Would you like a Mirage-styled animated movie?

[Jester]

I'm not sure why everyone's "Direct to DVD Mirage Trilogy" has to be:
A. A Trilogy
and B. Just Foot stuff.
I mean, the Turtles in SPAAAAACE!!!! arc would be very easy to convert into a movie.

[Panda_Kahn_fan]

For those who love mirage TMNT, it'd be awesome, for ones like me who dislike it, couldn't care less. I'd personally rather see a series of IDW DTV's, but most people here would prefer Mirage, so more power to them.

[Powder]

I gotta ask- why do you dislike Mirage?

[Panda_Kahn_fan]

I just never cared for the mirage comics. I don't like the stories, I don't like the characterization, The mirage characters always just seemed dull to me, and the 'darkness' and 'gritty' stuff never did it for me. I respect it as the original version, and I understand why it's fans like it. I just don't care for it myself.

[Powder]

I get the vibe you say that based off of the first 10 issues or so. Tales vol. 2 really did a lot for personality & character development. That aside, it's not all dark and gritty beyond that first E&L run. You should give it another chance sometime.

[Panda_Kahn_fan]

I've read most of the run, the only story I really liked was the whole Dragonlord/Pimiko story during the image arc. I didn't like city at war, didn't like the renet story, didn't like the superhero stories, didn't like april as a drawing. The whole thing was just uninteresting to me. I just don't care for this version of the characters. That doesn't mean they aren't amazing comics- they are really good. I just don't like them, myself.

[Powder]

Huh, well alright then. It's nice to see you still gave it an in depth viewing before you decided it wasn't to your liking. Kudos for that.

[Leo656]

I'm weird like that too. I have almost all of it and read it all, some of it was pretty good and some of it didn't thrill me. But I get why it floats other people's boats more than mine.

[Whatswiththeheadbands?]

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.

Dc animated movies are usually 75 mins, so if this would happen, then it might need to be 2 issues together.

[pannoni1]

Well the first movie sort of has elements from Mirage #1 with the foot/Shredder battle and origin, but since we have Michael Bay on the table, it will be awhile before a Mirage-style movie can happen. There is plenty of material to draw from, but there was also lots of filler, so its important to pick the correct material. "City at War", "Return to New York", "Turtles in Space", and "The Shredder Wars" seem like my best bets for sequels. I wouldn't mind if a movie combining the four micros was produced so that each Turtle gets its moment in the spotlight. Just film in B&W and don't make the first issue feel too much like the 1990 movie! But this should be only targeted as a limited release or DTV, though some Mirage elements, such as the arcs provided above could always work its way into a Bay movie.

[Coola Yagami]

Originally Posted by pannoni1

Well the first movie sort of has elements from Mirage #1 with the foot/Shredder battle and origin, but since we have Michael Bay on the table, it will be awhile before a Mirage-style movie can happen. There is plenty of material to draw from, but there was also lots of filler, so its important to pick the correct material. "City at War", "Return to New York", "Turtles in Space", and "The Shredder Wars" seem like my best bets for sequels. I wouldn't mind if a movie combining the four micros was produced so that each Turtle gets its moment in the spotlight. Just film in B&W and don't make the first issue feel too much like the 1990 movie! But this should be only targeted as a limited release or DTV, though some Mirage elements, such as the arcs provided above could always work its way into a Bay movie.

I'm just thinking it will stray too much from the original story due to the turtles we know today. Raph will be fighting with Leo over who fights Shredder. Don will create some kind of anti Shredder gun and mikey will be cowabunga-ing and booyakasha-ing all over the place. Plus they'll needlessly shoehorn April in there somewhere.

[Andrew NDB]

My ideal TMNT movie wouldn't even necessarily be "Mirage style"... just in the spirit of that material, given to a visionary director who "gets" the real TMNT and has enough stock in Hollywood not to have to kneel before every studio/financier/item on a toy maker wishlist.

I'd like to stir the pot with such a thing and see what would come of it. Prior to the sale something like that would have been possible at some point, down the line, but any hope for such a thing died with the Viacom sale.

Originally Posted by omnimorphic

Agreed.

Where did you read that Richardson talked him out of it?
I'd love to know the details.

On Peter's blog. He didn't go into details but when asked, just said it didn't happen because Gary Richardson talked him out of it "for a variety of reasons" or something somesuch.

[liugeaux]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

First movie about #1, maybe also dipping into the Leonardo special and #11.

Second movie about Return to New York.

Third movie about City at War.

Seems a no-brainer to me.

The #1 adaptation didn't happen because Peter Laird said that Gary Richardson talked him out of it at the last minute and it'll never happen now because while Nickelodeon is more or less OK with re-releasing old Mirage material via IDW, actually producing brand new Mirage or Mirage-esque material does not appear to be any part of their game plan whatsoever.

I like your trilogy, but Its missing a pretty important point. A true origin story. Sure it has the few details that were in #1 but the true Utroms origin wasn't unveiled until several issues later. Here's my break down of what I think would be best.

#1 Includes an expanded issue 1 that fleshes out things like character traits and personalities, and possibly includes touches of the Raph micro and issue 2 (Baxter and April's intro). Don't leave it on a cliffhanger, because a sequel at this point would be uncertain. End the movie with the final Shredder Battle.

#2 Turtles in Space - It would explore the entire Utrom story, and introduce the Fugitoid. This story is pretty self contained but tells a really important part of the greater mythology.

#3 Act one is a fleshed out Leo Micro and #11, act 2 is Northampton, and act 3 is Return to New York. That's a story that is also mostly self contained, outside of having to know that shredder is dead and who the characters are.

#4 City at War unless a different story would work better before it.

Idealy this wouldn't just be a trilogy, they would be stand alones is a greater arc or universe, which means the story wouldn't have to tie together that closely.

[Cipher]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

My ideal TMNT movie wouldn't even necessarily be "Mirage style"... just in the spirit of that material, given to a visionary director who "gets" the real TMNT and has enough stock in Hollywood not to have to kneel before every studio/financier/item on a toy maker wishlist.

I'm with you, but is the "Mirage style" bad-ass, take-no-prisoners ninja grittiness, or is it bittersweet off-beat indie-styled surrealism?

I mean, I'd sign up for either over Bay's studio and more Fred Wolf adaptations, but I'd be a lot more game for the latter.

[The Big Bad]

Originally Posted by Cipher

Man, are you me?

Given how in synch we can be at times, who knows?

Anyway, for this and all the other reasons you've stated, I've always felt the perfect start for any Mirage adaptation would actually be immediately after the Turtles have killed the Shredder. That's where the story really begins; he's just the prologue. He's the pre-music James Bond intro sequence.

That I'd be more interested interested, as it neatly sidesteps my main issue with TMNT #1 in the larger context of the Mirage Universe: it's utterly inconsistent with what came afterwards.

Think of how Splinter is usually, as someone who loves his children and is loved in return. How could a guy who obtains art implements for his children become the sort of person who could then send them off to get killed, and then turn back into the concerned father? It's not impossible, but given that it's never really dealt with--even "City at War" deals with it in a very generalized way--and I don't think it'd be inaccurate to say that the writers just didn't care about that aspect of their characters, once the time came to actually develop them.

And normally, this would be fine. It's not rare for characters who start out portrayed in a particular way to change drastically, only for that latter version to then go on to be considered their "true" self. It's why Early Installment Weirdness is considered a thing, and usually, works are able to handily ignore that by pulling the focus away from those details that no longer work. With the turtles, however, those details turn out to be really important, and are called back to constantly, and can't be abandoned.

This is partly why I think that what Turtles Forever did in establishing Turtles Prime as, not the Mirage verse per se, but as the universe of TMNT #1, was genius. Because when you get down to it, they're really not the same 'verse, and mixing them together as is doesn't really work.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by liugeaux

I like your trilogy, but Its missing a pretty important point. A true origin story. Sure it has the few details that were in #1 but the true Utroms origin wasn't unveiled until several issues later. Here's my break down of what I think would be best.

#1 Includes an expanded issue 1 that fleshes out things like character traits and personalities, and possibly includes touches of the Raph micro and issue 2 (Baxter and April's intro). Don't leave it on a cliffhanger, because a sequel at this point would be uncertain. End the movie with the final Shredder Battle.

#2 Turtles in Space - It would explore the entire Utrom story, and introduce the Fugitoid. This story is pretty self contained but tells a really important part of the greater mythology.

#3 Act one is a fleshed out Leo Micro and #11, act 2 is Northampton, and act 3 is Return to New York. That's a story that is also mostly self contained, outside of having to know that shredder is dead and who the characters are.

#4 City at War unless a different story would work better before it.

Idealy this wouldn't just be a trilogy, they would be stand alones is a greater arc or universe, which means the story wouldn't have to tie together that closely.

I could get behind your quadrilogy just fine.

[CyberCubed]

To be honest I always wanted to see all the comics animated.

As a kid I remember wanting to see the Archie storylines adapted into episodes of the cartoon but it never happened. Seeing animated movies adapt the big Archie storylines would be cool too.

Hell, even IDW animated might be interesting to look at.

[Whatswiththeheadbands?]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

To be honest I always wanted to see all the comics animated.

As a kid I remember wanting to see the Archie storylines adapted into episodes of the cartoon but it never happened. Seeing animated movies adapt the big Archie storylines would be cool too.

Hell, even IDW animated might be interesting to look at.

You brought up a good point.

If this would happen, i think that they would do IDW before mirage.

[Technogeek29]

Originally Posted by whatswiththeheadbands?

You brought up a good point.

If this would happen, i think that they would do IDW before mirage.

If I we're to do an animated IDW I would use Splinter's Micro with a combination of Secret History of the Foot Clan, issues 5, Raphael Micro, Leonardo Micro and Issue 1. Might have to change how Raph is separated however and will have trouble Tying April into the movie. Most likely she won't meet the Turtles until a sequel if one could be made. But then I could introduce an orgin and Krang ending with the Neutrino war.