Which was better: 'Turtles Forever' or Trans-dimensional Turtles
 

Now that they've both come out. Which do you think was better?

Turtles Forever movie from 2009, crossing over the 3 main incarnations of the turtles.

OR

Trans-Dimensional turtles episode of the 2012 series?

There's no blurred lines, only two options. Giving an equal is a cop out. You can explain yourself in the comments if you can't choose one.

Turtles Forever being a movie obviously had more going on, and functioned as the series finale for the 2k3 series. We had more action, humor, more for the Prime Turtles, etc.

That being said I'm surprised how much Nick fit into Transdimensional Turtles. For only a 22 minute episode we got so much between the interaction of both Turtles, Krang, the Prime universe, Krang and Subprime interacting, the Turtles seeing Splinter again, etc.

I liked both, but Turtles Forever being an hour and a half movie gets the edge.

I really love both, both are fun, both have their merits -

I must confess, I love the Nick-show a little bit better, than the 4kids cartoon (I couldn't explain, why), BUT Trans-Dimensional Turtles is really rushed a bit, there is no time to build the story, and there was no time for a real Mirage-sequence. Since I'm hungarian as a child I watched the Fred Wolf cartoon with hungarian synchronisation, so the original voices are not so crucial for me.

So Turtles Forever is the better for me: the story is great and has the time to grow slowly, and the finale in the Mirage-verse is just epic.

My thoughts are kinda mixed. Turtles Forever was longer so we saw more of the teams playing off of each other. Turtles Forever had the FW series “On Model” and they looked great. The 2D versions of the Nick Turtles were nice, but the FW Turtles were WAY off model, and the animation was only marginally better than Strongbad. That being said, Trans-Dimensional Turtles had the original voice cast, and as a fan of those guys that makes me happy. I wish it had been a 2 parter so we could have had more time with the FW Turtles (and maybe the extended show would have had a higher budget). I guess we can hope the 2nd crossover (is Rob Paulsen’s tweet proves true) with Shredder and the Mutants will remedy the problems I had with Trans-Turtles.

There should be a third option entitled "Tie" or something because that's how I feel. I honestly can't pick one over the other because they were both fun to watch.
...I guess there should also be a fourth option entitled "Neither".

I'd pick Trans-dimensional Turtles despite the fact that I loved turtles forever for the reasons:

1. Original voice actors returning
2. The whole 2D vs 3D element
3. Recreation of the old background music
4. The comic book style portrayal of the mirage universe as well as how the 2k12 and 80s versions of Donatello looked in it.
5. Perfectly accurate portrayal of the OT in comparison to Turtles forever which I think screwed up in that aspect. (please don't flame me for this one)

However, there are a number of things I like about Turtles Forever such as:
1. The length of the special
2. Appearances of more OT characters like Bebop and Rocksteady
3. The voice acting and self-narrating of the mirage characters which I thought was awesome
4. sheer scale of it in comparison to this episode when looking at things like plot and references.
5. Arguably the animation of the OT in turtles forever although the 2D in transdimensional turtles has grown on me and I think the 2012 turtles look better than the back to the sewers design 2k3 used in TF. I can't pick between the way mirage was animated in both specials, I'd say its a tie.

I thought both had a great story, animation, references, action scenes and comedy despite their flaws. Recommend both for all Turtles fans.

Oh, Turtles Forever, all the way.

I mean, they're both plenty enjoyable. But TF is an automatic win for me because it did it first, it did it bigger, and IMO, it did it better. Trans-Dimensional Turtles is basically a scaled-back remake of Turtles Forever, taking the same basic plot (current and '87 Turtles cross into each others' worlds and into the Mirage universe to stop one of their villains from destroying the multiverse), with a lot of the same jokes and character beats, while kind of rushing through it all in a standard episode. Turtles Forever went deeper and had a better story. And it felt more "special" in a way -- it gave cameos to (almost) every previous version of the characters and felt like a celebration of the entire franchise to that point. The Nick episode doesn't and can't compare to that.

Trans-Dimensional Turtles gets points for bringing back the original '87 cast, of course. The TF soundalikes do a pretty solid job, though. And it can be argued that the Nick episode represents those characters better -- I kind of think of it as Turtles Forever representing them and their world closer to the goofier/sillier seasons of that show, where the Nick episode shows them in a more "ideal" light closer to the earlier seasons -- but I don't think TF is all that inaccurate when it comes to representing the goofier version of that show (aside from a few especially mean-spirited moments, of course). I think how that plays with the viewer depends on personal preference and the rosiness of their glasses.

Everything beyond that, though? TF all the way. A better and fuller story, bigger stakes, much better 2D animation (the '87 animation looks perfect there, but looks off-model and cheap in the Nick episode), and it makes a point to represent the whole of the property where the Nick episode kinda cherry-picks and doesn't have time to get into much beyond Nick/'87 and a brief Mirage cameo.

It should be no contest imo. One insulted the old cartoon, by making em cowards and crying, and the other show respect to the cartoon.

This is an unfair comparison because TF is a full length movie/special. It could do more and develop the story better. Plus there's going to be another Nick-OT crossover so it's not really over.

I will say Trans-dimensional pretty much ripped off TF plot with destroying realities. I'm disappointed they just copied it like that. Unless they plan on linking everything together somehow which I doubt.

It's really hard to say, they beat each other in an equal amount of categories, I think.

I guess I'd go with Turtles Forever, due to it being longer, subsequently more in-depth, heavily involving the Mirage turtles, better animation, same reasons as everyone else. But I prefer the Nick turtles to the 4kids ones, I thought their FW references/homages were more clever, having the original voice cast was a HUGE plus, & I dunno, there was just a different mindset behind it that I can't quite articulate at present.

The new compliments the old wonderfully, it's a great companion piece. If one wins, it's by a nose, I love them both.

Turtles Forever -
*Weird plot idea done for the movie.
*2K3 TMNT dialogue was about as annoying as the OT TMNT dialogue in certain parts of the movie.

Overall pro - Great animation work done for the other characters of the TMNT universes, and a decent nod to the Mirage TMNT.

Trans-Dimensional Turtles -
*Another weird episode plot idea.
*The animation work done in both realities was okay for the most part (not totally sold on 3-D animated Krang, the odd-eyed 3-D OT Turtles, or Flash animated Nick TMNT & Kraang Sub-Prime although it is gradually growing on me. I've been re-watching the last episode.)

Overall pro - It was great to hear the original OT voice actors back for another round.

Overall not sure which one is better.

Part of me wonders if tone helped T-DT as well. The Nick series is a more humorous show than 4Kids TMNT ever dreamed of being, so there wasn't the tonal chasm between it and the FW series....maybe....

I'm giving this one to T-DT. I don't have the issues many have with TF, but I never held as much affection for the 2K TMNT as I do with both the original and Nick versions. It was servicable, but it's biggest flaw is T-DTs greatest strength: There's no point in doing a crossover with the 80s TMNT unless you're bringing the actors back. And while the FW TMNT aren't my favourite versions of the Turtles, they *were* my first, which makes them the most important and nostalgic for me.
Also, Pat Fraley.

Nick's of course. Duh.

Can't beat the original voice cast. Also it's actually funny and tonnes of OT references (like "gimme a break"). It also treats the OT turtles with faaar greater respect.

Who cares?

Quite a lot of us, cheers.

Well maybe, but it still points out that the FW cartoon is a lame piece of crap...

Don't mind them. They still have rose-tinted glasses on.;)

But seriously, who gave more respect to FW than who is irrelevant to me and everytime I hear someone try to make it sound relevant, I just chill out and drink some good ol's tears.

It was just as disrespectful to the Fred Wolf show than Turtles Forever was. Raph saying how lame their fights were, "enough with the turtle power already", pointing out that the plot didn't make sense.

And retconning Krang's origin without marrying it to the information we already had about his past. They completely ignored a ton of FW lore in attempting to make Krang a Nick Utrom.

The Turtles in the old show at least said Turtle Power at least once a showing.

I can deal with the weapon comment, because lets be real, the rules of the 1980's.

Take He-man, he was allowed to show off his sword and look cool in victory poses, but god forbid he ever hit something with it. I thought the jab was pretty neat on how the old cartoons in general were held to a near impossible standard in regards to combat.

After season 1, the Turtles hardly every relied on there weapons unless they were dealing with robots, or cutting ray blasters in 2.

Actually, I'm fully aware of how 'bad' the FW series is. I have a hard time watching more than an episode or two at any given time. But come on... there's a difference between playful ribbing at genuine faults and straight up getting them wrong. T-DT was the former and TF was the latter.
T-DT was funny because we could laugh along with the Nick Turltes at how much has changed in thirty years, on multiple levels of quality and audience acceptablilty. It's entirely possible to laugh at something while still being fond of it. Turtles Forever didn't really do that, it just portrayed the FW TMNT as interchangable annoying goofballs that were pretty inept at everything. Here they were just as competant as the Nick TMNT, only they clearly operated by their own set of rules.

Pretty much everyone tbh. Almost everything has something to do with OT: TMNT IDW, TMNT movies, Nick TMNT, toys, games... ;)

I daresay OT is even more important and groundbreakingly impactful than Mirage TMNT/Prime turtles tbh.

Bingo. But since it didn't have a brief shot of the FW Turtles crying (which even I dislike and wish they'd cut) it gets a free pass from the Fred Wolf die-hard fans while TF is completely loathed.

I'm not defending that scene -- it was a bit too mean-spirited. But the '87 Turtles were shown as capable in their own right in both crossovers. Their world has a different internal logic, and that contrast was played for laughs, but you can find plenty of respect for them in TF if you don't get too defensive and emotional at the jokes at their expense. (Which yes, again, the Nick show also did.)

Keep in mind also -- the point of 2003 Raphael insulting the '87 Turtles was to lead up to it being turned around on him, when the Mirage Turtles mocked him and roughed him up in return. The mesaage being that it's all relative.

More like the toyline had influence. If you remove the stuff that was just there because Playmates demanded it, most of what would be left are forgotten or unpopular characters like Pinky McFingers and Vernon Fenwick.

The OT toyline hadn't be on for a very long time, yet OT still thrives and kicking even moreso now. That's the lasting power of OT and worthy of recognition and respect. :D

What the hell are you talking about? The Fred Wolf cartoon was just a marketing vehicle for the toyline, pretty much all the ideas that people remember comes from the fact that they had the toys as kids. Most of the things about the cartoon that weren't there to market toys are not really remembered.

As for "worthy of respect", as a success in marketing maybe but the actual content and quality of the show is laughably bad. It has writing problems, animation errors and a distinct lack of proper editing, respecting it is like respecting Michael Bay movies. It might have made a lot of money but that doesn't mean it's not crap.

And if recognition is worthy of respect, well, based on real life conversations I have with people that should probably mean I should respect the 90's movie trilogy far more. Because guess what, it may not look like it based on merchandising but the Fred Wolf cartoon is overshadowed by those movies, anyone below the age of 30 is more likely to recognise them than the Fred Wolf cartoon.

Well the toys(?) compliment the cartoon and vice versa then. I see no problem with that.
The other series and movies have toys too but OT still reign supreme. Most things TMNT still borrow heavily from OT universe.

I'm saying the toyline are where these ideas came from, using Mondo Gecko as an example ,who barely had a role in the cartoon mind you, is using an idea from the toyline. When you look at what was most likely not created for the toyline, then most of it is not being used.
And the Mirage comics and the 4Kids show are also inspiring new material a lot, so it's not a very strong defense to say things are pulling from it, of course they are going to draw from older material, I've seen people like Dan Slott pull from runs of Spider-Man nobody liked. The Fred Wolf cartoon does not "reign supreme" like you say, it was cancelled 20 years ago and there are probably more people who have seen the movies from the 90's than there are who watched the Fred Wolf cartoon.

Poking fun at the OT Turtles was the best part of both specials. The way they fought, Leo's battle cries, the incompetence of 80's Shredder and Krang, the nonsensical physics with Donatello making portal guns and pulling things out of nowhere, etc.

And this is coming from a huge fan of the original cartoon who marathons it every 2-3 years or so. They nailed them perfectly.

And this sums up my problems with the OT perfectly.

To answer the question, I still do like Turtles Forever more but its very close on Trans-Dimensional Turtles both have their problems however...

I chose Transdimensional Turtles because it felt a lot more real with the original voice actors.

Turtles Forever
 

Although i didn't like the way TF treated the OT, i'm still able to enjoy the film.

Could barely sit throught TDT. Had to keep telling myself "you can get through this" while watching. How 2k12 can even take jabs at OT is beyond me. Being how mindnumbingly stupid and low brow it is.

The 2D animation sucked, Krang looked like Honey boo boo's mother. And whats with his belt being so damn big?

It was/is pretty bad

Hm...


Oh my god, he really does! That's hilarious!

That was precisely the point, guys, it was a nod to that meme where her head's on Krang's body.

Now that I googled it, it's even funnier.
http://okayface.com/wp-content/uploa...-boo-krang.jpg

I don't see what's "low brow" about it since the Nick Turtles do fight more and have more realistic universe problems than the OT did.

The original cartoon was always a slapstick parody with crazy physics and stuff that didn't make sense. That's why a lot of us liked it, but when you compare it to more serious cartoons obviously that stuff is going to stand out.

If only Trans-Dimensional Turtles had the animation of Turtles Forever.

They didn't spend too long in the 2D sections anyway.

I'm probably one of the few people who actually liked the flash animation style 2D depiction of the Fred Wolf universe. I feel like they were actually given an 80s feel, whereas in Turtles Forever they looked more 90s style. I will admit, I wish they had waited until after the events of the space travel storyarc to have this happen. I get that they were looking for an excuse to take the Nick Turtles back home to see Splinter again for a little bit, but it just convolutes everything what with the time travel thing going on.