Which of the "failure" TMNT reboots/series did you like most or least?
 

There were 3 TMNT series/reboots that bombed, at least in the eyes of fans:



1. Next Mutation. Infamously mostly known for introducing Venus, the show also got canceled in just 1 season of 26 episodes. It was the end of TMNT on TV for years until the 4kids 2k3 series came out.

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2. Platinum Dunes Michael Bay Ninja Turtles. Infamously known for giving the Turtles nostrils/noses, Megan Fox April, and for nearly making Shredder a white man named Eric Sachs but then going back on it, this movie series pretty much tanked.

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3. Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The most recent TMNT cartoon, it was canceled after only 2 seasons and even had its second season reduced in episode order due to how badly it bombed. There is still a movie for it coming out on netflix next year which will properly wrap up this universe.

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Out of all the TMNT series and reboots we've had over 30+ years, these 3 were the biggest bombs by far. Ironically enough all 3 were meant to revive the franchise at time of debut too.

I'll hold my nose and say "The Next Mutation" was the least offensive by a fair margin.

To be honest I've barely seen anything of Rise so I have to rule that out.

So it's toss up between the Bay TMNT vs The Next Mutation as the 'better' option. Whoda thunk it.

Next Mutation is a guilty pleasure. I can watch it without fast forwarding. I've recently tried to start my nephew on it, though he doesn't have much attention span yet so it may be a rather extended viewing.

While PD Leo won his place in my heart with most versions, I pretty much love him in OotS, but those films still suck and on the rare occasions I've had it on (and it's been quite a while and not at any time this year), I fast forward through some of the stuff (non-TMNT) that I just can't watch anymore. Not being able to enjoy the entirety at all, even for what it is, puts it below Next Mutation. It's easier just to watch the best parts as YouTube clips.

Rise... just doesn't inspire any feeling to wanting to rewatch any of it again, so that's dead last.

I haven't watched enough of Rise to make an accurate judgement so I'll skip it for now. As many here know I love Ninja Turtles The Next Mutation, I can overlook the flaws and it feels very much like other Power Rangers ameritoku shows by Saban.
PD on the other hand I also don't think they're that bad, are they great interpretations? No but they have some good elements, I personally think they got the "family" aspect better than many other versions of the turtles and despite the horrible designs the movie made them work. They're a bit boring but I think overall they're much better than say TMNT 3 and more engaging to watch than TMNT 2007. Are the PD movies mediocre? Sure however are they the worst thing to happen to the turtles? Probably not.

Never seen Rise of the TMNT. Never watched the second Platinum Dunes movie.

I’ll go for Rise even though it’s based of Bayturtles but has more screentime and more appealing personalities.

Shouldn't we count TMNT 2007 a failure? The toys sold well but the movie didn't get a sequel, crippled the studio that made it, IMAGI which it was never able to recover from (we never got that cool G-Force Gatchaman Movie). The movie did give higher ratings the 2k3 show after release but in a way its failure was also the beginning of the death of TMNT during the Laird era. 2k3 got cancelled shortly after, no news or anything to look forward to until Peter Laird sold TMNT.

I am gonna say Next Mutation only because of Phelous's hilarious reviews where he rips them apart.

I definitely enjoyed Next Mutation when it first came out. There are a lot of fun bits to it that get lost in the endless complaining. I think the thing that drives me crazy about the show now, that makes it hard for me to defend it too much, is the damn sound effects added to every bit of movement. Ugh.

The Bay movies have zero redeeming qualities.

I'll give Rise a second chance if it does all get dumped onto Netflix.

The 2007 movie wasn't a failure for what it was. And it wasn't what tanked Imagi. Mirage's general management of the TMNT between then and the sale to Viacom is what tanked the brand during those years.

Next Mutation had a lot of problems and is still pretty bad, but points go to it for doing things different with their new characters. Plus it had the fortune of crossing over with one of the better Power Rangers seasons, even if the team-up wasn't one of it's highlights.

Out of the Shadows is a guilty pleasure of mine, a great tribute to the 80s cartoon. Doesn't try to be anything else.

Well, Out of the Shadows really pissed me off. I mean it really pissed me off. There was nothing, virtually nothing, in that movie I expected/wanted from TMNT or even a good movie. So I am tempted to vote for Platinum Dunes based purely on the pain in my ass.

On the other hand, while the Next Mutation isn't as rage inducing by any means, it's much more bizarre and the low budget does not help. The editing and writing seriously makes it hard to follow what's even going on half the time. It also has this bizarre part about dubbing live-action face actors who (I assume) were speaking english in the first place. So on an objective level, it is probably worse.

So do I go by pain in my ass or try to stay objective?

As for which one I like better, Rise. The direction might be undesired but it's hardly as incompetent as the other two.

Couldn’t sit through a whole episode of ROTT, or the OOTS, so the Next Mutation takes the cake for being the best of a bad bunch. Like the worst seasons of Power Rangers, it fits in the “so bad it’s good” category

It was Astro Boy that killed Imagi, but they were definitely counting on TMNT being a hit, that did give them a huge blow to them and investors trusted them only with Astro Boy after that and we know how that went. But you're right, they definitely milked the TMNT 2007 brand and designs in toys and games at least for the next years.

I remember you were very critical of the last few Laird years, what would you have done differently? I feel back then we all wanted a little FW influence, but now that Viacom has the franchise and it's all we're getting and I kind of regret it.
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Next Mutation and the Bayverse Turtles were my two for this poll. Rise is a product of its time, but it doesn’t feel like TMNT to me (seriously, no Shredder until season 2).

OOTS had a Pizza Hut promotion and the giant Pizza Thrower at Comic Con was awesome. Next Mutation was probably more successful than Bay Turtles and Rise. I remember the turtles themselves (minus Venus) were always sold out at every big box toy store I went to in the late 90s. It was not until the 5 pack sets came to KB Toys in ‘98 did I see variants of the boys in person.

I discount them all. The one I am peripherally aware of is Platinum Dunes because I watched the 1st one. Plunked down cash for a theater seat! Ugh.

Seen clips of Rise and clips of the other... Don't care in the slightest. Not even intelligent enough for a pre-Teen audience in my mind.

As a sequel to the original Cartoon and the first three movies, The next Mutation was the most honest and coherent even if horrible. BayTurtles are full of stereotypes, Rise changed random stuff just for the sake of it (like April's race).

You forgot the Dreamwave comics.

The 2007 movie made Imagi a profit and did well for them, it's just that the entire studio went bankrupt a few years later due to poor management. As for the movie itself its harmless, it wasn't anything amazing but it was fine, if forgettable.

Cartoon tie-in comics aren't really distinct enough outside the Archie run. Rise of the TMNT has comics published by IDW as well.

I'm surprised that TNM is leading in the poll, especially by such a wide margin. Maybe the distance of it softens the view on it? Easier to forget what it was really like maybe?

Anyway, I watched all of it for the first time not too long ago. If you consider it the least offensive of the three, I don't really think it is. Maybe not rage inducing as OotS, but it is certainly insultingly unwatchable.

I’ll be shocked if there is ever an incarnation of TMNT that I hate more than Platinum Dunes.

I've never seen the Next Mutation.

When comparing Rise and Bayturtles though, Rise easily comes out on top. Its not even a close comparison, with Rise's 2D animation being much more pleasing to the eye than the hideous CGI of PD, the characters being much more likeable overall, and there being a much more endearing story in the end.

And being original doesn't automatically equal to being better, but Rise gets props for sticking to its original vision while the Bayturtles films pandered to other versions, even if it cost them in terms of quality (for e.g. the first film ditching its ridiculous alien concepts and becoming a dull/forgettable film in return, and Out of the Shadows heavily pandering to Fred Wolf nostalgia).

The Platinum Dunes reboot might be trash and all, but atleast was kind of enjoyable and a little bit "consistent".
The next mutation is just weird and ugly, not even the funny weird of the movies. The fifth turtle (Venus) never made any sense to me.
I liked the idea of adding more things to the show, but how it was made didn't really went good for me.

Probably nostalgia. It aired in 1997 so a lot of us who watched it when it aired were kids/young teens.

I don't care for Next mutation, but the show would be 100% more watchable without the sound effects.

I never even saw it back then, was out of the TMNT loop at the time (and a fresh high school grad with my attention on other things), but I guess watching it as an adult a few or so years ago knowing it was already past history made the failings of it less offensive.

I guess Rise could have been similar had I watched it 10 years from now instead, rather than now and setting expectations too high hoping for something more than what it was and not the present incarnation.

I can at least give TNM some leeway on account of the franchise was still fairly "new", in that there hadn't been a bunch of different versions of it yet, thus "they" didn't know just how far yet they could bend the premise without breaking it. What they could get away with before it got "too stupid", etc. etc. They found out - and frankly, should have already known - but something that bad was bound to happen eventually. It's inevitable with any franchise.

BayTurtles and Rise, however, were made in an era where people god damn should have known better than to try and push that kinda sh*t on people. So it's a lot less forgivable. Plus, TNM didn't make big waves when it was out and many people who identify as "TMNT Fans" don't even know it exists, and it's more of a forgotten camp relic than anything, like the Filmation Batman cartoon. "Not good, but mostly-harmless". Without the internet, nobody'd even remember or talk about it.

Whereas BayTurtles and Rise were pushed as a pretty big deal, and "thanks" to the internet even bad things have a much wider reach than ever before, so instead of being cast off and forgotten they stand to pollute the brand in some form or fashion for decades to come, whether it's through their awful character designs or terrible story choices or whatever else. It's like, nobody really wants anything from TNM to come back, BUT a few people of questionable taste will inevitably push for stuff from BayTurtles and Rise to stick around. NONE of it should be kept, but you already see a few people insisting on exceptions for ______.

So yeah, all three are bad but BayTurtles and Rise did far more damage, in my opinion, and they most likely will be doing damage for a long time to come. It's amazing to me how in the current era, every time I think I've seen the worst TMNT has to offer, someone just has to go and top themselves. I really wish they'd stop doing that.

It's not really been confirmed but I do think that the reason 2K3 was so good was because, by the early 2000s, Laird was so disgusted by 1987 and Next Mutation that he took great care with the next project.

I'm disgusted by all the FW crap we'll be getting forever. I love me some Rocksteady and Beebop but 2k3 feels so refreshing just because it doesn't have any of those FW mutants.
Laird took the "no references" to an extreme and we missed them, but we've been hit over the head with FW ever since Viacom got it, I miss the "Nothing from FW" years now.

Rise of the TMNT had no Fred Wolf characters at all, so I don't see why people think that's all the new series are.

Because, like FW, it's largely for very young children and adults who refuse to be... adults.

That is true, there are no characters originating with the Fred Wolf cartoon or the toyline it was marketing. However, it is once again a show that prioritises goofy comedy, mutants that are whatever just because, a ton of characters clearly meant to build up a toyline, vehicles meant to market even more toys and pizza obsession. It may not carry on the characters or most of the core concepts, but much of the approach does carry over.

Well we'll never have a new series without a ton of mutants. It's how it is. What I find interesting is each incarnation tries to make a new pair of major mutants (Nick originally with Dogpound/Fishface and then Tiger Claw, IDW with Koya and Bludgeon, and Rise with Meat Sweats, Hypno, etc), and then they just wind up falling back on classic characters again.

Personally, maybe it’s that I never watched TNM, but having watched OOTS, I didn’t think it was terrible, and I fail to see how it’s extremely different in mood from the better selling 2nd Avengers movie (which I was peer pressured to watch in theaters). The designs of the turtles, especially Michelangelo, are valid concerns to me, but otherwise...

Then again, I did not watch the first Bay movie yet, which, apparently, has an even worse reception.

Personally it's difficult to really compare the two Bay movies as the first movie really suffers from how obvious it is that chopped and changed the movie was two or three times. Every scene with Tohoru Masamune feels very different to the rest of the movie, then you have two different purposes for the mutagen and then two different motivations for the villains. Add to that the usual Bay nonsense and learning ninjutsu from a book and it all adds up to terrible.

By comparison they are no real big plot holes with Out Of The Shadows. It all makes sense but it falls short of even being a good inoffensive popcorn-fest or a nostalgia trip. The action is pretty sub par and Shredder gets iced before he does anything and the frankly bizarre choice of having the Technodrome assemble slowly piece by piece only to disassemble straight away really hurts its main selling point of being the Fred Wolf show in live action.

They are both horrible in different ways.

I'm somewhat puzzled by the comparison to Avengers 2. If anything it tries to ape the first Avengers movie at least in my opinion. At least Age of Ultron had the theme of the dangers of technology, how our fears affect us, family (Hawkeye and his, Vision and Ultron, Bruce and Natasha not being able to have one). There's a good movie in there somewhere it just wasn't quite out together quite 'right'. OOTS doesn't attempt anything other than trying to sell toys.

Yeah, I did hear that about the first Bay movie even while it was being made, which is one reason why I've been taking so long to watch it for myself already.

As for the comparison to Avengers, both it and OOTS seemed cheesy to me in their own ways. Beyond that statement, it seems we'll just have to agree to disagree there.

I love Rise & The Next Mutation. Both have a lot of redeeming qualities & unique, original characters/plots.

PD is a steaming pile.

I actually like Rise for what it is. It can put a smile on my face anyway.

I never gave the Next Mutation a chance to be honest. Venus and the costumes are just too much for me. Who knows, maybe some day. I'll probably at least watch one episode some time. It is on Netflix after all.

I didn't like the first PD movie. It wasn't unbearable but I've never had any urge to watch it a second time and I hate the designs. There's also the mess with Eric Sachs and the Shredder, learning ninjutsu from a book and April getting so much focus. I still have to watch the 2nd one. I saw one scene and Leo came across as a jerk in it so not a great incentive for me. I definitely will before the year ends though since it's on Amazon Prime.

OK now that I've finally watched all of Rise properly, I have to say the show really grew on me. :tmad:

It's still my least favorite of the four cartoons we had so far, but the show actually had some great eps as it progressed and some neat concepts. Like most people I had a complete turn around on Rise's Splinter, who like most I hated in his first few eps and then he turned out to be really well developed and one of the most likeable characters of the show. The finale really sold me on the series overall and really showed how much potential it had.

There were a lot of eps that were too silly for my tastes, and of course I wish it had been more action and less comedy focused, and the designs of the Turtles while not too bad could have been more traditional, it actually came across pretty well.

Powder you were right about this one. I quit watching Rise after the first 10 eps originally but now gave it a proper chance and watched all of Seasons 1 and 2 over the last week or so. Pretty fun show, if not my ideal series. I hope the movie brings in Krang or the Utroms finally.

Would it be too cruel to add the Image series to this discussion? I mean it only lasted 23 issues and was only granted a resolution 20 years later because it was reprinted. And if financial failure isn't enough, I must admit that I never found the series all that engaging. Quite a lot of it feels less like a continuation of Volume 2 and more like a Savage Dragon tie-in that happens to feature the turtles.

Yeah, Rise isn't that bad. Has nothing to do with any old TMNT material and it was clearly going in the wrong direction, but it's not actually bad when you ignore the fact that it's part of the TMNT franchise. And even if it actually was bad, there is no way it's as offensively bad as PD or TNM.