After 2013’s G.I. Joe Retaliation, all of your favourite Joe and Cobra toys got put back in a box. Eight years later, just a few are coming back out in the hopes that when the rest follow, it’ll be for the long haul. Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins opens this weekend and, in anticipation, held the opening panel at Comic-Con @ Home 2021.
Several stars from the movie, including Snake Eyes himself, Henry Golding, Andrew Koji (Storm Shadow), Samara Weaving (Scarlett), and others hopped on YouTube to talk about the film and announce fan-only screenings of the film two days early.
“Of course the action,” Golding said when asked what he was excited for fans to see in the film. “[Also] the creation of that iconic relationship between Snake and Storm Shadow but also the launching of this entire franchise.” Speaking about that relationship between the two warriors, G.I. Joe comic book writer Larry Hama explained how this movie compliments the work he did decades ago. “[The film] gives you a deeper sense of who both of these characters are because they’re both two sides of the same coin,” he said. But also, “[It shows] a new dimension of the [Snake Eyes] character that couldn’t exist when he was faceless and voiceless.”
Exactly. Most people know Snake Eyes from the comics, TV shows, and previous movies as a faceless, often brusque character, but this film will begin to explore how he gets to that point. That means it focuses mostly on his story, with only a few G.I. Joes snuck in. The main one among them is Scarlett, played by Weaving. When asked what it was like to be the G.I. Joe representative in this story, she said it was “very nerve-wracking, very exciting, very daunting, but ultimately very, very cool.”
And ultimately, that’s what fans are going to want out of this movie.
Watch the full panel (which, honestly, is very well-produced, which bodes well for the rest of Comic-Con @Home 2021) below.
Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins is now showing in Australian cinemas. Read our interview with the two stars here and check back Thursday for our review.