To Anyone Who Likes Venus: Why?
 

I'm not usually the type who points fingers and calls people out for not sharing my opinion, so I'll try to keep this as un-accusatory as possible...but I hate Venus; passionately. Much as I've come to disapprove of Peter Laird, and his decade of tyranny and exhaustive pessimism, I agree with him 100% on this point, and now that Laird's out of the spotlight, I've noticed an enormous amount of Venus fans coming out of the woodwork. Prompting me to ask again, why?

I gave The Next Mutation a fair chance, and up until Venus came into the story, I actually thought it was kind of funny (though a lot of the humor was unintentional and embarrassing), but this character was far worse than I could have expected. Simply put, Venus seems like an awful fancharacter some hack on DeviantArt invented. She's female, for no apparent reason than to add a female to the team, has breasts, for no apparent reason other than to emphasize that she's female, and most of all, she is absolutely the worst Mary-Sue I have ever seen in a for-profit work, and actually even worse than many Mary-Sues in fanfiction.

Let's look at her introduction; in a total of one episode, she beats up all the real turtles and hangs them from the ceiling, rewrites continuity to make the turtles not siblings, so a romance is possible (and as an aside, this is incredibly stupid, especially because it was unnecessary; they could have made the four males siblings and Venus unrelated), and defeats Shredder just by telling him to fight from the inside, so the creators could put an original villain in the show, too.

I may be prejudging her fandom, here, but I have to wonder if they're the same people who fawn over Turtlecest, and treat Donny X April as absolutely the most important thing in the 2012 series; in short, people who see a need to force excessive romance into an action-adventure-comedy series that never relied on it. Outside of potential for romance, what exactly did Venus add to the series? What is it that makes Kevin Eastman declare that he loves her, when in fact, the bulk of the fandom still agrees with Peter Laird on her?

I don't rightly know how to answer you on this as I am also not a Venus fan, but I CAN assure you that there is absolutely no correlation from what I've seen of the many many fans who enjoy tcest and/or Turtlexhuman pairings and liking Venus. Actually, I notice those fans who tend to like her also enjoy characters like Mona Lisa which makes more sense to me...they like female mutants being paired with the turtles. Fans who like tcest, well, there's not much of a need for a female turtle now is there, and those who like Turtlexhuman pretty much dig having human characters, so once again, not much need for a female turtle. Besides, as you said yourself, Venus is a flat 1-dimensional, supreme Mary Sue, and as much as you might not like romance in its other forms, not all romance has to be that shallow and boring. Depth and real characterization can take place in these other relationships which just seems much more challenging with a character like Venus.

It's most likely execution. Venus simply made a poor reception to the fans. The second mistake is making her a love interest instead of a sister. And then her Mary Sue-ness.

Ninjara is the new girl and Raph's girlfriend, but I really have yet to meet someone in this forum who rabidly hates her, even though Archie sadly didn't add much to her character (a sidestory about her Japanese family and other adventures before she met the Turtles would actually be nice IMHO). On the rare moments Ninjara and April are having girl talk, they failed the Bechdel test. I am actually glad because people nowadays are snorting on female characters for being "just love interests", and she pretty much escaped unscathed from that.

As for turtlecest, I think they became popular in 2k3, thanks to Leo and Raph's supposed UST (sure, 4Kids didn't mean to, but shippers really like subtext).

It provided a chance to show that a five-man band needs a chick and that it provides an extra Turtle to improve their chances of defeating the villains. Venus could have been an orphan who needed to be adopted, but I'm not a fan of these Mary Sues, with so many more questions than answers when written that make you feel lost about her.

It was simply a matter of FOX demanding 'either add a female turtle or else no new show', and Kevin not making a big deal out of it as much as Peter did. It's not so much that Kevin loves Venus. It's more of a 'shrugs shoulders' yeah sure why not? kinda thing.

She's a terrible idea because she was on the main cast.

Even if she were a recurring character, its still terrible. Girl turtles with psychic powers...is awful.

Just to make sure you're not just being a sexist idiot: What are your feelings about a male Turtle with an incredible new ability to read Japanese?

Next Mutation was awful, and would have been just as awful without her. Venus is the only reason why anyone still talks about TNM.

Next Mutation was crappy, Venus was crappy, the network that created it was crappy and the people whom like Venus make my brain go crappy.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, I think Venus is one of those characters that should be reworked and retooled, similar to how Arcee was in TP. However, those of whom that don't want her in anything else ever may as well continue to believe that, seeing as how there is no interest amongst producers to use her besides one guy.

Kinda makes me wonder if Kirby was in TNM instead, and if people would hate him.

I like Venus.

Now there's a lot of misconceptions about Venus and many of them in your own post.

Why add a female turtle? Diversity, something new. The Turtles franchise was dead at this point and they thought this new extreme 90s version was going to get some of the popularity back.

TNM sucked because of Venus. No. TNM 'sucked' because it was a cheaply produced Saban AmeriToku show and it was extremely slapsticky.

Venus this...Venus that.. Many of these things are not even true. Making Venus a love interest is only implied in the first pilot and never again is it implied during the whole show. Her psychic powers and her being all that also only lasts during the pilot East meets West and in other episodes she isn't a broken character. This isn't that much different than when a new character appears in other shows and they're shown to be so much cooler than anything else we've done, this is especially done in shows like Power Rangers which Saban also made.

Ironically Venus is the best written character of TNM sans East meets West. Most of the fandom seems to just blame TNM on her or just because they have this precious idea of the turtles only being able to be 4. When I was a kid I welcomed the idea of a female turtle, now I don't really care and I'm glad there's only 4 but come on she is far from the worst character in the turtles franchise, way far. I'd love to see her and other TNM characters come back better written in a better show. I actually think most of the hate for Venus is uncalled for, you don't like the character? Ok, to each their own and there's definitely reasons why you might not like her but most of the negative things about Venus are just overblown nitpicks.

Ha. A very good point. Most people can't stomach more than the introductory 5 parter and use it to judge the whole series.

I really wouldn't mind having a female fifth Turtle tbqh.

Like mooncalfe's at least.

The best episodes to come out of Next Mutation was the Vam Mi "Unchain my heart" 4-parter. Pretty much the only arc that wasn't entirely painful or dumbed down for kids.

There's also a surprising lot of cleavage in that episode from Vam Mi, especially when the actress bends down for a kids show. :o

Saban was never shy with their cleavage.

I actually didn't like the Vam Mi arc, thought it was boring though it did give us the best interpretation of Bonesteel. I don't remember very well but IIRC the Shredder episode at the end and the Good Dragon episode were the best episodes the show had.

She's cute and reminds me of Blaze.

:dead::sick::tsick:

You know who I'm totally ambivalent about?

Venus.

Fifth Turtle? Whatever. Girl turtle? Fine. Venus specifically? Not a very good character, but hey, no one in that series was.

I'd be hypothetically interested in seeing a take on her one day that wasn't tied to something as awful as Next Mutation, but if that day never comes, I'm not clamoring for it either.

My only deep-set feeling about her concept is that we should never see breast-shaped carapaces again.

There are quite a few good or fun episodes in the next mutation.
I don't think it's all bad I quite like vami mi, bonesteel, and dr quease.

Guess I'll admit it. I'm not a fan of a female turtle at all. Or a 5th turtle that's a part of the team and as a kid I hated the fact that she came along and all of a sudden the 4 guys aren't brothers. :ohwell:

I'm not fond of Venus but I do believe she could have worked. Venus wasn't the problem, it was the show's execution. The show just went out of their way to make Venus look good while making the main Turtles look bad. I could write an entire article of when Venus took care of something herself in which the established Turtles could have, would have and should have charged in and helped out. But no! They either stand in the background cheering on or Venus took care of the problem before they even do anything. Even without Venus, the show would have still been awful.

Had the Turtles acted like we would expect them to act as we have seen in the OT and the Movies, the show would have been much better. The Five-Man Band aspect would have worked really well.

I'm by no means a Venus fan, and thinking of her does give me bad memories of Next Mutation - but I'd totally be open to seeing her re-interpreted in a new incarnation someday, something that would finally make her a likeable character perhaps. So I guess I'm middle ground, I don't hate her, but I'm by no means calling for her return either.

And on the Donnie/April thing mentioned in the first post, I don't like that pairing simply because it adds romance to a predominantly action/comedy series (though that is kind of a nice addition), I like it because the way they're handling it in the show is absolutely adorable. :P

I happen to think Venus was the only character in that series I could tolerate. Probably because she wasn't an over-the-top charicature.

I guess nobody likes Venus, including me....

But I'm fine with that. Even though any idea in fiction can be made palatable, the Turtles have had the same or very similar four-brothers dynamic in all media and all forms, so it would take one hell of a writer to pull off the changed dynamic that a new Turtle would bring, whether the new Turtle was male or female.

It's not about being hidebound to "tradition" so much as there's this "closed" dynamic of the four Turtles and how they interact with each other that it'd be hard to bring a new Turtle in and have everything go smoothly. TNM just wasn't up to snuff.

Also, I agree with Peter Laird, who seemed just as annoyed that a fifth Turtle was added as the fact that they were female:

http://peterlairdstmntblog.blogspot....as-aliens.html

I think some people make too big a deal over Venus being female, because they're attached to the melancholy notion of the Turtles as a reproductive "dead end", that was embodied in the original "Sons of the Silent Age" comic story. But it's just as awful that the writers can't think of any more creative role for a new character than "another Turtle".

A fifth male Turtle would be just as redundant, and even if he were a Laird creation like Kirby, it would still take some hard work to pull off.

If Venus had not been a "Fifth Turtle" but a new ally character of a different species, she might have gone over better. I don't believe in the notion of "female just for the sake of being female", since women are half the population and representing them in fiction shouldn't need "a reason" any more than having male characters would be. I'd like to see more female characters in the franchise, and more female mutants, but it has to be more creative than just adding a female Ninja Turtle.

Besides that, I haven't watched TNM since it aired, but Venus was annoying because her comic role was supposed to be the "dumb foreigner" who can't grasp another culture and keeps making the same dopey language mistakes. That kind of character is very hard to make likable, and I just found her annoying.

That her naming scheme didn't match the other Turtles stood out to me, too.

Also, she had turtle boobs. Which are creepy. I give this design a pass when it's human characters who have become non-mammals, but Venus as a full-blown reptile with turtle cleavage is disturbing.

Never was a fan of Venus, and I can't see how people are, a female turtle CAN be done right ( I think) but Venus is an example of how NOT to do it. I think if she was done right, she would be a tolerable character, but for now, I hate her:)

I liked Mona Lisa more then the Venus character.

Venus just felt like the result of a focus group more than a truley creative aspect of the mythos.

Guilty as charged. :toops:

However, so is Saban. A good first impression is very, very important, and it places the burden of proof squarely on the creators rather than the viewers. If they improved Venus from the pilot, well, good for them I guess, but their introduction of Venus was so incredibly bad that Occam's Razor didn't point that way.

Agreed with this. I was watching an episode of TNM last week, and one of the
bits was Venus not getting the correct name for a bowling strike. Sure it made me chuckle the first time...but I was sick of it by the time she kept doing it when they went into combat. Also...the Asain accent. It was just so high pitched and whiny to me, ugh.

The idea of a female turtle is interesting, it adds something new to the status quo.

Venus, as the rest of the show was just badly handled, from mis-knowing the word Shinobi to being a straight up Mary Sue.

It's the concept that is appealing, not the character.

I like Venus, in my turtle world she is very much still part of it, i have to agree with what most has been said Venus wasnt the down fall of next mutation it was bad writing..past the first story arc it just gets dull and overly slap stick.

i am open to a fith turtle and a girl turtle, what irked me most was the breaking of the brotherhood

I have mixed feelings on Venus. On one hand. It was stupid to have a fifith female turtle, who was there at the time of the origin, who has 'supah mystical Shinobi powers', who beat all four of the other turtles at once, in five seconds, in the dark, off camera... and went on to be the mary sue-er, amin focus of the series.

On the other hand, I don't mind the idea of a fifth female mutant/anthro character hanging around the guys all the time, and going on most of thier adventures. Ninjara was awesome in the archie series, and I would've loved it if Mona Lisa had become an every episode mainstay in the OT, maybe taking up Mikey's grappling hook as a weapo, so he could get his nunchucks back, or at least weild a tonfa. The point why those two work is that they are not, turtles, and not created at the same accident the turtles were.

Although one thing I gotta ask, Mondo Gecko in the ot basically had the same origin as venus (Mutated at the same time as the TMNT, by the same accident with the same ooze) why don't people hate him?

Probably because Mondo wasn't shoehorned into every single episode that aired after his introduction. If Venus had just made random guest appearances every once in awhile maybe she'd be more tolerable.

I don't understand why she had to prove her superiority by defeating and humiliating the Turtles when she first stepped into the lair. What they could have done was the Turtles detecting the intruder and rush to the entrance weapons drawn as Venus formally introduces herself. If she did go for the aggressive approach, the Turtles ought to be distrustful and not let themselves get hanged there like idiots.

I hear a lot that a female turtle isn't an inherently stupid idea, but the question is, would it add anything that a smarter, tougher April couldn't? That's a better solution to have a feminist angle, in my opinion, because then that angle doesn't monopolize the plot; April is a surface-dweller.

I actually liked The next mutation, mind you not as much as the original cartoon. The biggest thing that bugged me, which others have said, is the fact that the turtles are no longer brothers.

Venus as an added character was alright but she needed to have a different personality. To me she always felt like another Splinter. A thing that kinda of took away from Leonardos character as he is the one that quotes splinter and sticks to splinters teachings to a letter.

I dunno i feel the show had great potential, but missed the great mark largely due to the Venus but also for a lot of different little things. the funniest thing is that the best fight scene of the series is in the crossover episode with the power rangers.

While I do agree that a female turtle is a bad idea, I don't think a female mutant/anthro is. Ninjara and Mona Lisa were both amazing characters, and I'd have no problem seeing ethier becoming a permanent addition to the TMNT's team in the 5th turtle role. Heck Ninjara was almost that anyway in Archie. April can be built up too, but I'd also love see one of these two become a main character.

I liked her because of the magical aspect. I also liked that she was a girl. I didn't know her character was so disliked until coming here.

Cody Jones is disliked for a lot of the same reason as Venus; that is, he became the center of the plot, so I'm not sure if Venus or a similar character would go over well, even if written better. Still, if a show gets to the point where all of the plots involving the existing character dynamic seem exhausted, then maybe it's not a bad idea.

What do you think Venus?
 

Hey there, im new to this site and i'm a HUGE fan of TMNT, however i cannot stand Venus De Milo or the next mutation, so i was surprised finding out that this character gas a fanbase that will defend her. WHY? what is there to defend about her?

1. She has no redeemable character traits whatsoever

2.She was tacked on the show in order to appease whiny feminists

3. She constantly had the REAL turtles depend on her to win their battles
Does that sound like a defendable character? You tell me