Official TMNT 2 Discussion

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Spoiler:

For one thing, just based on the time-frame of how these kind of things operate and how long it actually takes to get movies made, and how early that they started shooting on this one... they didn't have TIME for there to be a script.

What they most likely DID have, was a series of "Big Moments" they knew HAD to be in the movie in some way, shape or form, just like they knew the Snow Chase had to be in the first movie. Lots of movies in this mold are made this way. "Nothing is on paper but we have an IDEA of what we want to do. And we have to start shooting because we need to be done by a certain date, so we can't wait for a script, we just have to shoot a bunch of stuff and make a movie out of it afterwards." I've mentioned this multiple times, but just to cite two Big Examples, both Alien 3 AND Green Lantern were shot with no script, just notes of generic things they "absolutely had" to include. In other words, they mostly made it up as they went along. And BOTH of those movies had WAY more care and attention given to them than these TMNT movies would ever get.

So, once more, based on the compressed time-frame and how early they started shooting, how FAST they shot it, the fact that they're quoted WAY late in the game as saying they were "trying to work out" characters like Casey and Krang... and that we also know, for a fact, that some of the ACTORS weren't even cast for certain parts until the move was almost finished filming, which means they weren't even sure HOW they wanted those characters to be portrayed...

Climb up the Mountain Of Evidence, and look around, and you'll see a lot of things; most clearly you'll see a rushed movie slapped together in an absolute panic, but what you will NOT see, anywhere, is a script. The odds are far and away against it, if you look at Facts and don't take it on Faith that they had one.

BUT, it does look like they spent some time on the FW cartoon's Wikipedia page, so maybe they felt they didn't NEED a script. That'd be funny; it'd be great if in the end credits it said "Written By: Wikipedia." I'd give 'em huge points for honesty, if nothing else.

Written by Wikipedia and Cocaine would be closer to the truth

[Leo656]

I thought it was implied, I'm sorry.

The TMNT "Writers' Room":

[samxsteal]

Originally Posted by Leo656

For one thing, just based on the time-frame of how these kind of things operate and how long it actually takes to get movies made, and how early that they started shooting on this one... they didn't have TIME for there to be a script.

What they most likely DID have, was a series of "Big Moments" they knew HAD to be in the movie in some way, shape or form, just like they knew the Snow Chase had to be in the first movie. Lots of movies in this mold are made this way. "Nothing is on paper but we have an IDEA of what we want to do. And we have to start shooting because we need to be done by a certain date, so we can't wait for a script, we just have to shoot a bunch of stuff and make a movie out of it afterwards." I've mentioned this multiple times, but just to cite two Big Examples, both Alien 3 AND Green Lantern were shot with no script, just notes of generic things they "absolutely had" to include. In other words, they mostly made it up as they went along. And BOTH of those movies had WAY more care and attention given to them than these TMNT movies would ever get.

So, once more, based on the compressed time-frame and how early they started shooting, how FAST they shot it, the fact that they're quoted WAY late in the game as saying they were "trying to work out" characters like Casey and Krang... and that we also know, for a fact, that some of the ACTORS weren't even cast for certain parts until the move was almost finished filming, which means they weren't even sure HOW they wanted those characters to be portrayed...

Climb up the Mountain Of Evidence, and look around, and you'll see a lot of things; most clearly you'll see a rushed movie slapped together in an absolute panic, but what you will NOT see, anywhere, is a script. The odds are far and away against it, if you look at Facts and don't take it on Faith that they had one.

BUT, it does look like they spent some time on the FW cartoon's Wikipedia page, so maybe they felt they didn't NEED a script. That'd be funny; it'd be great if in the end credits it said "Written By: Wikipedia." I'd give 'em huge points for honesty, if nothing else.

That's kind of bull **** thought. They new they were going to be working on a squeal before the movie even released and they officially announced a sequel a week after it premiered. That's at least seven months to make a script more then enough time. And again with the evidence that they have a more cohesive plane and tone.

[Leo656]

They had general ideas. Fine. That's what I said. Anything on paper? Anything conclusive, and coherent, and structured, with a firm beginning, middle and end? I doubt it. Produce it, and I'll believe. Without seeing, there IS no believing.

Also, 7 months would be essentially the same as two days when compared to how long it usually takes to get a script made that a studio will accept. Those things take a long time, when they're being handled with care. That's why some movie series go years in between sequel production, it takes a long time to come up with a story everyone agrees will be good enough. In this case, however, the story is the absolute LEAST important thing, so it's no shock it was handled in a rushed and slapdash manner.

They were casting major roles like Casey and Rocksteady and "trying to figure out how to make certain characters work" when they were halfway done shooting the f*cking movie. Come on already. It's not "bullsh*t", it's about how movies are made in general.

They had a general idea of what movie they wanted to make, but that's it. I will find a way to buy you a Lunchables if someone proves to me they wrote a script, for EITHER of the TMNT movies. If they can provide a script for BOTH movies, I'll buy you one of the extra-large Lunchables that costs an extra dollar or whatever. No foolin'.

I can make that bet because it doesn't take a genius to see how they more than likely didn't have a script. So yeah, you have faith, I want Proof.

[Xav]

They did write a script for the first movie. Didn't you read the Blue Door?

[Cryomancer]

I'm still fairly convinced the trucks in snow scene was some unfinished unused CG from an unrelated movie that they decided to re-purpose. A good half of the Blue Door script existed just to set up that one scene, like as if they started with "we have this mountain snow scene" and had to make that work with "the TMNT are in New York City".

"Hey we got this semi-finished truck slide effect, what should we do with it?"
"What license can we pick up easy?"

[samxsteal]

Originally Posted by Leo656

They had general ideas. Fine. That's what I said. Anything on paper? Anything conclusive, and coherent, and structured, with a firm beginning, middle and end? I doubt it. Produce it, and I'll believe. Without seeing, there IS no believing.

Also, 7 months would be essentially the same as two days when compared to how long it usually takes to get a script made that a studio will accept. Those things take a long time, when they're being handled with care. That's why some movie series go years in between sequel production, it takes a long time to come up with a story everyone agrees will be good enough. In this case, however, the story is the absolute LEAST important thing, so it's no shock it was handled in a rushed and slapdash manner.

They were casting major roles like Casey and Rocksteady and "trying to figure out how to make certain characters work" when they were halfway done shooting the f*cking movie. Come on already. It's not "bullsh*t", it's about how movies are made in general.

They had a general idea of what movie they wanted to make, but that's it. I will find a way to buy you a Lunchables if someone proves to me they wrote a script, for EITHER of the TMNT movies. If they can provide a script for BOTH movies, I'll buy you one of the extra-large Lunchables that costs an extra dollar or whatever. No foolin'.

I can make that bet because it doesn't take a genius to see how they more than likely didn't have a script. So yeah, you have faith, I want Proof.

Lol you seriously have a problem with trust don't you lol. Last movie was a mess there was obviously I script seeing as there were several version shown last time clips in magazine, leaked versions and a clip in the visual history. So they definitely had a script how much was kept and all was obviously all over the place. It's obvious they didn't keep much from bd script.

As for 7 month that's plenty of time to get a script written, revised, rewritten, a locked down. Before preproduction even started. And that only if they didn't start until they officially announced the sequel which is ridiculous to think they had dent already started. And that's not the day they were cast it was the day they were announced lol.

that quote is from well before they started filming.

And I have proof there were multiple scripts for the movie. There's a page of one version right in the visual history.

[Leo656]

Why would I trust people who've proven to consistently be bad at their job?

7 months would be lightspeed-levels of turnaround to go through all that. Study the business. Granted, the story isn't the focus of these films. But that's STILL a really rushed and stupid production schedule. No film where the story actually MATTERS has an entire story go from concept to finished script in that amount of time. On the other hand, if the plot is secondary to the CGI and the action scenes, to the point where "words on paper" aren't "required" anymore, well...

And once AGAIN, much bigger, much more important movies were filmed completely without a script. It happens all the time. Again, study the business. Of course, then you also have movies like Fantastic 4, that DID have a script... that the director completely ignored in favor of making things up on the fly. Point being, lots of movies film without a script... they're almost universally garbage - Just like THESE movies! WOW, I never would have guessed! But the point is, it's standard industry practice on movies where "telling a story" isn't important at all next to "selling toys". And make no mistake, these movies are 100% about the latter and 0% the former.

Yet you persist in thinking that THIS series of trash films is somehow being given the TLC treatment. "Nothing but the best." Gag me. Even infants aren't that naive.

A page isn't a script. They didn't have a script. They most likely assumed they didn't need one.

"Trust?" Try, "analyzing evidence and applying basic common sense to come to a conclusion," not, "I'm an optimist so I'll believe what I want even if it's provably false."

Don't ever try and represent yourself in court. If you ignore every other bit of advice I give you, please take that one. Your ability to completely misread or disregard factual evidence that disrupts your personal narrative is staggering.

[Commenter 42]

Originally Posted by Cryomancer

I'm still fairly convinced the trucks in snow scene was some unfinished unused CG from an unrelated movie that they decided to re-purpose. A good half of the Blue Door script existed just to set up that one scene, like as if they started with "we have this mountain snow scene" and had to make that work with "the TMNT are in New York City".

"Hey we got this semi-finished truck slide effect, what should we do with it?"
"What license can we pick up easy?"

I don't think the CG was done, per-se, but the rest of it...I couldn't agree more. I put it off to having paid money for a script, and the sleigh ride was the pitch they used to sell the concept. "there's this great scene, like nothing you've EVER seen before". They built the entire movie around the stupid snow scene, because somebody signed off on it in the very beginning. It was the stupid giant Spider of the PD production. Possibly, it was the only set piece they knew they could keep, that didn't revolve around aliens.

They say you should kill your darlings, and this is a textbook example of why.

Some people feel, that nothing you paid for should ever go to wast. Bay, is actually a very cheap person. He cuts corners, like my grandmother did; if you don't eat your lunch, it's your dinner. It will be your breakfast too if you don't force it down. Moldy cheese? Just more flavor. It's not stale if you toast it. Oatmeal and powdered milk will keep you warm all winter.

But yeah, we absolutely got a car built around a bumpersticker.

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by Commenter 42

I don't think the CG was done, per-se, but the rest of it...I couldn't agree more. I put it off to having paid money for a script, and the sleigh ride was the pitch they used to sell the concept. "there's this great scene, like nothing you've EVER seen before". They built the entire movie around the stupid snow scene, because somebody signed off on it in the very beginning. It was the stupid giant Spider of the PD production. Possibly, it was the only set piece they knew they could keep, that didn't revolve around aliens.

Absolutely. Which, again, happens ALL the time. The Snow Chase was the proof-of-concept pitch that got the movie's funding approved... and again, they probably didn't have a single other idea written down by that point. You always have to show the producers the "Money Shot" that's going to eat up most of the budget. That scene HAD to be in; everything else was just stapled onto it piece by piece.

Same reason why Fox HAD to be April; typically, you need One Big Scene, and One Big Name before your movie gets a green light, because it's assumed those two things are what will bring in the customers, all else be damned.

So, it was, "You need that Snow Chase scene, and you need Megan Fox to play April... but otherwise, we completely don't care what you do. Go nuts."

[Candy Kappa]

Oh, no no no. You're giving PD way too much credit here. They did have a script, primarily two of them.

The Fusco script and the Blue Door, both scrapped (one for a better reason then the other obviously). And then the director made scenes for three different movies, got them edited to a pre-screening for Bay. Bay under a steak dinner told Liebsman the movie was too dark and sucked, so they had to reshoot the whole thing and make yet again scenes for a 4th version of the movie.

Best decisions ever.

[Commenter 42]

Originally Posted by Candy Kappa

Oh, no no no. You're giving PD way too much credit here. They did have a script, primarily two of them.

The Fusco script and the Blue Door, both scrapped (one for a better reason then the other obviously). And then the director made scenes for three different movies, got them edited to a pre-screening for Bay. Bay under a steak dinner told Liebsman the movie was too dark and sucked, so they had to reshoot the whole thing and make yet again makes scenes for a 4th version of the movie.

Best decisions ever.

Honestly who has the Fusco script? Pm me, please!

[Leo656]

Okay, let me clarify further: At one point, at least for the first movie, they had scripts. HAD. We knew that. But they were ultimately little more than suggestions when it came time to actually make the movie, and the movie they wrote was in no way the movie they shot and edited. Which is the next "best" thing to not having a script at all.

It was a slapdash hack job, regardless of semantics. As this one is, too! Only a fool would argue.

[Etsyturtle2]

Originally Posted by samxsteal

Lol you seriously have a problem with trust don't you lol. Last movie was a mess there was obviously I script seeing as there were several version shown last time clips in magazine, leaked versions and a clip in the visual history. So they definitely had a script how much was kept and all was obviously all over the place. It's obvious they didn't keep much from bd script.

As for 7 month that's plenty of time to get a script written, revised, rewritten, a locked down. Before preproduction even started. And that only if they didn't start until they officially announced the sequel which is ridiculous to think they had dent already started. And that's not the day they were cast it was the day they were announced lol.

that quote is from well before they started filming.

And I have proof there were multiple scripts for the movie. There's a page of one version right in the visual history.

The dialogue from that page didn't make it into the movie. That book also shows Eric Sachs with the shredder gauntlet. Doesn't mean it's right.l

[newhire13]

Originally Posted by Galactus

Pickups aren't a big deal but maybe it's just me but it seems a bit more complicated when it involves cgi, especially the full motion capture performances which is expensive.

Also remember the official story at the time was that Megan Fox was just doing pickups when it was clear they were actually re-shooting a lot of the movie. Gets the ol' paranoia glands going, doesn't it?

Pickups/reshoots are factored into the budget before they start shooting because its pretty typical that a film will need it. And either way they rough the cgi out before they commit so as to not waste time/money/resources.

[newhire13]

Originally Posted by samxsteal

What's makes you say that. Last time I understand because there was so much indecision on what the direction and tone would be. And issues with reception of fans. This time around they have a more cohesive structure. Why wouldn't they have a script ready by the time production started? They already had plans for a sequel before it even left the theaters. Just saying

Yeah, thats what I heard. They had game plan, filmed it, and started second guessing themselves which is rarely ever a good thing lol. But yeah, they probably started roughing out a sequel while the first 1 was in post. The ball is typically rolling on these things way before its announced to the public.

[Bry]

First off, a trophy to Leo for everything he said here. Movies cranked out without proper shooting scripts happens all the time, and most of the time they're awful. It doesn't mean that there wasn't a discarded first draft in the mix, or that there weren't some quickly-produced dialogue pages (often written the night before shooting that particular scene). It just means that there wasn't a coherent, structured, well-written story in the first place, and they were trying to patch things up and fill in the gaps on the fly and/or in post-production. It's not unusual for a cash-in blockbuster like this to have the major action set-pieces worked out ahead of time but almost nothing else. And considering how quickly they raced this one into production, that's a smart bet here too.

Originally Posted by samxsteal

Lol you seriously have a problem with trust don't you lol.

I think you're confusing "trust" with blind faith. Trust is earned. And considering it's 95% the same team making this movie that made the last hot mess, why exactly should anyone trust them? They lost the right to trust.

It's a-okay to be optimistic, but you also need to use critical thinking based on actual evidence. If someone offers you a fresh deluxe pizza and the delivery box is filled with rancid dog food, you'd have to be insanely naive to completely trust them the second time.

Originally Posted by Etsyturtle2

The dialogue from that page didn't make it into the movie. That book also shows Eric Sachs with the shredder gauntlet. Doesn't mean it's right.l

That book came out a month and a half before the movie was released, timed to tie in with its promotion, and it included material that hugely contradicted the plot of the final movie. That alone tells you how poorly they planned the thing and how last-minute they were trying to patch up the holes in their terrible movie.

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

Originally Posted by Commenter 42

Honestly who has the Fusco script? Pm me, please!

I need that, too. All I've got is "Blue Door", which I only read when I'm hungover to punish myself for the indulgences of the night before and to induce vomiting.

[SS Kakarot]

I noticed that the UK release date has changed from June 3rd to May 30th.
Does this make the UK first now?

[The Boston Ninja Turtle]

7 months seems to be bays staple though


remember transformers 2 came out also immediately after 1

and he admitted to no script cause it was the time of the writers strike