Most out of character moments in TMNT
 

I would say that some characters will have "out of character" moments. I think one of the biggest was from April in the 1987 series

It was in Season 10 "The Beginning of the End" Where she sees the mutated Leonardo destroying everything. Instead of trying to get big stories, she wants to work on ordinary stuff as they seem safer I guess. But not only does she not seem to care that one of her best friends is mutated and destroying property and hurting people but the whole thing goes against her character, and she was always known for trying to get big stories and then does a 180. It just seemed like a big out of character moment. Not to mention, rather callous of April.

One moment I can think of is in season 8 of the Red Sky episodes where April begins doubting the turtles after she suspects them of working with an evil ninja gang. Also, Raphaels remarks against Leo in the episode "Turtle Trek" where he challanges his leadership like the other versions. While Red Sky did have many out of character moments, they were still interesting to watch and the characters felt the same to the core.

Yeah April doubting the Turtles was hard to buy.

Especially 10 seasons in. I mean if this was episode 3 maybe... but after hanging with them for so long?

Are we sticking with just the 1987 cartoon?

Random bits that come to mind are, Raphael stating Michaelangelo not having much to lose in Teenagers from Dimension X. Sure it was a constant thong in both 2003 cartoon and 2012 which Raphael bullies Michaelangelo making comments on his stupidity. Yet its the only time in this series.

Leonardo going soft for Lotus seems out of character even if he is more in awe of her ninja prowess.

Casey Jones matching Shredder's sword skill in Cyber Turtles.

Shredder putting himself on the line for Krang in Turtkes To The Second Power was oerhaps character growth, but seemed odd.

Rat King gainning backbone and being edgy in Wrath of the Rat King was sudden but cool.

There are others. That is what I thought of on the top of my head.

I personally can believe Shredder putting himself on the line for Krang, at least at that point in his career with him.
Especially after being in Dimension X with him and going through god knows what.

Now, Krang gleefully thanking Shredder for sharing his life energy is questionable.

I also found it a bit out of character for Splinter an the Turtles to accept Carter in their group, a guy they had just met and who happened to read about the Foot Clan and Hamato Yoshi. How did he even know about that so late in the series?

And that episode about the Japanese kid named Yoku... Splinter and the Turtles had trained with him, what?

Raphael made jokes about Michelangelo in the FW series often. They didn't fight nor did he "bully" him like in the 2k3 series, but he'd make jokes about him in several episodes.

Eh now that you mention it, Casey matching Shredder in sword ability is quite strange. How come I've never stopped to think about that? Good shout.

The Rat King having a backbone and telling Shredder and Krang to **** off wasn't out of character, imo. He's always had a bit of a mercenary nature to him... but I do wonder how he found out the Turtles Lair... hell how come several characters found out the Turtles Lair but NEVER told Shredder, Krang or Dregg? Lotus, the Rat King and Chronos all knew the location of their Lair.

Yeah, my theory is that, spending time alone and lost in Dimension X they had to learn to tolerate each other. Remember that Shredder always planned to betray Krang in the end... but oddly enough not so much the other way around. Which is funny since Shredder was way more dependant on Krang due to his resources than Krang was on Shredder. And considering Krang had such a reputation for being a tyrannical warlord... I don't recall him ever trying to off/betray Shredder

Yeah, I remember that Yoku episode. So jarring.

I did find it weird having shredder and krang be so nice to each other on their last outing. It's been a long series for them so I guess they became friends in the end. I can kinda see krang thanking shredder for saving him, it's the only time I can recall krang ever being so close to death and shredder did stop to save him instead of just saying himself.

There seems to be lots of inconsistencies regarding the Foot Clan and Splinter's and Shredder's past in the FW series. I've also wondered why Shredder had such a honorable brother but a criminal mother... how are there even senior centres for retired supervillains? :lol:

And as I said, it was also odd to see Krang calling Dregg "mad" when Krang had also done lots of mad acts before.

Cause it's not mad when he does it. :lol:

Krang did kind of betray Shredder in episode 5 when they were sent back to Dimension X. They were more like partners. It was supposed to be a partnership but Krang says that he's absolute master in Dimension X and Shredder will do his bidding, to which Shredder angrily replies "The Shredder takes orders from no one!"

Leonardo quitting the team after one bad dream comes to mind.

Ramo-Irma
 

Rambo-Irma in "Shredder Triumphant"

Don seems a little off in both Mirage Volume 1 TMNT #37 and TMNT #43.

In the former, he has this spiritual revelation and completely loses his mind and thinks himself a shaman. This seems... a little unlikely for someone level headed and rational like Donatello.

Also, in 43 he goes entirely the opposite way. While attempting a spiritual exercise that, given his upbringing, Don should have no trouble with, he alternates between petulant and goofy. Even Mikey does better than him. Just seems unusual.

And Raphael's personality is pretty weird in The River trilogy. I almost think the story should be Mikey's.

Mikey being scolded a lot by the other Turtles for goofing off in "Havoc in the Streets".

Donatello spazzing out in a couple 1992 episodes, especially the one where Vernon's nephew creates the device that pulls the Earth closer to the sun. It's like, jeez Don, cool your jets!

That was a long time coming, I think that nightmare was the final straw.

If I had limited internet access, I'd sure make better use of it than just trolling.

It's people like you that make fandom so great. :roll:

Or how about the way she acted in the Mutant Turtles Gaiden manga? :teek:

I can't really look to the cartoons or such... since those are all "out of character moments," as far as I'm concerned.

He didn't just grab a cloak and decide that's what he's doing. He was directly being influenced by the specter of the Great Turtle. Hard to refute what you can actively sense, feel and see. And by #37, he's already seen plenty of magic, and weird sh*t. Donatello isn't, like, Scully.

I don't see how.

What annoys me to no end, what's one of my biggest annoyances in the TMNT fandom is how so many people buy into and subscribe to the McTMNT™ pigeonholing of the TMNT that began with FW. i.e., if anyone has anything remotely leader-y to say, it has to be Leonardo, because he's the Leadery One. If someone needs to be the one to get mad in a conversation, it has to be Raph, because he's the Angry One. If someone needs to remark on something techy or brainy, surely it has to be Donatello, because he's the Geeky One. Something funny or a joke? Gotta be Michelangelo, because he's the Funny One. Now if Leonardo were to get mad, or Donatello to make a leadership suggestion? WHOAAA!!! That's so out of character, dude!

Vastly stupid. It's like the fandom is fully content with their Turtles being 1 dimensional.

Peter himself is very guilty of this. In his published emails with Lloyd Goldfine, he would constantly shoot things out of the scripts like Leo cracking wise, Don getting pissed, etc.

Thank you IDW, for having Donatello completely lose his sh*t over no one treating the Technodrome like the threat it was and focusing on the "turf war".

And Michelangelo's conflicts of morality.

I agree with all that. I like to see the Turtles' individual personalities highlighted, but not reduced to one-dimension.

I like when Leo says something funny, it's great. I appreciate though that in IDW, when he or his brothers are "on-duty", he's all business, very serious, but in their rare downtime, he can kick back finally and be an actual teenager.

I've liked seeing Donnie get mad almost as much as Raph, or when Mikey is the one to call out all his brothers for bickering and getting distracted, when he's often portrayed as the eternally goofy, off-task Turtle. And anytime I get to see Raph crack a joke without also being mad is welcome.

Those were pretty great moments. That's how you do characterization

Turtles Forever.

If any version counts... I'm still resentful of how the first PD movie (and its Jackass voice replacement) made Leo come across when he throws a big arm around so-called "April" and is all, "Heeeey... glad you could make it."

Thanks. Thanks for making my fave guy in this franchise - a respectful, well mannered, honorable character - sound like some guy who wants to get you into the back of his windowless van, after which you may never be seen again. Did not enjoy being made to feel like telling Megan Fox to run away, and from him of all people. Thanks for that.

That's one of the biggest out of character offenses I can think of. Some others may be bad or ridiculous, but that was despicable. Better film makers could have focused her fear of them purely from her own perspective and misplaced fears, not by making them actually look bad.



Yeah, definitely have to agree there.

I saw Turtles Forever before I watched the 2003 series. It set me up to expect those Turtles may have jerky personalities. :ohwell: Was glad it turned out not to be the case. Turtles Forever may have tried to make '87 look bad, but it wasn't flattering for 2003 either.


I dunno, to the FW series' credit, they do sometimes turn to Donnie like, "What do we do, Donatello??" Leo may be leader and have the responsibility of calling the shots a lot of time, but Donnie is also an ideas guy (and giving him some leadership through that) when the necessary strategies require something that is out of Leo's hands.


I agree, I like them all to have fuller personalities. Although I don't want to see them all merge into being basically duplicates of the same character either. They've got their typical 'mode' that is who they are, but they should all be characters who are capable of having other sides and emotions. Though I wouldn't agree that this doesn't show up at times.

Leo being Mr. Serious a lot, it just makes his own jokes, smiles and laughs all the more sincere; I love that. Then there is the hidden raging bull in him when he IS pissed (not appearing in all versions obviously), when something has just pushed him to that breaking point. (I think he's most fit being a Capricorn, but that boy has a Taurus' anger. lol Slow to get there, but watch out if he does.)

More so than how he treated his brothers regarding the purple ooze turning them into humans in Out of the Shadows because that would seem more offensive.

Agree that does suck too, though I get that he's got his reasons and fears for why he reacted the way he did. (And why I still think the other incident from the first is worse imo, as it has no basis in why he'd come across creepy like that, other than the fact that the writers just wanted us to feel April's fear of them and did it in the poorest and laziest way possible.)

This one at least goes back to a vague arc for Leo/them that the film sets up from the very beginning with the failure of their attempted training exercise. ("I thought you said squirrel formation.") He's not happy with how they are performing as a team, and this remains true for much of the film.

(Although why they'd even fumble on teamwork now after taking down Shredder and others together last time is kind of stupid.)

He's struggling to handle it, esp after the failure of not stopping Shredder from escaping, and taking it hard that he can't get them working better as a team. Splinter tells him that as long as he keeps "the team unified, and you shall always succeed." And then along comes this new mutagen that is a threat of tearing the team/family apart... So much for keeping unified as Splinter requested.

Looking at the underlying reasons of why he would react as he did, in my view, it isn't just "Leo is being a jerk, the end." I don't take him as being a jerk in that, but was he wrong in how he handled it? Yes. (And to his own fault, Splinter could have guided him a bit better and shared some of the blame, given what he says to Leo in the novelization that wasn't included in the film's dialogue.) But he did so out of his own fear and concerns; for both his family and a loss of control that could result in him failing to do the job asked of him. Not helped by "Keep the team unified..." from rat dad earlier in it. It's all aiming at one of Leo's biggest flaws, his fear of failure.

That one quiet arc, that the average non-fan viewer may not even notice, is one thing I have to give that film a little credit for. When everything else this company tried to write is so over the top, in this one way they somewhat managed to weave a subtle underlying story with a little bit of depth into it. (Even if team work problems randomly occurring now was kind of dumb.)

This is one of the few things you and I truly agree on 100%. Infact I just bought a TMNT beach towel the other day at Wal*Mart, and guess which of the four Turtles happened to have an angry scowl while the other three were smirking? For once it was Michelangelo. The whole time I can't help but picture a certain someone from the fandom saying "No, that's not how Mikey's supposed to be."

I never looked at it that way. You make a very good point.

While you're not wrong about this, at the same time compared to the first film as horrendous as that plot was, this one I felt had no plot but random events occurring within each scene which didn't feel coherent.

One reason Fred Wolf Donatello stands out is because he has one of the biggest tempers of all the Donatello's, and he actually acts like the leader more than Leonardo in many episodes. Seriously, in almost every episode all the Turtles would turn to Donatello in how to save the day or stop something from happening, rather than Leonardo.

That was most likely due to the more sci-fi oriented aspect of the series. Had the show been more centered around taking on crime syndicates and such like other interpretations, then Leo would have been far more take-charge.

LOL I think I may have that same towel. I thought it was interesting that he was the one with the fierce look while the others all have smiles or look like they are laughing. Truth be told I love it when they have other sides to them as it makes them all the more relatable.

Oh my God, what a soap box.

I think most fans can understand the characters are more than just Leader, Angry Dude, Nerd and Jokester. You know I don't really like the Fred Wolf series right? My problem with all those issues was that the characters acted a bit off in what seemed like attempts to advance the plot. But you can just continue arguing against a straw man.

It's all subjective and the characters seem off to me in your fan fictions sometimes, too.

On an unrelated note, I forgot the most ooc moment ever. Mikey becoming a pro genocide advocate in volume 4! I guess that's what trauma can do to you. But I liked it better when he was written by Murphy to rescue that guy who tortured him. True strength of spirit there.

Yeah, definitely agree. I don't know how they can manage to do a little better on trying to focus on the brothers a bit more, which I do appreciate and like about it, but then the rest of the entire film is just a mishmash that never amounts to much. Maybe these writers should have taken up different careers.

I was just going to mention that!! I hated that part of the episode!! Sure, it was essential to the plot, but still. I can understand if he did that while Shredder and Krang were an active threat at the moment, but after what Titanus and co. had done in the previous episode, why did Michaelangelo suddenly decide to start goofing off?

In Peter's defence, in many contexts, those were lines that literally look like another turtle's precise dialogue. If a line is very slangy, Leo is probably not the name that should be above it

Peter also prevented many completely nonsensical plot elements. And although he did spend a lot of time making sure no other Turtle acted like Mikey, that was probably a good thing as one is enough. And although I disliked that Mikey was always the doofus, the series did a pretty good job at rounding him out and giving him some development. At least he was a damn good fighter--probably second best after Leo.

I think there are many moments in the franchise where Don makes leadership decisions or gets pissed off (particularly in Mirage and in the Fred Wolf series). Leo had goofy moments that weren't too put of character in the 1990 movie, as did Don. Raph is usually kind of the same but Fred Wolf gave us an interesting interpretation, and he's practically the only sane one / straight man in the Nick toon. So all the Turtles have had variation and development outside of their archetypes in nearly every incarnation. As dumb as Michaelangelo could be in Fred Wolf, at least he stopped just being a background character like in Mirage.

100% agree with this.