TF Views

Or, to take a different tack, what would you think of a series where the Transformers originated on Earth? Sounds ridiculous at first, but if they still had the concept of robots disguising themselves as ordinary machines, and maybe had their own versions of Optimus, Megatron, et al, that could conceivably turn out to be a legit TF series.

The ironic thing about Transformers is how rarely they actually use the concept of Robots in Disguise.
And changing their origins to Earth would similarly effect all sorts of story elements for the characters. Why would there be two factions of robots fighting against each other? Why would the Autobots protect humans while the Decepticons could care less? How are they considered their own independent life forms if humans built them? And so on... You can't always change just one element of a franchises history and say nothing else changed. It's like a tapestry. You pull out one string and the whole thing starts to unravel.

Good point, Microman/Microchange and Diaclone were takes on that concept, one was earth-made mechs and the other was real-world-sized little earth robots, I believe, but the foundation still couldn't work so well with the idea of the factions just fighting each other for their own goals without some human aspect (aside from the obvious mecha aspect of diaclone, obviously).

138 Scourge wrote:Ah, that one's easy, though. Go with the old "crashed spaceship". Or the "Planet blew up". Or go with the ALF combo version of "spaceship crashed while escaping planet blowing up". And that's just the obvious ones.

No, see, that doesn't work, because then there's still the possibility of other Alien Turtles out there, on other planets. Superman is supposed to be The Last Guy From Krypton Ever, but I can think right off the top of my head a good five other Kryptonians that survived somehow. (Powergirl, Zod and his cronies, those two guys from All-Star Superman, just to start with.)

I suppose the main thing I'm trying to say is that I'm seeing it like the difference between Spider-Man getting his powers from a radioactive spider or a genetically engineered one. Or Pete's webshooters being organic as opposed to things he built. You could make a good case for both of those being important elements to the character, and I don't necessarily like that the movie changed those things. But the end result is still pretty much the same Spider-Man.

No, this is more like "Spider-Man gets his powers from the magical Spider-Crystal, and he never had an Uncle Ben." That would kind of change things. It's important that Spider-Man's creation is an accident and that he's a victim of circumstance--just like the Turtles. Uncle Ben's death fuels Peter as a character. You take that away and you change everything. (I'm sure there have been issues of Marvel What-If? that deal with this.)

Sparky wrote:That would be like changing the ooze that mutates the Turtles to a slightly different type of slime, but they are still mutant turtles.

This has actually happened. In most sources, it's described as "ooze," but in the comics, the Utroms made it. In the movies, TGRI made it. In the cartoon, it was called mutagen, and it came from Dimension X, I think. In the IDW comics, Baxter Stockman made it to act as a supersoldier formula for Krang's army. Regardless, though, its effects are pretty much always the same. (The cartoon mutagen had more specific effects, though--it would turn humans into whatever animal they had recently touched. Most other sources limit the ooze's contact to the Turtles and Splinter or just other animals. It's yet to be seen how IDW's is supposed to work.)

Scourge again wrote:Still, since there's four of 'em, it doesn't seem to occur to writers to play the ol' "all alone/last of their species" card as often.

That's part of the point, though--all they have is themselves and Splinter. They are a family, even if they're not biologically related. (The Turtles being biologically related or not is a thing that varies on continuity. There's usually never a clear answer.)

Or, to take a different tack, what would you think of a series where the Transformers originated on Earth? Sounds ridiculous at first, but if they still had the concept of robots disguising themselves as ordinary machines, and maybe had their own versions of Optimus, Megatron, et al, that could conceivably turn out to be a legit TF series.

Scourge, you are too easily pleased. That's a dumb fucking idea.

(However, if the series started like that, and then they find out later they're actually from Cybertron and just had amnesia or whatever, I'd be okay with that.)

Sparky again wrote:I've never seen any of those films so I don't feel like I can really comment much about it.... But has Jason ever really been fleshed out as a character? I mean, isn't he essentially just a mindless killing machine in a hockey mask? His origins explain what he is but there really isn't any character to him for it to matter who he is. It's different for characters that have background that makes them who they are and what they are.

Actually, in the second film you could make a case that Jason is trying to do some weird voodoo ritual to revive his mother. (It's all there--the bodies of everyone he's killed in the movie are piled up in his shack, his mother's head is there and has candles and stuff. It's something never followed up on, and obviously Jason doesn't mention it, but hey.)

JT wrote:Good point, Microman/Microchange and Diaclone were takes on that concept, one was earth-made mechs and the other was real-world-sized little earth robots, I believe, but the foundation still couldn't work so well with the idea of the factions just fighting each other for their own goals without some human aspect (aside from the obvious mecha aspect of diaclone, obviously).

Well, the Diaclone guys were fighting against the Waruder Invaders, who were the Insecticons and that dragon thing the Dinobots fought. I'm not sure where Microchange was supposed to fit in--I think they were intended to mostly be mecha for the existing Microman guys, in which case, Cassetteman and the Walther P38 robot would be fighting against Acroyear.

Onslaught Six wrote:Uncle Ben's death fuels Peter as a character. You take that away and you change everything. (I'm sure there have been issues of Marvel What-If? that deal with this.)

The 90's cartoon series touched on it at the end of the show when Madam Web and Beyond gathered Spider-Men from different dimensions. One of them was a armor wearing Spider-Man who never knew failure because his Uncle Ben didn't die. So instead of fighting crime he used his powers to become rich and started his own company.

This has actually happened. In most sources, it's described as "ooze," but in the comics, the Utroms made it. In the movies, TGRI made it. In the cartoon, it was called mutagen, and it came from Dimension X, I think. In the IDW comics, Baxter Stockman made it to act as a supersoldier formula for Krang's army. Regardless, though, its effects are pretty much always the same. (The cartoon mutagen had more specific effects, though--it would turn humans into whatever animal they had recently touched. Most other sources limit the ooze's contact to the Turtles and Splinter or just other animals. It's yet to be seen how IDW's is supposed to work.)

Professor Perry in Secret of the Ooze was originally supposed to be an Utrom, but they ended up cutting the scene because they didn't want the audience to think he was Krang. Also TGRI was based on the TCRI company from the comics that the Utom's founded.

I don't recall the cartoon ever explaining where the mutagen originally came from.

Sparky Prime wrote:

Onslaught Six wrote:Uncle Ben's death fuels Peter as a character. You take that away and you change everything. (I'm sure there have been issues of Marvel What-If? that deal with this.)

The 90's cartoon series touched on it at the end of the show when Madam Web and Beyond gathered Spider-Men from different dimensions. One of them was a armor wearing Spider-Man who never knew failure because his Uncle Ben didn't die. So instead of fighting crime he used his powers to become rich and started his own company.

And in that case, you don't have "Spider-Man" anymore. You got Iron Man with spider-themed powers for some reason. Changes the whole thing, and for many, it's that dynamic that makes the stories what they are. I'm reading current Animal Man because Buddy Baker is a Family Guy whose family doesn't exist just so they can be killed off. I could give a fuck less what his actual powers are. If you rewrite Animal Man so that he doesn't have a family (and never did), then my interest in the book drops like a rock.

Professor Perry in Secret of the Ooze was originally supposed to be an Utrom, but they ended up cutting the scene because they didn't want the audience to think he was Krang. Also TGRI was based on the TCRI company from the comics that the Utom's founded.

Yeah, I knew that, but the final movie TGRI is different (or vague) enough that it's not the same thing.

I don't recall the cartoon ever explaining where the mutagen originally came from.

I looked it up briefly but couldn't really find anything. Nearly all of Shredder's technology comes from Krang though.

Onslaught Six wrote:Yeah, I knew that, but the final movie TGRI is different (or vague) enough that it's not the same thing.

Being vague doesn't mean it's not the same thing, it just means they don't give enough information to say either way.

I looked it up briefly but couldn't really find anything. Nearly all of Shredder's technology comes from Krang though.

True enough, but still, we don't know if that's where it came from or not.

Sparky Prime wrote:

Onslaught Six wrote:Yeah, I knew that, but the final movie TGRI is different (or vague) enough that it's not the same thing.

Being vague doesn't mean it's not the same thing, it just means they don't give enough information to say either way.

We're not given any evidence (besides the cancelled scientist thing) that the Utroms exist in the films, so it's pretty safe to say they didn't have any hand in it. I haven't seen TMNT 2 in a while either so I can't say for sure if they delve too far into the origins of it.

I looked it up briefly but couldn't really find anything. Nearly all of Shredder's technology comes from Krang though.

True enough, but still, we don't know if that's where it came from or not.

Well it didn't come from the fucking Utroms!

Onslaught Six wrote:We're not given any evidence (besides the cancelled scientist thing) that the Utroms exist in the films, so it's pretty safe to say they didn't have any hand in it. I haven't seen TMNT 2 in a while either so I can't say for sure if they delve too far into the origins of it.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Just because they didn't show it doesn't mean Utom's couldn't have been involved. Course it's a moot point seeing as they'll probably never cover it in the movies or return to that continuity.

Well it didn't come from the fucking Utroms!

My point is, for all we know Shredder could have invented it himself in the cartoons. He made a mutagen gun that could mutate or de-mutate people after all.

Sparky Prime wrote:

Onslaught Six wrote:We're not given any evidence (besides the cancelled scientist thing) that the Utroms exist in the films, so it's pretty safe to say they didn't have any hand in it. I haven't seen TMNT 2 in a while either so I can't say for sure if they delve too far into the origins of it.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Just because they didn't show it doesn't mean Utom's couldn't have been involved. Course it's a moot point seeing as they'll probably never cover it in the movies or return to that continuity.

You could argue that, but in film continuities I always go for a pretty strict "If you didn't see it on screen, it didn't happen" kind of thing. The same way that Reign of Starscream arguably "didn't happen" because its events are never really brought up in ROTF. (Starscream has the "tattoos" he gets in RoS, but arguably those could've been put there in RoS to explain why he has them in ROTF.) Sure, it 'could' have happened, but why bother arguing it if it's never brought up? Professor what's-his-name could've actually been Krang but it's never shown so why does it matter?

Well it didn't come from the fucking Utroms!

My point is, for all we know Shredder could have invented it himself in the cartoons. He made a mutagen gun that could mutate or de-mutate people after all.

We never really see what kind of technology levels Shredder has on his own, without knowledge or resources from Krang. The Technodrome and Krang are already around in the first episode.

Onslaught Six wrote:You could argue that, but in film continuities I always go for a pretty strict "If you didn't see it on screen, it didn't happen" kind of thing. The same way that Reign of Starscream arguably "didn't happen" because its events are never really brought up in ROTF. (Starscream has the "tattoos" he gets in RoS, but arguably those could've been put there in RoS to explain why he has them in ROTF.) Sure, it 'could' have happened, but why bother arguing it if it's never brought up? Professor what's-his-name could've actually been Krang but it's never shown so why does it matter?

Movies don't always follow 'if it wasn't on screen, it didn't happen' though. The Transformers films gives a few examples of that as well. Such as Optimus not recovering the Matrix after he destroyed the Sun Harvester in RotF. What we see on screen would indicate he blew up the Matrix, but he clearly has the Matrix in DotM, not blown up at all. And sometimes they can take it in the opposite direction as well, like with Barricade's death being cut from the 1st film being retconned to him surviving just to be killed in DotM. I'm just saying, even if it wasn't shown on screen, sometimes those elements still end up part of the story.

But like I said, this is a moot point since they'll likely never revisit that storyline.

We never really see what kind of technology levels Shredder has on his own, without knowledge or resources from Krang. The Technodrome and Krang are already around in the first episode.

That doesn't mean Shredder couldn't have still invented the mutagen on his own.

Sparky Prime wrote:

Onslaught Six wrote:You could argue that, but in film continuities I always go for a pretty strict "If you didn't see it on screen, it didn't happen" kind of thing. The same way that Reign of Starscream arguably "didn't happen" because its events are never really brought up in ROTF. (Starscream has the "tattoos" he gets in RoS, but arguably those could've been put there in RoS to explain why he has them in ROTF.) Sure, it 'could' have happened, but why bother arguing it if it's never brought up? Professor what's-his-name could've actually been Krang but it's never shown so why does it matter?

Movies don't always follow 'if it wasn't on screen, it didn't happen' though. The Transformers films gives a few examples of that as well. Such as Optimus not recovering the Matrix after he destroyed the Sun Harvester in RotF. What we see on screen would indicate he blew up the Matrix, but he clearly has the Matrix in DotM, not blown up at all. And sometimes they can take it in the opposite direction as well, like with Barricade's death being cut from the 1st film being retconned to him surviving just to be killed in DotM. I'm just saying, even if it wasn't shown on screen, sometimes those elements still end up part of the story.

But like I said, this is a moot point since they'll likely never revisit that storyline.

Those are called plot holes. When a character seemingly destroyed something in a movie before, but suddenly has it in the next movie with no explanation, most normal people go, "Wow, somebody dropped the ball there," and not, "Well, maybe he went back and got it inbetween movies!"

We never really see what kind of technology levels Shredder has on his own, without knowledge or resources from Krang. The Technodrome and Krang are already around in the first episode.

That doesn't mean Shredder couldn't have still invented the mutagen on his own.

Are we really arguing about TMNT cartoon continuity? That cartoon sucked.