GI JOE: RESOLUTE – Episode 9 and 10
April 24th, 2009 | Work, people I know
The next two episodes are up on Adult Swim as high-quality flv, and have been YouTubed at (nine) and (ten).
FAQ: why do so many “important” GI JOE characters have little or no dialogue? Simple. Budget. Voice actors cost money. I originally wrote WAY too many speaking roles, and had to remove a bunch of them in the second draft of RESOLUTE, move some dialogue from excised characters to remaining characters, and so on. We could only support so many speaking roles. So some of your favourites didn’t get a line.
is the award-winning creator of graphic novels such as 
HOLY FLIRKING SCHNITT!!!!!!
9 & 10 are beyond fantastic. way to go!
… and really, I would have paid money to have a speaking role. see? budget crisis averted.
Scarlett picks Duke over Snake Eyes?! Come on Ellis!
this is what my early years sitting in from of the TV should have been filled with. I know you had to be “introduced” to the Joe’s but you have done a great service….now if we could only see a cameo of Spider Jerusalem………i would crap my knickers…….
Thanks….
I thought that episode 10 was the final, and that it was 10 minutes long. The adult swim isn’t, and it leaves off in the middle of things.
I know right? I mean this version of Duke is pretty badass but still
you don’t take Duke over SE!
SE just had a sword go through his hand and he couldn’t even scream in pain (not that he would) so can a ninja get a little love?
Thank you, thank you for creating a treatment to a franchise in the way I always saw it. This is outstanding stuff, I really hope it goes over well (and i cant see it not…)
this needs to be turned into a full ongoing series. NEEDS to be.
Oh, and by the way, could you somehow go back in time and rewrite the transformers live action movie? that piece of childish and poorly written crap was such a disappointment.
Thank you again for what you’ve done with GI Joe
-james
Hey, Destro has speaking bits, he was always my favorite. Plus he actually sounds Scottish, so, bonus points.
OMG,so THATS why you didnt give Snake-Eyes any dialogue! Cheap bastards…seriously though,this is GI JOE the way it always should have been. I wish this had been turned into a series or that you had been hired to script the live-action movie thats coming out this summer. Its amazing to me that you were not aquainted with the property and were able to do it justice so well.
I’m assuming that Scarlett’s dying alongside Duke was more of a militaristic honor than a romantic inclination, given what she snidely comments to Ripcord (”I love you… not you, you big jerk”). If we leave it as such, it leaves the viewer with ambiguity regarding the whole Scarlett/ Snake-Eyes/ Duke ordeal. And I don’t think Mr. Ellis would disappoint.
Snake-Eyes for the win, hopefully.
What astounds me is that the series caught my attention in the first place, especially since I didn’t grow up with GI Joe. It aired in Canada, sure, but all I remember was Cobra Commander screaming like someone’s chain-smoking grandma and owning a Destro toy. But, I didn’t know or care about who everyone was or even what the premise was aside from “Yay America, boo to those guys.” Resolute, meanwhile, managed to hold my attention, and hold it well. Let’s hope the conclusion is just as fun.
I like that they dont talk much, given the background of the whole series you kind of have to figure that they would be PTSD’ing out of their minds by now, it fits with theme of this whole thing.
This is going to be something of a long comment, so I apologize in advance.
Let me first say that I am not a fan of G.I. Joe, so that does color my opinions differently than those who came into this series with fond memories. I was the right age to grow up with the show, but I didn’t like it then, and I’m definitely not the right demographic to like the older series now. What I did love as a kid was Mobile Suit Gundam. Having a friend whose parents were from Japan, and whose father was a major Gundam nut helped get the older, 1979 series to me about fifteen years before it started airing here. Compared to the older G.I. Joe, it dealt with war in more gray terms, and more applicable to me when I was a child, it put even the major characters in real danger, which was exciting in ways that the cartoons here just weren’t reaching at that time (with a exceptions, such as the Transformers movie).
So imagine my surprise when this new GI Joe series caught my attention, and seems to take a page out of Gundam’s book. There are still a few barriers that prevent me from really getting into it, but in general, I’d have to say this is a very refreshing move in the right direction. I’ve watched through the ten available episodes, and I was entertained throughout.
I think the things that I didn’t enjoy are probably the sorts of things that stem from not being a long-time fan of the show. Some of the more cartoonish character designs and accents clashed with the grittier approach for me, and the “seven steps to the sun” subplot was, I felt, a bit too derivative of that common kung-fu theme most recently seen in Kill Bill’s Five-Point-Palm-Exploding-Heart-Technique. Yeah, I know it’s kind of silly to criticize cartoonish design and over-the-top accents in a cartoon that has carried these characters for decades, and really I’m not being genuinely critical of it. I can easily admit that those are elements that just aren’t to my personal tastes.
So I guess as a writer myself, I have to wonder: How much freedom did you have in adapting the characters and backstory to a grittier context, and how much was laid out for you? I imagine you probably weren’t interested in completely changing characters, since first and foremost you want to retain what fans of the series know and love about it, but there are certain characters that behave much as they always have, and some that have taken new directions. For example, in Cobra Commander’s speech to his troops, I could definitely hear a bit of explaining to try explain away his old silliness, while some of the “Joe’s” still seemed very much wrapped up in their old personas. Were there many changes that you wanted, that Hasbro wouldn’t allow? I understand that can be a hard question to answer, especially since it can be seen as clashing with your employer, so if it’s something you’re unable to go into, I certainly couldn’t fault you for that.
Overall: Good work, I’ve enjoyed it, and I will definitely watch the finale.
GI Joe: New Resolut(e)ion…
The final 6 “episodes” of Adult Swim’s GI Joe: Resolute, written by Warren Ellis, are now all online; both at AdultSwim.com and for those outside the US, on YouTube…
For convenience I’ve posted all 6 below episodes below …
Just caught the full airing on Adult Swim. It was freaking sweet!
However, I do agree with Rory–it should definitely be Scarlett & Snake Eyes.
[...] http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=7233 [...]
Great episodes, my two cents: it is obvious that Scarlett and Duke had to be the team couple, they match perfectly and besides its complicated to develope the Snake eyes and Scarlett stuff in short time I mean its easier that she chooses Duke and leave Snake eyes because he is supose to be alone, and Duke is the all american hero he he has to win even the girl.
Speaking of voices, it wasn’t until the end that I realized Charles Adler – who I knew did a few voices in this – was Cobra Commander. Now all I can think of is Tiny Toons’ Buster Bunny becoming a terrorist leader. Bwahaha. :D
As a Canadian — and I am assuming any other country other than the US — AdultSwim.com will not let me watch this, so when are you going to get it on something that Canadian or the rest of the world can watch?!
Oh my god.
Okay.
1) The YouTube links are there for those people, like me, would couldn’t see it on AdultSwim. They’re right there in the post above us.
2) The whole thing was screened on Canadian television some days ago. As stated here.
3) I just wrote it, over a year ago, and have no power to put it anywhere. Fairly obviously.