If you had to end the TMNT franchise, what point would you have ended it at?
 

Let's say you were forced to kill the TMNT franchise for good. But are allowed to pick a time frame for that. When do you choose to end it?

I'd have ended it right after Turtles Forever. It just seemed to be a good send off for the property overall. If back in 2009 I knew what I know today, I'd gladly let TMNT die after Turtles Forever and before Nick even made the offer to Peter Laird.

Then either the property would go on hiatus for a long time or Laird would eventually end the Mirage Comics vol. 4.

What about you?

Turtles Forever is probably the objective "best" place to end it, yeah.

Part of me almost said "after the first movie" but then you'd lose 4Kids.

Is definitely not be willing to lose 2k3. But I could have done without the last couple of seasons. But still, I can accept their existence.

The Next Mutation shouldn't have existed... but it died so fast and is so irrelevant nowadays that it no longer matters. It's really easy to ignore its existence.

Isn't this just a thinly veiled Viacom era bashing thread? We have enough of those to circlejerk in.

If ending it is optional, why would I choose to end it? And if ending it is not optional, why would I not just choose now, so I could still have every turtle thing we've got thus far? We don't gain anything by ending it earlier... we just lose stuff that came later.

People are looking at this just from narrative/storytelling perspective, but the title says END THE FRANCHISE... Franchises encompass, TV, Literature, Merch... Ending the franchise back at say - Turtles Forever... means we never get the NECA and Super7 Toys we have today... and that is something I'm not willing to sacrifice just because I don't like Rise.

So yeah... no... the only correct answer is, "Today I guess? If there's an imaginary a gun to my head?" lol

I suppose if it had to end (which is a strange premise), then end it after the 2012 Nicktoons show. Everyone here has opinions on that show across the seasons, but by and large the opinions that are negative still fall on the "I liked the show but...." spectrum.

So TMNT 2012 would be a fan-accepted high-note of sorts in general. Also, it guest starred the Fred Wolf Turtles, which arguably means that everything through TMNT 2012 is multi-verse canon and a follow-up to Turtles Forever.

Also, everything or almost everything that has been released using the I.P. after TMNT 2012 has by and large sucked - the follow-up series (the few defenders of it here aside, most people hated that show and unarguably it didn't survive it's couple of seasons), the IDW book has sucked literally for years now and TMNT on film has sucked.

So I'd say that TMNT '12 gives the bros' a solid trilogy of multiverse-cartoon shows punctuated by a couple of solid movies along the way. If it had to end (:teek:), end it there.

I wouldn't. I don't worry about the brand being desecrated or something. I'm not thrilled with where the property is at, but I'm fine with it prodding along, as it occasionally spits something out that appeals to me.

Whether that's something new, like Neca figures, The Last Ronin, or Shredder's Revenge, or something brought back, like seeing Urban Legends re-colored.

I feel like it's getting lost in your feelings if you need something to die that other people are still enjoying. It's easy enough to just walk away. But that's just my perspective.

Mirage #1, Shredder dies, Hamato Yoshi avenged. Every story after that is filler meant to milk the franchise since it was never intended and only done to cash in on the success.

No Casey Jones? Shameful!

Lets go a step further and make this franchise end after this drawing, tmnt in its purest form:

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/i...GJ71w&usqp=CAU

Let's go before that, Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman never meet because Kevin missed the bus.

It should have ended with the final Season 4 episode of the 4 Kids cartoon.

Thread has already devolved.... :lol:

Let's go even before that, Peter Laird takes up his love of photography and never becomes an artist. Kevin Eastman continues to cook lobsters in that restaurant and never pursues his passion. So TMNT is never created.

Hell let's go back even further. PL's parents never meet and he is never born, and Kevin's parents have a girl instead of a boy.

Hell let's go back even more, World War 3 happens in 1965 wiping out half the human race. Comic books cease to exist as a medium.

That’s as absurd as calling to end Batman. Imagine stopping anytime prior us getting The Batman, that’d be such ********.

Well, "ending the franchise" might be something of a moot point. It does happen that copyright holders lose interest and nothing is made with the IP but this could always be temporary. And even if the copyright holder does nothing else with the IP, the original work and it's derivatives will eventually fall into the public domain, at which point anyone make more.

I would never want to end the franchise, but I would get rid of most of the extra mutant turtles outside of the main four. No more Slash, no more Venus, no more Jennika. Also no more alien turtles like Kerma and the Turtleoids or that throwaway gag alien turtle training four Ninja Rats. Tokka could stay since he's normally paired with Rahzar (except in the 2012 series) and I kinda like how they usually pair up evil mutants like that. Also human characters are still allowed to dress like the Ninja Turtles ala Zach from the original cartoon.

And some people almost take offence to the mere implication that Eastman and Laird weren't sober when they drew THAT:lol:

I don’t find it at all offensive but I doubt they were on drugs. It’s actually a pretty nice little sketch, so I wouldn’t even count on alcohol being involved.

I find it funnier that people have a hard time imagining others coming up with something off-kilter without the use of drugs lol.
So much weird art gets created with or without drugs.

To be clear, nothing against drugs. I’ve had some great experiences on them. Smoking a joint with Kevin and Peter would be a dream come true.

I guess we’ll never know. My bet is eventually someone asks Kevin, he says “no”, and people call him a liar.
Maybe someone could ask Peter if he ever wakes his blog back up. Seems like a reasonable enough question.

why end something that makes people happy, each generation has there own version

Because some versions amount to little more than a cash grab. Not that there weren't such versions before the Viacom buyout, it's just fairly noticeable under Viacom.

Yeah, it's pretty embarrassing at this point. There's always been "less good" versions of TMNT but by now MOST versions of TMNT aren't just bad, they're terrible. And while people can technically like whatever they want, on a personal level I find it distasteful whenever people openly and unrepentantly wallow in garbage. There's a long-standing "lowering of the bar" across all of pop culture but TMNT in its current state is pretty irredeemable. Put simply, it really does not "deserve" to continue existing anymore.

If stuff like the Bay movies or the current state of IDW sincerely makes people happy, well... That's awful. Those People have no standards and as a society we shouldn't be in the business of catering to those with no taste. Nothing good comes from that.

Of course, a strong case can be made that TMNT was ALWAYS "bad" and we were just too young and dumb to notice. I can't really dispute that - it's absolutely one of the "dumbest" things to ever become super popular - but I do maintain that at the very least the 1990 movie and the old video games are of quality, and that the first season of 4Kids was one of the better cartoons of its era. I'd say those things are objectively "good"; I can't really say that of anything else in the franchise, though. Except for the toys, obviously, but then it's pretty hard to mess up toys. Then again, in recent years Playmates found a way to screw THAT up, too.

By far, 99% of TMNT media makes me outright ashamed to have ever cared about this brand at all. I don't claim it publicly anymore, and since it's very clear that under Viacom each new version will continue to be worse than the last, I for one would love to see the brand put out of its misery once and for all and just be a toy line. That's its ONLY remaining value and it can still do well in that space for a long time thanks to nostalgia. Any and all other media promises to be horrifying. I don't want to see it. I don't even want to acknowledge it. All the fact that "SOME people like it!" does is remind me just how stupid people are. And that's depressing.

It's funny how in general, people tend to agree that "It's better for things to just stop before they become terrible", whether it's a TV show or movie series or whatever. And YET, if it's something they liked when they were 6, "It needs to be around forever so future generations can enjoy it!" Ridiculous. Hypothetical "future generations" are under no obligation to feel love for a thing that stopped being any good before they were even born.

What it's REALLY all about is peoples' fear of getting older and the fact that they - like the cartoons they watched as kids - will soon be irrelevant and forgotten.

Well... Tough sh*t. That's life. And in life, when something turns sour, you throw it out.

Actually, there’s a fair amount of objectively good tmnt content lately.

The Neca figures are the best figures the brand has ever had, with great sculpts from movies, games, comics, cartoons, you name it.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg for figures.

Shredder’s Revenge promises to be an objectively
good game, judging by the developer’s track record.

The Last Ronin is doing what made the franchise popular in the first place by just being a really good comic. And it’s from the original creator - how many ongoing franchises are still being influenced by their creator, in a positive way? It’s a rare thing. Barely any of our favorite pop-culture characters have had that privilege, 35+ years after creation. It gives a very strong argument that it’s one of the few franchises of it’s ilk that shouldn’t end.
Kill something that’s nothing but a corporate toy-seller, like He-Man. That thing never had a soul. There’s no one behind it with passion on the level of something like TLR.

Then there’s the little bits here and there like Injustice DLC or Batman vs TMNT (wasn’t for me, but pretty good by most accounts). 2012 was a good children’s cartoon. Still fits with the modern era of the franchise. All the reprints from IDW, with commentary from Peter and Kevin are great to have. Image TMNT reprinted in glorious color.
Those are just the top off my head. No reason to obliterate that stuff from existence.


I do not think the franchise has been handled to it’s full potential. It’s been sort of a drag overall since Nick bought them. I don’t think it’s fair to say there’s nothing good coming out of it though. I find it so easy to just ignore the stuff I don’t like and enjoy what I do like. I don’t lose sleep if a bad tmnt movie or cartoon comes out. I ignore it and move on with my day.

Roll the dice, screw it, could be great.
Worst case scenario? I ignore it. Best case scenario? Something good comes out of it. It’s really that simple for me. I’m not about to cry over the so-called desecration of a kid’s/young adult property. It’s just not that serious.

That’s how I see it.

Yeah, I don't think anyone is really denying that some good stuff has been released under Viacom's ownership (and I should probably switch to saying Paramount since that is the current name of this entity), it's just that much of the potential has been stifled.

I'm still getting used to calling them Paramount.

No one is saying “no good stuff is coming out” but I disagree with the notion that the franchise should “end”, because then we wouldn’t have access to that good stuff. My whole point is “it’s easy to ignore the bad, so carry on with the good. It’s no skin off my nose.”

I agree that much of the potential has been stifled, unfortunately. I really do believe that the 2014 film had all the potential in the world. The bases were loaded. Comic book films were on the rise, people were ready to take them seriously (even stuff like GotG), and the opening weekend numbers proved that there were plenty of fans waiting in the wings.

Had that film lived up to it’s potential, I think we’d be in better shape right now. It could have been a positive “flagship” for the franchise. Once that was squandered, it was like there was nothing to look to for leadership, in terms of tone. The 2012 cartoon was the most successful element of the relaunch. Not a bad show, but not the leader we needed.

I kinda think it's a bit too optimistic to cite the NECA (or even Super 7) figures as "proof" the brand is doing great and has a bright future. They're admittedly great-looking BUT 99% of the fanbase can neither find or afford them.

It's great that they exist but it's still an incredibly niche product that only a very small subsection of the fanbase can partake in. What the brand REALLY needs is a decent direct-to-retail line. For as much sh*t as people here talk about MOTU, that brand has THREE retail lines running simultaneously to varying degrees of success (although I stand by my thinking that such a thing is simply not sustainable long-term; doesn't change the fact that they're making it work for now). And on top of that, they still have their Collectors Only lines of $1000+ statues and whatnot for the rich hardcore fans. So they're catering to every section of their audience, from very young kids to the 40-something doctor and lawyer crowd and everyone in-between.

So it's good that TMNT has the hardcore collector crowd covered, but they haven't been successful in the regular retail space for a decade and that's a problem. And no, I don't count the NECA figures "technically" being available at retail stores as them being a "retail product", because they're still very obviously a collectors' line based on their price point and relative scarcity. I'm talking about how they would benefit from a quality line of $15+ action figures and stuff for the mass market that anyone can go to Wal-Mart and buy for their kid.

Although for that, they'd most likely need to have someone other than Playmates do it, and that's highly unlikely at this point. Most of what Playmates puts out for TMNT anymore has been awful, and that's really holding them back I think. When even MOTU and G.I. Joe have a significant presence at retail 35 years after their prime but TMNT has none whatsoever, that's a huge hole any way you look at it.

I'm not even sure who to blame. Probably Playmates, I guess. Their movie figures and Rise figures were horrible, did not sell at all, and probably killed retailer confidence in the brand. I'm sure when the next movie comes out they'll do another mass-market toy line; we'll have to see how it does, I guess.
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Agreed that the movies really sh*t the bed and ruined the momentum for the entire brand. There's no telling where things would be right now if they'd done something other than... THAT sh*t.

Arguably worse than the movies themselves is the fact that SOME people responded very positively to them. Which means that there's no longer anything anyone can say when someone comes at them with, "You like TMNT? HAH! That sh*t is so stupid." Because Those Movies are all the ammo anyone will ever need to "prove" that TMNT is stupid and that if you like TMNT then you're stupid too. After those movies came out I never brag about ever liking TMNT anymore, because I don't have the patience to constantly clarify "No, no, just the old stuff, I HATE the new stuff." People just assume you like all of it since a LOT of TMNT fans are of that "I like all of it just because it's TMNT" variety, and they make us all look bad.

Those movies pretty much ruined everything for everyone. Given how "decades too late" sequels are all the rage in Hollywood right now, and further how most of them do well, it's amazing that nobody's talking about making a "real" sequel to the 1990 movie. I have a feeling that THAT movie might actually light a spark if anyone were to make it. I admit there are a ton of logistical issues involved (How much time do we pretend has passed? Do we acknowledge that the original was in 1990 and this one is 20XX, or do we just keep it all purposely vague and pretend it's only been a little while in between? Just for example), but as far as style and tone go there's not much better they could aspire to.

Sadly, all Viacom knows how to do is make them goofy and aim them for little kids. So suffice to say, based solely on precedent, my hope for the future is dim. But eh, I guess we never really know. My personal well, however, is dry.

I don’t think it’s proof of anything except that there is still good stuff coming out, which I rather be able to enjoy it than not. Same with the other things I mentioned like TLR, Shredder’s Revenge, etc.

That’s different than saying “the brand is doing great”, which is pretty much the opposite of what I said. Just to be clear.

I agree that the figures are somewhat niche. That’s not great for the franchise, but it’s fine for me.

I mean, okay, "good stuff" is nice but how much does it mean when most people who want them can't have them?

I'm a huge MOTU fan and the various lines of $1000+ statues are absolutely gorgeous. But I can't get excited about that stuff since I'll never afford them. I'm glad they exist, but from where I stand, they "may as well not". What good does it do me, personally?

Likewise, TMNT and all of their $50+ per figure "toys". I forgot to go to law school so I can only admire them from afar. That's most people. So they can only ever achieve a certain level of market penetration.

I'm sure another proper TMNT retail line will come out one day. If it does well, that will be great news for everyone. But given how badly the last few lines did, it's by no means a foregone conclusion. But the brand can't sustain itself indefinitely on collector's figures alone, no matter how great they look. The market's too small.

That's true. Nothing reminds me more that some way some how I'm an adult when the thought comes to mind that I can get a decent amount of food for a week for the same price of one of these expensive TMNT NECA figures.

That's true, at those prices and are hard to find as they are, they might as well not exist. Can't get em anyway.

Yeah, just "Ninja Turtles" set 30 years after the 1990 movie. No longer bright eyed optimists and lots of scars. Splinter long dead, etc.. Maybe one of the Turtles is missing/leading the Foot Clan. That'd be interesting.

I'd end the series where it began... some kind of world ending problem arises and the turtles defeat the enemy by going backwards in time to their original creation but die in the process... end scene shows the kid coming out of the pet store, with his bowl full of baby turtles, walks by the "camera" & then a loud crash and everything fades to black.... with a slight green glow edging into the frame. Maybe a multiversal ending... tie in all current & previous versions & boom. The end.

I would end it after the 2012 turtles ended. I recently watched that series for the first time all the way through and I thought it was pretty good. I love what they did with Napoleon Bonafrog.

Hey Leo656 have you ever given the 2012 series a chance? It was a really great addition to the turtle's legacy.

I tried. There were elements I kind of liked but on the whole I did not like it. The things I didn't like got worse as it went on, apparently. A competent kids show but very very far from what I want for many reasons big and small. I kind of see why some people like it so much but I didn't.

That's how I feel about the 2003 cartoon.

Making Mikey and Casey too dumb kinda ruined for me. Yeah, Casey's a kid, but they didn't have to make him a dumb kid.

I think Casey was at his worst by the end of Season 3 (Looking at you "This is awesome!" moments after the Earth was destroyed), but I think Season 4, especially the back half, did a lot in terms of fixing him.

It should also be noted, upon rewatch, when you don't have to wait months in between each episodes, the character dynamics and certain arcs that were tedious the first time around flow surprisingly well and work better overall. The 2012 show really was "written for the trade" as it were.

CG shows in general rarely age well. There's just something about them where they kinda lose what made them entertaining to watch besides maybe Jimmy Nuetron. TMNT 2012 I remember somewhat enjoying but it's always had issues that got in the way. I feel that if I try going back to it, I might not enjoy it anymore.

The main problem I see with the 2012 show is that the core plot just didn't work, it relied on things looping back around and sudden developments to move the plot forward. Had it been more competent in crafting it's plot, it probably would have been a lot better. One could blame Nickelodeon execs or Playmates meddling for some of the show's flaws but I don't see how they would be responsible for things like "killing off" Splinter several times before he was killed off for real. And to be honest, had the show gone on for another season, I could totally see Splinter get reincarnated as a lab rat who mutates and then that whole thing is reset as well.

The show has a lot of other flaws too of course, a few contradictions, poorly aged CGI, inconsistent characters like Tiger Claw, obvious matte paintings, etc. It's just that some of those problems might have been easier to excuse if it had a story that worked.