Splinters name
 

Two things, why do the turtles call Yoshi Splinter, is there any reason for them to not just call him Yoshi. And how does shredder know about the name splinter?

In this series it seems like Splinter was Yoshi's codename much like Oroku Saki's was Shredder.

This isn't the OT where the Turtles nicknamed him Splinter.

Agree with cybercubed (:o) it's the only reasonable explanation.

I don't know.. my best guess which I wrote into my fanfic was that they nicknamed each other back when they were friends. Saki called Yoshi 'Splinter' due to his gift of Splintering boards as were they nothing, and Yoshi called Saki 'Shredder' cause he shreds things all the time, makes sense to me, and the names just ended up sticking to them.

But yeah, it was an explanation I made up because I did have to ask myself.
"Why on earth are Shredder calling Splinter by the name 'Splinter' all the time? how does he even know Hamato Yoshi calls himself that?"

I could imagine Splinter took the name upon himself when he mutated to mark a sort of 're-birth' of himself.

But that's honestly my best guess.

Mostly I just think the show didn't think that far at all, and I don't think any-one is ever going to explain it.

Of course the show is probably going to explain it, Yoshi didn't get his name Splinter from the turtles. They'll probably explain this later on when we find out Miwa is Karai.

Splinter also knows that Oroku Saki calls himself Shredder.

I really don't think they will.

All-though, admittedly, some-thing I would just love to see, would be a two-parter episode telling the story of what exactly happened back in Japan, it is very very vague, and I would love to see it.

Will that happen? I think not, that would require a huge budget as you would have to model so many new things.
New backgrounds, new characters whim will only be used that one time, entirely new settings, also only used that one time. I guess that's one of the draw-backs about the CGI. Normally with handrawn, it will cost the same no matter what you do or where you move things, with CGI, you want to re-use the same models over and over, cause those are the ones costing money :/

Maybe it'll happen in one of the official nick web comics? that would be sort of neat.

Or hopefully, we'll get some more flashbacks where they use the hand-drawn pictures, we havn't seen that many of those lately, which is a shame, I really like those, it's a nice pretty looking alternative way to do a flash-back.

.... wauw.. I never thought I would actually say. "I want more flash-backs."

Kudos to this show for making me say some-thing like that oO;

The show is designed in a way that we're slowly learned more about Splinter/Shredder's past and the Kraang. I don't understand why you think they don't plan to reveal all of this. What do you think this season is building towards?

Some things are better not fully explained to every last detail

Because the show is more focused about how the past affects the present and how the present turns out, instead of going into detail explaining the past.

The show is currently building towards two major things, a big confrontation between the turtles and the krangs, slowly we are learning more and more about what they want and why they are a threat.

And we are building towards a confrontation between Splinter and the Shredder, which I am going to guess, will first really happen in season two.

All the past is really good for, is explaining the present, explain character motivations in the present, and maybe it really is better to leave it unexsplained, because quite honestly, my imagination all-ready did run wild regarding what happened, I wrote an entire fanfiction about it, which is quite honestly one of my own works I like more.

We've been learning more and more about the past as the show progresses. The 2D style flashbacks showing Yoshi's older life will probably be used again in the future.

As for a big Splinter/Shredder fight, it'll probably happen in the final or right before it. There's no reason to not expect another Shredder confrontation before the season ends.

Well, I do think we are going to learn a few things more, but not that much really.
Because.. mostly it isn't that important.

Take one great example of how this works, in Star Wars, Obi Wan explained very little about Darth Vader.

"He is more machine than man now." that whole speech took.. around thirty seconds, and then we spend another thirty seconds later to explain a little more.
That was honestly all the background we needed in that movie, it was a past event that directly affected the present, and it was only brought up, because it affected the present.
That's how you do screen writing, only ever bring information up if it has any meaning to present or future actions in the movie/television show.

Then ten years later we had three whole movies expanding on that one minute worth of back-ground material and.. there was no way to make it any good, we actually didn't need any-more.
If they were going to do more Star Wars, they should have looked forwards not back-wards :ohwell:

That is not to say that I would become angry or any-thing if they decided to make a two-parter episode explaining Splinters and Shredders back-story, I would be really happy. Or if we get more flash-backs, I feel a genuine want of wanting to see it.
But I wont be dissapointed either if it doesnt happen, this show has thus far been very good at keeping its focus which is.. not with splinter, but with the turtles. And not in the past, but in the present.

I think the writers have done a good job moving the overall plot at a good pace while exploring the characters. I'm sure they can have a few more flashbacks without it being too distracting. As said its bound to happen around the time Karai is revealed to be Miwa anyway.

No matter the case, i'm sure the show will keep on being good.

So I am not really worried nor frustrated about any-thing, it's just an over-all good show, and I see now reason why that would stop.

They're probably nicknames they had in the military. That photo from the opening scene of "New Friend, Old Enemy" continues to intrigue me.

Well, they both were ninjas, which means "Profesional warriors." or "Profesional assasins."

Considering this is a kids show and we are bending the rules of what a ninja is, meaning Splinter is not an assasin, and doesn't train the turtles to be assasins, he is all about "All life is precious, and we never kill unless we have no other choice." and all that stuff, I am going to go with the notion that they were just profesional warriors for their clan.

Splinter all-ready said that they were old friends so well, that they would be send on ninja field missions together only makes sense to me.

Wasn't one explanation that he got his name from being able to chomp those karate boards into splinters? I think this was in the intro.

In the OT. This is a new continuity.

Well in that case, this version hasn't been given an explanation. Although I suspect, as others have, that it stems from being in the war.

Well they weren't in any war. Japan hasn't had a military conflict really since WWII. But they were still Army buddies, or something.

honestly guys.

Splinter and Shredder were both members of some sort of a ninja clan.

Those really doesn't exist in our modern world, so clearly this show is bending the rules for what is and what isn't.

Just the fact that the Shredder uses foot ninjas instead of people with guns, and really have an old-school ninja clan should tell us some-thing.

So the fact that they were ninjas in Japan, what does that tell us?
What is a ninja? it's a warrior, which means, they were profesional warriors, even training other profesional warriors, what is another word for "Profeional warrior." well erh.. Soldier.

So they were members of what we could call Japans force of profesional warriors, or soldiers. It was very likely they were send to battle together, and were on a lot of "ninja field missions." together, which we could also call. "Soldier field missions." they are sort of the same thing, only ninja is more assian.

So well, that is what they are, profesional warriors aka profesional soldiers, so they were to battle together ones, hench to photo, which is clearly from some kind of a field mission they were ad together. It's perfectly logical.

Oh my God, stop babbling and look at this:

http://i.imgur.com/bkRaV.png

I see dog tags and a camo helmet. They were obviously in the Jieitai together. Like I said, Japan hasn't had a military conflict since WWII, but they still could have gone on dangerous disaster relief missions together. Or I guess the fictional history of the Nicktoon's universe could have Japan involved in some war during the 80's.

That was the exact picture I was just talking about.

But honestly, sending them on real soldier field missions would be the only way to even begin to justify the existence of genuine ninjas in our modern world.

Unless there's an entire hidden ninja society in Japan we know nothing about, still being hired to assasin people in the smaller vilages without people protecting themselves with.. I don't know, govermental protection or guns?

These kind of ninjas are just another word for "Soldiers."

Warriors, soldiers.. it's the same thing, and that's what Splinter and Shredder are, or were as it is. Shredder is the "genneral." of his own new little ninja army.

So this show decided to actually go ahead and justify ninjas in our modern world by saying. "yeah, they were soldiers." .. only makes sense in my ears, we are at 2012 now you know, which means Hamato fleed Japan back in 1997, which is still a pretty modern global world. Lots of stuff has happened since the eighties ya know, we aren't so disconnected with the world any-more, and we have to take a leap of faith to say. "Oh yeah, Japan totally still have ninja clans, absolutely!" ... that's a fantasy setting at the very least.

You know what I find more intriquing about that picture? The way Yoshi is holding Saki, with the friendly arm around his shoulder and both smiling.
If that is not proof that they were buddies and actually saved each other a couple of times, I don't know what is, and that's pretty cool.

From one of the writers:

In our minds, Splinter and Shredder took on their nicknames before their big feud and Hamato Yoshi’s transformation. These were their nicknames within their ninja clans, possibly even dating back to their military days hinted at in the photograph. For the sake of new and younger viewers, this just seemed easier than having to explain that Splinter used to be Hamato Yoshi every time we hear Shredder talking about him, etc. Two guys always talking about each other using different names than everyone else calls them because they don’t know about each other’s new names yet seemed needlessly complex.

Who said that? Kenny?

Yes, on his Tumblr page.

I don't think they're giving kids enough credit.

But it's good to know the "explanation" is what most of us figured: Pre-mutation, possibly military nicknames.

Not I'm flashing back to Full Metal Jacket....

I wish they would mention this in the show though to make it canon and for people who don't read forums

Shredder would rip people to shreds
And splinter would get a piece of wood, rub it all over the guy and he would get splinters.
EXPLAINED

I think they just figured showing the photograph would give us a clue that they were in the military together. In either case, that's the way I figured it anyway that they had their names in the military and just kept them as such. Then when Splinter mutated, he took on the name of Splinter since he's no longer Yoshi.

It's called subtlety. They don't have to spell EVERYTHING out, man.

Though that seems to contradict the, "Kid's won't get if Shredder always calls Splinter "Yoshi." logic. If you're going to subtly "explain" that Shredder and Splinter were old army buddies with only the barest of visual cues, than I'm sure they can figure Shredder=Saki and Splinter=Yoshi.

It might also be called "patience". I can see them explaining it before season 1 is through

Yeah, that too... :P

I'm so glad they finally confirmed this! I'm curious if they would have been in the normal ranks of the infantry, or if their Clan standings allowed them to be higher ranked, like officers or something..

I can't wait to see the flashbacks for those scenes.. :D

Didn't Shredder used to call Splinter Hamato Yoshi in the Fred Wolf toon?

i think that is much later in the show

But why would Splinter/Shredder use the names that their arch enemy gave them?

He did it in the first episode.

It's settled guys
http://kennybloggerly.tumblr.com/pos...-name-splinter
Here's the link to his tumblr

Japan hasnt technically had a legit military for nearly 70 years...