Missed opportunities for Nick's TMNT
 

Hey guys,

I don't come here nearly as much as I should, but I just found out that this iteration is ending at season 5.

I have mixed feeling of this version. On one hand, I like the passion Ciero brought, his willingness to mix and amalgamate from Mirage, OT, toys, Archie and 2012, that fact we got a lot of new mutants as well as the return of several old characters, some very obscure like Armaggon being animated for the first time.

That being said, personally, I felt that season 1 was the best, when the season 1 writers were the showrunners, there wasn't an homage every episode to horror, sci-fi and action movies. There were a lot of great episodes from seasons, 2,3 and 4 but consistently, the quality, IMO seemed the best during Season 1.

Now that show is ending, what do you think were the series' biggest missed opportunities, where they're any characters or storylines you wanted to see and what could have been better?

For me,

- I wished Kirby was more developed and given more of a personality. He seemed to only exist for plot purposes.

- I wish Mutagen Man had been developed and given a conclusion. I remember Ciro saying at one of the cons, that Timothy/Mutagen Man was going to be a big part of Season 2.

- I wish all the missing mutagen canisters had been dealt with.

- That all the mutants, mutations were consistent rather then Ciro & team just wanting to play around. SpiderBytez being huge, Fishface having no legs, Squirralanoids coming out of your stomachs, etc .

- Speaking of Fishface and Dogpound/Rahzer, I wish they were more developed and used more. In the beginning both were threats but as the show went along they were easily defeated or hardly in any episodes. I LOVED both characters. And Seriously, why doesn't Fishface have legs? Other then reasons?

- This is a little biased but Snakeweed is one of my fav mutants of all time, Why wasn't he ever given a personality or used more? I liked the idea of him being a tragic mutant who blamed the turtles for turning him to a plant and possibly becoming an ally or causal nemesis.

- I wish there had been an arc on all the mutants in the city/world. We were introduced to so many, Punk Frogs, MuckMan, Sir Malachi, Squiirreanoids, Cockroach Terminator, the mutants that Baxter mutated. I'm sure I'm missing many more.

- I wish that more characters appeared such as Ace Duck (who has been a personal fav), Jagwar, Dreadmon, Man Ray, Maligna, Null, The Uncanny Trio, Shaun O'Hair, Al'falqua, Katmandu, Golani, Scumbug, Dirtbag, Groundchuck, Bookworm, Verminator X, Vid Vicious, Stump & Sling, Cudley the Cowlick.

- I wish that this series adapted more Archie. It's great we got Armaggon. But where was the powerful mutant shark I knew and loved from the comics? I would have loved to see a Dimension X arc with Kraang, Utoms, Dregg and Maligna battling it out. You have thirteen episodes in space and you don't use Stump Asteroid, Stump and Sling and Cudley the Cowlick? I loved how Archie explored the world. The world building was really spectacular, we could have gone to South America and met Jagwar and Dreadmon, Japan and explored more of Saki and Yoshi and met the Warrior Dragon, explored more of Tiger Claw and Alopex. And so much more!

- To stop with all the homages. In season 3, it felt every episode was a nod to some movie. One or two here and there are fine but not every episode.

- To stop using names if you're going to use a new character. One of my biggest gripes is getting Rahzar, Tokka, Neurtonios, Bellybomb, Mondo Gecko, Armaggon and many others. So many times, I would be watching this and go that's not the Nuetrionos, that's not Armaggon, that's not Bellybomb, Mondo Gecko wouldn't act that way. I'd be much better if they just created new characters instead.


What does everyone wish could have been done? Any missed opportunities for you?

Seriously, does anything else need to be said? :)

As Captain Jean-Luc Picard would tell us all...

THERE... ARE... FOUR... RAPHS!!!!

Nice topic, I'll go through some of your points. Some I agree some I don't or it's not a big deal.

Eh, he's just April's dad. There's really not much else to do with him. I also gather the writers don't want a middle age man that involved when the main cast including Casey/April in this version are all teens.

Yeah, I hope Mutagen Man appears once more in Season 5.

This...isn't a plotline. This was just to explain where all the new mutants during Season 2 were coming from. There was literally no way for the Turtles to track down mutagen canisters all over New York. New York is huge.

Mutagen has always been like this though. Some mutants get huge, other smalls, others can't talk, etc.

This happens with any villain in any show. The first few appearances they seem strong and unbeatable, in following they get weaker and become canon fodder. Happened in the 2k3 series with Hun too.

He seemed to just be the first example of a Nick mutant, I think we last saw him in Season 2. I don't think they ever intended to develop him.

The Nick comics from IDW give these characters more appearances if you want to read them. The Punk Frogs came to New York, Muckman became huge and the Turtles had to stop him, Baxter teamed up with Spiderbitez to rob banks, and the Squirrelnoids had another appearance. You should check out the Nick animated comics if you want. Snakeweed also had more appearances.

Well...obviously you can't have everyone from past series appear. There's just not enough time or episodes. They did introduce a huge chunk of the old TMNT cast though.

Archie TMNT in general is often overlooked by other TMNT series for some reason. I don't know why, but most of its characters tend not to show up in any other TMNT series. For what it's worth Null and Jagwar, although female versions appear in IDW.


Um, what? Bellybomb is exactly the same as his Archie counterpart. Armaggon is a shark bounty hunter, it doesn't matter that he's not a time traveler. And Rahzar and Tokka are the same animals, they don't have to be exactly the same as past incarnations. Mondo Gecko too, really? He's a mutant gecko, what do you want him to be?

Every series updates old characters, I'm not sure how you can say they aren't all nearly the same characters. No characters are exactly the same per incarnation, IDW and the 2k3 series did the same. I don't understand why you feel they're not the same characters, only one I would agree with you which is Neutrinos.

Characters are not supposed to be 1:1 exactly the same.

This is already a thread: http://forums.thetechnodrome.com/showthread.php?t=53006

& most of your "missed opportunities" are just nitpicks about how you wish this show did things exactly the same as other iterations. How boring.

- Shoulda had the guys in all red headbands instead of black in Owari.

- It's not too late, but I really hope The Christmas Aliens and Kirby & The Warp Crystal get adapted. They're gonna be glaring omissions if they don't.

- April's origin should have made a lick of sense.

- Shredder should have named Miwa "Pimiko". And left room a more faithful version of Karai to exist as the leader of the Japanese branch of The Foot.

That's pretty much it.

[Same here.

They got pretty ridiculous with this, at times.

Not really, only exception is the robots Bellybomb used shouldn't have been called Neutrinos. Also would have preferred Nick's Hun to...actually look like Hun, but oh well.

Everyone else is just updated versions of their past characters. I love how they found a way to put Tokka in the show as a giant space Turtle because he and Slash would be too similar otherwise.

Actually seeing Casey family and giving him a new and interesting aspect to his character.

The turtles fighting people who used different martial arts(we saw this in Xever and a lesser extent to Hun) or martial artist in general

What would that do, really? Seeing Casey's sister or parents, I doubt that would have done anything interesting.

You would be the biggest bitch on earth (well, if you weren't already) if this version of Bebop was a giant space-pig kaiju and Rocksteady was a martial artist who was trained by Shredder before being mutated. And they never became a duo.

Just because you found the new versions palatable doesn't mean they weren't a radical departure from the original versions.

That's because Rahzar and Tokka are never anything more than animals in their original incarnations so it doesn't matter. They're animal mutants who work for Shredder in the movie, same as Rahzar working for Shredder in this show. In the original cartoon episode they were just one-episode characters living in the wild.

Tokka is hard for any future incarnation to use because he and Slash have too many similarities, likely the same reason IDW hasn't used Rahzar/Tokka. So using Tokka as a giant space-faring turtle makes sense.

In fact all of Shredder's henchmen in this show, Bebop, Rocksteady, Baxter, Rahzar, and Karai were all characters who worked for him in previous versions. Only Fishface and Tiger Claw are new.

It's not about just them. I thought some character updates were clever and some were lame. Either way, they often COMPLETELY changed them, but just kept them as the same animal or whatever.

Whereas IDW keeps them recognizable to the original, but builds on them and makes them better.

Many are very similar:

- Leatherhead is pretty much exactly the same as always

- Slash is exactly the same, an anti-turtle who starts off as a villain than an ally

- Pigeon Pete is identical to the IDW version

- Metalhead is the same

- Baxter Stockman is pretty much the same as always in both human and fly form

- Karai is similar to the 4kids and now IDW versions

- Bebop is still black and Rocksteady a white man with blonde hair before working for Shredder as a pair of mutant henchmen.

- Rat King has a great new design, but is still true to the character. Rat King has a widly different origin in every series too. IDW made him an immortal God, in 4kids he was a failed Bishop clone, etc.

- Bishop himself is head of the EPF and still a guy in a suit and shades even if he's an Utrom in this version, and I see that as a clever throwback to Utrom Shredder in 4kids. Aside from that Bishop is true to his character and fights the same way

- Triceratons are the same

- Armaggon is a bounty hunter shark instead of a time traveler, but who cares

- Punk Frogs have great new designs and aren't all just clones of each other anymore

- Mondo Gecko is the same character he just can't fight well

- Muckman is nearly identical

- Rahzar is a mutant wolf who works for Shredder, he just has a human origin now

- Mutagen Man was some lame nerd before being mutated into a monster, same thing pretty much

- Lord Dregg is an insectoid alien, only this one has some weird robot aspects but I don't know what that was about

- Mona Lisa is an alien instead of mutant, which makes sense as there is a salamander race in this series so it's true to the character with her crush on Raph

- Wingnut/Screwloose might be comicbook superheroes, but they're drastically different in every series anyway

etc.

And we are getting Verminator X in season 5. He will be voiced by Nyanbe Nyanbe

Tighter writing for some episodes is the only thing I wanted. But it seems like S5 will redeem all that.

I do wish the show got 7 seasons to give more time to flesh out some characters, especially the ones introduced fairly late like Shinigami and Alopex. If they were introduced back in Season 2 or something they could have had a lot of time to develop.

It's just so beautiful :cry:

I always felt that Spike should've become the new "Tokka" instead of Slash and ultimately teamed up with Bradford/Rahzar.

Actual death scene for Timothy/Mutagen Man.

But him being forgotten by the story plot and everyone else are fitting enough for an annoying looser like him. ;)