Would you like a Mirage-styled animated movie?

[Whatswiththeheadbands?]

Like the thread title says, move the thread if it's in the wrong place.

Just watched a clip of the mirage turtles from 'Turtles Forever'.

After closing the video, i had an idea.

What if the Mirage turtles had their own direct to DVD movie, like what DC do for Batman and Superman?

Would you watch this? Or do you think it's a bad idea?

[VaughnMichael]

I think most of us would buy it for sure but Nickelodeon seems to only want to focus on the 80's toon stuff.

[Jester]

Lots of people would love an ultra stylized TMNT movie based on Mirage #1.

[Powder]

All of us core Mirage fans have been begging the stars for this these last 5 years or so. I think it would be freakin' amazing.

[Plasticplayhouse]

I think its the only chance we have in EVER seeing an all Mirage film. I'd buy a copy for sure. Heck, I'd probably buy a couple copies knowing how my kids abuse dvd's, lol

[Cipher]

Yep, I've been very pro-this idea for years.

As a side note, this actually almost happened before the 25th anniversary. Mirage was negotiating an Imagi (studio behind the 2007 movie) -produced adaptation of the first issue, but it was ultimately scrapped in favor of Turtles Forever.

[Lord Nightwalker]

I agree with Powder. It would be top notch stuff, and for me, a MUST have.
Now if they would just do it, and do it well.

[Tazi]

This should definitely happen! Like with DC movies, they could just adapt single stories from Mirage. City at War could easily work in a 90 minutes direct to DVD animated movie. Or maybe The River arc. (sure, it's not Viacom's properthy, but really, they could just license the rights to Bloodsucker) The Shredder fight from Mirage #1 could even work as a recap intro for City at War (or the Leo vs Shredder from Return to NY), because CaW is basically the consequence of killing Saki.
They could even go with some of the Archie stories, like Future Shark Trilogy, etc.

I really hope that it will happen one day...

[AquaParade]

I would be drooling for the release of a mirage animated adaption.

It would make sense to do issue #1, but I don't know if that's one I'd be the most anxious to see.

[The Big Bad]

This is one of those ideas which I feel sound good only in the abstract, because in the end, I just don't think TMNT Vol. 1 #1 is very good, and I've never really heard a convincing argument for why it needs to be translated, since its two most important qualities--it's historical and nostalgic value, and a context that allowed it to be what it was--are two things an adaptation, by definition, can't replicate. In the end, I could see it going only one way: the producers acknowledge that the original story is severely lacking--most notably when it comes to having anything having to do with characterization--and make dramatic changes to the original work in order to make it palatable to more than a comparative handful of fans. And somehow, given how something like Turtles Forever is oftentimes treated here, I don't think that's what y'all have in mind.

ETA: Or, to put it another way: just what would the film have to do in order to be satisfying? How much can it change before it stops being considered an adaptation of the Mirage take and it becomes its own thing?

[CyberCubed]

1 issue of the comic will go by in about 15 minutes in animation. No idea how you can make a movie out of that.

[Jester]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

1 issue of the comic will go by in about 15 minutes in animation. No idea how you can make a movie out of that.

Just reading the issue takes 20 minutes...expanding for action set pieces could easily stretch to 45.

Not feature length, but respectable.

[AquaParade]

"The River" and "City at War" with slight adjustments would both make for great choices.

[Technogeek29]

Originally Posted by Jester

Just reading the issue takes 20 minutes...expanding for action set pieces could easily stretch to 45.

Not feature length, but respectable.

Adding a bit of padding to the exposition part of the story could easily give it a another 25 mins. It could be added to Yoshi's part of the Story a small Montage to Saki or Splinter and the Turtles. Not all 3 however as it would make the movie come to a screeching halt.

Personally I would expand Yoshi and Saki but leave the Turtles a little bare bone.

[Candy Kappa]

Originally Posted by The Big Bad

ETA: Or, to put it another way: just what would the film have to do in order to be satisfying? How much can it change before it stops being considered an adaptation of the Mirage take and it becomes its own thing?

Why does the movie have to be changed at all? It is a satisfying standalone with no canon or continuity baggage at all.

The focal point of the story is the circle of vengeance and how morally gray that area is. As well as being a grimdark love story to Frank Miller's Daredevil and Ronin work, the dark 80's. There is some beautiful wide shots that can work as Kirby's spread panels.

#1 is a uncommon instance where you don't have to alter anything major to make it fit a animated movie release, unlike stories like Under the Red Hood, where a lot of comic continuity had to be altered or removed, like Superboy Prime punching reality was the reason Jason Todd was resurrected.

[The Big Bad]

1) A good part of the issue's text exists in the form of narration, which is something that works for the written form but doesn't work nearly as well for an audiovisual medium.

2) None of the characters have any sort of personalities to speak of. You can take away three of the four turtles and still tell an identical story. They are stock characters at best.

3) It buries the lede, completely ignoring the fact that it is the story that it is the story of a man who adopted and raised children with the sole purpose of having them become assassins and send them to their probable deaths in an attempt to kill someone they've never met and whom may not have, as far as they know, done any of the things he's blamed for. Somehow, the story decides that this is not worth exploring.

3.1) The turtles and Splinter are not recognizable as the turtles and Splinter--even their Mirage selves are essentially different characters, as the writers rather quickly decided to run as far and fast away as possible from the facts established in the previous paragraph . For obvious reasons, an adaptation that is meant to stand alone cannot do that.

4) It has absolutely nothing to say about its only identifiable theme, the cycle of revenge and how it affects people. It's only after "City at War" that the comic actually decides to tackle it.

5) It is characterized by raw, unpolished earnestness, which came about in large part because Eastman and Laird had little idea of what they were doing and were flying by the seat of their pants. This is nigh impossible to recreate without it seeming artificial.

[Rat_King]

I smell a kickstarter! I think this would sell very well and open the door to a continued series. The only thing is that if you want a full length movie, you would have to do an arc. A 20 minute comic read through would only translate to roughly ten minutes of footage. The generalized math is one script page equals roughly one minute of screen time. You would have to pad it so much it would feel drug out. I could see maybe doing an anthology style release and have three or four different stories on one DVD. I would love nothing more than to see "Soul's Winter" get an animated treatment.

[DK2]

It'd be awesome. The only hint we'll ever get is Turtles Forever. Yeah I forgot Peter Laird mentioned that the intention was for an adaptation of TMNT #1 until it became unfeasible or something or production schedule to the date of release was tight. But I have my doubts. It'd be great to have such a TMNT film aimed at 13+ age like the DC animated films are made for. But I think Nicko/Paramount won't ever do this. They'll probably gripe that it'll be confusing even to make another line of TMNT films or cartoon variations. It might confuse the brand of the Nicko CGI toon to the general public, what another TMNT toon /film? Despite the fact that the original TMNT hype of the 1980's/90's and the 2K3 run all supported theatrical films alongside a TMNT cartoon. Theres the upcoming film right now. To do 3rd version might make Paramount cringe about saturating the TMNT property.

[LeotheLateBloomer]

Originally Posted by Rat_King

I smell a kickstarter! I think this would sell very well and open the door to a continued series. The only thing is that if you want a full length movie, you would have to do an arc. A 20 minute comic read through would only translate to roughly ten minutes of footage. The generalized math is one script page equals roughly one minute of screen time. You would have to pad it so much it would feel drug out. I could see maybe doing an anthology style release and have three or four different stories on one DVD. I would love nothing more than to see "Soul's Winter" get an animated treatment.

I'm game!

[Redeemer]

I would love to see Direct to tv movies for TMNT especially if they are any where close to the Batman DTV movies!!!