Trivia / G.I. Joe: The Movie

• Celebrity Voice Actor:
  • Lt. Falcon is voiced by veteran actor/singer/director Don Johnson.
  • Golobulus is voiced by Burgess Meredith. Oddly enough, he was the narrator of the 1945 film The Story of G.I. Joe.
• Deleted Scenes: As with Transformers: The Movie, the end credits list characters that don't speak in the film, with some not even appearing, hinting at scenes that didn't make the final cut. These included...
  • Pythona's encounter with the Cobra guards is a bit more violent, and it's heavily implied that she murdered them.
  • Jinx attempts to stop Serpentor's escape, getting in the way of the Thunder Machine, only to be shoved out of the way by Falcon.
  • A scene in which the Cobra characters interact with the citizens of Cobra-La, with Tomax and Xamot planning to take advantage of their ignorance of economics by selling digital watches, with a line from Shipwreck indicating they pulled it off.
  • An extended trial for Falcon.
  • A scene with Jinx, Tunnel Rat, Big Lob, Law and Order, and Chuckles visiting Gung-Ho, Alpine, and Bazooka in the hospital.
  • Falcon fighting a Motor-Viper, and is hinted to have killed him.
  • Hector Ramirez reporting on the spores.
  • A pair of unnamed scientists (voiced by Peter Cullen and Vereen Watson-Johnson) noticing the launch of Cobra-La's spore rockets.
  • Sgt. Slaughter, Falcon, and the Renegades running away from Cobra Troops to make it to the B.E.T.'s hiding place.
  • As proof of how far the death of Duke got, his funeral was scripted and even storyboarded.
  • Wetsuit and Leatherneck setting up bombs to blast their way into Cobra-La while swapping insults.
  • A scene that was cut due to the backlash against the characters deaths in the Transformers movie, after the vine tree that has trapped all of the Joes is destroyed they all fall to the ground... and don't get up at first. This leads the Flint, Lifeline, Iceberg, and the rookies to believe they've all perished, only for the Joes to slowly get up.
  • An extended reunion with Flint and Lady Jaye, which is simply silent in the final movie.
• Executive Meddling: The name "Cobra-La" was intended as a placeholder name by the writers until they could think of a better name, but Hasbro loved the name and forced them to keep it. Comic writer Larry Hama, however, hated the concept, refused to write a single Cobra-La story for over twenty years, and openly reassured readers of the comic in the letters page he would never include Cobra-La. Hama finally relented for a commemorative Cobra-La figure release with the packaging even advertising it as "The first Cobra-La story written by Larry Hama!"
  • Duke was originally supposed to die in the film, and the scene was scripted and filmed as such. This was when G.I. Joe: The Movie was first on the slate of the three Sunbow films to be released. However, due to scheduling conflicts, it was pushed back, and Hasbro liked (AT THAT TIME, it must be stressed) the edginess of Duke being Killed Off for Real — this was around the time when Robotech had been among the first to show actual death in a (ostensibly) kid's show with Roy Focker being killed off — and demanded the writing staff of Transformers: The Movie to do the same to Optimus Prime. And as it happened, Transformers: The Movie was released first. The reaction was, to say the least, not the one the execs were expecting from six-year-olds and their parents and suddenly demanded last-minute voice-over inserts to establish that Duke had lived (and the resurrection of Optimus Prime in the two-part third season finale of The Transformers). The voice inserts are painfully obvious; mute the sound at the right moments, and you get the death scene it originally was.
    • This is lampshaded six-ways from Sunday by Buzz Dixon, the movie's head writer, in his commentary track on the Blu-Ray disc. During Duke's "coma" scene, he quotes, at length, verbatim and hilariously deadpan, John Cleese's legendary monologue from the "Dead Parrot" sketch, replacing "Joe" for "Parrot" each time.
• Fake Brit: Kristoffer Tabori voices Mercer with a British accent.
• Fake Nationality: American actors Earl Boen and Poncie Ponce respectively affect Turkish and Samoan accents as Taurus and Red Dog.
• Hey, It's That Sound!: In one sequence, Serpentor's Air Chariot uses the sound effects of Darth Vader's TIE Fighter (you can even hear Vader's breathing!).
• The Other Darrin:
  • Despite still being dubbed in the same city and studio, (Los Angeles, CA at Magnum Studios), the Latin American Spanish dub changed the entire voice cast from the TV series, with the sole, odd exception of Gloria Gonzalez as both the Baroness and Lady Jaye. Oddly enough, some voice actors from the TV series now voice different roles in the movie, like Alejandro Abdallah, who previously voiced General Hawk and Roadblock, now voice Golopulus here.
  • The same goes with the Japanese dub, who also did the same. And, like Latin America, some voice actors who voiced roles in the TV series now does others in the film, like Mami Koyama, who voiced Scarlett, now voiced Jinx instead, and Shōzō Iizuka, who voiced Snow Job in the TV series, voiced the Big Bad Golopulus instead.
• Surprisingly Lenient Censor: At one point, Lt. Falcon slaps Jinx's rear just offscreen, causing her to hit her head on a H.A.V.O.C.'s maintenance hatch, then asks if he can kiss it, and make it better. Buzz Dixon says on the DVD's commentary that he can't believe they got away with that one.
• Troubled Production: Though hard to notice, the voice actors did all their lines without much, if any, interaction with each other.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Before the movie was conceived, Buzz Dixon planned an episode, "The Most Dangerous Man In The World", that detailed very different origins for Cobra — Cobra stops all its plots to go after one man, the creator of Cobra's political philosophy, who was about to publish a paper discrediting said philosophy in favor of a newer one. Hasbro's plans to introduce Serpentor derailed this episode; Dixon eventually released it as an E-book.
  • In earlier drafts, Lt. Falcon was either the brother or son (accounts vary) of General Hawk, hence the avian motif in their codenames. According to Buzz Dixon, it was changed because at some point someone realized how bad it'd look if the general was covering for his son. Thus, they changed it to make Falcon Duke's brother.
  • The scene where Heather was revealed to be Zarana in disguise was originally going to have Zarana be topless (viewed from behind, of course). Hasbro got cold feet and changed it so that she wore a swimsuit that covered her entire torso.
  • When the film first began production, the movie's iconic Statue of Liberty opening battle was going to be the climax, meant to be the final battle while Rawhides and the Renegades fight Cobra-La. The context of the battle was eventually revealed in the E-book mentioned above.
  • In the original script, a printable copy of which was included on the Shout DVD release, Serpentor was supposed to get killed during the final battle by Lt. Falcon in revenge for his murder of Duke.
  • Also in said script, Enforcer was meant to fight Snake-Eyes in the final battle; however, due to executive meddling behind the scenes, they changed targets and had Enforcer battle Slaughter instead.