Well, the only thing i can say about this really, is that i absolutely loved the cartoon as a kid. Totally. I was blown away by them. I still remember, to this day, the feeling i had after watching the first episode i ever saw (the one with radioactive Snake-Eyes): i was utterly exhilarated, and i rushed from the television to my parents to tell them about this great new cartoon i just saw, which i never did for any other television show.

Even years after seeing my last episode, i remembered a lot of the storylines, like the one from that first miniseries, and the episode where a Joe (Shipwreck ?) was captured and placed into a fake town with fake people that all melted in the end. And The Viper is Coming. And the one with the female Strato-Viper.

So i had absolutely no problems with all the odd stuff in them, like the mind controlled arena fights, and all the weird monsters employed by Cobra, and everybody flying a Skystriker (did anyone really have a problem with that last bit ? As a kid ? Seriously ? Kids cared about stuff like that ? Mindboggling.).

And today ? I recently purchased a few second-hand (third-hand, fourth-hand ?) GIJoe video tapes (you know, the stuff from before DVDs were around). And sure, the ridiculousness of it all clashed somewhat with my memories. But hey, it's a cartoon, i can live with ridiculous. I also bought a DVD with The Movie on it. Watched it for the first time since i saw it on TV those many years ago. And quite honestly, i didn't like it anymore (i did back then). It was bad, real bad. Then i watched it a second time, and it's kind of growing on me. I rather love seeing my toys come alive on the screen.

I think a lot of this can be thought about in terms of the eternal divide between GIJoe cartoon fans and comic fans. Personally, i'm a fan of both, but on all Joe forums it's quite clear that most GIJoe fans have picked a side. It sounds to me that those of you that are put off by the level of strangeness in the cartoons, are really expecting to see the (definitely more realistic) comic in animation (or the toys, which are more closely linked with the comic than with the cartoon). Which just simply isn't the case for the eighties cartoon, but might be so for Resolute.