TF Views

Okay, so I assume we’ve all heard about Michael Bay’s Ninja Turtles by now, either through news sources or people bitching about it on Facebook. While I haven’t been keeping up with all the news coming out, I’m interested in people’s thoughts on this.

Short version real quick in case you haven’t heard: Michael Bay is working on a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film wherein the main characters will be aliens, therefore neither mutants nor turtles, probably not teenagers, and likely stand a low chance of actually practicing ninjutsu.

Now, this has naturally provoked your standard yelling and screaming from ‘purists’ about raped childhoods and the like. It’s also invited comparisons to Bay’s contested handling of Transformers, with some arguing here as they did there that the people complaining just need to grow up and learn to accept change. Thing is, I agree with the TF group, but I’m not sure about the TMNT side of things. See, in Bay’s TF, really the only ‘change’ was that the Transformers themselves looked different than what we were used to. Pretty much all of the core story elements were the same: Transformers are a race of alien robots from the planet Cybertron, some of their species crash on Earth millions of years in the past looking for a plot device, then those wake up and more arrive from two sets of factions and they start wrecking each other’s shit while disguised as Earthen vehicles. It was still ‘Transformers’ as far as all the concepts went, with most of the people bitching about ‘changes’ being upset because Bumblebee wasn’t a VW Beetle anymore and they didn’t know about that whole Volkswagon moratorium thing (also they hadn’t seen any TF fiction since the eighties and weren’t aware of the breadth the brand now encompassed). There were some aesthetic changes and new story ideas, yeah, but it was still clearly Transformers, just through the splintery, shaky camera lens of Michael Bay.

But with these Adult Extraterrestrial Combat Aliens, there seems to be so little left of the original concept that I wonder why they felt the need to include the name and license at all. I mean, there’re presumably four of these green, turtle-lookin’ guys, and it’s possible they might fight bad guys, but by taking away the defining parts of the concept and characters that are ‘right there in the title’, it begs the question of why such extreme changes are necessary. There are plenty of ways to inject new life and ideas into Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles while still keeping them teenage, mutant, ninja, and oh yeah, turtles. Will they still have learned to fight from Splinter? Will he still be named Splinter? Hell, will the turtles themselves even have the same names? (This is Bay, the toys could very likely be called Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Michelangelo while Bay names them Rex, Macky, Green, and Hardyboy in the movie itself)

My point is, I have no problem with ‘changes’ or new ideas sprinkled into a new adaptation of something, that’s fine, but how far away are you allowed to get from the core concepts and established ideas of a franchise before this ‘adaptation’ of said franchise becomes something 100% new, just with an old name slapped on it? For all its faults and ill-advised additions and revisions, ‘Ninja Turtles The Next Mutation’ still built off of the canon that was already established and kept all the basic ideas. This new Michael Bay thing…already seems like it has very little to do with what ANYONE thinks of when they think of Ninja Turtles. It would be like if Bay’s Transformers had been…about some cars and trucks that got splashed with ooze that mutated them into humanoid vehicle-things and they learned ninjutsu from a mutant rat.

Thoughts? I just find it all interesting and talk-about-able, is all.

I agree and this is one of my main complaints with later G1 TF. And if I'm not mistaken, this is also why Gomess doesn't like non robot in disguise TF stories. Because it gets too far away from that original concept that drew us into the series to begin with. And I feel that about this to the nth degree. I mean if they were just aliens I guess I could swallow it because how far out is it to assume that there is a planet out there inhabited by turtle people? Hell, I think "turtle people" was one of the few things that didn't make into MOTU. They had damned near everything else: Lizard people, cat people, bee people, spiders, crabs, beasts, fish (Mer-Man), birds, snakes, scorpion, etc... so that by itself wouldn't bother me, but to take away all the other elements is just bs. I dunno, I'm so broke right now that there is next to zero chance that I'm gonna have the money to even see this trainwreck so maybe I shouldn't care, but yeah, if something gets too far away from the concept, why bother?

Shockwave
-I think this is why Dom hates fanfic.

I actually dislike fanfic because it takes the stereotype of insular self-indulgence that most fandoms are associated with, justifies that stereotype and then amplifies it. There is a difference between being in to your hobby and completely going in to business for yourself while simultaneously parasiting and bastardizing.

Hmmmm....

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).

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?

Of course, how much of that is actually the core of the property? (Please do not pull the "but that is the what they are called" card.)

What about "snarky main characters", "non-human appearance" and "armed with skirmish weapons"?

I am not saying that I expect Bay to make a good movie. But, the three variables I listed are all likely to be parts of a successful summer movie, which is Bay's main concern.

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.


Dom]
-admits that the null checklist is counter intuitive though...

When I first heard that Michael Bay announced the Turtles would be aliens, I had hoped he was just confused about their origins. I mean, some continuities do explain the mutagen to be a creation of the Utrom's, so I can see that someone who is ill informed about the Turtles origins might make that mistake. I don't mind new ideas and concepts in franchises, but like BWprowl said, making the Turtles to be aliens instead changes the core concept of who/what they are. They aren't Mutant Turtles if they're aliens and calls into question if they're even still actually teenaged ninjas.

Dominic wrote:Of course, how much of that is actually the core of the property? (Please do not pull the "but that is the what they are called" card.)

I'm sorry, but I'm pulling it. This is a unique situation in that the title IS the concept and the concept is the core of what it's about. If you take all of that away, then why bother? I mean seriously, the whole basic idea is Mutant Turtles that are teenage ninjas. If you take all that away... fuck, I'm so irritated by this that I'm going in circles.

Shockwave
-I'm gonna shut up now.

Well I mean Michael Bay is shitty but I'm hopeful that--

BWprowl wrote:(This is Bay, the toys could very likely be called Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Michelangelo while Bay names them Rex, Macky, Green, and Hardyboy in the movie itself)

No, you know what? Fuck Ninja Turtles canon. This is awesome.

(Say it out loud and IMAGINE it. "Rex!" "Macky!" "Green!" "HARDYBOY!" "COWA-SHITTIN'-BUNGA!" Awesome, in the most horrible way.)


Okay in all seriousness now:

Sparky Prime wrote:When I first heard that Michael Bay announced the Turtles would be aliens, I had hoped he was just confused about their origins. I mean, some continuities do explain the mutagen to be a creation of the Utrom's, so I can see that someone who is ill informed about the Turtles origins might make that mistake. I don't mind new ideas and concepts in franchises, but like BWprowl said, making the Turtles to be aliens instead changes the core concept of who/what they are. They aren't Mutant Turtles if they're aliens and calls into question if they're even still actually teenaged ninjas.

Yeah, this. Bay might be confused. "The ooze used to make the Turtles is alien. Therefore, they're aliens!" He's also not directing the film at all--he's just producing it, so his involvement is far less than with TF. Regardless of their qualities as actual films, the Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street reboots he produced were actually very true to their mythos and had a ton of respect for their origins. (I even actually liked Friday the 13th, but it's pretty hard to fuck up a Jason movie.)

I've been throwing some ideas around in my head and in other places on the internet. One of them is that the Turtles aren't a random product of ooze but rather, they (and Splinter, as a rat) are captured by aliens (possibly Utroms, possibly Triceratons, probably neither) and get genetically experimented on to become the humanoid "mutants" they are. That way their origins would still remain as turtles, but they would simultaneously be "aliens" due to their space-concerning origin. Even in the 87 cartoon, the mutagen (They don't really call it ooze in the cartoon, it's always "mutagen") came from Krang and Dimension X, arguably making it alien as well.

Shockwave wrote:

Dominic wrote:Of course, how much of that is actually the core of the property? (Please do not pull the "but that is the what they are called" card.)

I'm sorry, but I'm pulling it. This is a unique situation in that the title IS the concept and the concept is the core of what it's about. If you take all of that away, then why bother? I mean seriously, the whole basic idea is Mutant Turtles that are teenage ninjas. If you take all that away... fuck, I'm so irritated by this that I'm going in circles.

Here's the core of the TMNT, as an emotional stickpoint: They are alone. They are the only ones of their race. The universe has all kinds of messed up aliens in it--Triceratons, Ray Filet, those intergalactic pro wrestling dudes from the Archie comics, the Utroms and/or Krang, the rock soldiers, Fugitoid, whoever else--but they're the only 'humanoid turtles' in the entire universe. If they're aliens, that suddenly changes things to a completely weird degree. Because now there's hope out there. There might be an entire planet of turtles they could "hope to return to." Even if that planet is destroyed (ala Krypton) then they could still hope there are other possible survivors, like how Superman has Supergirl, or those dudes who showed up in All-Star Superman. That changes things. The point is that all the Turtles have is each other and Splinter (and later, April and Casey Jones). Their strength is that they're a 'family,' and would do anything for each other, regardless of any actual biological connection to each other.

Think about this--what if Zack Snyder's Superman movie changed Superman's origin so that he wasn't an alien, but in fact had been affected by nuclear radiation (ala any number of 60s superheroes) and that's how he got his powers? People would be fucking OUTRAGED, because that changes Superman's whole dynamic. Doesn't matter if he would look the same, or even have the same powers--by changing his origin from "last survivor of an alien race" to "victim of nuclear accident," you change the entire core of the character. Or what if Batman's parents weren't killed in front of him, but instead his father ran out while his mother was pregnant, and she died in childbirth? Bruce Wayne's orphan status would be a victim of random circumstance rather than evidence that Gotham's crime problem was huge, and he wouldn't have any inspiration to fight crime. Why would he? Would he be a dark crusader against deadbeat dads and childbirth complications?

Now, I'm obviously not saying that those elements NEED to be in place for 'a' Superman or 'a' Batman. Superman died and four new guys, all with disparate origins, tried to take up the mantle. Terry McGuinness' mother was intact and his father was, in fact, a deadbeat dad, but he wasn't 'the' Batman. He was a successor to the first Batman. So he's allowed to be different.

I mean there's some franchises that can work pretty much whatever you do to them--GI Joe, for example, is way more character-based than origin-based because most of their characters origins are "I enlisted in the military, was real good at shooting people, so they put me on this team and got rid of my dress code." You can change how the GI Joe team was started and it wouldn't really matter. You can play with the origin of how TFs were created, because it's always inconsistent. (Sometimes, Primus! Sometimes, they evolved from gears! Sometimes, aliens!) I don't think there's any real emotional attachment in the origin of the Inhumanoids. Tony Stark could easily have made all his money himself, rather than inheriting it from his father, and little would likely change. You could even get rid of the whole "got kidnapped by terrorists and made the Iron Man armour to fight them" thing. (Although the "reactor in his chest keeping him alive" thing is pretty important.)

But for other franchises--like the Turtles, Batman, Superman, etc.--their origin is so closely tied to the characters' motivations that it's impossible to separate them. For example, very rarely do the Turtles have an origin that *isn't* all twisted around Shredder, who variably murders Hamato Yoshi or is the cause for his exile from the Foot (depending on whether or not Splinter was just Yoshi's pet or if he actually is Yoshi, transformed by ooze/mutagen) and gives Splinter motive to train his surrogate children. In the original comics, Splinter even explicitly tells the Turtles that the reason he's trained them is to go kill Shredder--and then he just tells them to do it. "Go kill Shredder." Now let's say Splinter isn't either of those in the new movie. Let's say he's an alien like the Turtles, and he doesn't know anyone named Hamato Yoshi. There's nobody named that. Now what motivation do they have against Shredder besides "He's a ninja crime lord?" Some of the best scenes in the first TMNT film are when Shredder is talking to Tatsu and trying to figure out why the hell the Turtles' fighting style is so familiar. Where he's seen it before. "Something about the way you described their fighting style....something...from the past."

Anyway I think I made my point, I'm just rambling now.

For what it's worth, Kevin Eastman has said he likes what they're doing. Eastman is famous for being alright with some more disparate interpretations of TMNT though--he loves the cartoon elements like Bebop, Rocksteady and Krang and either helped/allowed or was the originator of them being in IDW's new comics. He approved the female Turtle. He gave Image the license in the mid-90s and let them do all the weird shit like turn Donatello into a cyborg and cut off Raphael's hands and replace them with sais and shit. So maybe Eastman doesn't have the best overall ideas, but I'll take it over Peter "Donatello doesn't say 'yeah'" Laird.

I was really mad at first when I heard about Bay and the TMNT being aliens. I mean, what kind of jackass would do that? How could it possibly be good if it gets changed so dramatically?!

And then I thought of Battlestar Galactica.

The new one, from a few years ago. Way different from the original. Suddenly Starbuck is a chick. Suddenly the Cylons are sexy people. Suddenly there's mystical junk all over the place.

Y'know what? I loved the motherfucking shit out of that show.

Now I'm not saying that Bay's TMNT will be good, because it's Bay after all, and I usually think most of his movies are awful, but I don't think there's any reason to get mad yet, because I know that, now matter how much you change a thing, if you want to you can still make it AWESOME.

Ursus mellifera wrote:I was really mad at first when I heard about Bay and the TMNT being aliens. I mean, what kind of jackass would do that? How could it possibly be good if it gets changed so dramatically?!

And then I thought of Battlestar Galactica.

The new one, from a few years ago. Way different from the original. Suddenly Starbuck is a chick. Suddenly the Cylons are sexy people. Suddenly there's mystical junk all over the place.

Y'know what? I loved the motherfucking shit out of that show.

Now I'm not saying that Bay's TMNT will be good, because it's Bay after all, and I usually think most of his movies are awful, but I don't think there's any reason to get mad yet, because I know that, now matter how much you change a thing, if you want to you can still make it AWESOME.

It’s not really a question about whether it can be good or not. I’m not saying the concept as it’s been presented by Bay would be bad; a movie about turtle-shaped aliens fighting…whatever could surely be entertaining. The issue is, if you can make a good movie about evil-battling aliens, why not make it just that, instead of slapping the Ninja Turtles name on it and trying to pass it off as an ‘adaptation’? I think the reason people get upset about changes on this level is because, when they go to see a movie about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, they’re going because they want to see youthfully energetic turtles, cut-off from the world due to their unique mutant nature, defending the honor of their rat master and the martial arts he’s taught them, not aliens who happen to look like turtles showing up to…do whatever.

Now, I know exactly zero about Battlestar Galactica, so I can’t really comment on the point you made, but I’m going to try anyway: Even with all the changes they made, like a character’s gender, and what the Cylons look like, etc, how much of the core concept of the series was changed? Like, what was the original Battlestar Galactica *about*, and was the new series *about* that?

Because like Six said, TMNT is *about* a group of mutant brothers outcast from the world due to their extreme individuality, trying to do good and being devoted to what they consider ‘family’, including fighting to protect their master’s honor, and even going out and *assassinating* a guy for him because that’s what they do for each other. You take away their mutant status, their home-connection to Earth, the years they spent being trained by their master, and you’re left with very little that resembles the source material besides humanoid animals fighting bad guys. With what we’ve been given of Bay’s Ninja Turtles so far, this could just as easily be a Battletoads or a Street Sharks movie, all you’d have to do is change the species that the aliens resemble.

Spoiler

If Bay or anyone else makes a live-action Street Sharks movie, I will be there on opening night.

On the other hand, like Six said, we really can’t make too many judgment calls on this yet, since there’s still so much *we don’t know*, including how the ‘aliens’ thing actually figures in. Maybe it is just a ‘mutated by aliens’ sort of shtick. This is Bay we’re talking about, he has a reputation for having no clue what he’s talking about when discussing his own movies (dude can’t even pronounce his characters’ names right half the time).

BWprowl wrote:

Spoiler

If Bay or anyone else makes a live-action Street Sharks movie, I will be there on opening night.

Absomotherfuckinglutely. (Them being mutants isn't even a big part of Street Sharks. The whole brotherhood thing? Nonexistant. I hope

Spoiler

Moby Lick

makes it in though.)

On the other hand, like Six said, we really can’t make too many judgment calls on this yet, since there’s still so much *we don’t know*, including how the ‘aliens’ thing actually figures in. Maybe it is just a ‘mutated by aliens’ sort of shtick. This is Bay we’re talking about, he has a reputation for having no clue what he’s talking about when discussing his own movies (dude can’t even pronounce his characters’ names right half the time).

He also has a reputation for outright lying.

"Megatron isn't in Revenge of the Fallen!"

"Well, Hasbro might be making a toy. But it's not in the movie."

"Okay, he's in the trailer. But that's just...a flashback, or something! He's not alive or anything."

"Okay he's in the movie."

Onslaught Six wrote:Absomotherfuckinglutely. (Them being mutants isn't even a big part of Street Sharks. The whole brotherhood thing? Nonexistant. I hope

Spoiler

Moby Lick

makes it in though.)

Moby Lick's okay, but come on: Rox.

Dammit, now I just want an awesome Street Sharks revival of some sort. Maybe in like ten years Mattel can bring it back with the same pure evil intentions they're currently treating MOTU with.

He also has a reputation for outright lying.

"Megatron isn't in Revenge of the Fallen!"

"Well, Hasbro might be making a toy. But it's not in the movie."

"Okay, he's in the trailer. But that's just...a flashback, or something! He's not alive or anything."

"Okay he's in the movie."

To be fair, that was a deliberate misinformation campaign, he was trying to maintain the 'surprise' of Megatron coming back in ROTF, which went about as well as expected, the way it was handled. They did a better job with Sentinel's turn in DOTM.

And don't think I *haven't* considered that this Alien Turtles thing might just be misinformation from Bay. Like, he's trying to throw everyone off into hating it for ridiculous reasons, so when it comes out and it actually swings pretty close to the source material, everyone will be even more surprised and impressed. I think that might be giving Bay too much credit though.