A few things I never really understood...

[Tarris Vaal]

Now that the series is concluded and we've largely discussed a lot of the major character traits and plot points there are a few little things that I was curious to see if anyone knew the answer too;


* What exactly was the difference between the normal Kraang droids and the ones with the blue 'shell/shield'?

* Where did all the human foot ninja in NYC go?

* Obviously for budget reasons the streets are pretty deserted most of the time, but why did we so rarely get any busy street scenes?

* The Kraang upgraded their weapon platforms regularly (flyers, spider walkers, the bio droids), but why did they never upgrade their own android bodies? The Foot managed to do so, the Kraang seemed to never bother.

* What was the deal with the Dregg Robot? Or Dregg dying after being 'spaced' only to return later?

* If the Kraang were stealing scientists (plural), then why did the turtles only ever see and successfully rescue April's dad? Where were the rest of them?

* Where does Splinter get the turtles armoury from?


Was any of this ever explained and I just never noticed? Were there any weird little things like this that you guys noted over the 5 seasons?

[CyberCubed]

Originally Posted by Tarris Vaal

* What exactly was the difference between the normal Kraang droids and the ones with the blue 'shell/shield'?

Nothing, it was just a different design to make the fights look more varied. The Utrom used silver droids we see in Season 5.

Where did all the human foot ninja in NYC go?

You mean the ones in Season 1? They were likely all disbanded or sent back to Japan to re-train. Remember Chris Bradford was the one who trained Foot recruits in the dojo in this show, but after he was mutated his dojo was abandoned.

We see in late Season 4 Karai brings in fresh new human recruits from Japan.

Obviously for budget reasons the streets are pretty deserted most of the time, but why did we so rarely get any busy street scenes?

The streets are plenty busy from Seasons 2-5. We see cars driving in the background and plenty of pedestrians. During Season 1 it was likely budget constraints.

The Kraang upgraded their weapon platforms regularly (flyers, spider walkers, the bio droids), but why did they never upgrade their own android bodies? The Foot managed to do so, the Kraang seemed to never bother.

Because the Kraang are morons. Kraang Subprime even mocks them in the fact that they can't speak normal english when they've been on Earth for thousands of years.

What was the deal with the Dregg Robot? Or Dregg dying after being 'spaced' only to return later?

This was never really explained, I assume the Dregg in "The Evil of Dregg" episode was a robot, whereas the real Dregg was off attacking the salamandrian homeworld. We see Dregg again in the Tokka episode attack the Turtles, and after that he's ejected into space and frozen by the Triceratons, however he didn't die.

Then in Season 5 Dregg invades Earth for one last attempt to destroy the Turtles and conquer their world, and then he dies for good when his ship blows up after Newtralizer energizes the core and they all explode.

If the Kraang were stealing scientists (plural), then why did the turtles only ever see and successfully rescue April's dad? Where were the rest of them?

Other scientists were probably either mutated or experimented on like April's mother and disposed of.

Where does Splinter get the turtles armoury from?

You can ask the same thing here as any TMNT incarnation. Where do the Turtles get money from to buy food either and order pizza? It's never explained in any universe.

[Shiro Kame]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Because the Kraang are morons. Kraang Subprime even mocks them in the fact that they can't speak normal english when they've been on Earth for thousands of years.

Makes one wonder WHY they were able to actually nearly win...

It doesn't make sense that a race so stupid would be able to succeed at all.

[CyberCubed]

The Kraang were just brainwashed/enslaved Utroms by Kraang Prime. Most likely Kraang Prime's telepathic powers had trouble controlling thousands (?) of Kraang simultaneously.

They did say the Kraang are the ones who mutated early primates into the human race, so technically all humans are mutants created by the Kraang. They spawned the current human race.

[Dejablue]

Originally Posted by Shiro Kame

Makes one wonder WHY they were able to actually nearly win...

It doesn't make sense that a race so stupid would be able to succeed at all.

You'd be surprised, across a lot of media just how often alien invaders are actually really really stupid when you think about it.

[Powder]

Originally Posted by Shiro Kame

It doesn't make sense that a race so stupid would be able to succeed at all.

One could say the same of human beings.

[victory_angel]

In "4 fold trap", Donnie was in the trap that had absolutely no chance of survival.

Both Leo and Raph were put in lethal traps, but they were set up so there was some chance of escape. A slim chance but still a chance.

Mikey's trap was designed so that it would mutate him. He would still be alive but he wouldn't be the Turtle he had been.

But Donnie trap is essentially a lethal, 3d version of Tetris. And as far as we can tell the game grid descends a seemingly infinite number of levels. And every time he was crushed by a block, or maybe fell off the game grid he would get zapped with high voltage. However, when Leo and the others arrive to free him, Donnie tells him that if he cuts him free he would be fried to death.

We know that Karai at that point in time had it in for Splinter and Leo. Splinter the brain worm forced her to believed he was responsible for her mother's death and her mutation. And Leo because he has defeated her and also because he betrayed her and attempted to the Shredder.

So it's possible Karai had that added feature in Donnie's trap as a fail-safe just in case the other Turtles did survive and escaped. But I think that tidbit was also for April.

While Karai was more experienced as a Kunoichi then April, April has still bested her more than once. And Karai is more than aware of Donnie's infatuation with April since he pretty much advertised that to her by showing up alone to save her in Target: April O'Neil. Even if Donnie's infatuation was one-sided, he still meant something to April so that alone would have been seen as a proverbial "eye for an eye"

[PApagreg]

Originally Posted by Tarris Vaal

* Where did all the human foot ninja in NYC go?

They probably either joined another branch or just got different jobs.

[shredder orokusaki]

Originally Posted by PApagreg

They probably either joined another branch or just got different jobs.

I cut their heads and put their brains in jar like i did to 2003 Stockman! That the punishment for their failures!!

[Coola Yagami]

Originally Posted by Tarris Vaal

Now that the series is concluded and we've largely discussed a lot of the major character traits and plot points there are a few little things that I was curious to see if anyone knew the answer too;


* What exactly was the difference between the normal Kraang droids and the ones with the blue 'shell/shield'?

The way I see it is just part of the making the Kraangdroid process. Step one is the bare metal skeleton. Step two is encasing it in this weird blue gel that I guess will feel more normal to a human as opposed to shaking a steel cold skeleton hand. Final step is the human disguise that fits over the blue gel substance.

It's odd for them to show the mid-way Kraangdroids, but I guess the Turtles would catch them when they weren't fully done with the human disguise part and they'd just fight that way.

[CyberCubed]

Interesting fact: During my rewatch I've discovered the Turtles recovered 50 out of the 60 (I think it was 60?) mutagen canisters that sprinkled over NYC. How do I know this? Easy:

In the episode they change April's father from a mutant bat back to normal, Donatello says he needs 10 cans of Mutagen to make 1 vial of retro-mutagen. In the episode they had two vials of retro-mutagen, one that smashed on the floor by accident on the streets, and the one that changes April's father back to normal. This implies Donatello had to have 20 canisters of mutagen.

Later on when Karai is a mutant snake, Leo sprays one vial of retro-mutagen on her, but it doesn't have affect. This implies they collected 10 new mutagen canisters off-screen.

Later on at the Season 4 finale, once again Don has two vials of retro-mutagen on him. One they use to turn Baxter from a fly back to normal, and the other they use on Super Shredder but it doesn't work. This implies they had to have collected 20 more mutagen canisters.

Finally, the missing mutagen canisters were the backstory to the mutants: Kirby bat, the Squirrelnoids, Fungus Humugous, Pizzaface (if you count him as real and not a dream), Sir Malachi, and Mondo Gecko. In all these eps they show a flashback of the mutagen canisters raining from the sky, and they say these are how these mutants got mutated.

So if you add this all together, this basically accounts for around 55 out of the 60 missing mutagen canisters. That means they basically found nearly all of them besides the ones that cracked opened and created new mutants.

[newfan]

I suppose they would have collected a lot of canisters behind the scenes, too many of them to show us every one being found

* Where did all the human foot ninja in NYC go?

I thought the turtles took out a lot of the human foot clan, I was thinking of the episode where there were a lot of them lying all over a rooftop after battle and one of the turtles said something about feeling bad for the one who has to tell Shredder about it? I imagine the rest were dropped in favour of the footbots.


Edit: Speaking of footbots, sorry to add a question of my own but I wondered why they went from being the new deadly assassins which were barely beatable to being very easy to beat, was it just that the turtles got better or did I miss something?

[Tarris Vaal]

The idea that the blue kraang are a halfway house between the 'Normans' and the plain kraang droids is interesting. Hadn't considered that...

Although the idea that the human ninja are simply dismissed is a nice clean explanation in one sense, it does then open up the question of how did they keep them quiet - which leads to some pretty dark answers. I always thought it would be cool if they were forced into some kind of cyber conversion to make them into learning cyborgs - but I'm not sure thats any less dark.

Certainly if we're surmising that the other scientists the Kraang captured were just killed/mutated off screen that really does nothing for the off screen grim darkness that hides behind the on screen antics of the show

Interesting count for the mutagen canisters! I guess that at least clears up that question - though personally I always thought that The Foot or the EPF had gathered up the others.


As for the Footbots and other villains growing easier as time went on - again I personally put this down to a nice visual way of showing the turtles getting progressively better at fighting and learning the weaknesses of their regular opponents as time progressed.


One thing I did notice as well from a rewatch of the first couple of seasons is just how often they talk about time passing in 'months'. This may be down to some exaggeration, but even then it rather implies a significant length of time passing in each season. I'd always assumed it was about 1 season = 1 year but I know there were people on the forum who weren't convinced of that.

[newfan]

One thing I did notice as well from a rewatch of the first couple of seasons is just how often they talk about time passing in 'months'. This may be down to some exaggeration, but even then it rather implies a significant length of time passing in each season. I'd always assumed it was about 1 season = 1 year but I know there were people on the forum who weren't convinced of that.

I'd noticed the reference to months passing 3 times off the top of my head. I'm not sure what amount of time would have passed per season but collectively it would have to be long enough for April to have trained as a full Kunoich by the end of season 4.

[Candy Kappa]

Originally Posted by Tarris Vaal

* Where did all the human foot ninja in NYC go?

Too injuried to fight or killed off I'd imagine, remaining human Foot that was still abled bodied was probably moved back to Japan when Shredder got his Footbots.

The Turtles where pretty rough with them eventhough there where no stabbing or slicing involved, like throwing them off rooftops