Snake Eyes Behind-The-Scenes Featurette Released

Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins has released a new behind-the-scenes look at the making of the film, which you can watch below. This new featurette about the G.I. prequel/reboot arrives on the heels of the official Snake Eyes trailer, which premiered during the MTV Movie and TV Awards last night. Like the recent first-look photo gallery from Snake Eyes, the behind-the-scenes video takes a deeper look at the premise of this film, with Henry Golding (Crazy Rich Asians) taking on the role of Snake Eyes, in a story of how the “silent ninja” became one of G.I. Joe’s most elite soldiers.

In the Snake Eyes featurette, Golding accounts for how the character started out as an enigma when G.I. Joe comics launched. To show off his geek cred, Golding references the classic issue of G.I. Joe called “The Silent Interlude” which helped Snake Eyes “blossom” as a character, without using any dialogue bubbles – simply words and actions.

G.I. Joe comic writer Larry Hama appears in the video like the one credited with creating the now-famous lore of Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow’s shared origin and connection, which the filmmakers will honor while “also finding a way of updating it. Giving people more.”

Hit producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura (Transformers, Constantine, The Meg) steps in to do the heavy life of sharing what is sure to be the most controversial aspect of Snake Eyes: choosing to retcon the character’s origin so that “The Silent Ninja” has a voice: “That opened up a world of possibility:. Let’s do the origin story before he’s lost his voice.”

Having a handsome star like Henry Golding spend a lot of his screen time not wearing Snake Eyes’ iconic mask and helmet certainly makes sense – but fans will probably not be so forgiving about the voice. This featurette shows Golding dropping quips like “Let’s go,” before a fight; those are moments that could land well and help define Snake Eyes’ character better for when he is eventually silent – or it will come off as silly and make this rebooted G.I. Joe franchise arguably worse than its predecessors. Because most fans agree that even if those 2010s films weren’t the best, at least the Snake Eyes/Storm Shadow/Ninja Clan subplots were cool. If this Snake Eyes movie ruins that, how much will there be to look forward to in the larger G.I. Joe franchise that Golding, Bonaventura, and co. are teasing?

Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins hits theaters on July 23rd.