As promised in the newly released first trailer, Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins does what no G.I. Joe movie has done before: show the adult Joe’s unmasked face and have him speak. Consider it then Snake Eyes Begins, as the story explores how this (so far unnamed) man became the silent, masked ninja fans of the G.I. Joe franchise have loved for four decades.
Henry Golding, the actor playing the Joe behind the mask, told IGN during a one-on-one Zoom call last week that Snake Eyes will pay homage to different elements of the character’s history across multiple media. As seen in the trailer, Golding’s Snake Eyes wields not only swords but an Uzi submachine gun at one point, a nod to the character’s 1980s comic book roots. “Paying homage to all eras of any IP is so important because you would not be where you are without it,” Golding said, citing the participation of Snake Eyes creator and G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero comics author Larry Hama as one of the movie’s Executive Producers.
“Having Larry Hama onboard as Exec Producer gave us the ability to have that creative license, to work with him and come up with something that he would be proud of,” Golding said, adding that Hama told him “he was restricted in the way that he could tell the story in some respects [when he was writing the original comics]. And so, he had to bend to the societal norms of this character has to be of this [ethnic] descent,” said Golding, a Malaysian-British actor, acknowledging the alteration of the traditionally white character to be of Asian descent. “For Larry now it’s just like, man, we can get away with so much now. And so, building a true backstory that new fans and old fans can get on board with was so important for us.”
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In the original Marvel comics, what Snake Eyes looked like without his mask was generally only hinted at with either flashbacks to his wartime experiences or shadowy glimpses of his life after his vocal cords were permanently damaged and his face disfigured in an explosion. Larry Hama eventually fully revealed Snake Eyes’ face in G.I. Joe #94. Now, Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins will give us an entire movie and backstory featuring an unmasked and verbal Snake Eyes. But with any story that attempts to explain such an enigmatic character, there’s the risk of demystifying them too much. Golding sees this creative choice as integral to “giving complexity to such an iconic character.”
“Let’s just say he wasn’t born with a mask. There’s always a beginning,” Golding said. “And the importance for giving complexity to such an iconic character, I think drove us to be able to allow him to express himself because I don’t think we were able to see that in the comic books. We weren’t able to understand the hardships that got him to be who he is, the decisions that were made, the hurdles that had to be overcome, the wrong, the right. And we see all of that within this, [film] because perhaps he isn’t the best of guys in the beginning, perhaps his motivations aren’t true. But what he goes through with the Arashikage [Clan] perhaps puts him back on the right track.”
Snake Eyes the movie actually begins in Los Angeles, a surprising storytelling choice for a character known for his time training in Japan or living in solitude in the Sierra Nevada mountains. While he wouldn’t divulge the exact reasons why Snake Eyes is in L.A., he did acknowledge that it helps address why his character has an indistinct accent rather than an American one as some comics readers might expect him to have: “He’s moved around a tremendous amount, and I think it’s non-distinct in where he’s from, what his kind of background is. I don’t want to give away too much, but we see flashes of his life before. And so, we need to understand that this guy has been underground, this guy’s been around.”
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Golding added that the Robert Schwentke-directed movie will see Snake Eyes forge relationships with both Storm Shadow (Andrew Koji) and Scarlett (Samara Weaving), but that the character is a lone wolf with no attachments when the movie begins. “The only relationship that Snake Eyes, when we pick up with him, is his own. He is a complete loner. He’s been on his own for the majority of his life, up until the point where we pick them up in the movie. And so, his motivations, his goals are solely for himself,” Golding explained.
“He has to survive off his own back, and I think that’s the resilience of Snake Eyes. So he comes from this hardship, but with the proper guidance, the proper training, and the proper motivations. So he always goes back to the word of like, what are your motivations in life? What were the motivations for Snake Eyes in the beginning of the movie? What are they in the middle of the movie? And then what do we see them become at the end of the movie? That’s the story. That’s what [we] want to know. What did he do to become who he is? I think that’s the joy of this film. We really get to be able to kind of focus in on the important aspects.”
Golding also said Snake Eyes will live up to the “G.I. Joe Origins” part of its title as the movie explores “the relationships that blossom through his journey to Japan, through learning about the Joes.”
“I can definitely say Scarlett acts as the agent between the Arashikage and the Joes, and there is a preexisting relationship between the two. Cobra plays a fairly large part in the bigger picture of this, of this movie, especially,“ Golding said. “You need an entire movie to be able to explain the complexities and the relationship between Cobra and GI Joe. This isn’t the movie it’s concentrating on … This movie concentrates on this one particular character, and of course the handful of others that are in close proximity to him, like Storm Shadow and the rest of the Arashikage. So I can’t thoroughly answer your question of the percentage, but know that it plays a huge part in this movie. And of course, this is the kickoff to the rest of the G.I. Joe universe. So if we didn’t leave more for you to yearn for, we wouldn’t be good storytellers.”
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Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins opens in theaters on July 23.