TMNT III what went wrong?
 

Simple question, why? They've had all the right elements, Turtles could use their weapons again. Peter and Kevin would have written a way better script if they've given them the chance, parents moved on protesting the other things by that time. Why did they give the turtles to a guy who never directed anything good? What Lobotomized monkey thought, "Yeah, who needs a comic villains when we can cram a back in time shtick", i need reasons people. And what would you do differently?

Honestly, I feel the biggest problem was that without the Shredder, it seemed like the studio was desperate to find the turtles a conflict

Then why not do City at War? Shredder was dead, why not bring in clone Shredders?

Non-Henson suits....

Worse suits and an overly jokey (not in a good way) script. Which, to be fair, are problems TMNT II has as well.

I honestly think it gets a bad rap. Not that it's anything approaching a great film, but definitely in the way it's regarded in comparison to its immediate predecessor. I actually think it's a lot closer spiritually to the original film than the second one is.

I forgot to mention that, why didn't they just reuse the costumes? And why did they ditch Henson?

SOTO didn't bring as big a return as the first movie, so they dropped the budget, and that meant dropping the expensive Henson suits. As for reuse, the suits take a beating, what with actors sweating in them and such like they deteriorate pretty fast.

Actually TMNT III had a slightly larger budget than SotO, and 2 less "creatures." I'm really not sure why they didn't use Henson for a 3rd time....maybe they were unavailable... Or couldn't get them done quickly enough....

Totally spot-on about re-using the old suits, though.

I don't remember where I saw it, but I'm fairly sure Henson company wanted more to do the suits for the third film than the second, so they went with a cheaper company...

The suits, removing all of the original villains, and sending them to ancient Japan.

But went wrong behind the scenes? I re watched this movie and decisions made are baffling to me, it's just amazingly bad...

Correct me if I am wrong but wasn't time travel the "in" thing then....someone should see how many movies had that as an element in the story around that time



They could've trying to cash in on a trend

What went wrong? Time travel and Time Scepter with no Renet...that's just wrong. Also, they had Elias Koteas back as Casey,but he was wasted as a baby sitter.

Also, there are plenty more things they could've done in a Time Travel story. How about making the Turtles indirectly responsible for the formation of the Foot? Using many of the elements they used (though shouldn't have) in the movie, could have led to the beginnings of the Foot Clan, ergo they would be responsible for their own creation as well as the creation of their own worst enemies.

Instead of time travel they should have been transported to dimension X, Boom! movie writes it self...

As you sai in your opening post,the biggest problem with Ninja Turtles III is the same biggest problem with TMNT. The lack of a pre-established villian. Made for movie villains are a waste when there is so much potential already there. While a time travel oreinted villain like Armaggon or Savanti Romero would not work for this concept Shredder's ancestor would. Perhaps the origin of the Foot clan itself be the central plot with Shredder having recovered from his last encounter looking to strengthen his hold of the Foot clan by making them into real ninjas thus having more success in current time and perhaps not lose his grip on New York City with the interference of the turtles. First move is the find a time sceptre rumors are that is in New York City somewhere. Then he wants to take control from the founder and install his ancestor as the head of the clan which he would one day be and remove Yoshi's ancestor who is the founder of the clan. Perhaps separarting himself from his father Kenshin starts the clan and is banished. He sees need to return when his girlfriend Mitsu who has custody of her nephew Yoshi begins to speak out against his father to protect her from imprisonment. Meanwhile his arrogant friend is secretly looking to usurp the upstart clan because he sees his love for a woman as a weakness. One must be focused on the strength of a clan alone. The turtles visit April who has a gift for them a sceptre of Japanese design. Shredder arrives and tries to take it telling them what is April has. In attempt to take it from them Michelangelo accidently sets off the sceotre and the six of them are transported to 1550 Japan. The two plots cross into one and Shredder disappears in search of his ancestor to help plot the take over of the clan and prevent its evolving into a street gang that he is to restart in New York. Yoshi's father having ended the clan seeing it had no place the modern world and traininng Yoshi to be a government operative for Japan. The turtles must stop Shredder from gainnning his ancestor's ascending to the head of the clan and framing Yoshi from trying to kill his disapproving father.

The corrupt yet cowardly Lord Norinaga,Kenshein,Mitsu and Yoshi would all maintain a role. I don't see the need for a greedy British arms dealer to be involved especially since the focus is on Fuedal Japan.

What do you all think?

For the record, I think the general plot is really smart and political even. Really too smart for a kid's movie. It made it boring at times. Too smart for little ones and too goofy/3-Stooges for adults. The issue is, they executed it terribly. And yes, the suits make it even worse. I think the first has even better suits than the cartoony, smirking ones Henson updated in the second one.

I like the plot and the lack of Shredder in this movie. It had potential to be a really good movie. The problem is as Casey put it, the execution as well as the costumes. Otherwise it had potential. I'm not afraid to admit that I have some sentimental attachment to this movie but I agree that it is not a good TMNT movie.

One aspect of TMNT III that really surprised me was that there were actually some decent and well choreographed fight scenes (with their weapons!), a big improvement over the lackluster fighting from the second film. However, like others have said, the movie just wasn't executed well enough.

The concept of it was cool. They just needed waaaaaay better suits and a script.

This, they looked effing horrible, just as bad as the Next Mutation suits.

Too slapstick. And Casey Jones was completely wasted.

Ironic though, the people didn't care for the suits in this movie, which weren't that much dissimilar to the Henson suits, but enough to put off people from seeing the movie, so why would the people in charge of the designs of the CGI Turtles today not learn from past mistakes??????