Movie: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

[Pocus]

With Michael Bay's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle coming very soon. Perhaps it's time to refresh ourselves on the different iterations of the franchise, the characters and background. So we can better judge the movie and have clearer judgment

of the upcoming movie.

 

I'll be updating this thread on the different series of the franchise, starting with the original.

 

1. TMNT: The original 80s comic.

In the early 80s, 2 buddy comic artists, Kelvin Eastman and Peter Laird, decided to doodle a parody of their favourite comic artist, Frank Miller (the author of 300) by mimicking his graphic novel "The Ronin". But instead of drawing ninjas, they drew the ninjas as "turtles" to contrast slow animals doing fast things as a joke. But after toying with the rough doodle, they had a great idea to expand it into a comic series, hence TMNT is born.

 

During that time, it's difficult to get established companies like Marvel or DC to publish works of small time artists. So they took the own gamble and self-publish their own TMNT comic book with only $3000 funds. There were only 1000 copies of the 1st edition of TMNT and it's printed in Black and White in newspaper quality paper. But the copies where sold out within days. Word spread on the good artwork and unique story of TMNT and it shortly became the most popular indies comics during that time. That was TMNT's first breakthrough.

 

 

ORIGINAL COMIC

During the 80s, the American pop culture is heading towards the dark and gritty era due to the economic recession faced by many during those days, the comic industry was not spared from the trend. The story of the original TMNT based on the same formula and was targetted for teens and adult readers. In the comics, the turtle all wore red bandanas and were extremely brutal in their fighting styles. The violence level of the comic is pretty intense.

 

 

Comic's origin:

- Ninja master A, lover B and rival C

- Ninja master A has a housepet rat who learn A's skilling by observing him training.

- C try to rape B, A kill C. A and B run to New York (with rat)

- C's brother, D vowed revenge

- D trained hard and became Shredder

- Shredder go to NY and kills A and B. Rat escape to sewers

- Rat pick up 4 lost turtles in sewer

- Rat and the turtle mutanted to humaniod by some chemical

- turtles name rat "Splinter", splinter teach them A's skills

 

Original Comic turtles all wear red and were all dark and violent.

Leonardo: The cool, calm and collected. The one to lead. The most skilled (Katanas)

Raphael: The hothead, violent and witty. The strongest and most street smart (Sai)

Dontallo: The quiet one. The MR Fixit and maintenance guy. Computer whiz. (Bo)

Michaelengalo: The playful and joker one. Youngest of the group. (Nuchuckus)

Splinter: Master, old and wise.

 

 

Shredder: A skillful and cunning ninja master who can take down the ninja turtles easily.

 

 

April: A Computer programmer cum antique store owner. As you can see she is drawn with the 80s hair style trends.

 

NEXT UP: 80s cartoon TMNT, the one most people knew.....

 

Edited July 26, 2014 by Pocus

[Pocus]

2. TMNT: The 80s Cartoon

 

 

Following the unexpected success of their indies comic, Peter and Kelvin decided to break the indies barrier and bring TMNT into the mainstream. They made a deal with a small-time toys company called "Playmate Co" to produce toy versions of their creations. They also managed to acquire a TV deal from another small time productions company call "Fred Wolf films". In this iteration, the whole formula of the ninja turtles were totally revamped and reinvented to accommodate to the targeted younger audience.

 

The cartoon series is more light-hearted and colorful in terms of the way the turtles are portrait. In order not to confuse the kids, the turtles now have different colored bandanas. Leonardo wears blue, Raphael wears red, Donatello wears purple and Michelangelo wears orange. This change continues to follow throughout the rest of the TMNT franchise.

 

This version of the cartoon cut down the violence to bare minimum. The turtle, although still armed with their original weapons, are know not to use their against their enemies. If there are scene where the weapons are used, it is usually in a non-violent way. Furthermore the enemies the turtles fight are mainly ninja robots instead of human ninja in the comic, it was deem less violent to slay a machine than a human.

 

A CULTURE DEFINED

The cartoon is a great success and so were the toys. The two small-time company's gamble paid off and it was making big. The cartoon brought in many influence and have defined the pop-culture of youngster during that time. There was a surge in the consumption of Pizza and you see kids using the surfer slangs like "dude", "radical" or the famous "cowabunga". The writers of the cartoon try to inject as much humor and gags in the cartoon. Same goes for the toy lines as slapstick humor booklets were included in the toys.

 

The popularity of the cartoon continued till the early 90s and is considered the most popular version of the TMNT franchise, outshining it's darker 80s comic version.

 

Cartoon's origin (heavily simplified for the kids):
- Ninja master A and rival D, D accuses A of try to kill their grandmaster
- A was dishonor and moved to NY, living in the sewers as a homeless
- D became Shredder
- A was keep 4 turtles as pets
- A and the 4 turtles were mutated by a strange chemical which change them to the last animal their contacted.
- A became Splinter and taught the turtles ninja skills

 

Cartoon turtles all wear colored bandanas and are all gentle and fun-loving characters
Leonardo: The leader, otherwise the boring one (Katanas)
Raphael: The witty and wise crack foul mouth. Mikes best fren and partner in jokes(Sai)
Donatello: The genius, the one with all the science stuff and greater invention (Bo)
Michelangelo: The playful and joker one. The one with the surfer slang. (Nuchuckus)
Splinter: ex-human ninja Master

 

Shredder: a dumb ninja master who is a lackey of an equally dumb Alien called Krang. Includes two dimwit sidekicks, Bebop and Rocksteady acting as comic reliefs.

 

April: A busty and pretty TV news reporter. Her trademark is her yellow jumpsuit which most fans wondered why would a news reporter wear a jumpsuit. This version of April has much more appeal compared to the comic version.

 

NEXT UP: 80s TMNT Movie, old school movie magic!.....

Edited July 27, 2014 by Pocus

[Vid]

Just watched the movie tonight.

 

With Michael Bay, the movie has Transformers written all over it. All the actions were very Transformers-like. Slow motion, close shaves, lots of fast paced actions etc...

 

Raphael was hideous. Don't know why they must make him look so ugly.

 

Megan Fox has aged. Not as pretty as before. Not sure the reporter role of April O'Neil was suited for her.

 

The big truck sliding down the hill was probably one of the best action scene. Enjoyed that.

 

Overall, the movie is mediocre. Michael Bay saved the movie with all the actions but still the storyline and jokes from the turtles were lousy.

 

Overall, I'll just give it a 5.5/10

[Ahgong]

I kinda enjoy the movie revamp.

He turtles could have looked better. But I like the way this movie managed to combine the wry humour, together with the witty and yet dark story all together.

 

Thought not as likable as the earlier renditions of the turtles, this movie is good on its own.

 

I would have given it a 8/10!

Definitely worth a movie ticket to watch. But digital will do.

 

April still looks good in this movie. Megan Fox CAN ACTUALLY ACT!

That itself is worth the ticket!

[Wyfitms]

this version was quite cute

 

anyone played the TMNT role playing games?

 

[Ahgong]

recently watched it again.

Still nice to watch. but not as nice as when it first came out.

Michealangelo is still the cutest turtle among the 4.

 

the slapstick is really... well... slapstick. very cliched.

dunno why last time watch as a kid did not feel the cliched-ness of it.

 

this version was quite cute

 

 

 

[Wyfitms]

recently watched it again.

Still nice to watch. but not as nice as when it first came out.

Michealangelo is still the cutest turtle among the 4.

 

the slapstick is really... well... slapstick. very cliched.

dunno why last time watch as a kid did not feel the cliched-ness of it.

 

 

 

cos as a kid, i was just engrossed at the awesomeness of translating cartoon characters into real life

 

even had the movie sticker book

 

[Ahgong]

oh yeah... i still have that collection sticker book stashed some where.

i remember buying boxes of them stickers to complete at least one book.

 

i had the poster on my bedroom wall for a long time too~!

 

 

cos as a kid, i was just engrossed at the awesomeness of translating cartoon characters into real life

 

even had the movie sticker book

 

 

[Observer]

i only have one complain about the show.

 

how come the turtle look so ugly...not cute leh....childhood dream no more =*(

[Pocus]

Sorry folks, was too busy recently due to unforeseen events, But I guess most sums up the 80s movies pretty good.

 

The only complain I have for the 80s movies is:

 

- A big emphasis on Raphael. I dunno why. Most of his story in the movie is actually Leonardo's story in the original comic. I guess they merge 2 characters to give him more depth.

- They make Leonardo a lousy leader. Yes Leonardo is my favorite Turtle (after Donatello) and partly due to his role and story arc in the original comics. The rest of the franchise didn't do him justice by giving him the dorky boring leader personality (except the 2003 Fox 4Kids version which follows closely to the comics, except the violence).

- Besides Raph, the rest of the turtles are like Michelangelos, lack of character depth.

 

Otherwise, I think the movie is ahead of it's time during those days were CG is minimal and all effects are built from scratch.

[Pocus]

Why Leonardo was my favorite Turtle since the original comics?

 

Cos he gave the shredder his killing blow

 

 

And when shredder returns, he beheads him

 

 

[msi4mahesh]

Check out http://www.elucidgent.com/ for more cool articles about upcoming movies