So according to Deadline, Paramount pushed GI Joe into 2013 so they could reshoot a buttload of stuff and basically change the movie so that Channing Tatem's "duke" character doesn't die at the beginning. This, obviously, means that they'll have to shoe-horn his character into the movie somehow, and will probably require quite a bit of reshooting to pull off.

The reason they decided to do this was because the lack of Duke was one of the major complaints from their test audiences, who rated the film "mediocre to bad". I shall extrapolate a bit based on this information, but go with me on this for a minute. This leads me to believe that they had quite a lot of people in their test audiences who are - think about this, now - apparently fans of the first movie. So they're taking advice from the sort of people who liked the first movie on how to make the second movie. Further, those same people thought the new film was 'bad', but bad in what sense? I personally know people who loved GI Joe, and most of them don't like movies like Die Hard, Alien, Children of Men or Ronin, but love the shit out of the Transformers films, Battleship, Alien vs Predator and Boondock Saints (both one and two...).

So my theory right now is that this Chu fellow may have actually made a pretty decent flick, but the people going to the test screening didn't like it for any number of reasons, though one of the major reasons was the death of a major character early in the film which apparently got a significant number of complaints. I am now hoping like crazy that they release both versions on the DVD / Bluray so I can see if I'm right about this. My theory is that the film as it is now is probably pretty good, but the resulting clusterfuck of a reshoot / re-edit will turn the film into a pile of incomprehensible garbage.

Totally unrelated bit of fluff from some guy on reddit who apparently watched all the Tarantino films recently:

"As it turns out, Donny Donowitz, ‘The Bear Jew’, is the father of movie producer Lee Donowitz from True Romance – which means that, in Tarantino’s universe, everybody grew up learning about how a bunch of commando Jews machine gunned Hitler to death in a burning movie theater, as opposed to quietly killing himself in a bunker."

If we're considering films written by tarantino as well, then Natural Born Killers probably fits in there somewhere as well.

The guy basically says that even tarantino's "movies the people from pulp fiction watch" are also in-cannon with the other films because they're either A) films that are dramatized versions of reality or B) are films made by the characters in his other films. IE, that Kill Bill isn't just a movie starring Uma Thurman as "The Bride", it's a movie starring Uma Thurman as Mia Wallace as "The Bride", and that Inglorious Basterds is most likely a film produced or directed by a guy about his father's involvement in the plot to kill Hitler. The Bear Jew is the one that shoots the fuck out of Hitler, after all.

I'm totally on-board with the idea that Tarantino has been sandbagging us for decades and will eventually release a masterpiece of insanity that ties his whole universe together.

I'm reminded of the story of the test screening of Flash Gordon. The audience, part way in, came to the conclusion they were watching an intentional comedy and began laughing hysterically. Unfortunately, the director was there, and after talking to the audience every line that brought laughter was removed. Thus, greatness was prevented.

Sounds like what they decided to do with the continuity in the Macross anime. The two TV series, Macross and Macross 7, plus the Macross Plus OAV were said to be "reality". The Macross movie, well that's a movie in that universe telling a fictional tale of the real events of the first TV series. And the Macross II show nobody liked? That's just some piece of fiction from that world

Put a camera on their front door, just to see how often it's NOT him

There's an outbreak of Legionnaires Disease in Edinburgh right now! A man has already died, this is quite worrying :@

I don't really think that's how the disease works, but thanks for the concern......

And points for the QI reference

I don't live in Edinburgh, but I have friends and family that do, so my worrying is justified

I didn't think there was going to be an pandemic or anything

Whats the new job Jimmy? Congrats these are trying times 

I've got a mate who works in Argos.

...that's all I have to say that's relevant.

Really? That's a bit odd. I can see the director doing a comm for the trailer, talking about how his film was advertised but the lead actress? That's a strange one.

And that Bruce Willis photo above is quite creepy......