many months later by the special effect crew), is really that of a Neo-Viper..., I think. They're very similar! 
"Duke wasn't born; he was Government Issued!" 
era figures display much better acting ability & can portray much more convincing emotions, in one diorama, than he produced in the entire movie.