GI JOE: Renegades –
Pilot Episodes - 01, 02
If you're a fan of the old school GI JOE comics, cartoons and old source material, then you may not like the changes to the lore in this series...and it comes abound...these changes!
Fans who found the movie lacking that Stephen Sommers made may also find that this is a repeat offender to some extent...and it's understandable.
'THE HUB' gives this series a chance to compliment its 'TRANSFORMERS: Prime' and I must admit that I did expect better from Jeff Kline's production team on this animation front!
Created by Whitney Chapman and Matt Meeks, many expected a hard hitting series along the lines of the recent GI JOE: Resolute!
'Resolute' did stray from old lore, but was an hour's worth of hard hitting action, killing and fighting that would appease those who thought the Sommers' film bombed...and on the heels of Resolute, and a wicked cool teaser shown at COMIC-CON, many expected a brilliant pilot.
Sad to say, this series, while not like TRANSFORMERS: Prime, who stuck too much to a film (s) but still managed to make its own storyline, gave us a GI JOE that again resembled the movie in that it just didn't utilize its change from lore to make an appealing effort to me. It has bits of potential...but that's it...just bits...
It's all about Duke (nicely voiced by James Marsden) and Scarlett, and their rogue team trying to bring COBRA to justice after the evil entity framed the heroes. It's nice to mention that COBRA is a corporate entity in the worldwide market of pharmaceuticals, secret experiments and weapons defense - that somehow managed to pull the wool over all military eyes...a nice spin...but one that isn't done too solidly here.
Scarlett's reasonings for assembling this team of JOES is muddled and the way in which they go about their extraction mission is such a fumbled step in the dark, it's not hard to believe the ramifications (although RISE OF COBRA film haters may feel justified by the continuous slashing of a certain beloved JOE, and may see this as an attempt to kill off residue from the aberrational Ripcord in RISE OF COBRA!).
As the team tries to prove COBRA as criminals, things take a turn for the worse and our heroes end up taking a huge fall at the hands of experiments done by a young, rash, annoying Mindbender! Fans may not take well to this guy at all.
While the JOES stick to a small unit of Duke, Scarlett, Roadblock, Tunnel Rat (who is very entertaining with his quippy disposition), it's nice to have a small roster to work with and expand upon...and this seems to be the mode for COBRA as well as we only meet Mindbender and Baroness in her usual slithery roles.
We are teased with DESTRO AND COMMANDER as well to come...and with Lady Jaye, Flint, and a somewhat trite version of Hawk, in the mix...I'm sure the introduction of some familiar faces over the next few episodes can inject a much needed fusion of life and old-school GI JOE to give this series the boost it badly needs.
The voice cast consists of Charlie Adler, Lee Majors, Clancy Brown, Khary Payton, Kevin Richardson and Johnny Messner...so it's decent, but sad to say, the plot needs some improving if this isn't to fall into the category of another GI JOE iteration that simply wasn't up to standard...or didn't meet our expectations. It's disappointing to say that this series is too akin to A-TEAM and yet still doesn't hit the poignant note that the producers and fans like myself thought it would...there's a lot of room for bettering this show if it's to strike us hard! After all...I was a huge fan of RESOLUTE and I strongly believe that Renegades is miles behind on the GI JOE Richter scale...After all, they can't expect the always-awesome Snake Eyes to keep saving their shows, can they...and with the poorly drawn Storm Shadow lurking, it seems that not even this awesome ninja Snake Eyes can salvage a potential wreck like this...Please God...let them improve this show for Christmas...
Rating = 5.5/10