So what so the potential short coming that would make us hate this show?
 

Now, I'm bring this from a vague memory from maybe a year ago when some people here got a sneak peak at of the show. Someone said something along the lines that while everything looked great, there was one potential element that could piss us off. Someone actually downright hated what he/she saw. They weren't allowed to say what it was though.

Fast forward to today. I've seen every clip released and beyond minor gripes, I am genuinely excited for the new show. I was only lukewarm before comic con. Since the show is only a few months away, is it possible to tell us what could have potentially ruin it for us? Has it been removed in the final product? Did the people who were there for the preview reveal it in another thread? The forums aren't exactly easy to go through now with threads exploding. I'm very curious.

I think it was teenage April that bothered people during the 2011 reveal, but everyone has accepted it by now.

I had my concerns early on, but after we started hearing stuff, I started looking more and more forward to it. I especially got excited when we got word that Rob Paulsen was gonna be the voice of Donatello.

I think it was the idea of making Mikey break the fourth wall in the middle of action scenes. Oh wait, wrong show.

In my honest opinion, it was most likely the April age change.

That was Joe Grotesque. Ask him.

The only thing everyone was iffy on was April. I think it's going to work, though.

April being closer in age to the Turtles isn't that strange when you think about it. As long as she doesn't wind up having the, "annoying kid sidekick" role that a lot of other shows have.

She might wind up like Cody Jones in Fast Forward though...where she comes along on some adventures and helps with Don on computer stuff.

I figured it would be something like that. Considering I already know this now and is still excited, I don't mind. I mean, the idea is weird and it's one of my nitpicks, but I'm willing to give it a chance.

I fail to see why its weird. April being more of a sister to the turtles should have happened a long time ago.

From the way it looks, just about everyone is younger in this series. The turtles seem to be only-just teenagers and going through growing pains, Splinter is an adult but not a senior, and so it's not amiss for April to follow suit.

The only potential problem is that considering she's a teenager, she can't really be anything that's relevent to us older fans. She can't be a news reporter or a lab assistant as a teenager; all she can be is a student. I suppose that connects with actual teenagers and pre-teens, but it just feels trite and potentially digressive to me. At least she's being described as a somewhat nerdy high school student who doesn't fit in, though, which means that there probably isn't much focus on her being a student. To be honest, I wouldn't mind if this series' April spent most of her screentime kicking ass alongside the Turtles.

Oh, and originally, I think by far the most offensive thing about this show to many people was its being CG. Now that the CG has improved dramatically from what it was in the early previews, though, and it's provided designs for some neat toys, that anger has subsided.

Probably a lame plot and story at this point is what matters the most. The voices are set, the animation is coming into focus, the character roster is basically in place, and the promotion/hype is set. If we end up having boring dialogue, lame battles, unfunny jokes, too many stereotypes, and eventually being too formulaic, then viewers will find the show as uninteresting and revert back toward older TMNT shows and other cartoons.

Over hype usually kills everything.

At first, I had a problem with teen April, but I can see why they're going that way. The show isn't made for adults, so it makes sense from a demographic standpoint to give April less of a motherly role and more of a "fifth turtle" type role. It's certainly a better move than Venus, although I probably would have just used Angel for the role of "the new kid", just to avoid fundamentally changing any characters too drastically, but that's just me, and ultimately I'm fine with what they went with, unless they mess up in the personality department. I don't know what April's personality will be. I generally tend to prefer tech savvy April over nosy reporter April, but whatever they go with, I just hope she doesn't end up a Wesley (like Cody Jones) or a Scrappy in distress (like '87 April).

What still bothers me about the info they've released is the idea of Donatello having a crush on April. It might work out fine, but on paper it just seems like something out of a furry fanfic. I don't suspect it'll be enough of a problem to ruin the show, though. Unless they put a lot of focus on it, and draw it out for the entire series, which could potentially get annoying.

In general, I think the thing that could make me give up on the show is simply bad writing. Most other things can pretty much be dealt with if the writing is solid. Unless executives start making demands that step all over the writers' attempts to tell stories, or demands that try to make the show into something that's trying to be something else (like seasons 5 and 6 of the 4kids show).

A recent example where I gave up on a cartoon would be "Scooby-Doo: Mystery Incorporated", which I checked out after hearing that it's supposedly funny and self-aware. It could have been, but it suffers from too much sexism. The female characters are self-entitled control freaks (Velma being reduced to Shaggy's bossy girlfriend who's always trying to change his behavior, and Daphne reduced to someone who expects Fred to become her boyfriend without her having to even ask, and she gets angry whenever he so much as talks to another female even though they're not even in a relationship, nor has she made any honest attempt to communicate with him) and male characters are dumb (at first I thought Fred was just gay, which I thought was an interesting take on it, but then it turned out he's just really bad at subtext and too obsessed with building traps to notice social cues...which by description sounds like he's got severe Asperger, but the writers just play it off like he's a doofus). After a few episodes of hoping the sexism would subside, I stopped watching because it just got too annoying. If the new TMNT show falls into this or a similar all-characters-are-one-dimensional-and-either-dumb-or-jerks trap, I'll probably give up on it, but so far I don't have much reason to suspect that'll happen.

Oh, another thing that would make me lose interest is if the show gets so desperate to be funny yet so incompetent at humor that it just feels needy and forced, and the story suffers for it. By the trailers, it looks like the show will be funny, so I don't suspect this problem will be popping up, but if it does, my patience may wear thin quickly. Failed drama can be funny, but failed comedy is just painful.

I am fairly certain the show will contain three things in abundant supply:

1) Humor. Probably more of the dialogue type than outright slapstick, but they're obviously going the more comedic route this time around.
2) Action. From the footage and info released, this show is all about real Ninjitsu; no slapstick ala the 1987 series and no mystical chakra powers ala the Lost Season of the 2003 series. That's good. Whatever happens, adaptations of this series shouldn't neglect the "ninja" part.
3) Ethics. A part of the title this series definitely doesn't seem to neglect is the "teenage" part. Apparently, a substantial bit of this show will be about coming out into the world, dealing with brotherhood, and searching for a purpose in life. This could be good or bad. I approve of edutainment on paper, but too often it's used to teach lessons that are quixotic and one-sided.

Everything else is still up in the air. I like that a TMNT show is finally giving Shredder some much needed depth after so much one-dimensionality in past incarnations, but whether this will lead to truly great plots remains up in the air. I don't know how elaborate this show's universe will become. Drama isn't a sure bet at this point, because so far I haven't seen much subtletly.

That skepticism noted, I'm still going to watch it. The three ensured virtues, along with loads of discontinuity nods and other fanservice, are enough to lure me to even a sub-standard show, and I'd only quit watching it if other things become truly annoying.

^how can brother part be bad? tmnt IS abt brotherhood n fight against evil...

I thought the short coming was that this TMNT is a Nickelodeon CGI show.

Nickelodeon's CGI shows aren't good in my opinion.

Usually they just recycle old jokes from the movies they're based off of (Like Kung Fu Panda)

So that's what I thought. Nickelodeon + CGI = FAIL

As for April...I don't like that's she's their age. She looks TOO MUCH like a kid to me. She looks more like she's a pre teen than a teenager to me. And Donnie is going to be in love with her....I don't think parents want their kids to see beastiality encouraged (like if they showed Don's fantasy of being with April and having kids of their own and stuff.)

now u mentioned it, splinter does look young. maybe saki will look young too. young is good...:D i wonder how d casey look in the show.

I'll second that.

I will dislike the show if it the characters are one dimensional ( and it doesn't look like that will happen). One thing I can't stand in a show -or anything else for that matter- is when the characters don't have much personality.

For me personally it would be:

- A story arc that wouldn't go anywhere (has a weak plot) and/or episodes that are sloppily written.
- Many out of character moments (but I think we don't have to worry much about that),
- Having too many filler episodes unless some of them are original and written with a twist.
- Having too many "funny" side-characters/villains and not enough serious ones.
- Bad dialogue.


As for what I've seen so far, it looks very promising. I have to get used to April but her presence wouldn't make me dislike the show, far from it. The main characters like the turtles and Shredder have quite a lot of detail in their design, I only hope that the less important characters will get this treatment as well (although it doesn't have to be on the same level), otherwise they would stand out too much.

For me its going to be the stories and have it lead up to something big. Do story arcs, just don't do silly one off shows that don't mean anything like Ultimate Spiderman.