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Where Does Kevin Eastman Draw the Line?
In light of the seemingly legitimate botched Bay-induced movie script, I must ask: where does Kevin Eastman draw the line? He released statements along the lines of (not verbatim) "fans will be pleased" and he constantly assured people of how cool the new film is going to be. He also gave the green-light to Venus, and created BodyCount.
There comes a point when you have to ask yourself, where does Kevin draw the line? Is there even a line to be drawn, or is Kevin sincerely so open to change that he embraces audacious stories that mangle his creations? |
He doesn't draw the line. Its quite obvious he lets people do whatever they want with the TMNT franchise and allows them to have fun with it. This gives us both good...and bad...scenarios.
If I recall Kevin actually wanted the Image writers to kill off Splinter in that series, but instead they change him into a bat to have him leave the Turtles for a bit that way instead. Someone recently asked Kevin about Venus and he was like, "I still love Venus," so apparently he doesn't view her character as a mistake or anything. |
Given the choice between the two of the co-creators, I am glad that Peter Laird had controlling interest over the franchise during the 00s. I don't really know if the franchise would be better or worse off if Eastman had made all the decisions for the past decade, but I think Laird kept the franchise alive (if not entirely thriving) during his tenure at the helm.
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Laird was definitely a better parent than Eastman. Eastman would let his Turtles play in raw sewage.
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You guys are so fickle.
Everyone ragged on Peter when he had the turtles. Kevin hardly is in control. Nickelodeon owns them now if you seem to have forgotten not Kevin. Kevin is now sort of like the Turtles bad ass uncle. |
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In honesty, Eastman only draws the line when us fans and production executives reject his ideas. But its wrong to hate Eastman since even though he may receive more criticism than Laird, has provided more to the franchise than Laird has. He has a harder shell than Laird being more tolerant to negativity, and seems to support the fans to make projects possible much more than Laird.
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Honestly, and this is almost an 'outsider looking in' viewpoint since most of my knowledge of the two authors comes directly from this forum...I think CyberCubed hit the nail on the head when he said that Eastman's 'looseness' on the Turtles gives us both good and bad things.
Obviously, Next Mutation was fraught with mistakes, but I think it was more about execution than the ideas themselves being bad personally. Could Venus have worked if more care had been put into making her work? I believe so. Was anyone there that could have done that? I don't know, it's probably debatable. As it is, was she a good character? Not at ALL. And now Eastman's willingness to let others play with the formula is possibly giving us alien Turtles...which I'm not so fond of. So yeah, he could stand to be a little more strict on it. On the flip side though, just based on his own statement about things, I find Laird to be WAY too strict. It seems to be literally his way or the highway, and most statements from him seems to be some kind of acidic comment about how something sucked. Sure, it's his opinion, and as the original creator he's even more entitled than usual to have his say on something - but it just comes across so horribly bitter to me. So between the two...I'm probably more 'Team Eastman' if we're picking sides here. |
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In my opinion, the TMNT franchise was (creatively) stifled under Peter because he wasn't open-minded enough. He would routinely draw a hard line against incorporating any proposed idea that reminded him of his memories of the Fred Wolf cartoon. He appreciated the fans, but he had very little patience for criticism. When fans criticized the current state of the Volume 4 comics, the PBBZ reprint, or some other TMNT project he oversaw (sometimes rudely and ignorantly so) he would often respond in a frank and untactful manner. Kevin Eastman, on the other hand, has always been a remarkably open-minded artist, probably to the detriment of his actual work. He shook up the TMNT status-quo with the introduction of Venus in the Next Mutation. He participated in the infamous Bodycount arc simply for the sake of working with Bode and creating "the longest gunfight in comics history." Although I don't have any sources, I think he embraced the weird guest artist/writer schedule on the Mirage Volume 1 comics more than did Peter. In recent years, he has been associated with the new film project and the IDW comics. I suspect he's taken an "(almost) Anything Goes" attitude with how the TMNT are portrayed in contemporary media. It's the exact opposite attitude that Peter took with the 2k3 show and the 2007 Imagi film. If I had to pick either guy to meet and/or hang out with, it would definitely be Kevin. The guy just seems so fun and engaging, and I think he appreciates most aspects of TMNT history and doesn't mind appeasing fans who really love that aspects. But I am nevertheless appreciative of Peter's stewardship over the franchise during what could have been a "dead era." He is the more careful thinker and storyteller (even if not fans found those stories especially interesting). He wasn't afraid to stand his ground against outside pressure to "improve" the brand or "do things differently." It may not have been the best (or the most fun) way to handle the TMNT property, but it did keep it alive and set it up for potential future success. And... I was gonna make some profound statement to wrap things up, but I think I'm already getting bored with this post. |
By definition, it doesn't qualify as a TMNT movie because the turtles aren't teenage mutants in the film. Without all four defining characteristics, it's just a movie with alien turtles. I know it's a technicality but it's a big one.
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"We've allowed the wacky side to happen, and enjoy it very much. All the while, though, we've kept the originals very much ours – forty pages of what we enjoy and want to see in our books, whether it comes from our own hands or from those of the talented people we work with."
From the fan mail. While Laird might not retain that view, I think Eastman very much does. Their comics will always be theirs' and they can't be changed. |
Kevin Eastman draws the line - in his case, it looks more like a decimal point - directly to the left of the last two zeroes, and to the right of a number and a lot more zeroes. :P
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I've read the book Batman and Me by creator Bob Kane, and he said that though people have criticized the campy 1960's television show, he defends it because he says it kept the Batman character alive in the public imagination.
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Kevin, to me, has always seemed like a guy who can't believe he fell ass-backwards into millions of dollars. It's as though he came up with this idea on a lark and never dreamt it would turn into something as huge as what it became. He went along for the ride and enjoyed it. Laird, on the other hand, seems like a guy who wanted to be an illustrator and never got that chance, and who spent many years making concessions and compromises almost to the point of becoming frustrated.
I think their personalities are different from one another, and that's probably why the few things they DID do together were so fantastic. But it's also why they quit working together. Sometimes when you're full of passion and pushing up against something, you produce your best work. When you're comfortable and don't have to worry, and everything kind of goes your way, the work can suffer. I don't blame Eastman for embracing anything and everything Turtle-related (though I thought and still think Venus was a stupid idea). I'd probably do the same thing if a producer wanted to turn my self-published property into a teevee show. But I'd also want creative control to an extent... So I can see both sides of it. |
and looking at the old script, can kind of see was Kevin would of thought that we would all love this movie.
For all we were wanting it, we were getting Bebop, Rocksteady, and Krang in the movie... fans had been wanting them in a movie forever |
Kevin is also having fun himself! :tlol:
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When he's dead?
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