Here’s a few tidbits about some of the stuff you may not have seen in either of the trailers but can look forward to when the movie comes out:
After the new trailer was shown during the CinemaCon presentation, they cut to a quieter scene between Duke and Roadblock, the calm before the storm, as Duke is taking aim at a cupcake with a lit candle in the distance, and we get a better idea of the friendship through their interaction as Roadblock tries to distract Duke’s shot. It works and Duke ends up shooting and missing, but then it’s Roadblock’s turn and he pulls out his trademark gatling gun and obliterates the cupcake. We then watch the attack by Cobra, while Roadblock and two other Joes (presumably Flint and Lady Jaye) hide down a well as Cobra soldiers fire down at them and bullets whiz by. Later, they use each other to climb back up the well only to find the entire base demolished.
As you may remember from G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Zartan has disguised himself as the President and taken over the White House and as seen in the trailer, he has named Cobra the government’s new security force as Cobra flags unfold on the White House. The trailer shows Zartan cutting his face and it reforming, but we also saw a longer interaction between Jonathan Pryce as the President and Pryce as Zartan, as well as the latter standing before other world leaders in order to try to sell them a powerful satellite “advance weapons system,” something he shows off by essentially destroying London – which is something you can see in the trailer. In the extended footage, after London is razed, it cuts back to Firefly and Storm Shadow watching this with Cobra Commander who utters in his deep menacing voice, “Soon, the whole world will know the power of Cobra. London is just the beginning.” Great stuff that’s so in line with the G.I. Joe cartoons and comics.
In some of the footage only shown to press, we got to see more of the lead-up to the attack on the base by Ray Stevenson’s Firefly, who has a gun filled with little electronic fireflies with miniature cameras that are sent ahead to infiltrate the base. There’s actual a little more to them than just the brief moment Roadblock notices one of them before the Cobra invasion of the Joe base.
One thing you haven’t seen in either trailer but we got to see was our first glimpse of RZA as Blind Master, who tells Snake Eyes that if Storm Shadow is still alive, he needs to bring him to justice, and we got to watch a little more of the face-off between them, the latter’s throwing stars vs. the former’s bullets, which actually made it into the international trailer while only seeing a brief glimpse in the domestic one.
During the press sizzle reel, we got to watch a less chopped-up version of the mountain zipline set piece that has been the highlight of the last couple of trailers as Snake Eyes and Elodie Yung’s Jinx in yellow leap off a cliff on ziplines to face a bunch of red ninjas. The non-trailer version included a great reveal as Jinx takes off her mask and her hair whips down just as Snake Eyes shoots up and brings an avalanche down on their enemies. It looks great in the trailer but it looks even better in its actual un-cut-up form.
During the Paramount presentation, we got to see more of Bruce Willis as General Joe Colton, telling Roadblock that he’s been prevented from being reinstated “but they didn’t say anything about reenlisting.” We also got to see some of Flint in action using his parkour and more interaction between him and Roadblock, most notably in one scene as they’re getting ready to move out, and Flint says something like “Drive it like you stole it” and Roadblock tells him, “As your good friend, you need a new catchphrase.” Really funny stuff that didn’t make it into the trailer. There’s also a great moment in which Roadblock tells Colton they’d make a “helluva team,” which would have been great in the trailer but somehow didn’t make the cut.
One thing that was pretty cool about the two non-trailer sizzle reels we were shown was that halfway through each of them, they kicked in with an amazing instrumental version of the White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army.” It worked so well to drive the action we were surprised it wasn’t used for the domestic trailer, although it did make it to the international trailer, so you can see how well the music works.
Either way, the footage was received really well by the exhibitors at the Opening Night ceremonies, and it’s pretty amazing that director Jon Chu has put so much cool stuff in this movie that they were able to literally cut together five completely different presentations of the material for different audiences.
Below you can watch a couple of brief interviews we did with director Jon Chu and producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura before the CinemaCon presentation and look for a couple of slightly longer sit-down interviews we did with Dwayne Johnson, Chu and others very soon.
G.I. Joe: Retaliation opens everywhere on June 29.
