TMNT Goes Nickelodeon

[SchemingMinor]

Alright. Now that looks a hell of a lot better than I imagined that they would turn out, especially after the costume photo.

[Johnny Boy]

Ah, I'm really liking these designs so far. But I'm still not that excited for this film since Megan Fox is in it.

[Zaysho]

I'm actually surprised the Turtles themselves look decent; I don't care for the unnecessary clothes or anything, but the designs themselves aren't terrible. I wonder how much of these designs were Kevin Eastman's ideas? I recall he did do some character design work and Kid Cudi had posted a drawing Eastman gave him that was related to the movie a good while back.

 

Personally, I don't like the Shredder design though. I know everyone else likes it, but it's not my favorite look for the character. They have the basics and all, but it seems overly busy. I prefer the first movie Shredder (and by extension, Mirage Shredder) or IDW's Shredder more. Much simpler, but still very imposing, and that's simply because Oroku Saki has such a strong presence in those incarnations (first movie Shredder mopped the floor with the Turtles effortlessly, and only got a scratch from Leo in the whole fight*). Oh wait, he's not "Oroku Saki," he's "Eric Sachs" in this movie. Well, whatever.

 

EDIT: *I tend to gush about the first TMNT movie because it's my absolute favorite and a perfect distillation of the early Mirage issues. I'll try to tone it down if I keep posting in here...

[Soniman]

Holy god damn Shredder looks like he's ready to FUCK SHIT UP. I love that design.

 

And hey, Turtles aren't to bad either.

[Kuzu]

Shredder looks bulky as fuck, yet still intimidating.

[Doctor MK]

Hmm... the Turtles certainly aren't as bad as they could have been, but I'm still not quite digging all the torn clothes and stuff that they're wearing (presumably just to be appear more "hardcore")... and didn't Mikey have tattoos in the kids' costume thingy? Where the hell does a mutant ninja turtle get a tattoo from without being discovered?

 

I'll reserve full judgement for when I see them in proper movie quality CG, but for now, they're alright. Not the best, but not the worst.

 

Shredder however looks fucking badass oh my god he is gonna kick some shell

[Burning Finger]

I don't know how I feel about these Turtles. They kinda remind me of the Next Mutation designs, and I don't like them.

The Shredder looks kinda cool, but his face looks like he stepped right out of a Bayformers film.

[Marcello]

The turtles actually look pretty good. I don't like the extra clothes and Raph looks too buff (He looks like the Hulk xD), though. I'm happy with the faces, too. I was expecting something like Out of the Shadows, which was just awful looking.

 

Shredder has too much stuff going on. I like the simpler comics look far more.

[Dejimon11]

Here's the poster http://hollywoodlife.com/2014/01/29/teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-movie-poster-2014/

[DarkLight]

Dem lips....

 

Funny how they went from passable to hilariously bad  for me.

[Burning Finger]

Gotta say I'm really surprised at how well received the designs have been so far.

I'm trying my hardest to like them, but I just can't get into them.

 

Just how big are these Turtles supposed to be in this anyway? They look twice their normal size here.

[Marcello]

Yeah, looking at that poster changed my opinion for the worse..

[Conando]

Wow, Shredder actually looks really good. The turtles don't actually look bad either. Not a fan of Raph having a bandanna for some reason, though.

[Gabz Girl]

The Turtles look just ok. I'm annoyed about their bulky-ness and Raph's bandanna thingie but eh, I can live with that. Shredder on the other hand looks badass! =O

[Mando-Whirl-Wind]

Ummmm, you guys pretty sure that the poster is a fake, for a couple reasons, or at least was a prototype and not the production one

First off, the abbreviated ninja turtles, since the official title is now Teenage Mutant Ninja turtles, and also since that title will bring in more people on nostaglia

Second, the room its in looks either like a toy prototyping area, or a collectors room

Third, there is no sign of the studio's name on the poster, almost everyone of these have a release date, and the producers name on them

 

So yeah, dont overreact to that, and also realize this: they will proably look a whole lot better in action

[Marcello]

Ummmm, you guys pretty sure that the poster is a fake, for a couple reasons, or at least was a prototype and not the production one

First off, the abbreviated ninja turtles, since the official title is now Teenage Mutant Ninja turtles, and also since that title will bring in more people on nostaglia

Second, the room its in looks either like a toy prototyping area, or a collectors room

Third, there is no sign of the studio's name on the poster, almost everyone of these have a release date, and the producers name on them

 

So yeah, dont overreact to that, and also realize this: they will proably look a whole lot better in action

 

It looks like it's from a booth and seeing as there's a toy fair in Germany currently, I'd wager it's real.

 

This shows me enough for me to see I don't like the designs. I don't need to see them moving to know that. They might move well, but I still don't like what they did with them.

 

 

Where'd you hear the movie is called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles instead of Ninja Turtles? Last I heard it still had the first two words cut

[DarkLight]

Yeah, no one seems to be overreacting here. Just saying they don't like the designs.

[Jacky]

Promo art like that tends to be more stylized and simpler and is usually appears on toy packaging and lunchboxes and what not, it's not studio-released images, those maquettes from a few pages back are probably the most accurate rendition we'll get at that since those are made from the actual CGI renders.

 

Speaking of toys, look at the ones for the movie


But more importantly, plot details have been circulating around as well, quite a bit of spoilers, but check em out

Oruko Saki is the Shredder, leader of the Foot Clan, an ancient order of ninjas. His rival, Hamato Yoshi, objects to Saki turning the Foot Clan into a criminal organization in the Tokyo underworld.

Saki has mastered an ancient martial technique that makes him virtually unbeatable, but Yoshi successfully creates a counter-technique that could defeat him. In anger, Saki killed Yoshi, but Yoshi's pet rat, Splinter, who had learned Ninjutsu from observing Yoshi's training, manages to escape and flee to New York City.

Saki's adoptive son, an American orphan named Eric Sachs, replaces him as The Shredder and travels to New York City, where he militarizes the Foot Clan. Alongside his loyal protege, Karai, Sachs aspires to expand the Foot Clan's control across the globe.

In the sewers beneath New York City, Splinter and four turtles come into contact with Ooze, a mutagen developed by Dr. Baxter Stockman. They become sentient and humanoid, and Splinter takes the turtles under his wing, naming them Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello and Michelangelo, and teaching them the secrets of Ninjutsu, including Yoshi's fabled technique.

As the Turtles begin sabotaging the Foot Clan's expansion efforts, their paths cross with April O'Neil, a young and ambitious reporter from a newspaper owned by Bernadette Thompson, who believes breaking the story on the secrets of the elusive Foot Clan will launch her career. April is tagged for assassination by the Foot Clan for her meddling, and ends up being rescued by the Turtles. One of Raphael's sais is left behind, and April manages to trace it to the Turtles. They then form an alliance to stop the Shredder before he takes over New York's crime families, all while the Shredder, learning of the Turtles' existence and, particularly, of the survival of Splinter and Yoshi's technique, sends hordes of Foot assassins led by Karai to slay the Turtles.

 

[Zaysho]

*reads plot details* So that's how they came up with Eric Sachs for this incarnation. At least he's not directly replacing Oroku Saki, but I'm not too with Karai being an underling... will she basically be this movie's Tatsu? Well, maybe she'll eventually overthrow Sachs and create her own faction of the Foot (and possibly form an alliance with the Turtles). Ha, maybe they'd try to do "City at War" if this is set to become a new series of movies (ha, "if").

 

They're really pulling from a bit of everything it seems, such as Stockman developing the ooze (which he sort of did in the IDW comics, with the help of Krang) and a slightly closer Mirage origin (Saki kills Yoshi, Splinter learns ninjitsu watching Yoshi and teaches it to the Turtles), and April finding Raph's sai (first movie) but borrowing more heavily from the setting of the Fred Wolf cartoon. Of course, the first movie had a Fred Wolf influence too, but it began and ended with "April O'Neil is a TV news reporter" and, perhaps, the Turtles' mask colors, but it was definitely more "Mirage" than anything else.

 

I'm still on the fence about this, as nothing I've heard about this film prior (especially the original script treatment) really excited me. I'm also liking the Turtles' designs less. They're not the worst they could've been, but I'm just not into them very much. The more I look at them, they're just way too busy for my tastes, similar to Sachs!Shredder. I suppose I like that "less is more" aesthetic from most other incarnations which are far more simple, and they're still tough and relatively easy to tell apart (well, depending on who's drawing them...). Reading the plot details has got me curious now, but I'm not expecting much from it either way.

[Agie]

I'm willing to give the film a shot, but I don't expect too much out of it.

[Kevin]

*sees leaked designs*

 

...That has to be one of the best Shredder designs I've ever seen! I even have to admit the Turtles don't look that bad at all.

[Marcello]

Anyone see the latest episode? It aired on the second.

 

It was my favorite of the season and one of the best in the series to me.

 

Casey finally met the turtles, with some minor references. Raph found him pounding on some Purple Dragon thugs and stopped him and told him to cool off, which is always fun. Casey later finds Raph on a rooftop, similar to the first movie. And Casey hockey stick has "East-Man" printed on it, while his left glove thing has "Laird". It was really fun to watch the two fight each other and together.

 

And another old character appeared. Irma! She has appeared before in cameos, but this is the first time she talks and is named.

 

The funniest scene to me was when Raph came back to the lair and Donnie just boredly says, "Oh yay. Raph is back" The delivery was perfect.

 

April randomly had Spidey senses, though. I didn't like that.

[DarkLight]

Next episode is apparently going to reveal a big secret regarding April.

 

Maybe it'll finally explain what makes her so special to the Kraang.

[Kuzu]

And the Raph and Casey bromance has begun again.

[Zaysho]

I really enjoyed last week's episode and the homages to both the Mirage Raphael Micro AND the first movie. I sorta didn't like that Raph's anger already reset especially since the events are following from what happened with Spike/Slash. I expected him to be more mellow (you know, for Raph), but his temper is already back out of control, as if he still hasn't learned the lesson, especially seeing how all his anger inadvertently influenced Slash (the ooze didn't help matters, but its clear Slash is far more intelligent than the other mutants that have shown up recently). Don't get me wrong, I like Raph when he's more serious/angry, because I don't want to go back to the Fred Wolf days where he was "Michelangelo 2," it's just a little jarring seeing him flying into a rage after previous events.
 
That said, it was cool seeing him and Casey finally team up, and they definitely fight well together. Maybe Casey will help keep Raph's anger in check. All in all, I do like this series' portrayal of Raph, as it's everything I liked about the character from previous incarnations, without making him too much of a jerkass (he's still a jerk, but he's a jerk with a heart of gold).
 
As for today's episode? I'm a little mixed. While it's cool seeing more of the Kraang plot... The April conspiracy thing has rubbed me the wrong way from the start. I like a lot of things done with the character in this cartoon, but making her the center of everything...? Eh. I don't see why the character needs to be made out to be super special just to make her important. Sure, IDW's April got caught up in a larger conspiracy that's been revealed recently, and happened to be the one that named the Turtles, and happened to be the one that was attacked by the Foot when they broke into Stockgen to steal the ooze and Turtles, and her father happened to be working on the ooze project before he had his stroke, but none of it tries to imply that April is inherently more important than anyone else. She just happened (through a string of really weird coincidences--but this is a comic book for crying out loud) to get caught in the middle of all the craziness (like most other incarnations).
 

Today's reveal that April is actually a mutant hybrid because of the results of selective breeding is pretty interesting though. It does explain certain aspects of her character that appeared in the first season (notably when she deduced that the mutant monkey was actually Rockwell) and how she's able to sense to sense the Kraang. It also helps that she didn't just happen to always be able to do this, but it seems to be more of a direct result of Splinter training her that these abilities are starting to develop as they have. It also helps knowing that the Kraang probably didn't even know she was "The One" until after she sent her DNA to what she thought was for a science project, so she at least starts out as being just another bystander that got caught up in all the craziness when she met the Turtles.

 
On an unrelated note, the thought of Mae Whitman in the booth yelling "DERPDERPDERP" (for the reject April clone dubbed "April-derp") is just funny as hell.

 
All in all, while there's certain aspects of this show I don't like, it's hard to ignore how many more things they get right/do well, and it's still a very fun show to look forward to every week (not that there's much competition right now... let's see how "Sonic Boom" turns out).