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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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

[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.

[CyberCubed]

In the Season 2 finale during the Kraang invasion, Casey does say this is, "Just as bad as the invasion from last year," meaning the Season 1 invasion. That basically says 1 year past between the end of Seasons 1 and 2.

Then again Mikey still says he's 15 years old to Napoleon Bonafrog in the Northampton arc afterward...but considering it's Mikey maybe he was too dumb to realize he aged a year.

I'm not sure if 5 years passed in-universe like in real life, but it was probably at least 3 years.

[newfan]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

In the Season 2 finale during the Kraang invasion, Casey does say this is, "Just as bad as the invasion from last year," meaning the Season 1 invasion. That basically says 1 year past between the end of Seasons 1 and 2.

Then again Mikey still says he's 15 years old to Napoleon Bonafrog in the Northampton arc afterward...but considering it's Mikey maybe he was too dumb to realize he aged a year.

I'm not sure if 5 years passed in-universe like in real life, but it was probably at least 3 years.

I remember talking about the age thing before, that they are always 15, or so we thought.

[CyberCubed]

It's probably like all kids cartoons where time passes but nobody gets older. April was 16 when the show first started, certainly she would have graduated High School as the series progressed but this was never shown.

April, Casey and Karai never did physically age over the course of the show either. I always assumed if the show went on for more seasons they would do a small time skip and show them and the Turtles all at 18 years old or something. That way April, Casey and Karai would all be adults again like they are in the past series and comics.

[Shiro Kame]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

In the Season 2 finale during the Kraang invasion, Casey does say this is, "Just as bad as the invasion from last year," meaning the Season 1 invasion. That basically says 1 year past between the end of Seasons 1 and 2.

Then again Mikey still says he's 15 years old to Napoleon Bonafrog in the Northampton arc afterward...but considering it's Mikey maybe he was too dumb to realize he aged a year.

I'm not sure if 5 years passed in-universe like in real life, but it was probably at least 3 years.

Well, Mikey is confirmed to be an immature idiot, so that's why after every season, I always assume that they're a year older than before.

[CyberCubed]

The problem is nobody looks older, not even the humans. April, Casey, Karai don't look any older than 16. If a few years past in-universe they would be 20 something in the final season...but they still look like teenagers.

[newfan]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

The problem is nobody looks older, not even the humans. April, Casey, Karai don't look any older than 16. If a few years past in-universe they would be 20 something in the final season...but they still look like teenagers.

I thought they were still teens, although Karai referred to herself as 'grown up now' and Leo repeted that when Mikey wondered why she wouldn't stay with them, I think she meant experience wise, she was still being referred to as brat/cub/little girl by enemies. April didn't mention school again later on either ...and lets not forget Trick or Treating (would they be doing that at 20 ) maybe we're just not meant to read to much into it.

[Tarris Vaal]

I dunno, I thought there was some aspect of characters aging as they went - certainly I got the impression that April, Casey and Karai were 20 or pushing close towards it by end of series 5 - particularly Karai.

I think its certainly reasonable to estimate that the characters have between 3-4 years of aging from Rise of the Turtles to the 2nd Crossover. And from what little indication we have we know April is a year older than the turtles. Karai's age is never explicitly stated, but we know its certainly older than the turtles and likely closer to 17 on her introduction - I dont think we're ever told how long Yoshi was in NYC after the death of Tang Shen.

As for teenagers trick or treating - Casey especially doesnt seem the type to give up on that so easily. And April is probably glad for the break.

[newfan]

Karai is/was 16 though she didn't exactly have the life of a 16 year old in the start (being 2nd in command already) which is why she may have seemed older. As Cubed said I'd think there would be some change in appearance but then do they do that with toons unless there's a big jump in time. They had all grown in character though as pointed out, Casey not as much ☺

[CyberCubed]

Funny thing is, I didn't realize Fugitoid committed genocide and wiped out the entire Triceraton race till I rewatched the show. I had forgotten the Triceratons didn't have a home planet anymore and all of them were on that one ship that was connected to the smaller ones. All of the Triceratons, even assumingly Zeno who helped them out in the tournament, were all killed by Fugitoid.

Did they seriously wipe out an entire race? In the 2k3 series what happened was they made peace with the Triceratons because the leader Zangramon was thrown in prison and Commander Mozar relinquished control over to Traximus who was the same character as Zeno.

Fugitoid then left to live with the Utroms in the 2k3 series. In the Nick show however Fugitoid blows himself and the Triceratons all up. One of the reasons I was hoping we'd get a follow up ep for Fugitoid is to just see what happened to him, either the present day one or the past one.