Missed opportunities for Nick's TMNT
 

Hey guys,

I don't come here nearly as much as I should, but I just found out that this iteration is ending at season 5.

I have mixed feeling of this version. On one hand, I like the passion Ciero brought, his willingness to mix and amalgamate from Mirage, OT, toys, Archie and 2012, that fact we got a lot of new mutants as well as the return of several old characters, some very obscure like Armaggon being animated for the first time.

That being said, personally, I felt that season 1 was the best, when the season 1 writers were the showrunners, there wasn't an homage every episode to horror, sci-fi and action movies. There were a lot of great episodes from seasons, 2,3 and 4 but consistently, the quality, IMO seemed the best during Season 1.

Now that show is ending, what do you think were the series' biggest missed opportunities, where they're any characters or storylines you wanted to see and what could have been better?

For me,

- I wished Kirby was more developed and given more of a personality. He seemed to only exist for plot purposes.

- I wish Mutagen Man had been developed and given a conclusion. I remember Ciro saying at one of the cons, that Timothy/Mutagen Man was going to be a big part of Season 2.

- I wish all the missing mutagen canisters had been dealt with.

- That all the mutants, mutations were consistent rather then Ciro & team just wanting to play around. SpiderBytez being huge, Fishface having no legs, Squirralanoids coming out of your stomachs, etc .

- Speaking of Fishface and Dogpound/Rahzer, I wish they were more developed and used more. In the beginning both were threats but as the show went along they were easily defeated or hardly in any episodes. I LOVED both characters. And Seriously, why doesn't Fishface have legs? Other then reasons?

- This is a little biased but Snakeweed is one of my fav mutants of all time, Why wasn't he ever given a personality or used more? I liked the idea of him being a tragic mutant who blamed the turtles for turning him to a plant and possibly becoming an ally or causal nemesis.

- I wish there had been an arc on all the mutants in the city/world. We were introduced to so many, Punk Frogs, MuckMan, Sir Malachi, Squiirreanoids, Cockroach Terminator, the mutants that Baxter mutated. I'm sure I'm missing many more.

- I wish that more characters appeared such as Ace Duck (who has been a personal fav), Jagwar, Dreadmon, Man Ray, Maligna, Null, The Uncanny Trio, Shaun O'Hair, Al'falqua, Katmandu, Golani, Scumbug, Dirtbag, Groundchuck, Bookworm, Verminator X, Vid Vicious, Stump & Sling, Cudley the Cowlick.

- I wish that this series adapted more Archie. It's great we got Armaggon. But where was the powerful mutant shark I knew and loved from the comics? I would have loved to see a Dimension X arc with Kraang, Utoms, Dregg and Maligna battling it out. You have thirteen episodes in space and you don't use Stump Asteroid, Stump and Sling and Cudley the Cowlick? I loved how Archie explored the world. The world building was really spectacular, we could have gone to South America and met Jagwar and Dreadmon, Japan and explored more of Saki and Yoshi and met the Warrior Dragon, explored more of Tiger Claw and Alopex. And so much more!

- To stop with all the homages. In season 3, it felt every episode was a nod to some movie. One or two here and there are fine but not every episode.

- To stop using names if you're going to use a new character. One of my biggest gripes is getting Rahzar, Tokka, Neurtonios, Bellybomb, Mondo Gecko, Armaggon and many others. So many times, I would be watching this and go that's not the Nuetrionos, that's not Armaggon, that's not Bellybomb, Mondo Gecko wouldn't act that way. I'd be much better if they just created new characters instead.


What does everyone wish could have been done? Any missed opportunities for you?

Seriously, does anything else need to be said? :)

As Captain Jean-Luc Picard would tell us all...

THERE... ARE... FOUR... RAPHS!!!!

Nice topic, I'll go through some of your points. Some I agree some I don't or it's not a big deal.

Eh, he's just April's dad. There's really not much else to do with him. I also gather the writers don't want a middle age man that involved when the main cast including Casey/April in this version are all teens.

Yeah, I hope Mutagen Man appears once more in Season 5.

This...isn't a plotline. This was just to explain where all the new mutants during Season 2 were coming from. There was literally no way for the Turtles to track down mutagen canisters all over New York. New York is huge.

Mutagen has always been like this though. Some mutants get huge, other smalls, others can't talk, etc.

This happens with any villain in any show. The first few appearances they seem strong and unbeatable, in following they get weaker and become canon fodder. Happened in the 2k3 series with Hun too.

He seemed to just be the first example of a Nick mutant, I think we last saw him in Season 2. I don't think they ever intended to develop him.

The Nick comics from IDW give these characters more appearances if you want to read them. The Punk Frogs came to New York, Muckman became huge and the Turtles had to stop him, Baxter teamed up with Spiderbitez to rob banks, and the Squirrelnoids had another appearance. You should check out the Nick animated comics if you want. Snakeweed also had more appearances.

Well...obviously you can't have everyone from past series appear. There's just not enough time or episodes. They did introduce a huge chunk of the old TMNT cast though.

Archie TMNT in general is often overlooked by other TMNT series for some reason. I don't know why, but most of its characters tend not to show up in any other TMNT series. For what it's worth Null and Jagwar, although female versions appear in IDW.


Um, what? Bellybomb is exactly the same as his Archie counterpart. Armaggon is a shark bounty hunter, it doesn't matter that he's not a time traveler. And Rahzar and Tokka are the same animals, they don't have to be exactly the same as past incarnations. Mondo Gecko too, really? He's a mutant gecko, what do you want him to be?

Every series updates old characters, I'm not sure how you can say they aren't all nearly the same characters. No characters are exactly the same per incarnation, IDW and the 2k3 series did the same. I don't understand why you feel they're not the same characters, only one I would agree with you which is Neutrinos.

Characters are not supposed to be 1:1 exactly the same.

This is already a thread: http://forums.thetechnodrome.com/showthread.php?t=53006

& most of your "missed opportunities" are just nitpicks about how you wish this show did things exactly the same as other iterations. How boring.

- Shoulda had the guys in all red headbands instead of black in Owari.

- It's not too late, but I really hope The Christmas Aliens and Kirby & The Warp Crystal get adapted. They're gonna be glaring omissions if they don't.

- April's origin should have made a lick of sense.

- Shredder should have named Miwa "Pimiko". And left room a more faithful version of Karai to exist as the leader of the Japanese branch of The Foot.

That's pretty much it.

[Same here.

They got pretty ridiculous with this, at times.

Not really, only exception is the robots Bellybomb used shouldn't have been called Neutrinos. Also would have preferred Nick's Hun to...actually look like Hun, but oh well.

Everyone else is just updated versions of their past characters. I love how they found a way to put Tokka in the show as a giant space Turtle because he and Slash would be too similar otherwise.

Actually seeing Casey family and giving him a new and interesting aspect to his character.

The turtles fighting people who used different martial arts(we saw this in Xever and a lesser extent to Hun) or martial artist in general

What would that do, really? Seeing Casey's sister or parents, I doubt that would have done anything interesting.

You would be the biggest bitch on earth (well, if you weren't already) if this version of Bebop was a giant space-pig kaiju and Rocksteady was a martial artist who was trained by Shredder before being mutated. And they never became a duo.

Just because you found the new versions palatable doesn't mean they weren't a radical departure from the original versions.

That's because Rahzar and Tokka are never anything more than animals in their original incarnations so it doesn't matter. They're animal mutants who work for Shredder in the movie, same as Rahzar working for Shredder in this show. In the original cartoon episode they were just one-episode characters living in the wild.

Tokka is hard for any future incarnation to use because he and Slash have too many similarities, likely the same reason IDW hasn't used Rahzar/Tokka. So using Tokka as a giant space-faring turtle makes sense.

In fact all of Shredder's henchmen in this show, Bebop, Rocksteady, Baxter, Rahzar, and Karai were all characters who worked for him in previous versions. Only Fishface and Tiger Claw are new.

It's not about just them. I thought some character updates were clever and some were lame. Either way, they often COMPLETELY changed them, but just kept them as the same animal or whatever.

Whereas IDW keeps them recognizable to the original, but builds on them and makes them better.

Many are very similar:

- Leatherhead is pretty much exactly the same as always

- Slash is exactly the same, an anti-turtle who starts off as a villain than an ally

- Pigeon Pete is identical to the IDW version

- Metalhead is the same

- Baxter Stockman is pretty much the same as always in both human and fly form

- Karai is similar to the 4kids and now IDW versions

- Bebop is still black and Rocksteady a white man with blonde hair before working for Shredder as a pair of mutant henchmen.

- Rat King has a great new design, but is still true to the character. Rat King has a widly different origin in every series too. IDW made him an immortal God, in 4kids he was a failed Bishop clone, etc.

- Bishop himself is head of the EPF and still a guy in a suit and shades even if he's an Utrom in this version, and I see that as a clever throwback to Utrom Shredder in 4kids. Aside from that Bishop is true to his character and fights the same way

- Triceratons are the same

- Armaggon is a bounty hunter shark instead of a time traveler, but who cares

- Punk Frogs have great new designs and aren't all just clones of each other anymore

- Mondo Gecko is the same character he just can't fight well

- Muckman is nearly identical

- Rahzar is a mutant wolf who works for Shredder, he just has a human origin now

- Mutagen Man was some lame nerd before being mutated into a monster, same thing pretty much

- Lord Dregg is an insectoid alien, only this one has some weird robot aspects but I don't know what that was about

- Mona Lisa is an alien instead of mutant, which makes sense as there is a salamander race in this series so it's true to the character with her crush on Raph

- Wingnut/Screwloose might be comicbook superheroes, but they're drastically different in every series anyway

etc.

And we are getting Verminator X in season 5. He will be voiced by Nyanbe Nyanbe

Tighter writing for some episodes is the only thing I wanted. But it seems like S5 will redeem all that.

I do wish the show got 7 seasons to give more time to flesh out some characters, especially the ones introduced fairly late like Shinigami and Alopex. If they were introduced back in Season 2 or something they could have had a lot of time to develop.

It's just so beautiful :cry:

I always felt that Spike should've become the new "Tokka" instead of Slash and ultimately teamed up with Bradford/Rahzar.

Actual death scene for Timothy/Mutagen Man.

But him being forgotten by the story plot and everyone else are fitting enough for an annoying looser like him. ;)

But he really wasn't forgotten about. Donnie said that it'd take about 70 years for him to thaw.

They could still do it with Chompy.

Have an actual 'Dark Raph' arc/storyline that lasted a few episodes.

Explain how Raph got his wound/crack in his shell.

Having a Mikey & Raph episode. In other words, an episode focusing specifically with Mikey & Raph dealing with each other, teaming up and 'saving the day, saving the rest of the family, or whatever the story would entail.'

This was generally people wrongly hyping themselves up without context because of IDW's plot. The writers never planned a Dark Raph story, people only have themselves to blame.

This is about as riveting as explaining why Don has a gap in his teeth. It's just a design.

It looks like that's going to happen in the Turtle Babies episode.

Yeah...that's why I said it was a MISSED Opportunity. They make Raph evil for 5 seconds. They COULD have done something and made a Dark Raph storyline and extended that. THUS Missed Opportunity aka the point of the entire thread.

'as riveting as explaining why Don has a gap in his teeth'...depends on how you write it. Mikey dealing with Christmas presents isn't riveting either...but I like The Christmas Aliens story because of how it dealt with it.

Maybe it wouldn't be riveting, maybe it would. But you (nor I) have Zero Idea on whether it would be 'riveting' or not unless it was done. Maybe he got it saving his baby brother? Maybe he got it saving some poor kid? Maybe he got it and it was part of the reason that made him so angry growing up?

In the hands of a good writer? Anything can be riveting.

That's what RamboRaph means.

I'll admit I don't hate Clash of the Mutanimals as much as I used to. It's still one of my least favorites of the third season however. Despite really good action and an out of nowhere slap fight, the rest of the episode is rather underwhelming.

The issue for most Raphael fans is how he's presented in the series. Even though Raph's character is primarily "The angry guy with a soft spot you gotta earn," it seems this Raph cannot break too many molds. He's had three decent episodes overall in the series if I recall (Tokka vs the World, Slash and Destroy, and Turtle Temper to a small extent). However, he also has some of the worst episodes of the series (specifically the Mona episodes).

I mentioned this in the past, I don't understand why they cannot do away with not having a Turtle for an episode. They did it in 2k3 with Ultimate Drako if I remember correctly (I may be wrong). It's a bit tiresome.

Dark Raph was really only disappointing to me, not because it wasn't a full fledged arc, but because Raph was basically the B plot in a Leo episode. I think it could have been pretty neat to focus that episode more on Raph instead.

Overall though, the biggest thing I wish this series had done differently is actually the same issue I had with 2k3. Too much focus on one turtle, and not enough of the others. It feels pretty one sided at times and I think it's a missed opportunity to either not explore the other turtles as much as the show tried to do with Leo, or at least spread the focus to all four equally.

I agree that Dark Raph was a missed opportunity for a good arc in its own right (especially given that the Mind Worm arc didnt really go anywhere - A dark raph side arc would have given it much more purpose)

And yes - Cyber is right to say a lot of it was my own fault for hyping up my own expectations. Though to be fair, that doesn't stop it being a sadly missed opportunity.


Season 5 may yet cover it, but something more about Timothy would have been good (relating to his disappearance and how his family and the police reacted)


Fishface and Rahzar both suffered a bit, losing out to Bebop and Rocksteady. I appreciate B/R had to be included, but it was a shame they did so at the expense of FF/Rz - especially as Zeck and Steranko were interesting characters in their own right.


Dregg felt rather tacked on and unneeded - leading to similar problems with Armaggon. They were unnecessary given Mozar fulfilled the same role, and its a shame they weren't given something more interesting to do or a greater role to play in the final stages of the space arc.


Though we've still got Season 5 to come, Shinigami, Alopex and Renet all had little chance to shine. Hopefully that will be improved come season 5 (certainly Renet will), but if the show had ended there and then, it would have been sad to see them lose the limelight so much.

Has Ciro or anyone anywhere even said that things will ramp down to a proper, satisfying finale? Or is everyone just assuming that?

I think there's a good chance season 5 will just end like any other episode.

We're kinda just assuming. And considering the anthology style season we're getting, you might be right Andrew.

Every season finale of Seasons 1-4 ended on a big episode, so I don't see why Season 5 wouldn't have a big final episode when all the others did. Besides Ciro probably assumed this would be the final season, so it's not like this took him by surprise.

Hes still doing better than Mikey, seriously at this point April is a more of a main character than Mikey hell her hair is basically orange.

You mean like this? (I can't believe I chose to draw this).

I feel like that'd be redundant though. We already have a Tokka now (Chompy's mom) plus it was brought up in that last episode how Chompy will eventually grow larger anyway, even without being mutated. It would be funny to see a flash forward to him being like the size of a horse. I could just picture Raphael making a saddle so he can ride Chompy around.

Those above I agree with (except I don't mind Fishface not having legs.)

Mine are:

Season 2 -Rahzar and Fishface being developed more into threats. My old idea was to actually have Rahzar challenge Shredder for leadership soon after the second mutation, thinking he's a lot more powerful now and can surpass his master. Not surprisingly he loses, but nearly not as bad as he would have have if he was still human or Dogpound. He gets cast out and takes a heavily reluctant Fishface with him as a easily controlled henchman, promising him that he can keep him out of jail because he is rich and famous and has connections. He creates his own rival faction of the Foot, and things come to a head in City at War, when he/Shredder/Karai all take their respective Foot factions and fight each other.

-This leads into Shredder taking on Tigerclaw, Bebop and Rocksteady as replacements since Karai and his two main henchmen left him.

-I would have not had this crossover with Fred Wolf. Not because I hate them but they have been homaged to death by this time already.

Season 3-

I would have dropped the goofy farmhouse stuff, as it is. Just have them be at the farmhouse, and learning how to adapt without having Splinter around and being city slickers in the country.

-No earth being destroyed. They simply delay a Triceraton invasion.

Season 4-
I would have dropped the whole space arc. From what I have read and understood, Wyrm is just as bad as Mr. Ogg, and I hate Mr. Ogg. Begone you crappy character, you are erased from existence!

Overall so far- I would have did away with April's powers. She's a Mary Sue at this point, the attempt to make a cheap 'strong female character' without actually doing the work and characterization to make her strong. Her being a koinochi is is simply now the icing on the cake.

-Took away the goofy cartoon animal-isms. Splinter lamenting his humanity is part of his character they set into him, him installing and running on a giant exercise wheel and eating cheese is goes against this earlier characterization.

Maybe some of these things will happen in season 5 but until they happen, I'll still list them here as missed opportunities:

1. Wrapping up the story of mutagen man

2. Not dwelving more into April's backstory and revealing what actually happened to her mother.

3. Having Apriltello vs Capril be nothing more than comic relief. I would've preferred April to end up with Casey at the end and Donatello has to learn to accept it, that would provide interesting character development for both Donnie and Casey.

4. Not providing a satisfactory conclusion to the Kraang, the closest we got to a conclusion was the season 3 mid finale. Atleast Shredder and the foot got a satisfactory end. I just feel like the Kraang should be more prominent, since they are like responsible for almost everything, from the creation of the mutagen to the war in Dimension X.

5. Not giving a satisfactory ending to Lord Dregg

I guess not, Raph already have a cracked plastron in the Turtle tots ep:

http://i.imgur.com/FTeAoP8.jpg

Unless it gets revisited somehow, I'm gonna just assume the events of "Turtles Take Time (and Space)" as canon:

http://i.imgur.com/Utw2zY6.jpg

The episode hasn't aired yet so we probably still see how it happened.

Wasn't that only if no one would free Timothy during that time? If I remember correctly they had to leave Timothy behind and Donatello said something along the lines of "Maybe the world will be a better place by then."

I always got the impression Donatello could thaw Timothy and administer a cure whenever he would find it. He promised Timothy just after he was frozen he would find a way to save him.

I really wish they would have mentioned it at least once.