Bay Ninja Turtles Obligatory Bitch Thread

[Mako Crab]

Gotcha.
I always thought it was funny that Venus had breasts, considering that amphibians/reptiles don't have mammary glands. But they had to visually distinguish her from the guys somehow, I guess.

[annhell]

I loved the Turtles back in the 80s. As ludicrous as they were then, childhood ignorance protected me from most of it and simply let me enjoy the cartoons.

And I still keep my copy of the 2003 cartoon, which I still think is a good update to the first show, and is a lot more faithful to the story and concept from the original comics.

I also liked the CGI movie from a few years back, which made nice references to the 2003 series.

So, now we have a new upcoming movie, I'm just gonna go into a corner and cry...

[JediTricks]

Bay says they're "aliens" and they're "lovable". That really just doesn't seem right on any level. TMNT was a pointed parody at comics in the early '80s, changing the "mutant turtle" part to "alien" takes away a lot of the whole point of who they are, and making them "lovable" is just more cheap commercialism like the original cartoon. It's just changes to hit the lowest common denominator and sell toys to children, and ignores everything that makes TMNT unique in its field. It's not the only one to do so, certainly, but Bay has proven time and time again that he cannot be satisfied with sticking with tradition so long as there are more awful ideas to be had, making changes to fit a corporate mindset because corporations would rather slap a popular existing name on any product than risk making an all-new product. We will be lucky if this isn't worse than George Lucas' Howard the Duck movie, or the MOTU movie.

On the other fucking hand, how is anybody surprised that TMNT being bought by Nickelodeon (owned by Paramount/Viacom/CBS) would amount to anything else but pathetic missteps like this? "What, selling out to corporate scumbags doesn't make a product better?!? How did I not know of this??? Oh no, if only I had known before I signed the contracts for the trucking company to deliver the massive cash payments to my house!"

I wonder how much of this is because we have not been following TMNT since 1990, (and that there has not been a consistent stream).

Zero chance? None whatsoever. There have been live-action shows, new cartoons, CGI movies, and a handful of comic releases that have nothing to do with this.

Of course, if the reports are true, Bay us using some kind of null list for this movie. Non-teens, non-mutants, non-ninjas, and not actually turtles?

Remember, Bay is the asshole who said upon taking the Transformers job that he didn't collect toys as a kid, he played sports, toys were for dorks. Isn't that just the kind of respectful, understanding type of attitude you'd want in charge of your next big brand?

Of course, my fandom for TMNT withered pretty quickly. At one point in my 20s, I reread some of the old black and white stories (albeit reprinted in colour), and found that they did not age as well as I might have hoped.

Well, New Mutants became not so new, all that ninja comics shit got played out, and Cerebus the Aardvark (a book my mom used to read a lot of) just mainly faded out, so those original stories really don't have as much to resonate against anymore.

It's interesting to see the divide among the two creators.

There was divide between Eastman and Laird since the very beginning, I'd say that was one of the most infamous things about TMNT's life when it was still in their hands: the saga of Laird vs Eastman throughout the decades of the franchise.

Gotcha.
I always thought it was funny that Venus had breasts, considering that amphibians/reptiles don't have mammary glands. But they had to visually distinguish her from the guys somehow, I guess.

It was Saban, the idea there is that the near-infant children watching needed generalized shapes to recognize females from males - breasts, waist, and hair... because Haim Saban thinks children are all brain-dead, and thanks to decades of his shows, they probably are.

I loved the Turtles back in the 80s. As ludicrous as they were then, childhood ignorance protected me from most of it and simply let me enjoy the cartoons.

And I still keep my copy of the 2003 cartoon, which I still think is a good update to the first show, and is a lot more faithful to the story and concept from the original comics.

I also liked the CGI movie from a few years back, which made nice references to the 2003 series.

So, now we have a new upcoming movie, I'm just gonna go into a corner and cry...

The '03 cartoon was pretty good, but just got repetitive so they changed the setting instead of fixing the writing problem, and it became easy to walk away from.

Don't cry too hard, Nickelodeon actually also has a new TV cartoon coming out that looks surprisingly promising, closer to the original comics, the basic toys look really good (the other sizes and gimmick figures not as much).


Anyway, there's a lot of credit being given to Bay basically on the hopes that he won't entirely dickbag this up, to which I say "fool me once, shame on you; fool an entire society into sitting through the cinematic abortion that was ROTF, shame on them... for not lynching Michael Bay."

[Sparky Prime]

On the other fucking hand, how is anybody surprised that TMNT being bought by Nickelodeon (owned by Paramount/Viacom/CBS) would amount to anything else but pathetic missteps like this?

I have to wonder how much control Nickelodeon has over this project actually. Nickelodeon's movies are produced through Paramount, which despite being under the same ownership doesn't mean they share access.

Besides, while Nickelodeon isn't exactly known for their movies, they do have some pretty good television series.

It was Saban, the idea there is that the near-infant children watching needed generalized shapes to recognize females from males - breasts, waist, and hair... because Haim Saban thinks children are all brain-dead, and thanks to decades of his shows, they probably are.

Saban decided to make the Yellow MMPR a girl, despite the original Japanese footage being a boy. And not all of Saban's shows were that bad.

[JediTricks]

On the other fucking hand, how is anybody surprised that TMNT being bought by Nickelodeon (owned by Paramount/Viacom/CBS) would amount to anything else but pathetic missteps like this?

I have to wonder how much control Nickelodeon has over this project actually. Nickelodeon's movies are produced through Paramount, which despite being under the same ownership doesn't mean they share access.

Besides, while Nickelodeon isn't exactly known for their movies, they do have some pretty good television series.

Nick is the one producing, that means it comes out of their budget, Paramount is only the distributor in that scenario, so Nick's say comes pretty heavily.

Their movies, the real movies, they don't have many of but they're not great, they're kind of a jumble.

[Sparky Prime]

Nick is the one producing, that means it comes out of their budget, Paramount is only the distributor in that scenario, so Nick's say comes pretty heavily.

It's my understanding Paramount and Platinum Dunes (Michael Bay's production company) are the producers for this upcoming Ninja Turtles film rather than Nickelodeon themselves, with Paramount also being the distributor.

[JediTricks]

Studio is Nickelodeon Movies and then Platinum Dunes is listed but that only means Michael Bay is producing, PD is not a real studio. Paramount is the distributor, not the studio.


Btw, I dunno how I missed commenting on this, but the film's title is just "Ninja Turtles", no "teenage", no "mutant". Bay claims it's Paramount that wanted the title shorter, but it does seem awfully suggestive of what Bay's intentions are.

The film is being written by Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec, who have worked together on Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol and some episodes of Alias, She Spies, Fastlane, and other TV works. The director is Jonathan Liebesman who has done Darness Falls, Battle: LA (that's the film that Sony paid to have made and then the company that got paid used that cash to make an almost identical movie on the side), Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (a TCSM prequel for Bay's company), and the recent Wrath of the Titans. His films so far have garnered poor average reviews from critics, except The Killing Room which is hovering around 60%, only the in-current-release Wrath of the Titans has over a 6 rating, with a whopping 6.2. Sounds like a real recipe for success.

[Sparky Prime]

Studio is Nickelodeon Movies and then Platinum Dunes is listed but that only means Michael Bay is producing, PD is not a real studio. Paramount is the distributor, not the studio.

Is there still a Nickelodeon Movies studio? I thought they'd fully merged that division along with the MTV Films division with Paramount Pictures last year.

[JediTricks]

Studio is Nickelodeon Movies and then Platinum Dunes is listed but that only means Michael Bay is producing, PD is not a real studio. Paramount is the distributor, not the studio.

Is there still a Nickelodeon Movies studio? I thought they'd fully merged that division along with the MTV Films division with Paramount Pictures last year.

MTV Films and Nickelodeon Movies are production companies technically so they have their own separate budgets but not their own facilities, it isn't that different from Platinum Dunes, it's just that Nick Movies has more of a "studio" infrastructure whereas PD is just offices to work on Bay films whenever he's making films.

I think the Nickelodeon Studio complex was actually for their TV shows. They do still have a real studio here in LA on Sunset blvd at Argyle, and then the theme park attraction in Florida but I think that one is gone.

[Shockwave]

I still thoroughly expect this to suck. I did like the live action one in the early 90's. And I did like the original cartoon as well. As a franchise though I never really got fully into it. I never had the figures or the comic books and mostly just occasionally played the games.