OK, I’ll admit it. I'm a nerd. I’ll admit that I bought a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles mask at Wal-Mart on Saturday and that as I'm writing this, I'm watching a marathon of every single "TMNT" movie to prepare myself for this week’s premier showing at my local movie theater.
What I'm expecting:
Last week I wrote an article about obsessions, and in that article I spoke about someone who is a much bigger fan of the Turtles than I. Michele Ivey considers herself to be part of the squad, and she's honestly really cool and very knowledgable when it comes to the half-shell heroes (surprise... LOL).
Since I wrote that article, Michele and I have become Facebook friends and I've started to read her blog.
Last week, she wrote a detailed, spoiler-free post about the new movie, as she was at the NYC premiere (which I'm a little jealous about, because from what I saw, it was quite the shindig).
What I'm really looking forward to, based on how Michele described the film, is seeing each of the turtles face their own internal conflicts head on. In the past, the movies have always focused on one or two turtles and their specific issue, but I'm expecting more of a plot here because of each of their struggles.
Take, for example, the 1990s original, live-action movie. Spoiler alert: Throughout the story, Leonardo is really finding himself as a leader and begins to understand that, while his hothead of a brother, Raph, may be difficult to deal with at times, all four of them must work together in order to get anything done. This is a difficult lesson to learn for Leonardo, because the brothers are without their mentor, Master Splinter, for most of the story, and that's to whom Leo looks for wisdom.
This same plotline is almost revisited in the 2007 CGI film.
My concerns:
The first Michael Bay version of the turtles was sub-par, in my opinion, so I'm more or less nervous about this one. Does he really deserve a second chance to make us Turtle fans happy? I mean, I guess, but only because I preach that everyone deserves a second chance.
I feel this way because in 2014, he completely killed the plotline that we grew up with. It was almost painful to watch, and I'll never really be able to accept the changes he tried to make to Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird’s original backstory.
Spoiler alert: I mean seriously, we all know how it went down. A kid dropped his four pet turtles in a sewer drain, there was some TCRI ooze spilled at the bottom, a rat found them crawling around in it and then as they all grew into giant versions of themselves, the rat taught them Ninjutsu.
Michael Bay changed it up. A lot. He decided to make the turtles a lab experiment by TCRI and because they tested the ooze on them, they turned into mutant turtles (boooring).
The sequel to the 1990 film is one of the best, and based on previews, I believe they may have tried to redo that storyline, while pleasing long-time fans. It's no secret that they're bringing in some of the best characters from the original 1984 animated series (Casey Jones, Bebop and Rocksteady, among others) but how weird will it be, considering none of them existed in the first movie?
If you look at any of the past renditions of the ageless tales following the crime-fighting shell kickers, Casey Jones, in the very least, is introduced very quickly. He’s in the first half hour of the 1990 and the 2007 movie, and the first five episodes of the 2003 animated series. He’s just very necessary, and Michael Bay took two years to give us a vigilante in a hockey mask.
Besides the time it took to introduce him, how awkward is it going to be for April, considering Bay decided that it would be OK to give us this random Vern character to chase after the news reporter? Casey and April have always been the OTP, and I think I’m going to feel uncomfortable for Megan Fox’s character when both Vern and Casey meet, even if they don’t end up fighting over her.
OK, OK…
I didn’t really cover much ground. I mean, how can you? Each generation of turtles has its differences, but this one is too much, in my opinion. Yeah, I'm excited for a few things, but I'm genuinely nervous to give Michael Bay the freedom to mess with the fandom I love.
These are only a few of my concerns going into the premier this week. Even so, it's really exciting to be able to see the half-shell heroes in action again, even if there are so many differences.
