Krutch
08-31-2009, 01:43 PM
Hey guys,
I was at the Toronto 2009 Fan Expo yesterday, which was a ton of fun. It's getting bigger and bigger every year, with this year being the first appearance by Marvel and DC panels. The TMNT panel was yesterday, which I obviously attended. Not much news to tell you, but here's a quick breakdown of what happened.
-Started at 2:00pm, with a long introduction by Gary Richardson(CEO if Mirage Studios). Introduced the rest of the panel including Lloyd Goldfine(Supervising Producer for 4Kids), Randall Lobb(Writer/Director of upcoming TMNT Documentary), Jim Lawson, and Mike Dooney.
-Immediately began talking about the upcoming documentary, talking about how surprisingly hard it was to market, but they're happy that its being done. They've shot over 120 hours of footage so now its a matter of putting it in the right order and "choosing the best story" for the documentary to tell.
-We were then treated to the first 20 minutes of the documentary, still in its rough form. It was well put together and should prove to be interesting. That being said, it didn't really cover new ground and I have the feeling that any schooled TMNT fan wont learn anything new. But it did have some old videos of Kevin, Peter, and the gang celebrating their first toy line deal with champaigne and pouring it all over each other. Looked like fun times.
-Afterwards, Gary began doing a mini Q and A with the panel, which didn't really cover new grounds. Alot of questions like "What was your favorite toy design that you remember" etc...
-Shortly after, they then began to talk about the upcoming Turtles Forever movie, and how Laird hated the idea at first. He kept saying how it will never work and its a bad idea to revisit those days. But then the writers sat down and wrote the entire thing anyways and presented it to Peter, who fell in love with it.
-Then we were shown 20 minutes of the movie(edited, as it seemed to jump scene to scene with some missing scenes). And guys, let me tell you, it was awesome. I don't want to spoil anything, but it was an incredible experience to watch with a large audience of Turtles fans. If you have a cliq which consists of alot of turtle fans, I highly recommend you watch the movie for the first time with them. It playfully poked fun at the 80s show while maintaining the tone of the current series. The 20 minutes ended with a cool cliffhanger, followed by a minute montage of other clips with the tag line "Get ready for the biggest Turtles movie ever". I can't wait :D
-Afterwards there was some Q&A with the audience, and honestly, nobody asked any good questions lol. Alot were about upcoming video games(which, i beg the question, considering who was at the panel, "WHY?").
-One fan asked if the Turtles were based off characters or people, to which Lawson said he thinks Donatello was based off Laird, as he's kind of the tech guy. I asked afterwards, jokingly "So who was Venus De Milo based off of?" which caused the room to groan and moan. Lawson replied "We don't talk about Venus. Next question." Yikes, I thought I was making a joke but man... thats a seriously sensitive issue apparently :S
-Finally someone asked about the new movie, which Gary said he was told not to say anything that we couldnt find online already. But he mentioned that they are trying "with all their might" to land a PG-13 rating. But then restated from an earlier conference about "look what Harry Potter gets away with with a PG rating" (note: Yes, but thats magic-induced harm, not physical violence. But whatever).
That about wraps it up. It was a fun panel and though not alot of new stuff was revealed, I'm glad I went. Turtles Forever looks freaking perfect and my interest in it jumped up 1000 percent. Everyone should look forward to it :)
Cheers
I was at the Toronto 2009 Fan Expo yesterday, which was a ton of fun. It's getting bigger and bigger every year, with this year being the first appearance by Marvel and DC panels. The TMNT panel was yesterday, which I obviously attended. Not much news to tell you, but here's a quick breakdown of what happened.
-Started at 2:00pm, with a long introduction by Gary Richardson(CEO if Mirage Studios). Introduced the rest of the panel including Lloyd Goldfine(Supervising Producer for 4Kids), Randall Lobb(Writer/Director of upcoming TMNT Documentary), Jim Lawson, and Mike Dooney.
-Immediately began talking about the upcoming documentary, talking about how surprisingly hard it was to market, but they're happy that its being done. They've shot over 120 hours of footage so now its a matter of putting it in the right order and "choosing the best story" for the documentary to tell.
-We were then treated to the first 20 minutes of the documentary, still in its rough form. It was well put together and should prove to be interesting. That being said, it didn't really cover new ground and I have the feeling that any schooled TMNT fan wont learn anything new. But it did have some old videos of Kevin, Peter, and the gang celebrating their first toy line deal with champaigne and pouring it all over each other. Looked like fun times.
-Afterwards, Gary began doing a mini Q and A with the panel, which didn't really cover new grounds. Alot of questions like "What was your favorite toy design that you remember" etc...
-Shortly after, they then began to talk about the upcoming Turtles Forever movie, and how Laird hated the idea at first. He kept saying how it will never work and its a bad idea to revisit those days. But then the writers sat down and wrote the entire thing anyways and presented it to Peter, who fell in love with it.
-Then we were shown 20 minutes of the movie(edited, as it seemed to jump scene to scene with some missing scenes). And guys, let me tell you, it was awesome. I don't want to spoil anything, but it was an incredible experience to watch with a large audience of Turtles fans. If you have a cliq which consists of alot of turtle fans, I highly recommend you watch the movie for the first time with them. It playfully poked fun at the 80s show while maintaining the tone of the current series. The 20 minutes ended with a cool cliffhanger, followed by a minute montage of other clips with the tag line "Get ready for the biggest Turtles movie ever". I can't wait :D
-Afterwards there was some Q&A with the audience, and honestly, nobody asked any good questions lol. Alot were about upcoming video games(which, i beg the question, considering who was at the panel, "WHY?").
-One fan asked if the Turtles were based off characters or people, to which Lawson said he thinks Donatello was based off Laird, as he's kind of the tech guy. I asked afterwards, jokingly "So who was Venus De Milo based off of?" which caused the room to groan and moan. Lawson replied "We don't talk about Venus. Next question." Yikes, I thought I was making a joke but man... thats a seriously sensitive issue apparently :S
-Finally someone asked about the new movie, which Gary said he was told not to say anything that we couldnt find online already. But he mentioned that they are trying "with all their might" to land a PG-13 rating. But then restated from an earlier conference about "look what Harry Potter gets away with with a PG rating" (note: Yes, but thats magic-induced harm, not physical violence. But whatever).
That about wraps it up. It was a fun panel and though not alot of new stuff was revealed, I'm glad I went. Turtles Forever looks freaking perfect and my interest in it jumped up 1000 percent. Everyone should look forward to it :)
Cheers