The Fan Reaction To The New Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
The loud negative reaction to the new Michael Bay produced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles design and upcoming movie
Let me say upfront I don’t really care about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I never did. I remember when their comic first showed up and just thinking “oh that’s a pretty funny title”. And that was pretty much it. I never gave them much thought after that.
I saw the 1990 movie and again – I didn’t think much of it. Not too long ago I rewatched it with my nephews since now their Turtle fans. I still didn’t think much of it.
Whenever they asked me who my favorite Turtle was I would just say Michelangelo since he wears the orange mask. I like orange and I like Michelangelo the artist. So yeah guys he’s my favorite Turtle.
I have no idea what any of the individual turtle personalities are or how to distinguish them from one another other than the color of masks they wear or the weapons they use. I’m sure fans know all their individual quirks and stuff.
To me the Turtles just seemed like interchangeable characters who wear different colors. Sort of like Power Rangers only they eat pizza. Sorry don’t mean to insult Turtle fans, but I just never got into them.
Anyway, a new TMNT is going to be arriving and boy is there a lot of reaction by Turtle fans over it. Most of the reception doesn’t sound all that good either.
It seems the main complaint is the newly designed Turtles. Instead of using costumes on actors as they did in the older films, now the Turtles will be CGI creations with much less turtle kind of faces. Looking at this guy in the trailer I don’t immediately think of ‘turtle’. From the looks of it they could have been going for a big mutated frog and have nothing to do with a turtle. Luckily he has a shell on his back so that’s a tipoff.
As I said this Turtle movie is not even on my radar. But I’ll admit to enjoying listening to the ranting and complaining of longtime Turtle fans over what producer Michael Bay is doing to these characters and what fans can expect to see when the film arrives in August.
I won’t even get into what’s raising the ire of fans – casting, changes to origins and characters, the look of the turtles. It seems like there’s very little that has been greeted with positive reactions.
The optimistic fans would loudly point out that Bay IS NOT DIRECTING this new Turtles flick. He’s merely producing it. He’s just the producer on this movie like he was on Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, The Hitcher, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street.…all awful remakes.
Oh the director Jonathan Liebesman will probably bring something to the table to this movie. Maybe the same stuff he brought to some of the other films he directed like Wrath of the Titans, Battle Los Angeles and that Chainsaw remake. Apologies for reminding fans of his resume.
Realistically how can anyone expect anything good to come of Bay’s association with any movie nowadays. And come on – his fingerprints are all over this! Toss in this movie going back for reshoots and then having Megan Fox as a lead character and this is going to get one interesting reception. At least William Fichtner will be in it….in a role fans wholeheartedly believe he’s the wrong choice for, but hey what can you do.
Undoubtedly, Turtles will make a bunch of money. Audiences will go see it just based on the known title. I think that’s the theory behind most remakes and reboots. Plus, it will sell lots of toys and video games and probably get a sequel acouple years from now. Will this movie actually be any good and win over skeptical fans that remains to be seen.
Either way I don’t really care. I feel for longtime fans who have that growing sense of dread seeing what is happening to something they love. That feeling of betrayal can really gnaw at you. I’ve been there.
The question that comes to my mind when seeing that trailer is…
Where' s Splinter? Or is Fichtner it?
:headslap:
Oh come on, Megan Fox is Splinter (or at least she should be, because she isn't nor never will be April O'Neil)
I used to love Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles (sorry but here in the UK, we thought the word Ninja was to extreme for our young, naive and innocent minds) I liked the movies, but I LOVED the cartoons, I grew up on them, and if I happen to catch an episode or two on some retro cartoon channel, then I sit down and watch it.
As for this incarnation, Fox isn't April, whilst Michael Bay doesn't do us any favours, his producing career is even sketchier then his directing one. I mean just look at the Chainsaw remakes, and then look at his remake of The Hitcher, which was not only unnecessary, but was also offensive. Why remake one of the best horror films of the 80s and turn it from a mysterious road movie into a MTV monstrosity.
I was right there for all the Turtle mania in the late 1980s, yet I was never really a religious follower of the show or the movies. I remember playing the shit out of the game at the local arcade, and even remember vividly going to see SECRET OF THE OOZE at the theater; I was quite turned off by the Vanilla Ice song the Turtles danced to near the end before facing the Super Shredder (Yo, it's the green machine…have you ever seen a turtle get dowwwwwwwwnnn? Ugh!). That and also the filmmakers wasting David Warner to no end.
Like others, I was also upset at how they screwed up the continuity between the movies, with the changing of actresses for April O'Neil, the character of Davey Jones not appearing again until Part III where he just had a cameo. The live action movies were amusing, yet I wouldn't count them as being some of the greats of the genre…far from it. That being said, I never saw the animated movie they made a few years ago and will certainly not be watching anything associated with Michael Bay ever again (I didn't hate the only TRANSFORMERS movie I watched which was DARK OF THE MOON, I'm simply done with him. He's just a hack who has made one crappy movie after another; I didn't even care for BAD BOYS or THE ROCK, which were his breakout films because they were just so ******* STUPID.
So, needless to say, I don't give a snapping turtle's fart about this new movie. 🙂
My apologies to Turtles fans…it's Casey Jones not Davey Jones 🙂