Is Baxter even a good villain?
 

I mean, he's just so stock.

In the original comic what was his motivation? He was just a typical megalomaniac mad scientist. Wow. How original.

In the original show he was just a blatant rip-off of the movie "The Fly".

The only cool thing about Baxter was his robots, namely the Mousers. Other than that, what's so great about his character?

God, I am going to have f&ckin field day with this topic.

Baxter is the reason that I love Jeff Goldblum's character so much in the remake of "The Fly." I would be interested in seeing what others have to say on this topic.

Also, nothing is ever truly "original." Even when the Greeks were coming up with Mythological characters, they were simply combining elements that already existed. There's really nothing "original" regarding the concept of the TMNT. Laird and Eastman just pasted a bunch of ideas together that came from somewhere else, and those ideas came from somewhere else, etc, etc, etc. Anything an artist creates can be dissected and understood for what it is if the right theory is applied. Artistic merit has less to do with being "original" and more to do with how one chooses to tell a story/create meaning through art.

Everybody copies everybody. Nothing is original. The real question is ''Could you have created a more original character?'' No, didnt think so.

TMNT began as, and will always boil down to, a bunch of mish-mashed homages.

So Baxter's pretty fitting. Also, I dig fly Baxter. Fly Baxter needs a serious interpretation, because seriously? That's a pretty f*cked up villain.

I don't know, I mean, for what they did for 2k3 Stockman, I thought his Character had some meaning and motivation throughout the whole series.

Especially in "insane of the membrane" in Season 4.

Heh, I believe he came back more to bite the turtles then the Shredder did in that series.

But other then that, his character in general isn't that original.

1987 cartoon
 

In the 1987 cartoon he at least had an ambition, to get people interested in his invention, but as pest control companies fear unemployment he decides to work with the Shredder who's at least interested instead.

I think Baxter has the potential to become a great super villain - he's an unhinged genius.

Im agree....:tgrin: Baxter is the genius evil role, someone that can give a bad surprise in every moment to our TMNT! :twink:

Baxter is the tragic villain of TMNT.

Even though he's evil, you always end up feeling sorry about what happens to him. Will we ever have a Baxter that isn't mutilated/mutated/turn into a cyborg?

What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 1:9

That was my way of agreeing.

Hmm. I had never realized that pattern before, to my own surprise. Thats quite odd, no?

Exactly, being an artist myself (graphic artist) I have grown to enjoy and love art for what it really is. I had never been one to think and ponder about things but once i started to really get into art that all changed. The thing with art is normally you dont find something someone has never done before. If you do happen to be the genius to create soemthing new and fresh, well you will be graced as the new picasso of our time. Breaking down art is really not all that hard, just as everyone said before me it all comes back to someone. You take someone else's work that you like and make it your own, within reason! You legally cannot take the exact same thing but you cant take the general idea, say mutated turtles and call them the 4 great artist of our time. Make then fight crime and kick butt while living a hidden life only known to a few humans. Even movies do this, look at how many spin off movies or how many well I have seen that before movies come out. Its just what we as humans do. When we like an idea we break it down and try to think of other ways to approach that same idea with our own opinions which in return can make something completly different that has come from that 1 original idea.

No. Not in the comics. He's atleast visually interesting in the OT.

I sure felt sorry for Baxter in the comics when he voluntarily planted his brain in a robot body, shot an innocent man to death, and commented on his own lack of remorse afterward. Truly, a misunderstood character.

I have to agree... I do remember feeling bad for him in the OT tho...poor guy gets smacked around by Shredder all the time and then gets turned into a fly. Talk about a rough week.

I don't think Baxter is a good villian..unfortunatly though I think you'd have to put him in the top 5 for TMNT villians.

nono he's stockMAN:P

i thought he was decent enough. just didn't get used enough really

Interesting
 

I would like to see that, just keep him as a mad but dangerous scientist.

Yeah, in the 'toon he was a great change of pace in terms of villains. He was a weak-willed little guy who got pulled into events much too large for him. While he started out as a genius, the gradual decay of his intelligence was actually pretty interesting and tragic in its way. I've always felt like he's a great villain, and if used properly, he could be fantastic.

By Bye Fly
 

I like "By Bye Fly", and that episode where he tries to kill the TMNT with the bells on some churchtower.

Yeah, I remember that episode. It was a pretty good one! I'm hoping that I'll get a chance to do a story arc with 'ol Baxter in my mod, as he is one of my favorite villains from the series.

Fanfiction
 

I love fanfiction based on the 1987 TMNT cartoon. :)

Thank you, art is suppose to express emotion and tell a story. It is different for each person bc of their interpretation

Well, my mod is loosely based on the 'toon.:tsmile:
http://forums.thetechnodrome.com/showthread.php?t=30566
I'm really hoping to be able to get enough art assets to keep telling stories for a while. I have an arc with Baxter as The Fly penned out, and I would definitely like to be able to reach it.
A work in progress shot of good 'ol Baxter:
http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/8343/baxter.jpg

It's interesting, because we are living in a culture in which only that which is "new" is held as having literary value. Now, y'all are right in quoting Solomon, there is "nothing new under the sun." So, instead of actually coming up with new ideas, what is held up as "great literature" in the modern day are works in which an author does something clever with narrative or some other element of form. It doesn't matter if the material itself is terrible, abrasive, and dehumanizing, what matters is that the author thought of some "new" way to tell the story. It's something I've never been comfortable with about my field...probably the reason I prefer older literature and the type of adventure fiction embodied in the Turtles. There is value in the concept of anthropomorphic amphibians, no matter how silly or derivative the concept may seem.

I think both version of Baxters are great.

The fly Baxter is a complex sympathetic villian. He never really tried to be evil and just constantly got screwed by Shredder (and the Turtles). I think it's kinda sad how his story ended though. Being stuck in that weird dimension thing after befriending that computer just made me feel bad for him. :trazz:

I've always had a little soft spot for Baxter. In both series. It's too bad he never got to return to normal after everything that was done to him.