Explain, Please: Venus De Milo
 

I never caught a single episode of Next Mutation; I just wasn't in much of a Turtle-obsessed space at the time, so it kind of passed me by.

I have gathered from various sources, however, that the series introduced a female Turtle named Venus, and that many fans hated her with a passion.

I just had a couple questions about her:



1. What was her origin?

2. Did people hate her simply because of the continuity change she represented, or was she also a crappy character (and if so, how was she crappy)?

3. Did she have any redeeming features or qualities? (Was she at least a badass?)

4. Are there any closet Venus fans here at the TechnoDrome?

Cheers,

-Monte

1. What was her origin?

There were actually five little turtles, one got lost and the sewer carried her to China town where some shinobi dude picked her up and took her to China.

2. Did people hate her simply because of the continuity change she represented, or was she also a crappy character (and if so, how was she crappy)?

She was annoying, girl turtles are against the TMNT bible, plus the show sucked any way.

3. Did she have any redeeming features or qualities? (Was she at least a badass?)

Not really, she could fight alright. She was used as comic relief alot, as an 8 year old I didn't find her that funny. The fact that she was a girl is neat for girl fans, it gave someone for my sister or girl cousin to be when we'd pretend to be turtles.

4. Are there any closet Venus fans here at the TechnoDrome?

There's some open ones, I think.

go to youtube or google video and searh ntnm and you can watch almost all the episodes!

The fight sequences in TNM were bad... just bad. She kept up with the guys for the most part but really, how much were they really doing? :P
She was basically just "there." A few times her "magic" came in handy but it's almost like they put here there for a love interest. :roll:

Anyway her real name is Mei Pieh Chi but for some reason they call her Venus de milo after a statue (I think. I never understood why.)

It's because when we first meet her she has an encounter with the foot and while they are fighting they kick off the head of a venus statue, she takes the head home and I'm pretty sure it wa either Mike or Raph that name her Venus because of it.

And do I think she is a lame character yeah I do, She could have been good but she like many things on the show where good ideas but done poorly.
I do like most of the villians on the show though if anything that's about all I enjoyed from it.
I think the show would have been better if it was animated.

Besides Venus being lame, the whole entire show was pretty pointless and was such a waste of time. I can't believe I actually really liked this when I was a kid. Only to this point when I joined the forums I realize it was bad. And I'm pretty sure that most of you who where kids at that time, thought it was cool as well. Am I right or wrong?

I was 17 at the time it came out and enjoyed it at the time because besides the image comics tmnt series the next mutation was the only turtles thing around.

Right, but I think it would have been cooler if she was named after a Renaissance sculpture/painting since all the turltes are named after Renaissance artists.

Oh yeah, I thought it was harcore.

She did magic?

Bloody hell...

I don't dislike the character of Venus per se, just that a live action TV show wasn't the best outlet for her.

Venus' shtick was that she used magic, and the various effects Saban used on her were very...well...awful to look at. Compound that with clunky artial arts fight scenes and a costume that just isn't easy on the eyes and its small wonder people hated her.

Venus has always come off as a character more suited to animation or comics and could work well if given the chance in either medium.

But with Laird swearing left and right that she will never appear again so long as he lives, that opportunity isn't going to happen.

I loved TNM when it first aired (I was 18). I don't dislike Venus, but I prefer my Turtles without her.

Agreed, although Tokka recently pointed out to me that her profile has reappeared on ninjaturtles.com. Curious.

There were 5 turtles in the bowl. Venus drifted away into Chinatown to be picked up by Chung I (who was... rooting through a sewer? not really explained), then taken with him to China and raised as a shinobi.

A lot of people never got past the knee-jerk reaction of that, no. The real problems with her was that they never really made any discernible effort to take her beyond a caricature of "Bad Engrish," constantly mixing up words like "sewer" with "toilet." I mean, they never really gave her a unique identity beyond The Female Turtle or The One with Magic.

There were seeds planted early on that they were eventually intending to have her be a love interest for the Turtles. It was the second episode, I think, that made it clear that none of the Turtles were really related by blood. Some awkward moments with Leonardo and Venus here and there, but nothing really came of it.

She single-handedly took down Oroku Saki.

Who knows.

Kevin Eastman point-blank said that the fourth TMNT movie was once being geared to include Venus. Later reports also seemed to confirm this. I think this was around the same time Kevin's own wife, Julie Strain, was going to play "an evil enchantress from another dimension" in it. It sounded horrible, frankly, much worse than what we got in the Imagi movie (and I hated that).

And "Venus" or "Venus DeMilo" was only a nickname given to her by the Turtles when she kicked the head off a statue or something. Mei Pieh Chi was her real name.

I personally have nothing against Venus herself, maybe because I've always been one to root for the underdog. Given proper care, Venus could have developed into a worthwhile and possibly permanent member of the team.

Yeah - that's interesting that her profile is listed back on ninjaturtles.com.

I've always thought Venus would've been a good side character - not exactly living with the Turtles, though.

Aska Badoura is a fan, here is her signature:
http://www.geocities.com/jafarnut/ve...ct/banner2.gif
The Venus Project


Personally I never saw TNM as a kid but as a kid I thought a female turtle was a cool idea. Even now I think its a cool idea and would love to see her, I don't care if it changes the "origin" geeze its not THAT big of a deal. Maybe TNM wasn't that great of a show (never watched it) but a female turtle could work.

I always thought she was a character that was poorly handled for the show, just like everything else was. I think if she was put in something else and given room to breath and grow she could have been a very cool character.

But yes in the show she was lame...

I think the biggest issue with Venus was that she represented the potential for the turtles to pro-create. Much of the draw for the turtles was that they were forced to accept their solitude and eventual extinction, while it sounds horribly pessimistic of me, it helped strengthen the bond of the turtles as brothers. While being all in it together, the sudden addition of Venus meant there was more available to them.

The character, simply by being a female turtle, fundamentally altered the status-quo of the four turtles in a negative way. Had she been explicitly shown to be sterile or actual kin of the turtles, it would have been different I think.

That's exactly what I first thought when I found out. Even though I watched the show religiously ever since I was four. :lol:

The idea of a fifth female turtle was cool...but it just isn't meant to be. She was sort of slapped into a bad show like a Mary-Sue/fan fiction kind of a situation. The magic idea was...okay. Only because magic had such a strong part in the show. Otherwise, again, she would have been a complete Mary-Sue.

I sort of fancy the idea of rebooting the character and actually bothering to give her another chance, but oh well. Always the fan comics, I guess.

"You see these ovaries, Turtles? These are barren!"

How exactly would you have the writers portray that?

Also lame is the fact the writers didn't study anything and thought making Venus a 'shinobi' made her special and able to know special 'shinobi magic' when all 4 turtles were shinobi too since all it is, is just another word for ninja....

1. What was her origin?

She was the fifth turtle in the jar (which Leo conviently suddenly remembers when she appeared), but washed away into a sewer pipe all the way to China Town. A man called Chung I picked her up, took her back to China and raised her as his daughter and tought her the art of "Shinobi magic". For some reasons Saban seems to think that shinobis and ninjas are different things, which makes Venus look dumb when she says she is a shinobi and not a ninja. Oh yeah, Chung I protects some magic mirror that seals away some evil dragons. The mirror gets broken, Chung I dies and Venus goes to New York to help save Master Splinter who is trapped in the dream world. Oh, and even though she's a reptile, they gave her boobies.

2. Did people hate her simply because of the continuity change she represented, or was she also a crappy character (and if so, how was she crappy)?

It's not just the original canon that gets changed, but the guys are so out of character in this it hurts. None of them, not even Leo, can properly meditate and Venus has to help them so they can enter this dream world and save Splinter. They are all brawn-over-brain, sexists jerks, who constantly belittle Venus, except when they try to flirt with her (Leo also makes extra sure to tell her that she isn't their sister because they're not blood related). And Donny is the worst, because he constantly is mean to Venus because he thinks magic is stupid.

3. Did she have any redeeming features or qualities? (Was she at least a badass?)

Well, the first time she meets the TMNT she beats and ties them all up single-handedly. Oh, and she beat Shredder all by herself with her magic powers. The rest of the time she didn't really stand out. Except that in every confilct with the guys, she always, turns. out. to. be. right. Like a true Mary Sue, she is never wrong. Heck, the whole last episode of the show (fittingly titled "Who Needs her") was all about her and how much she has done for the guys and how grateful they should be.

The one thing that made me laugh -
Take 4 healthy teenage male turtles and one female, they should have been fighting each other for her favors and swamped with babies soon after.

and thank God for that! Venus just screwed up the whole dynamic of the turtles. I found nothing redeeming about her and in I would hate to see her appear in comic form or animated form.

1. What was her origin?

Well apperantly there were 5 turtles. None of said turtles were related to her (Don did a DNA test on Venus :lol: ). Splinter apperantly didn't see her (Mondo Gecko had a similar origin in the animated series.... 4 turtles and a lizard...splinter didn't see him....Mikey suddenly remembers years later). Well Venus ends up in the hands of a chinese friend of Splinter's named Chung I (please note that Splinter used to be a human in this instance). Well Splinter and Chung I thought it would be best if Mei Pei Chi (Turtle of enlightenment or something) aka Venus would be raised elsewhere for whatever reasons. So she was raised in China and occasionaly chatted with Splinter via the dreamscape. The guys knew NOTHING. Splinter and his damndable secrets. Keeping the knowlege of a female turtle from his own sons. Seriously WTF?!

Well anyways... Venus was raised as a mystical Shinobi (ninjas with magical powers) in a villiage in China where her master protected the world from eeeevil interdimensional dinosaurs/dragons that once ruled the world. But Chung I died and the monsters got loose in NYC for some reason....and Venus arrived to save Splinter from being stuck in Limbo.

The turtles and Venus eventually defeated the dragons ONLINE thru letters on the website and she went back to China (the turtles took her home in their submarine...yeah...)

2. Did people hate her simply because of the continuity change she represented, or was she also a crappy character (and if so, how was she crappy)?

Not really a continuity change per say. The turtles had no knowledge of her. Splinter kept her existance a secret. The thing is people didn't like her cuz it braught about change...a female non-related turtle....meaning they could breed (she and Leo were getting REALLLY close there for a bit).

3. Did she have any redeeming features or qualities? (Was she at least a badass?)

She defeated Shredder by using her Jedi powers to change his mind about destroying the turtles and ruling the world. :lol: Course he then just became a poor thief....

4. Are there any closet Venus fans here at the TechnoDrome?

I liked her a bit. Even have a Venus De Milo action figure (which I honestly only have cuz my mom saw it on ebay and thought it was Ninjara.... :lol: )

Um....not quite. Splinter's origin is the movie origin, since the show is a psudeo-spinoff of the movies. Splinter didn't know of Venus until he met Chung I while dream walking. As far as I know the 2 never met in person.

I dunno... She knew Splinter before going to NY. At least that's what it seems like to me anyways. Splinter and Chung I would chat in the spiritual plain.

I thought the show was considered to be another season of the cartoon? That's the way I always figured it to be anyways.

Correct.

No, that's crazy. Unless they acquired the exact same subway lair from TMNT II after the original cartoon and Splinter suddenly got half his ear chopped off by the Shredder also.

It was always intended to be a continuation of the film-verse, though certainly the "feel" was something more resembling as fluffy as the cartoon. Though I think it was even more fluffy than that.

Best. Turtleverse. Ever.

:ohwell:

That line reminds me of a particular Will and Grace episode.

That was beyond lame.

Venus got gang banged! :lol:

To this day I still wonder if some of the innuendo on that show was deliberate or if the actors really couldn't see what they were doing in those suits. Seems like Don was always groping Venus.

EWW. I can't believe you just said that. You just gave us all nasty images in our heads, plus you really shouldn't be posting stuff like that anyways.

And I don't think the turtles can even get busy. No gear :P

If they're like normal red earred sliders, their penises would telescope out of a slit in their tails.

Of course, the movie/NT:TNM Turtles don't even have tails.

bummer :lol:

Oh god, the mental imagery. :teek:

It's safe to sum up my feelings in these three words: DO NOT WANT!

Thankfully that's why we have the comic book turtles...cuz Mirage has their tails showin all the time...and Archie did a couple times too... :evilgrin: Even have a couple action figures where they have tails....

they have tails people just watch adventures in turtle sitting when Don goes all monster and he has a long floppy tail...why did this discussion turn toward penises? :lol:

That is what all conversations about Venus turn into?

I know I only disliked her as the poster child of the new direction. Recently, I got the DVDs of the UK's heavily-edited 'Hero Turtles' version of 'The Next Mutation'. It seems Venus was actually the most level-headed of the turtles. The rest were regressed to rowdy kids in need of ritalin.
Absolutely. In France, the movies are called 'Tortues Ninja: Nouvelle Generation', same as their dub of 'The Next Mutation'.
Venus rhymes with what? So, you can see how people could easily mix up the two topics.

It was inevitable, my dear. When we are talking about breeding possibilities, you have to talk about this at some point. :lol: