Fast Forward didn't HAVE to suck so much...
 

Why does it suck so much, and what can be done to decrease the factor of suckiness???

Wrong section to start a thread like that, but what the hell. No one seems to care at all.

Hmm, what can be done...

fans--> http://b3ta.hnldesign.nl/beta166.gif <-- FF creators

BTW - dude, does the left part of your signature have like... 4140.45 KB??? More than FOUR MEGABYTES??? This is so heavy indeed and definitely unacceptable.

We can watch shows like this instead?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlobFExM-UM

DUDE...I remember Batman Beyond... I have the first season on DVD.....looking forward to purchasing the second...so cool, but the special features SUCK.

Heh... that picture Sewer Bull posted is funny.

But anyway...I think there were certain elements that very well COULD have worked for the show...the future didn't HAVE to be so perfect...

Also, why can't there be an ep where annoying serling gets a sai stuck stuck thru his robotic peanut-brain???

As Raph said: "I HATE the future!"

Many of us were in love with the epicness of previous seasons. That's one complaint. When lame jokes can't reasonably and easily be removed from memory without screwing up the story, it ticks me off. The stories are barely even as deep or unpredictable as the first season. The change of animation style was too sudden to not be a slap in the face. An irritating catch-phrase was forced upon us regarding the time. :roll: The characters have become caricatures of themselves, and character development is mostly a thing of the past.
They've been doing a fair job in recent eps to reduce these insults since we aren't Force-Fed a joke every five seconds anymore and the Turtles are less out-of-character than they were at the beginning of the season. Now, if they could only share that consideration with Splinter... There is still room for improvement since character growth refuses to stick. It's reasonable that the art-style will stay the same as it is now, and thank goodness it's not a chore to look at. The epicness did make it a tad hard for new fans to get into the show, so that's a reasonable change as well. But, ya' can't win 'em all...

Yeah, Raph's character is shown in the ep with "triple threat" or whatever his name is.

But where is Shredder for crying out loud???

Well if you'd ask anyone here, there kind of glad The Utrom is gone for now, as Shredder was too overexposed, I'm not that upset about the lack of Shredder, his origins had become way too convulted anyway

Utrom Shredder: ice asteroid
Karai: likely dead from old age
Tengu Shredder: imprisoned or destroyed in TLS or else Raph wouldn't hate the future so much.

What is your biggest gripe about FF Character wise?

A few complaints i've heard about the characters in fast foward are:

Splinter: not as bad ass as before, and seems to weak and watches to many cheesy soap opras and isn't as involved as before.

Raphael: has lost the maturtiy he has gained in later seasons and is now to much of a hot head again.

Michelangelo: is to over the top and his behavior has become more childish and immature.

Leonardo: To stand offish

Donatello: Not enough of him

These are the sort of complaints that I have heard circlating around from fans on here about what has happened to the TMNT since FF debuted. My questions is, how would you fix these character flaws the turtles now have to give them back their depth of 2k3?

Lets keep in mind though, this cartoons target audience is children. Most childrens toons arent very sophisticated. People have the option of not watching something if they dont like it. If Fast Forward sucks, no one is obligated to tune in. When the ratings drop the people involved with the show will have two options, either try something new or face being booted off the television.

Can we please drop that excuse? Really, after Batman: TAS, and lord knows what else, it's starting to look petty

Batman was purposefully aimed at a much broader and older male audience, they say this in the commentaries. It's also a perfectly legit excuse, ESPECIALLY for FF - you can see how completely different the previous seasons were tonally. Face it Zarius, we are not the ones keeping TMNT alive. If it were just the fanbase too many seem to see as being the ones this show should be catering to, then TMNT2k3 would've been floating belly up after a couple of seasons. Why do you think they make the merchandise they do? So that the 20-30-even 40 somethings can go over to each others houses and play with their action figures?

Sorry to put it that way, but as sick as I'm sure you are of hearing that excuse, that's the way it is.

Simple. Gather as many bricks and ciderblocks as you can. And start hucking them at the higher ups at 4Kids until they agree to can that piece of **** and return the TMNT to their 2K3 glory.

Didn't they say that FF would've happened either way? It was planned to come after the lost season but was brought into production early to accomodate the change in plans, wasn't it?

yes tis true! I just wonder if the plans where to make the show more kid friendly all along though before they scraped the now lost season for this...I wonder if they had the plan to keep fast forward the way the shows been.
I wonder if people would still dislike it so much...me thinks no because it seems many tmnt fans dislike the space related tmnt storys.

I'd say they would've been aware of waning ratings. This is always the problem with good shows... the better and more involving the stories get, the closer it comes to cancellation :-?

I've enjoyed FF tremendously. After getting used to the worse animation, and ignoring "It's Ninja Time," I've been loving the show every week.

Yeah, it's not anywhere near as good as Seasons 1-4, but it's still enjoyable. I love the fact that each episodes continually expands the future, giving us new insight on the new world and everything around it. The two story plots going on now are fairly interesting, and I can't wait to see how they continue to use Bishop.

I even find the out of character remarks to be not as true as they are. Aside from Raph saying Cowabunga, he's no different than he was in the previous seasons. Mikey...is the same. Don is the same, aside from naming his inventions. Leo is no longer the angry turtle he was in Season 4, but he's still very protective of his brothers.

I can see the complaints about Splinter though. There was really no reason he had to come with them to the future.

Making it better
 

In this series, I would like Cody to ask the turtles questions about Casey Jones, and they can do one of those stories like "Tales of Leo." I think a problem with this show is that there is so little character development that you don't really care about the supporting characters, so maybe they can give us a story about someone we really do care about.

I'm pretty sure we'd then start reading complaints about how "Cody centric" that episode would be :roll:

Objection: argumentative! I think that would be an awesome ep. Only people who insist on griping no matter what would have a problem with it. And, I don't mean you since you were referring to other people... right? O_o

Right - It doesn't matter really what direction TMNT takes now, as there are always going to be people who will find something to exploit as being borderline criminal in that same old "How Dare They!" frame of mind. It's been happening since series two - when some people for some strange reason were complaining about the animation quality falling (something I fail to see everytime I watch the DVD's).

Its the truth, why else is it aired on a block of shows called 4Kids? A little reading comprehension skills can take you a long way. Surely youre smart enough to know how to change the channel if you dont like what is on the screen, right? Problem solved. You can spend those 30 minutes complaining on the internet instead about how you arent the Turtles target audience.

I wish Fast Foward wouldnt remind me so much of the orginal cartoon with all the silly ness and slap stick comedy, I was hoping for something more along the lines of Batman Beyond or the archies series, if they did the show that way I would be making sure to watch it every morning.

I really cant stand cody, he's annoying, if they fixed some things here and there I would attempt to watch this show more often because I'll admit they have done some interesting things but not enough to keep me.

For one, the voice acting on the supporting cast has gone done along with the animation, and those are really big things I look for in a cartoon besides telling a good story.

I inderstand they switched there target audience but while doing that they alienate the rest of us long term fans that have stuck with them (which really pisses me off)

I think the only way to get an older audience orientated show would be to have statistics that prove that we are the ones watching the show in greater numbers than little kids, and that our wallets are buying a larger share of the products than those kid's parents. Without any proof to back up our support, were stuck playing second fiddle to booger nosed children who dont care about how good a plot is, they just want to see a bad guy get kicked. Dont get me wrong, i wish this toon wasnt such a joke (i dont watch it simply because of that) but thats the reality of it and i dont see that changing until it gets dropped and they relaunch the Turtles years from now again.

As much as I hate Fast Forward, I agree with the Uncle of Krang. This is a sho 4Kids, not for adults. As much as we wish that suddenly this hideous excuse for a show could turn into a beautiful butterfly that resembled that of Batman Beyond, there is no way that this is going to happen. Why? This is a show for kids. The 2k3 series included more adults. I mean, would an eight year old kid wonder why Gen was dressed so strangly in "Samurai Tourist"? We find it hilerious, since it's an obvious reference to the old toon's Rocksteady, but the kids won't find it funny other than the fact that it doesn't really suit Gen. However, since the 2k3 series was aimed at a "general" audience, the Fast Forward series is aimed more at those with the mentality of a ten year old and under; what the target age group of the turtles was when the idea was pitched for the original 2k3 series. This is 4Kids' answer to "what can we do to include more kids?". I know that they could have done better with it, though, but we just have to understand that we are no special in their eyes; we are consumers. We gobble up whatever they throw to us and, though we may whine about it, keep on coming back for more. We can express our disguest through angry e-mails and letters, but at the end of the day it's all about profit. Did 4Kids make any sales from this? Did the toy line sell good? How about the ratings for the show? The only way I see we can stop this Fast Forward Force is by trying to avoid it all together. Stop buying the figurines and stop watching the show. If the popularity is down the drain, the show will be cut, right? Many of you may not agree with my views, but I honestly believe this is the best road to take to get through 4Kids' head that we do not love Fast Forward.

While many of us dislike fast forward there are quite a few who think its ok as well as many who are growing to like some of the things about it as the show goes on it's getting better and better just as 2k3 did.
Quite honestly I'd rather see this then them being chased around by karai or an entire season of Leonardo trying not to be angry anymore.
And if everyone stops buying the toys and dvd's etc. the turtles will not be around anymore.
A better plan would be to eat up everything the movie brings out and show them thats what people who dislike fast forward want instead.
To me thats a better plan I'd rather have fast forward any day over say the next mutation or no turtles at all even if some feel that no turtles is better than this I just don't I like having them around even if they are a shell of there former selves (pun intended).

I think the biggest problem here with the TMNT franchise is this: It has always been aimed at the wrong age group!

TMNT was an adult comic and it should be aimed at young adults. But since the only form TMNT could ever exist on television standards is animation, it is aimed at the kiddies. Since this country is so biased about animation being for children.

I almost hope (well not really but still...) that Japan might take an interest in this new version of TMNT and take it up and creat an anime of it with all the grittiness and adult content and dark story lines intact that Peter Laird intended for 2k3. So that we we 18 and over viewers can be catered to for a change.

Okay... I'm just going to come out and make a semi-bold statement, and hopes that somehow this puts an end to the FF sucks thing for a while. I agree with the sucks half, I agree with the it's still good half, but here's the thing I want to say:

It didn't have to suck, because:

• The story lines are indeed more juevenile than previous eps. Maybe because of complaints from "Insane in the Membrane" on behalf of the network
• The future could have been a tad more dark.
• We could have had other characters wander into the future from time to time.
• New characters are ALWAYS hard to get used to at first. Even when they are annoying.
• To me, the writing doesn't punch much, BECAUSE most of the episodes until recently were "Get aquainted with the new enviroment" episodes.
• While we have to deal with new characters, we have to deal with a lot of characters being missing.
• They seem to be building up to something, but they are doing it pretty slowly (like Sonic X did in the third season)
• EXPECTATIONS! Some expected the show to be enjoyable, some excepted it wouldn't. The ones who didn't excepect it to be good, didn't give it a chance. Those who expected it to be good were disappointed.

How to make it suck less:

• Get to the point quicker! We don't need so many "look how the world has changed, yet oddly stayed the same" episodes
• somehow intergrate more characters from the previous series into episodes
• Something HAS to happen to make the future a total distopia
• Give new characters more depth, and less one liners. Heavens knows Serling could use some emotional moment... even though he is a robot.
• Calm Splinter et al down. Make less jokes that are slightly out of character.
• A death of some sort. Not on the part of the Turtles or Splinter, of course. I doubt they would do that, but even if it's Starlee or Serling or something, we need Cody to get ANGRY.

I have to agree with alot of your suggestions, especially the last one. If Cody pulls a Casey and dons the old hockey mask and says "Goongala", then I will watch. The characters definitley need the new depth, and it would be nice to know whatever happend to all the old characters.

Here are some of my additional suggestions:

1. Fix the damn animation. Just because it's aimed at kids, doesn't mean it needs to suck. And would it kill them to make the TMNT look less 2 dimensional.

2. I know I'm gonna go against everything I argued for but, it would be nice to see ol' Shred Head make a guest appearence.

3. Drop the "it's ninja time" crap. Not even the old series would do something that corny. They had the better "turtles fight with honor" battlecry.

4. Have the TMNT vist the graves of April and Casey, get them to feel homesick.

If not a death, than something that really pushes the character of Cody over the edge. I REALLY hate that mechaCasey he has. I want to see him get so blindly fureous, he acts just like Casey... maybe even worse.

Well, I never actually thought the animation that bad. I don't quite like how everyone is so angular, though. Cuz trust me, You watch as much old 80's and 90's cartoons as me, that's REALLy bad animation in that mix.

But I agree with the "Ninja Time." It is annoying, and who said they needed a battle cry anyway? I almost want to hear Cowabunga again.

In what way? Darkness is relative, after all. From what we've seen, 2105 doesn't seem to be any lighter or darker than 2005; the difference is that the turtles, now able to live normally, have the choice to avoid the darkness, which they do, wisely. Plus, there seems to be plenty of darkness, if one knows where to look for it. So far, we've seen: an alien-smuggling ring (Future Shell-Shock); a complacent police force; the city's seedy underbelly (Old Manhattan); and a government with some big-brotheresque elements.

I believe their abscence is intentional, while the new cast comes on its own. People have had a hard time accepting the new characters as is; imagine how much harder it'd be if they also had to compete with established ones.

Why? I mean, aside from the satisfaction of the crowd that believes that just because something is dark its automatically good. Give me one good scenario where such a thing could conceivably and believably happen, then tell me why such a place would not go against the show's spirit, and then we'll talk.

While I wish Splinter had a more prominent role in the series, I don't see how his portrayal here is any different from his lighter moments in the previous series (the poker scene stands out).

Again, why? Casey is Casey and Cody is Cody. Why do you expect (or want) one to act like the other when they're completely different characters? In any case, I don't think this will be necessary--after all, we still don't know how Cody's parents died...

While I'm not sure about "homesick", this I can get behind. Some closure would be very appreciated.

Personally, I'm with CyberCubed when it comes to liking the series. It's got likeable characters, and interesting world, and intriguing subplots. As an introductory season, it's so far fared better than the previous series' own first season. So why not just take it on its own terms?

...I think I'm even more a fan of the first season now thanks to than comment (the second season was the s*itty one, never the first)

Come on..."The Shredder Strikes" compared to "Night Of The Body Jacker?", yeah, right...:roll:

My major problem is that everything is solved with "future magic" instead of any ninja skills or sci-fi elements. Examples:

Problem: parts of the city have diffrent envorments that cause difficulty for the turtles
Solution: Magic suits

Problem: Turtles need new stuff
Solution: Magic machine makes whatever they think

Problem: being attacked
Soulution: magic weapons do all the work

Not to metion the fact that Mikey has become an obnoxious selfish 5year old. And with all the magic in place there's no need for donatello to solve any problems or for leo to lead them in anything.

And as to why the show should be dark as oppsed to the future utopia it currently is. Well, conflict is the heart of drama. In a utopia there's no conflicts, nothing really for the turtles to do other then go see wrestling matches or play video games.

Yes and as we see it's not all sunshine and roses...something always happens to them.

I don't wan't Cody to become a Casey Jr, just that, it would be better if there was a moment where Cody just snaps and takes a page from his ancestor's book. It's a good way to add more depth to the character, becuase pretty much all the new characters are shallow, one dimensional, and utterly borring.

And besides, Cody needs a boost, I see him as nothing more than the second coming of Wesley Crusher.

I hardly think the turtles only way home snapping would be a good idea lol.
Even if they did that I could see tuns of people complaining now about how they are just trying to make cody like casey to make the fans happy lol.
I'm quite happy codey is his own person and I say the best way for his character to get some depth would be for him to kill Uncle darius or something like that or fall in love with that girl but that would really distract him from everything.:dead:

I think it would be cool if cody lost every thing and was forced to live like every one else, hell then we could see some cool character development out of that.

Not always. The weapons didn't help that much against Sh’Okanabo. Even against Cody's battle suit, Sh’Okanabo was holding his own quite well .....

Also, the weapons didn't do all the work in "Fly Me To The Moon". They still needed the help of the Inuwashi Gunjin to save Cody.

I greatly enjoyed the first season of 2k3 TMNT. For a first season it was well excuted. I however am of the same opinion that season two wasn't my favorite season. What I didn't like about it was that it had way to many multipart episodes one right after another that it hardly gave me a chance to catch my breath.

Did you dislike season two for simialr reasons ZariusTwo?

that is one of my biggest gripes with FF so far. I don't like how they have made Mikey even more immature and over exsgerated than in later seasons. And you make good points about leo and Don.

Would you rather they not explain why the Turtles are wearing these new outfits or where they got the new weapons from?

The writers still explain things, which is what I appreciate them for.

What magic weapons? While they do have some projectile attacks now, the Turtles still kick, flip, and fight just as normally as they always did.