Just saw first episode of FF

[jenna]

I'm in the UK and off work studying for an exam.... got all excited because it's the Easter holidays and saw that out kiddies TV channels was showing new TMNT. Got my cup of tea ready, settled in on the comfy sofa.....

....First episode of Fast Forward.... never seen this series before....

Oh my God! What have they done? They actually cancelled the Ninja Tribunal for this??? I think my heart broke. The turtles look weird without their usual garb, instead wearing the bizarre armour.....

Where was the grit, the good old Mirage style essance of TMNT? I know there has always been a lean towards sci-fi in TMNT, but isn't this just destroying any sense of realism??

Can someone in America tell me this gets better or is every episode as atrocious as this? I really want the new film to be a hit, but I don't think FF will reignite the turtles passion

I'm gutted..... I was so shocked that I let my cup of tea go cold.... that never happens. :-?

[Ra]

Unfortuantly, Jenna, things aren't getting any better. There are STILL quite a few threads here that express our anger and confusion at this new take on TMNT, but some of the episodes were alright from what I've heard, but I'm not going to bother watching them. It's just not worth it in my eyes.

And my cure for that gutted feeling? Find 5 episodes of your favorite TV shows and watch them, no brakes. I had to watch about 3 episodes of M*A*S*H and two episodes of Futurama to get rid of that feeling you are talking about :dead:

Someone who is a regular watcher of the show can tell you more about how better, or worse, the episodes get. Like I said before, the latest episode shown sounds pretty good compaired to other episodes (like going to the mall. Yes, you heard me).

[comet_an_me]

Hey....im from the UK as well and i have seen most of the FF epsoides from er....resources... and i can say no it doesnt get better. The style of the new season is bad as bad can get i know....There is some good and bad news though...the bad news been that there is two seasons of FF and the good news is that there is a, in a couple of years mind, new season of the old type turtles style that we all love.

Just keep whatching FF because some of the story lines are quite intresting.....

[Fledermaus]

By now, FF has improved slightly from where it was before. The storylines are fair, and the bizarreness/silliness has toned down somewhat... but this is still less intense than what we had before.

The characters aren't as hacked up as they could be -- technically everyone's still in character, but like I said, the whole thing is just less intense. There is some grittiness... It's just no longer a staple theme of the show.

I'd say give it a chance. It's not terrible, especially in the last five eps or so.

[Tinuvielsdreams]

I felt the same way...just kinda surprised by how much they had changed pretty much everything from 2K3 to FF but I watch it in support and every now and again especially recently there are some pretty interesting episodes.
Just keep watching...:)

[Jo Dawn]

*Holds arms out to jenna* Welcome to the club, darling.

Honestly? No, it doesn't get much better. If you keep watching, you see things only in terms of FF. So I can say that I've seen one episode that, for FF, wasn't as atrocious. But it was still bad. You can look at it that way. Or you can keep on torturing yourself and comparing it to the 2K3 Series and really be depressed.

(like going to the mall. Yes, you heard me).

Yeah, she's not kidding, either. :P

[Stephen]

Anything is better than endless re-runs of Season 04, which the CITV channel had been showing since Feb 2006 :D

[X]

Ok time to chime in... I will say something that I've said to my friend Stephen who is a huge Transformer fan.

He sees anything that isn't generation 1 and thinks it's crap. Why, well duh, he grew up on Generation 1 so he fears change. He's stuck in the past and cannot accept change. He calls movie Megatron a tumbleweedtron, or Starscream in the movie Gorillascream, but you know what I see? I see Transformers who don't look the same, made of building blocks, and repainted, with no character development (face it, generation 1 was a toy selling cartoon, a big commercial.)

So from the side of someone who can appreciate FF but does miss the 2k3 animation style, here is my take.

First off the animation style isn't as good as 2k3, but I have seen some cheaply done animation even in the 2k3 style. Like last night I was watching the City at War DVD, and on part 3 when everyones fighting in the foot tower, Karai is swinging a sword up and down, up and down, and looked cheaply done. Same thing happens in FF sometimes, its not all 60 FPS animation, it never will be 2k3 or not.

As for the dark tone, its there and not there. The last two episodes along with Bishop to Knight, have shown the darker side in tone, in the FF series, but its not afraid to be colorful. The Turtles are not afraid to be out of character, and in character, which is something that needed to be done at least once. It'd get redundant to see the same thing for years upon years.

As for the stories, there are more standalone episodes which is needed (I didn't like the fact every stinking Justice League had to be two parters until they got smart with JLU.) Two parters don't really build tension when you infact know that nothing bad will ever happen to the good guys. As for stories in FF that mesh together, they are good, getting better. This last episode alone could setup some good 2k3 episodes if they choose to have another season when they return home.

In anycase, he animation may stay the same even when they return, I say oh well. There are more reasons to gripe in the world, then choices in animation. But remember, people tend to cling to the things they like most and fear any change. Just as my friend does with Transformers, even though generation 1 was a piece of crap in my books, compared to the later incarnations, people will cling to 2k3 because it did a lot right, but it also did a lot wrong. It was better, but somethings make FF better then 2k3, and somethings make 2k3 better then FF.

-X-

[CyberCubed]

FF has gotten consistently better since the first episode. The first episode had way too much to take in at once which is why it was so jarring. Since then we've gotten better continuity, an overall story arc, and some really fun individual episodes.

[Jo Dawn]

Don't listen to them!! They get paid by 4kids to come here and tell you these things! :P


...But seriously... What I would do is check out a few more episodes, then make your final decision. That's what I did. Of course, I decided that I really, really don't like it, but you may find out differently.

[CyberCubed]

Well for the people who don't like FF, you can basically say the Lost season was the end of the series.

Unless they do get back to their own time after FF ends and we get references to the FF season, you can basically say Season 5 was a nice conclusion to the series.

[Masked Ninja]

60fps animation?! This isn't a video game.

Most cartoon animation is done on 12-15fps, meaning each drawing is held for two frames.

I can't say anything for FF because I haven't seen it past episode 3, but while 2k3 does have some relatively atrocious animation in some episodes, I've caught them doing stuff on ones (24-30fps) before. And it tickled the animation geek in me to see such things.

All right, that was barely related. *brick'd*

[jenna]

Aww thanks you guys - it's great to see other people have been disappointed by it, but also that there may be light at the end of the tunnel!!

I consider myself very flexible about turtles. I love the 2k3 and 1987 toons. I love the live action (let's pretend Film 3 doesn't count for the purpose of this statement) and I love the CGI. I love the way all the characters are slightly different in each incarnation in both appearance and personalities. So I will continue to watch as long as it is on CITV and hope that it picks up or I get used to it and hopefully get something out of it.

Yup, I have watched Series 4 over and over since it is so far the only series that has been played on CITV - apparently on a loop!!

I do hope that us poor deprived turtle fans in the UK get a glimpse of the Ninja Tribunal series though. I also hope that they go back to the old style, and look at some more of the Vol 1 comic stories - they are so cool. :)

[The Master Meglomaniac]

TMNT has jumped the shark. I have seen the future and its filled with gay robots, Hobgoblin rip offs and annoying teen side kicks. I want no part of this future:

http://www.dailyraider.com/index.php?id=5085

At this point, I think they should have aired the TLS and then ended the series.

[Time Mistress]

I feel your pain Jenna.

I'm still watching FF, though I often wonder why. Maybe because every once in a while an episode like Graduation Day comes along that I do actually like. But they are few and far between. The phrase "oh how the mighty have fallen" keeps springing to mind. But it could be worse, it could be The Next Mutation.;) The worst part isn't so much what the show has become as knowing what it could have been, that which has been denied to us in still not releasing the lost season to DVD.

Do New Zealand DVDs work on the same region as the UK Jenna? If so you just may be able to view the lost season.

[Chris]

The UK is region 2, the TLS has been released on region 4. What is the same is that they are both in PAL format (which means they look slighly better on our TVs than the imported NTSC US DVDs do, though that difference is pretty marginal).

[tinlunlau]

region coding on dvd's is not a problem at all.
that can be easily resolved by entering a code in most players.

the biggest difference between NTSC and PAL transfer (other than the resolution) is that most NTSC converted to PAL are sped up a bit.

[jenna]

Yeah, my hubby (bless him) has spent ages trying to get the right codes etc so he can decode our DVD player so I can watch my turtles! (he's very patient with my turtles obsession but doesn't really share in it!) So far no luck but I watch them on my PC. Have been ordering Region 1 dvds from amazon of series 2... not here yet but I can't wait. I'll console myself with these and recover from the FF trauma!! :D

[Chris]

region coding on dvd's is not a problem at all.
that can be easily resolved by entering a code in most players.

the biggest difference between NTSC and PAL transfer (other than the resolution) is that most NTSC converted to PAL are sped up a bit.

That's true.

PAL format does like slightly better than NTSC (hence my UK Season 1 and Oz Season 5 look a little better than my US Seasons 2-4) but that's more to do with the fact that there's more lines per frame or some tech stuff like that which I don't really understand.

I only actually noticed that the timer was going slightly fast on my US DVDs when I was doing my full series run through over the last month or two. I also noticed the slight rainbow behind Raph when he's on his bike behind the TMNT (just before "watch out for Shredder") for the first time during the same run through. It's strange the thinks you pick up on at 2am having watched 3 hours straight of Turtles...:D

I'm thankful my girlfriend puts up with my TMNT addiction (just like she's thankful I've now finished the series). I couldn't get her into 2k3, I think it was too far through and she didn't want to sit through it all, but she loved the new movie (and the old ones), she likes FF as it reminds her of the old show which she used to love and she's just suggested going halves on buying the old show on DVD (which I'll be happy to take her up on asap). Guess I'm lucky! Maybe in the future I'll try and get her into 2k3 again...

[LogicDonny]

TMNT has jumped the shark. I have seen the future and its filled with gay robots, Hobgoblin rip offs and annoying teen side kicks. I want no part of this future:

http://www.dailyraider.com/index.php?id=5085

At this point, I think they should have aired the TLS and then ended the series.

yep i had to agree with that. Just lisntening to the theme of fast foward makes me cringe with disgust.. ugh I mean it's not a bad new show but tmnt is better than this. Thankfully fast foward lasted longer than Next Mutation.

[Hero]

It was to my surprise yesterday that Fast Forward had started airing on CITV even after I was told it would start airing in the Autumn.

I contacted CITV and they said that they'll be airing 13 episodes of "year 5" over the course of this month.

This is a shame really because I remember when we got episodes of Transformers: Energon, Biker Mice and other stuff before America did when CITV introduced those programmes on a weekday run.

===HERO