TMNT
- Thread starter Arafea
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Fayevalentine
Bebop Passenger
did you like/see the original TMNT movies?
I loved it! I'm glad they took it more seriously than satirical like the previous movies. The characters are more fleshed out, especially Leo and Raph -- I think those two are much more dynamic than they've ever been. The camera direction was awesome, and the movie had some spectacular shots. Animation was really well done, too. One of the best scenes I've witnessed in a film was in this one, during a fight scene in the rain. Not gonna say who it's between, because that would be a huuuuge spoiler, but it's a fight I've always wanted to see.
Apollyonzorz
New Member
The original movies were awsome, the only reason i'm boycotting this movies is because they didn't recast Vanilla Ice in it. "Go Ninja, Go Ninja, Go"
Neodevilbane
Master of the Martini
Saw it with a ladyfriend that visited from Indiana, as hardcore a TMNT fan as there can be. I myself did a bit of contract work on the movie in November of 2005, so there's a little bit of a personal attachment to me in this.
Overall, hey, good times. Definitely "lite" (diet?) TMNT... sadly it's no grittier than the original movie, and, in fact, quite a bit less gritty than that, in fact. Absolutely no trace of blood or bruises, and Mikey doesn't even get to use his nunchuks... or, at least, we don't get to SEE him using them in ANY capacity for spineless reasons, which is beyond stupid. Why not make a Spider-Man movie where Spidey can't shoot webs? A Wolverine film where he has no claws, maybe? I got it, a Punisher movie with no guns!
What worked :
Anything and everything to do with family, and particularly the aspect that is hammered home of brotherhood and forgiveness, unity. This is the glue that binds things together, and when we see it, it does, and well. Nice visuals, the CGI is top notch and I shit you not -- you can see the very individual pigments of the TMNT's skin at a close glance, and it's quite incredible. Action is fast-paced, and choreographed damned well (though, with CGI, what is choreography, really?).
What didn't :
Pretty much everything else. If you know me well, you know what this film probably means to me, having had at least a little to do with it. That said, this movie makes no bones that it is intended pretty much for pre-teens (and it is, after all, rated PG... not even a dignified PG-13, which would suggest a movie called "Teenage" Mutant Ninja Turtles is actually to be viewed by teenagers)... which, in itself, is more than a little disturbingly ironic.
The original TMNT is probably the film I've seen that tries to push the PG envelope to the maximum. I was really hoping to see this new CGI film try and dance that same line as close as it possibly could (nevermind the idiocy of a PG rating for a superhero film with teenaged ninjas anyway), unfortunately it seems to have gleefully embraced the PG rating even from its inception.
I remember TMNT in 1990... there wasn't a great deal of blood or what-have-you, but there was an everpresent realism to the action on the stage. We spend a bit of time and get to know the very human members of the Foot Clan, the kids that run with them. The Turtles get cut; they bleed. They cut the Shredder; he bleeds. They use their weapons, we see it. Hell, Raphael gets rather violently knocked into a rather bloody/bruised coma for a good part of the film. In this film, some 17 years after the original film (!!!) there is no trace of blood or bruises to speak of, and shame on the filmmakers for not having the balls to show Michelangelo (and yes, Laird does exert his influence, I'd assume, to "correct" the spelling of his name in a subtitle shown in the film upon his reintroduction). Mikey wields his nunchuks, yet we never see him use them... in any kind of TMNT rulebook, this is just criminal. In a feature film intended to launch a new film franchise, simply shameful.
I won't say the plot is hackneyed, but I'll just say it's not what it "should" be, which might not be fair... no review should be about what a film "could" be, but rather what it is. What it is at its core is the TMNT against some enchanted stone statues led by a dude that wants to do a Pokemon, "Gotta Catch'em All!" with a series of weird and wacky monsters to avert some sort of global dominion.
In a follow up, a serial, or a cartoon, I'd have no problem with any of this. And to the writers' credit (and I believe Munroe himself is more or less the sole writer, who's only really ever been involved with video games prior to this movie), this is pretty much an entirely original tale of the TMNT -- taken as a whole, we've never seen any story like this in TMNT in any incarnation, any universe.
As the fourth feature film (and it's obviously presented as, at the very least, a loose continuation of the first three films... note the "Death" of Shredder mentioned, the advanced relationship of Casey and April, the presence of the TGRI canister from TMNT II, the presence of the exact likeness of Shredder's mask from TMNT II, and the presence of the Sceptre from TMNT III at the end), or if you prefer, the first in what is obviously intended to be a theatrical rebirth of the franchise... it comes up short.
What we needed was a still relatively kid-accessible TMNT film, yet still grassroots... but at the same time still possessing some modicum of BALLS. No monsters and magic and the like... the TMNT need to be the weirdest aspect of the story -- their enemies grounded in our own reality. Why not just adapt the old "City at War" story arc from the Mirage comics to suit the aftermath of the first three films, with the fallout of the (final) death of Shredder in TMNT II? But I digress...
The greatest TMNT story arcs in the comics -- or, I'd even go so far as to say the larger TMNT universe at large, the Fred Wolf cartoon or 4Kids series, Archies -- are ones that don't feature oddities like monsters, magic, and the like. As a starting point for a renewed movie franchise, this leaves something to be desired.
And April O'Neil... I have no problem with her characterization here, or her voiceover by Buffy. Perfectly sound voice casting, and I won't even speak ill of the cartoony proportions applied to not only her but pretty much all of the human characters in the film (the Turtles, however, are damned spot-on!). I will speak ill, however, of the gigantic, dramatic leap of faith that is asked of us to believe that April, over the course of just a casual interest in martial arts and swordplay, is able to completely dismantle and subdue Karai, the leader of the entire Foot Clan -- Shredder's superior, were he still alive, no less.
The end is laughable... no, literally. In what should have been a fairly poignant, sad moment in the end, instead is robbed of this and becomes a laugh-out-loud fest with Michelangelo turning things into a chuckle-fest for the benefit of the apparently coveted pre-teen audience.
In summation, I'll just say what I've said before. As the fans that have supported and followed the TMNT over the years (or hell, even ones that have become disillusioned with the TMNT, "outgrown" them, and are willing to give it another go) get older and older, the TMNT property at large continues to aim younger and younger, even younger than previous incarnations did.
I only speak for myself, but this is a disturbing, self-destructive cycle of events that I can only imagine will repeat itself yet again in another 10 years or so. TMNT 1 (rated PG) pushed it about as far as it could go -- we saw blood, mild language, and actual consequences to the fighting... seventeen years later, we get a movie that backpeddles and gives us NONE of the above (in lieu of the above, we get some Pokemon monster tom-foolery with nonsensical alignment-of-stars-opens-secret-gateway nonsense I'd expect to see in a Playstation 1 game, not a TMNT feature film).
Sorry, folks. Didn't like it.<!-- / message --><!-- sig -->
Overall, hey, good times. Definitely "lite" (diet?) TMNT... sadly it's no grittier than the original movie, and, in fact, quite a bit less gritty than that, in fact. Absolutely no trace of blood or bruises, and Mikey doesn't even get to use his nunchuks... or, at least, we don't get to SEE him using them in ANY capacity for spineless reasons, which is beyond stupid. Why not make a Spider-Man movie where Spidey can't shoot webs? A Wolverine film where he has no claws, maybe? I got it, a Punisher movie with no guns!
What worked :
Anything and everything to do with family, and particularly the aspect that is hammered home of brotherhood and forgiveness, unity. This is the glue that binds things together, and when we see it, it does, and well. Nice visuals, the CGI is top notch and I shit you not -- you can see the very individual pigments of the TMNT's skin at a close glance, and it's quite incredible. Action is fast-paced, and choreographed damned well (though, with CGI, what is choreography, really?).
What didn't :
Pretty much everything else. If you know me well, you know what this film probably means to me, having had at least a little to do with it. That said, this movie makes no bones that it is intended pretty much for pre-teens (and it is, after all, rated PG... not even a dignified PG-13, which would suggest a movie called "Teenage" Mutant Ninja Turtles is actually to be viewed by teenagers)... which, in itself, is more than a little disturbingly ironic.
The original TMNT is probably the film I've seen that tries to push the PG envelope to the maximum. I was really hoping to see this new CGI film try and dance that same line as close as it possibly could (nevermind the idiocy of a PG rating for a superhero film with teenaged ninjas anyway), unfortunately it seems to have gleefully embraced the PG rating even from its inception.
I remember TMNT in 1990... there wasn't a great deal of blood or what-have-you, but there was an everpresent realism to the action on the stage. We spend a bit of time and get to know the very human members of the Foot Clan, the kids that run with them. The Turtles get cut; they bleed. They cut the Shredder; he bleeds. They use their weapons, we see it. Hell, Raphael gets rather violently knocked into a rather bloody/bruised coma for a good part of the film. In this film, some 17 years after the original film (!!!) there is no trace of blood or bruises to speak of, and shame on the filmmakers for not having the balls to show Michelangelo (and yes, Laird does exert his influence, I'd assume, to "correct" the spelling of his name in a subtitle shown in the film upon his reintroduction). Mikey wields his nunchuks, yet we never see him use them... in any kind of TMNT rulebook, this is just criminal. In a feature film intended to launch a new film franchise, simply shameful.
I won't say the plot is hackneyed, but I'll just say it's not what it "should" be, which might not be fair... no review should be about what a film "could" be, but rather what it is. What it is at its core is the TMNT against some enchanted stone statues led by a dude that wants to do a Pokemon, "Gotta Catch'em All!" with a series of weird and wacky monsters to avert some sort of global dominion.
In a follow up, a serial, or a cartoon, I'd have no problem with any of this. And to the writers' credit (and I believe Munroe himself is more or less the sole writer, who's only really ever been involved with video games prior to this movie), this is pretty much an entirely original tale of the TMNT -- taken as a whole, we've never seen any story like this in TMNT in any incarnation, any universe.
As the fourth feature film (and it's obviously presented as, at the very least, a loose continuation of the first three films... note the "Death" of Shredder mentioned, the advanced relationship of Casey and April, the presence of the TGRI canister from TMNT II, the presence of the exact likeness of Shredder's mask from TMNT II, and the presence of the Sceptre from TMNT III at the end), or if you prefer, the first in what is obviously intended to be a theatrical rebirth of the franchise... it comes up short.
What we needed was a still relatively kid-accessible TMNT film, yet still grassroots... but at the same time still possessing some modicum of BALLS. No monsters and magic and the like... the TMNT need to be the weirdest aspect of the story -- their enemies grounded in our own reality. Why not just adapt the old "City at War" story arc from the Mirage comics to suit the aftermath of the first three films, with the fallout of the (final) death of Shredder in TMNT II? But I digress...
The greatest TMNT story arcs in the comics -- or, I'd even go so far as to say the larger TMNT universe at large, the Fred Wolf cartoon or 4Kids series, Archies -- are ones that don't feature oddities like monsters, magic, and the like. As a starting point for a renewed movie franchise, this leaves something to be desired.
And April O'Neil... I have no problem with her characterization here, or her voiceover by Buffy. Perfectly sound voice casting, and I won't even speak ill of the cartoony proportions applied to not only her but pretty much all of the human characters in the film (the Turtles, however, are damned spot-on!). I will speak ill, however, of the gigantic, dramatic leap of faith that is asked of us to believe that April, over the course of just a casual interest in martial arts and swordplay, is able to completely dismantle and subdue Karai, the leader of the entire Foot Clan -- Shredder's superior, were he still alive, no less.
The end is laughable... no, literally. In what should have been a fairly poignant, sad moment in the end, instead is robbed of this and becomes a laugh-out-loud fest with Michelangelo turning things into a chuckle-fest for the benefit of the apparently coveted pre-teen audience.
In summation, I'll just say what I've said before. As the fans that have supported and followed the TMNT over the years (or hell, even ones that have become disillusioned with the TMNT, "outgrown" them, and are willing to give it another go) get older and older, the TMNT property at large continues to aim younger and younger, even younger than previous incarnations did.
I only speak for myself, but this is a disturbing, self-destructive cycle of events that I can only imagine will repeat itself yet again in another 10 years or so. TMNT 1 (rated PG) pushed it about as far as it could go -- we saw blood, mild language, and actual consequences to the fighting... seventeen years later, we get a movie that backpeddles and gives us NONE of the above (in lieu of the above, we get some Pokemon monster tom-foolery with nonsensical alignment-of-stars-opens-secret-gateway nonsense I'd expect to see in a Playstation 1 game, not a TMNT feature film).
Sorry, folks. Didn't like it.<!-- / message --><!-- sig -->