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Old 01-02-2021, 04:36 AM   #1
Mario500
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"The TMNT Movie Reboot Should Learn From The Forgotten 2003 TV Show" (an article)

"The TMNT Movie Reboot Should Learn From The Forgotten 2003 TV Show"
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Old 01-02-2021, 09:11 AM   #2
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A good chunk of the series is on YouTube for free. I'm rewatching it and it's great, for what it is. To me it has a lot of Peter Laird's volume 4 vibes and I like it, even if it has a bit of unnecessary silliness here and there in every episode. It's a volume 4-style retelling of the Mirage comics... for kids. All in all, it's the best Turtles product we have ever had in animated form, not including Fast Forward and Back to the sewers: those are just bad. The whole "Shredder is an Utrom" thing is a genius idea.
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Old 01-02-2021, 12:37 PM   #3
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Such a shame that Nickelodeon has made sure that (what's probably) my favorite action cartoon of all time has become forgotten.
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Old 01-02-2021, 02:02 PM   #4
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I think the animated movie should learn more from the IDW comics. It has a good balance of everything.
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Old 01-02-2021, 02:17 PM   #5
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Given the sorts of films Seth Rogen seems to do, I doubt it would ever go that way and not going to hold my breath on that at all, but it would be great if it did and agree with a lot in that article.
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Old 01-02-2021, 03:02 PM   #6
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Given the sorts of films Seth Rogen seems to do, I doubt it would ever go that way and not going to hold my breath on that at all, but it would be great if it did and agree with a lot in that article.
Wouldn't it be an amazing surprise if the guy churned out the best TMNT flick we've ever had?
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Old 01-02-2021, 03:44 PM   #7
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Would be a shocker and a pleasant surprise, yes. I suppose there's always the chance of someone having untapped talent and he could surprise us, but given the filmography... until we see designs and a hint of the direction it's going, a part of me is just fearing and assuming that this is going to be cartoony as heck.

Something more serious and 2003 inspired in look and tone would be awesome though.
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Old 01-02-2021, 05:14 PM   #8
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Old 01-02-2021, 05:38 PM   #9
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Such a shame that Nickelodeon has made sure that (what's probably) my favorite action cartoon of all time has become forgotten.
It's always less been that Nick/Viacom don't like the 4Kids show and far more that it just doesn't have enough/anything to do with the only reason they bought TMNT in the first place: the Fred Wolf cartoon and that kind of TMNT. Which, to them, is tantamount to potentially Turtlemania II, Turtlemania III, Turtlemania IV, and so on.
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Old 01-02-2021, 05:43 PM   #10
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But the fact that they will post images from 2003 on Twitter while otherwise ignoring its existence...
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Old 01-02-2021, 05:49 PM   #11
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At least you can enjoy some TMNT 2003 on Pluto TV.
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Old 01-02-2021, 05:57 PM   #12
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But the fact that they will post images from 2003 on Twitter while otherwise ignoring its existence...
"They" on Twitter are just third party social media outfits, not Nick/Viacom themselves. Pretty meaningless and it's probably a whole lot less Nick/Viacom giving them direction and a whole lot more Nick/Viacom just vetting the content they want to put out that is run by them.
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Old 01-02-2021, 08:24 PM   #13
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Originally Posted by Andrew NDB View Post
It's always less been that Nick/Viacom don't like the 4Kids show and far more that it just doesn't have enough/anything to do with the only reason they bought TMNT in the first place: the Fred Wolf cartoon and that kind of TMNT. Which, to them, is tantamount to potentially Turtlemania II, Turtlemania III, Turtlemania IV, and so on.
One would think that after failing to do so repeatedly, they'd be open to new possibilities.

The movies failed hard. Rise has its supporters but it's also, objectively, a failure. The Nicktoon has had a lot of support but by and large "the kids" have already moved on from it (and even during its run there were more adults watching than kids, anyway). "Trying to recreate Turtlemania" simply doesn't work. It will never work. It might get popular again in short spurts but it will never be 1988-1991 again.

The thing about a fad or a craze is that you simply can't recreate such things, they happen organically and every attempt to try and "manufacture" a second round falls short. Look at arguably the biggest "-Mania" of the same era, that being "Hulkamania". Hulk Hogan became a household name even to people who never cared about wrestling at all. He transcended the genre he existed in and became more like Mickey mouse or Santa Claus, and from 1985 to 1990 was one of the most famous people walking the planet. But all things fade, and by 1992 he simply wasn't anywhere near as popular as he was before. When he left the WWF and jumped to WCW in 1994, the general thnking was that they could "recreate" Hulkamania by doing the Exact Same Things that had made him so popular in the WWF in the '80s, in some cases having him feud with and beat the Exact Same People. If the "we'll just redo what worked before" idea was EVER going to work with anyone or anything, that would have been the case, since they were literally repeating the exact same formula to the letter. Except it didn't work. There was a short spurt of nostalgia pops but then shortly after, people felt so sick of being force-fed reruns that they started booing Hogan out of the building. The only thing that saved his career was turning into a bad guy out of desperation, and THAT ended up being the Magic Ticket. People responded HUGE to that because it was different and unexpected. They were sick of the Same Old Thing. Whether or not there were more people watching Hogan (and wrestling by extension) from 1996-2000 than there were from 1985-1990 depends greatly on whose numbers you believe, but the point is that Retreads Don't Work. That second Boom Period for Hogan and the wrestling industry wasn't going to happen if they'd kept trying to relive the 1980s, and they figured that out the hard way. You have to shift gears and NOT expect people to fall in line for what they popped for 10, 20, or 30 years ago. That simply isn't going to happen. It never has, and it never will.

If Nick TRULY only bought TMNT expecting to rehash FW and reignite the 80s boom, then they're idiots. I highly suspect they are, so that doesn't surprise me, but it does disappoint me. It's always disappointed me that they're so adamant about ignoring the fact that most of the people who care about the TMNT brand Right Now are adults. They'd rather keep trying to get 40 million kids to fall in love with the brand again like it's 1988 all over again, and like it or not that's never going to happen. And even if by some magic a bunch of kids DID care all of a sudden, kids nowadays are so fickle that within 18 months they'd abandon the brand and be on to the next fad. And that's not good business, either.

The brand's only hope for financial success and long-term reliability is to STOP aiming solely at kids who don't care and focus on creating a product that 1. Isn't a FW rehash and 2. Caters to the adults as much (or more) than the kids.

I'd argue that for all it's "toyetic" trappings, the 2003 show did as good a job as anything in the TMNT catalog at hitting the sweet spot between Old and New fans. So sure, that's something any upcoming reboot could learn a lot from, absolutely. It's naive to think that any New Version would just ignore FW completely - for better or worse, it's "the one everyone knows" - but they would do well to look way beyond that and aim higher. You can acknowledge that show's existence and importance while ALSO acknowledging that the only people who still give a sh*t about it are pushing 40 or beyond. I liked how the 4Kids show would occasionally wink at the FW show while making it perfectly clear that "This Is NOT That Show" as much as possible.

Do I think Seth Rogen is the guy who's gonna crack the code? No, I don't. I mean, we'll see what happens, but like I always say, "When people tell you who they are, Listen." For another wrestling analogy, Vince Russo made his bones as a WWF writer by writing skits full of dick jokes, fart jokes, and lesbians. That worked for a little bit when the WWF show was aimed at 14-year old boys, but it didn't work when he jumped to WCW and was writing a show aimed at 30-year old men. He tried to write the same exact sh*t without acknowledging that his new audience didn't like or want that stupid crap, and the ratings went into the dumpster and never recovered. Then he tried it again in TNA/Impact after WCW went out of business, and he was STILL trying to book a "wrestling" show around dick jokes and lesbians. And even when people changed the channel in droves and said "We Don't WANT This", he never once thought that HE was the problem. But he never changed his approach because that's the only sh*t he knew how to write. And now he's persona non grata in the business, because for 20 years all he's done is kill every promotion he gets hired to write for. His "Lowest Common Denominator" sh*t worked all of ONCE, for about five minutes, and never again. But whenever he does an interview, he insists that "People just didn't Get It, bro."

Rogen, to me, is cut from the same cloth. He's got his "niche" with the Dick and Fart Joke Crowd but I highly, highly doubt that he's got the emotional maturity to tell a "real" story with the TMNT brand or characters. I expect thinly-veiled pot jokes and lots of sexual innuendo. Basically BayTurtles, but more lowbrow. Maybe the art style and character designs will look more "traditional", but that's about it.

I mean, we'll see. But that's what my gut says.
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Old 01-03-2021, 06:41 AM   #14
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Originally Posted by frank_one View Post
A good chunk of the series is on YouTube for free. I'm rewatching it and it's great, for what it is. To me it has a lot of Peter Laird's volume 4 vibes and I like it, even if it has a bit of unnecessary silliness here and there in every episode. It's a volume 4-style retelling of the Mirage comics... for kids. All in all, it's the best Turtles product we have ever had in animated form, not including Fast Forward and Back to the sewers: those are just bad. The whole "Shredder is an Utrom" thing is a genius idea.
(remembers having always liked certain series (or seasons) named "Fast Forward" and "Back to the Sewers"; remembers becoming interested in the program for those series because of the one named "Fast Forward" due to my interest in stories based on ideas of traveling to distant period of time and certain ideas regarding future times)
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Old 01-03-2021, 07:20 PM   #15
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One thing to consider is that Seth Rogen is the guy behind the Preacher adaption on AMC. He can embrace & produce shows with darker, more mature content as its source & make it work. He’s capable of being more than just low brow humor actor in stoner comedy movies.

As far as 2003 show goes, Nick/Viacom are still airing that everyday! They have a “Totally Turtles” channel on PlutoTV where it airs nothing but 2003 & 2012 Turtle Cartoon episodes in rotating blocks. I watch an hour or two of 2003 TMNT series almost every single day thanks to PlutoTV. Just wish they’d put out a comprehensive box set of the series so that I could watch it start to finish in order & get the complete narrative in order.
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Old 01-04-2021, 07:19 AM   #16
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Of the topics mentioned, I would prefer the Turtles battling the Triceratons, or John Bishop.
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Old 01-04-2021, 07:54 AM   #17
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Of the topics mentioned, I would prefer the Turtles battling the Triceratons, or John Bishop.
Can you imagine how awful the Triceratons would've looked in the Bay movies?
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Old 01-04-2021, 01:55 PM   #18
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Does anyone know if there an equivalent to Pluto TV in the UK out of curiosity?
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Old 01-04-2021, 02:20 PM   #19
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Can you imagine how awful the Triceratons would've looked in the Bay movies?
To even do that would be to afford the Bay movies more thought and consideration than they remotely deserve.
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Old 01-04-2021, 02:29 PM   #20
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Just wish they’d put out a comprehensive box set of the series so that I could watch it start to finish in order & get the complete narrative in order.
Which I don't get why they continue to drag their heels on.

Being on Pluto is all well and good for people that works for, but as someone who just wants to binge watch some of it sometimes as my own time allows when I feel like it, in order from where I last left off, Pluto doesn't really work out. I wish they had it on demand rather than functioning like a tv schedule.

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Can you imagine how awful the Triceratons would've looked in the Bay movies?
At first I just thought... talking Jurassic Park. But then I remember that they'd probably put lips on them and... wow. A live action film going with a space/Dimension X theme would be neat, but, yeah, we don't need PD-styled Triceratons. lol
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