Why did the plot of 4Kids season 5 end up being so influential.
 

In season 5 of the 4Kids show, it is revealed that the "real" Shredder was a demon from ancient Japan, who possessed Oroku Saki and had the ability to transform into a dragon. In order to bring him back to life, his followers needed to obtain all pieces of his armor. Once back to life he'd bring the world to its end. Sound familiar? If you spent time following any TMNT material since the 4Kids show ended, it should.

• In the IDW series, Shredder lived in ancient times and used a combination ooze and magic to mummify himself and get brought back to life in modern times. After he's killed, it turned out that he was really the avatar of the Dragon god of destruction. Bringing him back to life again would mean to bring the Dragon back too but the head was separated from the body and needed to be gathered.
  
• In the Nicktoon, after Shredder was beheaded the remains of the Foot wanted him back. A demonic dragon offered to help bring him back if they gathered his remains and helmet. This was all part of an elaborate ruse for the demonic dragon to break free of other's control and bring the world to it's knees.
  
• In Rise, Shredder is ancient demonic armor. In order to bring him back, all the pieces of him needed to be found. Once all pieces were found a wearer would be drained of all life force and possessed by the Shredder, who would then go ahead and destroy the world.

Could all this be coincidence? They're not the same exact story, so it could be. But there are too many repeating aspects here:

• In all three cases it's Shredder who needs to be brought back
• In all three cases demonic/divine forces are at play
• In all three cases the fate of the world is at stake
• In all three cases armor and/or body parts need to be collected
• In two cases a dragon is somehow involved
• In two cases Shredder is not from the modern era

So like, what's the deal? Why is this idea so tempting for creators?

Wow, I haven't been keeping up but that's very interesting, and definitely far beyond mere coincidence.

Part of me feels like the concept of "escalation" is irresistible for modern creators. Like Oroku Saki being "just a guy in some fancy armor" is too bland and boring for the Here and Now, they have to add some flair and make him a full-blown super-villain. That's almost definitely at least part of it. There's probably more but that's gotta be a factor. As is the fact that it's now fashionable for each new version to borrow bits from every other version.

I would mostly agree there though I'd have to add that it probably has more to do with his expected main villain status and the relative threat level in the universe. Shredder being some assassin in a band of assasins is fine for a villain, and fine as the main villain when there aren't more pressing matters at hand. However, with the existance of the Triceratons, Savanti Romero, the Federation, the EPF and various other other aliens or monsters running around, having the main villain just be some guy without special powers or more abstract power... It's kind of weird.

It's like the problem with Batman in the larger DC Universe. In his own little corner of it, he's perfectly fine. Characters like Catwoman and Riddler are just normal people with gimmicks, Joker and Two-Face are just disfigured assholes, Bane and Ra's have powers but rely on drugs to use them, Poison Ivy and Clayface's powers have exploitable limits. He can handle them, no sweat.
The problem comes in when he has to join the Justice League or any other top level character. At that point his enemies are characters like Darkseid, a literal f*cking god who is so powerful the only thing he desires is the ability to completely snuff out any sign of free will. While Batman's popularity demands his prescence, how can he remain recognisable as Batman and still be able to do anything useful in combat? He's literally just a guy in a leather outfit who throws around impractially designed boomerangs and drives a (to be honest) silly looking car. It sounds like the set-up for a joke about underdogs.

Yeah, I'd attribute it to wanting to add more mystique and intrigue to Shredder than just a gang-lord who LARPs as a ninja. It makes him more interesting and gives the writers more to work with.

Yeah, neatoman, you pretty much nailed exactly what I was trying to say except you probably aren't half in the bag right now. :lol: But that was pretty much exactly my point.

Sometimes I wonder if I've ever posted sober. I don't think so!

Shredder's a goddamn weirdo if you drop all of the mystical stuff. He's just a dude who likes dressing up in uncomfortable armor for literally no reason.

I'unno man. It's fun to have a gimmick. Makes you feel like a big shot. If it was just me and my wife I'd walk around in my wrestling gear all the time. :lol:

.....Because she'd make me, even if I didn't wanna.

I guess the desire to bring Shredder back all goes back to those Shredder clones in the Mirage issues.

I wasn't fan of 2k3 season 5, but it is really interesting to see how it might influenced other series.

I agree, that just human Shredder might be a bit too low on a totem pole of threats to the Turtles, especially given how much attention those extra-planetary and extra-dimensional threats are given nowadays.

Fred Wolf series already gave him an army of robots, giant mobile base and inter-dimensional warlord for a partner in crime, so it's not like there were no precedence before.

Personally, I'd prefer if Shredder was evolving throughout the story - like originally he is just some human thug, who cosplays as a ninja. Then, after season or two he obtains power or knowledge to become a world-wide threat or something.

While I like 2k3 Shredder (Chrell) (as a villain, not as a character, he is blander than a bottle of bleach), it would have been interesting to see his rise for power as opposed to him having an army from the start.

Kinda like the turtles being made in a lab the idea of Shredder being an immortal demon or tengu is the exact kind of fanboy kewl idea that had been floating around TMNT fan fiction re imaginings for years anyway. People were speculating the 4kids Ch'rell version was a demon from early on, obviously that's not the way they went with that character but they eventually bit the bullet with his successor. I suspect that idea of Shredder being a mantle is also going to used again in future iterations of the franchise.

The fact that 4kids was the first to actually depict it means it going to get the credit (or blame) for it starting and be influential on how it is depicted in other versions that try it.

Not a fan of dragon Shredder at all, but the dragon Shredder connection began with the TMNT Anime OVAs? So by logic it's the OVAs that have been so influential, and the ones that influenced 2k3 and the other examples here.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/7b/ba...a5837959d9.jpg

I think it's just coincidences between the different shows, also the dragon connection in 2012 is a bit of a stretch, but if we're going by that logic then the anime is the origin.

And if it was just the ressurection or just the dragon connection, sure it would probably just be coincidence. The problem is that there's a combination of too many elements just to seem like it is.

In 4Kids and IDW for example:
Both had Shredder originate in ancient Japan
Both had him brought to the modern world
Both revealed him to really be some supernatural entitiy that could transform into a dragon
Both ressurections required gathering pieces

In both cases it breaks from tradition in which Shredder is really just some guy. And sure, it's not quite as obvious with Rise or the Nicktoon but there are still too many aspects to ignore. I'm not saying it isn't coincidence, as pointed out previously it could just be a sign that Shredder as originally depicted doesn't really work as a main villain for a series like TMNT, but it sure is interesting that they chose to solve it in the same basic manner.

As for your examples, yes, bringing Shredder back to life sure didn't with the 4Kids show. The part about having magic worms eat his flesh and producing failed clones until a proper one was made was where that started. What I'm concerned with here is the method of bringing him, finding his scattered pieces and involving supernatural entities.

And the anime could indeed be inspiration, I'm not going to deny that. But in order to convince me that it's not coincidence, you'd have to have some elements of that particular transformation be repeated. These can be caused by a crystal or a having a time limit for example.

Dragons and ancient times are common themes in Asian stuff like martial arts. The supernatural too. Look at Mortal Kombat. The fate of world and collecting parts of something are also very common in fiction.

Oh and the Batmobile is not silly looking. Well maybe 1 or 2 of them. :)

Still, too many coincidences to write it off entirely.

While I do think that the influence of 4Kids season 5 is possible in these cases, I think that the ultimate and more probable driving force comes down to a desire of the writers to make the Shredder a more frequently occuring character with global stakes behind him, something that has roots in the Fred Wolf cartoon.

Unlike that show though, using the demonic idea was one way to make Shredder a more grim threat who can have more appearances, rather than appear more by courtesy of being an incompetent buffoon.

I have no idea why season 5 was so influential but tying Shredder to a dragon/demon is an incredible idea and has potential for really engaging storytelling and is just a cool plot device. As of right now I have yet to read of Shredder's return in the IDW books. I haven't followed many mini-series outside the regular series except Secret History of the Foot Clan, the character micro-series (hero and villain) and I plan to get Shredder In Hell. Hopefully Shredder's Return will be/is amazing.Can't wait to read it. IDW has been great about not making the spin-off minis essential to following the main story. Can't wait to see how the dragon/Shredder connection pays off!

Honestly, Shredder works just fine considering the heroes are little more than odd looking green humans with shells. There was never a need in their series for 'fate of the world' type threats because they're nothing realistically the Turtles could do to stop anything like that.

I mean we see human-sized turtles facing up against dinosaurs, we kinda forget they're not as powerful as you think. The turtles are barely stronger than an average human with the same training and workout regimen, they are not bulletproof (minus possibly the shells), and don't really have any sort of actual super powers.

I mean you can take Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Jet Li and Chuck Norris (stupid memes aside), make them wear bulletproof turtle shells and paint them green, there's still nothing they should be able to do in a fight against Triceratons.

Ya. It’s probably easy to keep doing this type of thing for Shredder though since the rest of the villains already have their own uniqueness to them.

Like it’s been said...he needs to be more than a bad guy with a grudge to be threatening. He’s the turtles biggest enemy so going with the supernatural seems like a no brainer. Regardless of who started it.

i didn't think about it like that, so this is really cool!

All I'll say is...

If Hamato Yoshi's got some Bruce Lee influence (https://turtlepedia.fandom.com/wiki/...f_Master_Yoshi)


Then Demon Shredder is definitely one of those, adds to the lore, and now becomes a common theme.

I'd say that this isn't too far of a stretch.


Also

https://yugioh.fandom.com/wiki/Chu-S..._Mouse_Fighter

Rise Splinter and Hamato Yoshi in the 2003 cartoon come on!

I might be wrong, but I always seen it as a clever but exaggerated way to bring back the Shredder again. For the other versions of it, I can't blame the creators tho, it's a nice touch to the lore; I'm not that surprised that the concept kept in the other adaptations.

Also, like Leo656 said:
I think it's also a nice way to make the character even more evil.
I mean, it's a freaking demon possessed warrior, what's more evil than that?

I think it's very possible that there were influence drawn from the 2003 series. It's the best adaptation over all.

The 2003 show overall was really smart with their characters. The writers probably realize Shredder can be stronger and more threatening to give the turtles more room to grow. That was something really lacking overall with the Turtles franchise. So having Shredder an Utrom, and in a brilliant move revealing the real true Shredder is actually an ancient demon. You get both science and mystic elements surrounding the Shredder character/s

Shredder in the original comics is pretty plain and simple. Was intended to be a one off character.
So Fred Wolfe, David Wise adapted Shredder in the 80s toon. He was shown as a great martial artist but for the most part a goof ball.

The 2003 show went for a darker tone similar to the comics and did something brilliant but making Shredder close to an immortal with him being an Utrom and the armor is adding on to an exo-skelliton.
I don't know where the idea came from but perhaps to please the fans that didn't like Shredder being an Utrom. The show came up with a mystical Shredder that is the real Oroku Saki. And even ties back to Hamato Yoshi.
It gives the Turtles a stronger opponent to fight. They never introduce Shredder all and powerful from the start but often something that builds up over the season.

How I miss the 2003 series.