How did we let this happen?
 

How did we let the TMNT movie license wind up the way it has? It depresses me to think we're going to have at least 3 Bay movies and in a time when Marvel/DC are ramping up their movies we're stuck with...this.

How did we let this happen? We could have done something. We could have saved TMNT.

You're right, it's our fault. Now what?

What could we have done?

"We" didn't "let" anything happen, this is what happened:

1. Viacom bought TMNT from Peter Laird
2. Paramount, part of Viacom, put Michael Bay in charge of producing a TMNT as he had experience with turning nostalgic properties into box office success
3. The directer emulated Bay's style and the writers copied ideas from other contemporary comic book movies, both in hopes of making a successful movie
4. The movie came out and was a moderate success at the box office despite negative reviews
5. Now they're making a sequel that looks to be similar with more fantastical elements added

That's about it, the "alien" debacle was the only time fans were ever involved and it was probably not even going to be part of the movie after some rewrites/focus testing. The point is that Paramount was always going to be more concerned with box office money than reviews, so Platinum Dunes seemed like a good choice as they had never failed to earn money on these types of projects despite their consistantly negative reception.

The mentality of "well it says TMNT, so I have to buy it".

Thank you a lot neatoman for a quick and yet detailed run-through like this! Enjoyed reading it big time!

Despite the statement that companies were more concerned about box office success instead of fan opinions I still just don't see how Turtles, that obviously do not look like ones, plus the fact that it's basically a Shrek copy, even go forward in the production process.

We let our guards down, and the gods are punishing us. WE ARE TO BLAME!

We are to blame for annoying Peter Laird enough that he sold the franchise to the corporation above Paramount for peanuts.

Also, blame anyone who ever bought a Transformers ticket.

The only thing to add to this is that I believe reading that Bay re-signed an exclusive deal with Paramount around the time the movie was being made, so no doubt having another franchise with his production company played a role in that as well. As hated as his movies are, he makes consistent money for Paramount, so tossing him another property was likely a part of keeping him with the company.

In hindsight, the only thing "we" could have done was clam up entirely when the "Alien Turtles" news hit. Maybe if there wasn't as much controversy about that idea they might have actually made that movie, it would have bombed, and we'd be reading about a planned reboot right now. :trazz:

Is CyberCubed Papenbrook/Purple Kraken? :teek:

No way. PK is hyper sensitive, cubed has no soul. PK is "open minded" and "progressive", cubed is the less endearing reincarnation of Archie Bunker.

The list goes on.

I say we just blame all the transformer fans.

Why is this even a thread? It took years to get a new TMNT movie off the ground because movie goers stopped supporting the franchise. SOTO didn't make half the profits that the first movie made and TMNT III made only half of that. They also each performed less favorably with critics. So much to the point that Kevin Eastman couldn't even get a fourth movie made in 1997. It took 14 years for them to finally get another movie off the ground and it had to be animated to keep the production costs down and still be faithful to the Turtles. Even that movie was poorly received.

It took a major studio like Nickelodeon, the success of a new cartoon, and a big well known producer like Michael Bay being involved before anyone would even consider making a new Turtles movie. The result was a film that (even though it was poorly received by critics) made more money than all of the previous turtles movies combined.

Now you might hate the direction, the style, the actors, Michael Bay, and everything else about it (and I would probably agree with you). But the truth is, from a business point of view, they have saved the franchise on the big screen. They have proven that Turtles movies can make big money, and this will open the door for future filmmakers to do more faithful reboots on the big screen in the years to come. Just like X-Men and Spider-Man. Think of this series as the "test run" before the real series begins.

If you're looking for someone to blame, look in the mirror, boys. It's all for you. Every single thing PD has done, or will do, is for you. By design.

This is what cis het boys want, and so this is what cis het boys will get.
Drink it in and enjoy.

I am cis het, still don't want. Where do I go from here?

I agree with everything you said except for what I highlighted in red.

TMNT will never get a serious, more faithful cinematic adaptation. Everybody with a budget will never be unconvinced that "TMNT is just for kids."

Worse...thanks to Platinum Dunes the "just for kids" thing has expanded to "Kids and man-children," a niche market that's likely to burn hotter right before it collapses in under its own weight.

One way to save it is to make it good, and inclusive. Open it up to more than just one distilled fanbase.

"Change is the only constant."

Nobody was asking for the Turtles to become 4 Hulks with nostrils.

True, we might never get a faithful cinematic adaptation on the big screen. However, they could easily do what DC and Marvel did and make animated films that are based more on the comics. I'd love to see an animated version of the original Mirage books or the IDW series. They would be cheaper to produce and they could be used to test the waters and find out for sure what fans really want before they dump $120M into a feature. That's what Star Wars did, that's what DC did with "Dark Knight Returns", and that's what Marvel did. Now Star Wars is on its way to being the highest grossing movie of all time and I don't think that franchise is any better than Ninja Turtles.

Replace "Hulk" with "Shrek" and you speak from my very own heart!

Well... some things were changed, were they not? Blue Door, Shredder, etc., so there's some power there. But we have zilch in terms of the business deals; who buys what and who they put in charge of what. Too bad Bay & Co are appanetly Viacom's go-to people. And then others (Fox, etc) that already had connections. I never realized until now how much these companies just defaulted to who they already have done business with.

I wish there was at least the power to get Bay and writers away from TMNT. Now that I'm moderately used to them, I'm okay with seeing a bit more of this set of Turtles (provided they don't take over as the new face of the franchise); all things considered, they were after all kind of the best part about it, but I'd really love to see them put into someone else's hands. Makes me a little sad for them that that probably isn't possible.

I hope the new director can pull off at least a small miracle, but I don't trust that his hands were not largely tied by the more powerful people around him. I'd feel bad for him if he and his own career get thrown under the bus thanks to other people.



Somebody just needs to win the lotto and contribute a chuck of cash to the third one in return for the power to stop Bay and writers when they get out of control. (I'd say use the winnings to make your own, but currently there's no stopping this train; only trying to change the tracks may be possible.)

And all they had to do was sacrifice nearly everything that makes the Turtles great.

But thank f*cking blood-gutted CHRIST rich people got richer off this movie. From a business point of view.

I would rather NO MOVIE(S) AT ALL, than have this garbage series made for the lowest common denominator.

This will open the door for studios to churn out even more garbage than before, when sh*t movies make money.

Hahaha, I was going to say.....

@plastroncafe, this isn't a cis het thing dear friend. You really need to meet better examples of hetero men. Idk...I think you've only known the worst of us. :lol:

Also
http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/...20120811231113

Schumacher took a similar approach to Batman and Robin...so (given a very small sample selection) one could draw the conclusion that sexuality isn't a factor in who's driving the bus.


In a way, the sequel does look and feel like a playmates toy commercial. It feels like cheap plastic toys running wild in the city...
Maybe we should blame those who buy the garbage that playmates puts out? Maybe they know that they can get away with little cheats, like missing pain applications, or bad designs etc.

Because this fanbase will settle for less and hardly demand for better as long as TMNT is mainstream again.

Thank you! I couldn't phrase this any better than you just did!

I'm still waiting for a sequel to the 2007 TMNT movie.

I would, and will, continue to disagree with you on this, and that disagreement has absolutely nothing to do with the cis het men in my life.

It has everything to do with the cis het men in this forum, in board rooms, and in marketing departments who are very vocal about What Guys Want.
PD is giving them exactly what they think Guys Want.

It's the male gaze made tangible.
Buff strong guys stumbling along some cobbled together facsimile of the Hero's Quest. There're babes there, but really...it's about the dudes, but not in a gay way. What we need are explosions. EXTREME EXPLOSIONS! Action! Nothing but Action!

Don't tell me #notallmen, tell them. Because they're the ones spoon feeding you guys this stuff, and telling you how much you love it, not me.
It's been made all too clear to me and mine that these things aren't made with us in mind.

I don't even know what the term, "cis het" even means. Seriously, when did all these new sexual orientations pop up? Was I always supposed to know about this?

What the hell is, "cis?" I'm being totally serious. Must me something from the tumblr generation.

'We' let it happen because we didn't buy enough toys when 4Kids still had the license... the PD films might not have been made if the 4Kids show had gone on a few more seasons.

How do you not know how to use google?

Lolololol. It's a very very old sexual orientation, in fact.

Its not something I look up in general.

As far as I know there are only 4 sexualities:

Hetero
Homo
Bisexual
Asexual


Now all of a sudden they discovered like 15-20 more sexualities out of nowhere when there's only two genders of the human race.

How old is 'very old'?

I doubt very much that it's older than the others, but it's certainly the oldest recognized of the lot.

#1 - The dividing line sucks. I'm on this forum, as are many other guys who dig vagina. <-see what I did there? I intentionally said something excessive, just to drive home the point that this us vs them stuff is justsilly. I can say it in so many different ways, but in the end, we're not on different teams...none of us are. I don't think I'm alone in that. I'm not opposed to your values, most grown men aren't. I might even, oh boy, share them..:)

#2 - I don't think I've ever read an example from you, of what you think would make it more palatable to you. I could infer some ideas, but instead of speaking for you, maybe reading your thoughts on what would make it more inclusive might open everyones eyes. :)
Personally, I find it refreshing to read about what we hoped/wanted instead of what we hated. I get what you don't want, and to an extent, I don't want it either... but what do you want, that you think we wouldn't?

Hmmm. So what you're basically asking me for is my Unpopular Fandom Opinion regarding the PD movie.
Interesting.

Okay, I'll bite.

First and foremost Sexual Predator!Michaelangelo needs to be called to the mat for his crap. By both April and his brothers. Bonus points for Splinter punishing him for it too. And not just...ugh, it's Mike being Mike. What a horndog!

I want full on consequences for his crap behavior.
(same goes for Vernon)

I'd like April to be filmed with less cheesecake in mind. She's a professional, let's start treating her like one. And hey, if you add in a couple of extra women for her to interact with, then that opens up the possibility of her being venerable without being just a damsel.
A Bechdel Pass wouldn't go amiss.

How about a plot that isn't cribbed heavily from The Amazing Spider-man.

I know the source material wasn't exactly riddled with continuity, or free from plot holes large enough for a MAC Truck to barrel through, but a little attention to detail goes a long way.

I like slice-of-life stuff almost as much, if not more, than big action sequences. So I'd like to have some good decent family time in there for certain. Don't just tell me that these characters love each other, and are honor bound to put their lives on the line for them, show me.

I've been lead to believe that's the whole point of the medium, it'd be nice to actually see some of that.

Action movies can have all of these things, and kickass action too.
Mad Max: Fury Road is proof enough of that.

Well, they tried to do their own thing and it failed. The fan and critic reviews proved that. However, the dollars proved that people want to see the turtles on the big screen. That's what I meant by "they saved the franchise for the big screen".

That being said, the last movie was pretty much universally hated. So the sequel won't make as much money for that reason unless it's a better film and word of mouth spreads. It's for this reason that they were forced to make drastic changes to the tone, the look of the turtles, making it more like the cartoon, etc.

If this movie is as hated as the first, Paramount will have no choice than to end this particular series. However, they now know how much money the Turtles can bring in so they won't give up on making Turtles movies and will probably reboot it. Just like what happened with Spider-Man and Star Wars.

Believe it or not, no studio or producer wants to make ****** movies. They want to make great movies that people love because it means they will keep coming back and supporting the franchise. Whether they succeed or not is entirely up to the audience. They can't afford to make ****** movies forever.

They don't need to make a better film. They throw in bebop and Rocksteady, and the Technodrome for good measure, and boom! Seeing that stuff in live action is enough to make audiences want to see the sequel to one of the worst films of 2014.

this quote right here...is why movies dont try anymore


you literally just gave them the ok to be bad