Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Thread - Started With Mutant Mayhem Discussion

[StarkRavingMad]

So, uh, over the weekend I finally motivated myself to watch the Mutant Mayhem movie.

I'm not going to talk about April, or the gender swapping of several mutants ... We all know it's dumb and it's pandering, so I'm not going to beat a dead horse. There's nothing I could say that hasn't already been said, I'm sure.

Anyway, this movie was a prime example of style over substance. The animation looked cool, the score was good, and the song choices were mostly well done (aside from the use of the He-Man meme song ... Which was desperate tryhard cringe in its purest form) ... But the movie in of itself was a whole lotta nothing.

The first half of the movie is full of very clunky and awkward exposition (example: "I'm Splinter, your dad, so boys ... Let me tell you all our own origin story again so that the audience can get context!").

The use of the mutants was completely wasted. It was absolutely a memberberries situation, because the mutants that us 80s and 90s kids remember did jack shit other than say "Hi! I'm this character! Remember me, kids?!" And don't even get me started on how lame Bebop and Rocksteady were.

My biggest complaint about the film, though, was its complete misunderstanding of the turtles themselves. At best, each of their personalities were approached at the superficial, bare minimum surface level. Leo was the more "mature" one and the rest were chucklefucks, we were told that Raph had "anger issues" but didn't actually display ANY anger at ANY point in the movie, Mikey showed absolutely no personality whatsoever, and Donnie was just a nerd who likes anime and isn't even smart? I'm sorry, but since when was Donatello the one who approached problems and solutions using pop culture references? That's supposed to be a Michelangelo thing!

And I think the movie went too far with the "they're actual teenagers!" gimmick. Putting the turtles in a high school is some fanfiction level shit, come on. It's lame.

Anyway, imagine my amusement when the movie ended and the credits revealed that it took 5 people to write it. lmao.

 

[The Decimator]

I was never a big fan of the TMNT for the longest time, but binge-watching Phelous’ Next Mutation videos recently has converted me. I do remember seeing quite a bit of the 2012 series back when my little sister was still regularly watching Nickelodeon and thinking it was pretty good. Are they even doing anything with the franchise now?

 

[StarkRavingMad]

I was never a big fan of the TMNT for the longest time, but binge-watching Phelous’ Next Mutation videos recently has converted me. I do remember seeing quite a bit of the 2012 series back when my little sister was still regularly watching Nickelodeon and thinking it was pretty good. Are they even doing anything with the franchise now?

Not really. Mutant Mayhem got its own tv series and I think it's already been canceled? lol.

If you're a newbie to TMNT, then do yourself a favor and watch the live action movie from 1990. It's fantastic.

 

[The Decimator]

Not really. Mutant Mayhem got its own tv series and I think it's already been canceled? lol.

If you're a newbie to TMNT, then do yourself a favor and watch the live action movie from 1990. It's fantastic.

I have seen the movie before, and I thought it was awesome. Then again, I’m predisposed to like anything that has Jim Henson’s involvement.

 

[Standardized Profile]

Apparently there will be a Mutant Mayhem sequel in September 2027. Putting together rumors from TheTechnodrome.com and Deadline, the Turtles are in high school, Krang will be in it, and there will be "a new villain they have to face: The Shredder." Interested in this new "Shredder" character, wonder what he'll look like.

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I've probably posted something like this before, but I'll do it again....

Newbies (and everyone else) should also read the original comic through Return to New York, at least. The tone can be inconsistent but that's fine, it's what happens when you have two creators who aren't always on the same wavelength. It also has some of the best action sequences I've seen in sequential art. They have a real command of how to lay out panels and the fights look cool. The Leonardo one-shot is one of my favorites: most of the page is taken up with Leo's running battle through the city while the last panel shows everyone else trimming the Christmas tree.



You get a sense of how quick the action is moving from Leo's frame of reference as he takes his eyes off his opponent and whips his head around to check his 9-o'-clock and there's another ninja there. But he's taken by surprise from behind, and the action cuts right as he's about to get kicked in the face. The running battle has been going on for 24 pages at this point, and not a single panel is wasted. Back home, his brothers are just starting to get the sense that something's wrong. They've been painfully slow in coming to this realization, which really builds the tension.

Eventually Leo finds someone he didn't expect, there's this moment of pure shock, then he goes right back into attack mode--but the effect of the surprise and the overwhelming force of the enemy are so great his final panels melt and shatter. Then some bad stuff happens. It's adapted very well in the 1990 film, given the nature of the film, but the books are still worth reading to see scenes like this in their original context and all the stuff that was never adapted. Most of the good stuff was printed by IDW in their Ultimate TMNT collection.

 

[Ultraman Orb Dark]

Apparently there will be a Mutant Mayhem sequel in September 2027. Putting together rumors from TheTechnodrome.com and Deadline, the Turtles are in high school, Krang will be in it, and there will be "a new villain they have to face: The Shredder." Interested in this new "Shredder" character, wonder what he'll look like.

At the very least, it was all but stated that one of the main villains of the first movie was an Utrom, but I'm more concerned about how they'll handle Shredder. A big part of Splinter's backstory is his history with Shredder, whether he was a human or rat before mutating. The first film made it clear that Splinter was just a stray rat before he mutated, so unless the writers pull something out of their shells and say he used to be Hamato Yoshi's pet or something (even when it was made clear Splinter used to hate all humans), it's a little hard to get invested in what the conflict will be like.