What follows is a G.I. Joe 2 excerpt of the interview.
THE DEADBOLT: With G.I. Joe 2, how will you approach it to maximize the potential of that project?
CHU: Well, for Joe, I grew up playing with G.I. Joes and watching Joe and reading the comics of Joe. It means so much to me. To me, it’s one of the few brands that has a soul, a multi-generational soul, where it’s about what it means to be a leader in the community, in your home, with your friends, and what it means to be a leader and a hero. I think that’s an important message right now in the world when everyone’s kind of questioning what it means to be the leader of the world.
I think it’s not just another action movie. Maybe the first one was that, but we’re really trying to break it down and take the shine off and show that my Joes were the ones in the mud, the sand and the trees and in the epic worldwide adventures. Each one had individual talents. So we really want to bring the experience of what I grew up with playing with these toys. What it feels like so that kids now can be reintroduced to the Joes and experience it in a different way. This is like down and dirty Joe for me.
THE DEADBOLT: I also have a G.I. Joe question as related to LXD. I’ve been reading online that some people think that because you have a dance background, you won’t be able to handle the action. But given how you handled certain action in LXD in such a unique manner, that kind of goes against what they think. How do you see it?
CHU: I mean, I can’t ever change what people think. Throughout my whole life it’s been, “Oh, how can this guy who’s not a dancer do a dance movie? How can this guy who has never done a movie do a movie? How can this guy who has never done 3D do a 3D dance movie? Isn’t that cheeseball? How can this guy who has never done a documentary do a documentary? How can a Justin Bieber concert movie not be a concert movie? And how can it actually be successful when Jonas and all of those others have fallen?” Every step of the way, it’s always been that. But even the message in Never Say Never is [how] we like to be the underdog. It gives us something to work for.
To me, I hope it’s always like this in my life to where I always need to be pushed, because it always makes me better. But yeah, I’ve worked with choreographers before and of course it’s very different. It’s dance and dance has a rhythm. Dance has a movement and all of this stuff. But what I love is that movement can tell stories, whether it’s John Wayne on the porch leaning against that pole or Cyd Charisse taking off her jacket. Any movement can communicate what a paragraph can never communicate. Movement is a big part of visual story telling.
In action, obviously it’s different, you’re doing a bunch of stuff. But the best action is action that’s telling your story, action that’s actually evolving your character. To me, I have a big challenge ahead of me. I want to do a really kick-ass movie, action that’s fun, big, crazy. But at the same time, at it’s core, the action is telling an emotional story about our heroes. I think that my experience with LXD and the experiments of LXD only help prepare me for the mini-things I want to tell within the action.
Have people really seen LXD? I don’t know. That’s why I’m excited for the DVD to come out so a lot more people can be exposed to it. But I just let my work speak for itself. When it comes out, I hope people enjoy it as much as I’ve enjoyed creating the stuff, because it’s really, really fun. That’s all movies are about really. For me, it is to be able to experience a story - a fantasy with a group of friends, your family, a date - and go home and talk about it and let it inform your life and bring joy to your life. I think that’s what all of my projects have in common, that they try to do that.