What was the best and the worst thing we got since Viacom got the rights?

[Monty Mole]

[IMJ]

Originally Posted by Optimus Primer

2012 is my favorite thing since the purchase, and the Bay movies are my least favorite.

Agreed there! 2012 made TMNT fun again. The Last Ronin was pretty great too - as far as presenting a concept that we hadn't really seen before (although, ironically, came close to with the future material near the end of the 2012 series).

[Andrew NDB]

Good things we've gotten:

* Letting the Image guys do the "Urban Legends" Image finisher.

* Comprehensive Mirage and Archie reprints. Except when there's f***-ups or stuff missing.

* Doing "The Last Ronin."

* Batman/TMNT animated film (NOT the comic). So I've heard. I haven't watched it.

So-so things we've gotten:

* TMNT 2012

* Super early IDW

Bad things we've gotten:

* Everything else.

[IndigoErth]

Pretty much agree. Last Ronin, the main IDW series, and the fact that they actually let DC make possibly one of the most mature(ish) things we'd gotten in a LONG time (prior to Last Ronin coming out) with the Batman/TMNT movie, and I'm still impressed Nick allowed it... what with the blood, throwing star in a forehead and the off screen decapitation (then head seen) and all. 2012, while itself not perfect, was still a strong start to ownership of the property.

Worst imo... Rise. If the animation part of the franchise has to have an "I'm entirely different than you" rebellious period, could it at least do it in the opposite direction and be the Last Ronin of animated TMNT series, not Spongebob.

As much as those PD films are far from great... on a opinion meter spanning from green to red, comparably I'd put OotS in yellow since it at least got the characterization pretty spot on; 2014 edges into orange. I'll be nice and put Rise just on the line between orange and red purely because it's always entirely possible for something else to be worse. And not like it's alone over there, it has Next Mutation to keep it company, it's just not a Viacom regret.

[IMJ]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

Good things we've gotten:

* Letting the Image guys do the "Urban Legends" Image finisher.

* Comprehensive Mirage and Archie reprints. Except when there's f***-ups or stuff missing.

* Doing "The Last Ronin."

* Batman/TMNT animated film (NOT the comic). So I've heard. I haven't watched it.

So-so things we've gotten:

* TMNT 2012

* Super early IDW

Bad things we've gotten:

* Everything else.

Yeah pretty much agree with all of this. And although I enjoyed TMNT '12 I think there is a good argument to be made that as a whole it was indeed "so-so" because it got so weak and awkward in later seasons.

[Metalwolf]

Best was Rise of the Teenage Mutant Turtles.
-Wasn't afraid to be dark.
-Most of the baddies were cool and could be intimidating.
-April was quite fun.
- It didn't try to be edgelord and have a 'downer ending.'

Middling was 2012 TMNT.
Best:
-Awesome Shredder
-Awesome Splinter
-Awesome Tigerclaw, Rahzar, Fishface
- Fun Turtles
- Sympathetic Leatherhead
- Not being afraid to kill the baddies
-Not being afraid to 'resurrect' the baddies into living dead.

~Middling parts of 2012:
The Roach Terminator, really cool and intimidating, but was turned into a white grub thing and nerfed. The Kraang. Cool and interesting at first, but dragged on too long.
-Casey was OK. Until he cheered after the Earth blew up.

~Worst of 2012:
-April with her powers.
- The time travel plot.
- Wyrm and other creatures like it.
-Edgelord downer ending.
-Karai's mutation.
-Bebop and Rocksteady. Was way more cool as humans, but mutants? They pushed out the better mutants so they could be the two dumb and nerfed 80's Fred Wolf morons we endlessly need for 'nostalgia.'
-80's Turtles cameos. Enough! I grew up with the 80s cartoon and I liked it, but shoehorning these in with every iteration makes us look like we can't move on.
-Mutagen Man's mutation and plotline. Hated it.

Worst is BayTurtles.
Point. Blank. Period.

[Autbot_Benz]

Best 2012 TMNT Cartoon and Batman vs TMNT animated movie


Worst Rise Of the TMNT and Bayturtles

[Shark_Blade]

Best:
- Cowabunga Collection! So many great classic games we can play!
- 2012 TMNT
- Megan Fox as April O’ Neil
- Early IDW reboot comics
- republished Mirage comics so I got to learn their origin
- Batman vs TMNT
- Rise of the TMNT series & movie

Worst
- IDW comic I lost interest post Shredder’s death. Maybe it felt like it’s a nice end to me.
- Rise cancelled. The movie is amazing what were they thinking?? But then again I do prefer them to do more serious stuff like in the movie than silly shorts in the series


Undecided:
Mutant Mayhem - It looks ok, but I feel they’re too young… like prepubescent? Like imagine them in Mirage comic #1 facing Shredder omg the poor dears don’t stand a chance lmaoo. I like young turtles in short episodes but a whole movie? Well let’s see it then.

[neatoman]

Out of the Shadows is the only TMNT movie that got me pissed off when watching it, so I'd say that might be the single worst thing.

[Cowabung-Gal]

Best thing: 2012 TMNT

This series is what got me into the fandom in the first place. Even RazorFist says he wishes he had been born later so that he could’ve enjoyed this series as a kid



Worst thing: Rise Of The TMNT

At least my stepdad enjoys the 2014 film. Rise is more like Power Rangers than TMNT and it strays too far from the source material. I’m sure this spot will soon be taken by Mutant Mayhem

[IMJ]

Originally Posted by Autbot_Benz

Best 2012 TMNT Cartoon and Batman vs TMNT animated movie


Worst Rise Of the TMNT and Bayturtles

What a cool experienced the Batman/TMNT project was. Truly awesome and surprisingly entertaining.

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by Cowabung-Gal

Best thing: 2012 TMNT

This series is what got me into the fandom in the first place. Even RazorFist says he wishes he had been born later so that he could’ve enjoyed this series as a kid

Uh... There are a lot of blatantly obvious problems with the 2012 show an they do annoy the hell out of he, which is why I'm more willing to give "The Best" nomination to IDW's first 50 issues or Last Ronin. It's not necessarily awful and I do see the passion behind it, but I can't in good conscience say a show like that is actually above mediocre.

As for Razörfist... You do realise he's incredibly inconsistent in his criticisms, right? He just kind of seems to change his mind a lot and justifies it retroactively, if he even bothers to justify it at all, rather than attempt to look at any given thing critically. I wouldn't exactly use him as an example of a good critic.

[ToTheNines]

- The first 6 years of IDW was incredible. Easily my favorite modern run of comics. I know it really fell off and turned into a politicized fanfic after #100, but I think the ongoing really started showing cracks around Trial of Krang and never recovered. Some of the companion books and crossovers were still great after that, but it was never the same. “City at War” (blasphemy) was an absolute chore to sit through.

- The Nick show was brilliant, possibly my favorite version of TMNT still. It’s not without its flaws, but the action and direction was so good and they really knocked so many emotional beats out of the park. Tale of the Yokai, Requiem/Owari, Lone Rat and Cubs and a couple others were all major tear-jerkers.

- Last Ronin was majorly over rated. It was good overall. But Hiroto was so boring and cliche. And they just had to have a spunky teenage sidekick.

- Haven’t really watched Rise, but the PD movies… what were they thinking? It’s really mind blowing that a global corporation spent millions of dollars on market research, focus groups and test screenings only to settle on that. They could have done much better for way less money, that’s for sure.

[CyberCubed]

I'd also maintain the Nick 2012 show had the least "bad" individual episodes of the first 3 TMNT cartoons. Like for example I consider the Bigfoot episode in Nick 2012 to be the worst episode of that series, but other than a few others here and there I didn't dislike too many episodes individually.

The original cartoon of course had a lot of random duds in its middle seasons, and some of the weakest 2k3 episodes like Junklantis were pretty bad.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by ToTheNines

- Haven’t really watched Rise, but the PD movies… what were they thinking? It’s really mind blowing that a global corporation spent millions of dollars on market research, focus groups and test screenings only to settle on that. They could have done much better for way less money, that’s for sure.

It's really pretty staggering.

[Papenbrook]

The 2012 show was booty, at least to me.

Its inconsistent writing and incomprehensible narrative tarred its once promising potential; Its flaws managed to completely ruin whatever advantages it had.

I have grown fond of the Rise!TMNT, however.

[neatoman]

I wouldn't say the problems of the 2012 show completely ruins the show, it's just that if you try to examine the cohesion of the series as whole rather than focus on individual episodes that might stand out, or if you ignore references/style in favor of trying to determine if it worked thematically, you'll often find that the show doesn't work.

A very important example, remember the first episode the retromutagen is in? The writers obviously tried to give an explanation for why they don't just make a ton of this stuff, that being how it takes ten regular canisters of mutagen to make one canister of retromutagen. And with the addition of the scramble for this important resource it is clearly also tries create tension and urgency. This would seem fine on paper, as it applies two basic things that are required for good story telling, clear stakes and rules. However, the episode screws up big time by showing the appropriate dosage is one single drop. This means there was no real urgency in the episode because literally every single character who wanted to be cured in that episode could have been. Even if we assume they just thought the dosage was one whole canister before it was proven to be a single drop, they would still know damn well that it's just a single drop afterwards. Since the dose is clearly far less than a full canister, probably not even a tenth of a full canister, that would mean every single character who wanted to be cured or potentially would want to (so Splinter, Bebop, Rocksteady, Rahzar, Fishface, Ice Cream Kitty, Muckman, Mutagen Man, Spider Bytez, Scumbug, Monkey Brains, Alopex, Tiger Claw, Sparrow Wizard, Mondo Gecko etc) could just have waited for Donnie to turn one canister of mutagen into retromutagen. Yet they all remain mutants and as evidenced by the episode in which Bebop and Rocksteady try to capture Karai, the writers just kept treating one canister as one dose despite clearly introducing one drop as one dose. Because I guess momentary narrative satisfaction overrides long term consequences every time?

And that's just the writing, it's not even pointing out any of the budget walls the show kept running into, like the surprisingly common need for matte paintings because they literally couldn't afford to make more than a couple of 3D rendered environments, or how models were kind of thrown in from previous episodes regardless of how much sense it made for those characters to show up.

[Prowler]

The worst? Probably the Bay films. I haven't seen more than 3 episodes of the 2k12 series and I haven't watched Rise or read IDW at all, but I can't imagine them being worse than Bay Turtles.

The best? ...the Cowabunga Collection video game, maybe? Although that's more on Konami than Viacom.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Prowler

The best? ...the Cowabunga Collection video game, maybe?

Which is a lot like saying "nothing at all," no? It'd be like saying a new reprint of a comic from 20 years ago is your favorite comic of the year, this year.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

Which is a lot like saying "nothing at all," no? It'd be like saying a new reprint of a comic from 20 years ago is your favorite comic of the year, this year.

Pretty much yeah lol