2014 TMNT: Objective Point of View of What Worked and What Didn't
 

I don't know if this is at all possible but the amount of hate and love that this movie is getting needs to be looked at. As others have mentioned many threads have been closed because of the passionate opinions of people including myself on this movie. If we can all just put our personal opinions aside for the time being and collectively look at what worked and what didn't on an objective level maybe we may find why this is such a thread killer.

I've been working on a list that I'll post later but I'm very interested to see if there are some collective agreements on BOTH what works and what doesn't Objectively about this movie.

I'll start and get more specific later on.

What Worked:


- Even though I didn't like this Raphael I will say the Turtles chemistry with each other was strong.

- On page it got the basic jist of their personalities right but could have gone further with better writing.


What Didn't Work:


- Script has many plot holes with very lazy writing.

- Fighting didn't rely on Skill but Power.

- Physics and Gravity had no place in this film.

- The film is essentially April Vs Shredder with Turtles in secondary roles even before a last minute casting

Not sure if this will work out either. Since, I can already bet that it will lead to arguments.

Your first thing that worked, didn't work for me. I didn't feel any strong chemistry between the turtles.

Maybe that was too subjective. They at least felt like brothers if that helps and even though I wasn't a fan of all the Mikey humour their playing off each other was brotherly.

That's the main problem. We barely knew these turtles. They could have been brothers or just teammates. We at least knew Splinter called the shots and they cares about him (or at least Raph did). We barely knew anything about the characters except for their basic cartoon personalities and what is left to be assumed based on previous incarnations even though this is supposed to be a new version.

We don't even have the feel of how they work as a team, and already the first scene Raph is acting like he's gonna split the team and work on his own. Without any build up or anything.

Also didn't like Mikey's unexplained rocket board. Again we have to assume Don built it cause he's the tech head. And then they just casually show it as if Mikey had always had a rocket board in all the previous versions. No. You don't just assume crap like that. You don't have Batman fly and make it seem like he's always fought crime with a jetpack on. You actually show Don working on it and giving it to Mikey, if anything it creates some brotherly interaction between them. Something. Just.... show something, anything that tells us who these guys are when they're noth being captured or flipping trailers around.

We know way more about April's thoughts, ambitions and backstory than we do the title characters. It's like how we knew more about Witwicky's school and family life than we did about Optimus Prime.

This thread should be ok, it's mostly the strong defenders of this movie that get overly defensive and insulting that lead the bigger arguments and closed threads. Just keep it civil and if you don't agree, stay out.

What worked:

The turtles.
I fell in love with this version of Raph. I don't know there something about Alan Ritchson that interests me. Every-time he's on screen I get sucked into his acting so easily.
The elevator scene.
That one little moment where Shredder was stomping onto Raph's shell. It was a nice emotional scene that lasted a few secs.
Donnie's and Raph's subtle moments.
Leo calling Splinter "Dad."


What didn't work:

Donnie was wayy to nerdy for my taste.
Bad Origin.
The Plot.
The runtime.
Mikey hitting on April.
No character development.
Bland visuals.
Dumb fights.
The lack of logic/Gigantic turtles being thrown around like pieces of paper.
This movies relies wayy to much on Nostalgia. This shouldn't even count as a reboot.

What worked- Saki's short scenes before he vanished from the movie, the classic OT Shredder line

elevator scene

April's overall characterization, her desire to cover more dangerous and exciting stories rather than boring interviews and whatnot

what didn't work- everything else

I'll see if I can keep the more inflammatory crap down....but if I can't then you may be right.

In other words, Coola stay far from this thread...because reasons.

Those reasons being you can't have a reasonable conversation about this flick without being condescending.

Censorship is bad my friend, and aren't forums supposed to be places where one can openly voice their opinion?

First of all, I don't think there is such thing as an "objective point of view," since a point of view is from the individual, and it's literally impossible for everyone to view something the same way (objectively), without some inkling of personal influence. It's just not possible.

Oh man. Man, oh man. I agree with most of what you said, but I HAVE to disagree with this. This might just be my favorite rendition of Raph. Ever.

This. Everything you said here = what I would have said. (As a side note, I basically only watch Blue Mountain State because Alan is so damn funny. :lol:)

Yes. But opinions are by definition the manifestation of subjectivity (which this thread is apparently against).

I think by objective the OP meant, telling what's good and bad about the movie without starting another huge argument. It's been civil so far. As long as everyone can list what works and what didn't work in the movie with anyone acting offended towards the answers, everything should work just fine.

You hit the nail on the head of what I thought of it. Those few things were the only things I really liked. Well, and the rabbit line. That was a fun nod.

I admit, that was kind of a funny line too. The way he said it, you can kinda imagine 4 giant roid-raged rabbit monsters.

Another thing that was funny was poor Leo being taser-bait.

Even ignoring the problem with the Turtles, the actual plot of the movie sucked too. I literally don't even know what the plot was.

Shredder and Sachs were going to flood the city with mutagen and then create a cure and become heroes? WTF?

More like an airborne toxin to poison everyone and somehow Mutagen was going to be the miracle cure. They were gonna hold the city ransom in exchange for the cure.


What's stupid is, most bad guys always keep a cure handy so in case they ever get infected they have one. They already saw what this... cure did to ordinary turtles and rats, and were gonna peddle it off as a cure anyway? So if Sachs or Shredder get infected they were gonna mutate themselves to save themselves?

Seems kinda like we're retreading the likes/dislikes ground here. I had once made a post perfectly detailing where I stood on the good & the bad, but I can't seem to find it. Frustrating. Guess I'll try to do a brief one here.

What worked:
-The FX were lovely (except for Splinter, he stood out as being of a lesser quality).
-Turtles were cast pretty well.
-A lot of the turtle dialogue was decent.
-Elevator scene was pretty classic.
-Oroku Saki looked cool out of costume.
-The lair & set designs in general were pretty stellar.

I'm trying so hard to be objective but this is of course tainted with some bias. Bias that I think is fair, personally, but that's just me...

What didn't work:
-Sacks, as a whole. Just got everything all jumbled & his plot ripped off The Amazing Spiderman.
-The casting of literally everyone but the turtles (& maybe Shredder, he was alright).
-The dialogue of literally everyone but the turtles (though Mikey's boner joke was not okay).
-Way too much focus on the human cast/not enough turtles.
-Way too much action/not enough hanging out (for the turtles, I mean).
-The kind of action. Quick cut, close range, shaky cam, etc.
-Very little ninjutsu or Japanese/samurai/ninja flare. Just guns, car chases, explosions, etc. Maybe entertaining in your average action flick, but out of place in a TMNT movie, at least when there's no other stuff to balance it, anyway.
-Westernizing/militarizing The Foot. They might as well have been a different group altogether.
-We don't really get to know the turtles as individuals, short of a few forced gags that give them pigeon-holed personalities. The extra apparel they wore served to make up for it, & I think the designs suffered as a result. Very cluttered & especially unpractical for ninjas.
-Everyone is connected. We get it. Fate. Woooo. The whole franchise is about happy accidents, not coincidence or destiny.
-Upscaling. Bigger turtles, bigger baddies, louder weapons. Their charm is supposed to be their unsuspecting nature. You look at these guys & you already know they're gonna Hulk you.
-Daylight. Ninjas lurk in the shadows. The OT was the only series that had the turtles frolicking about in the sunshine, & it's ridiculous. The movie should have been visually darker. Night-centric. Grimy. It was too clean & colorful.
-NYC came off like Metropolis, USA. Didn't feel like New York to me at all, really. NY is a very important part of the series, & should be extenuated.
-The victors. April stops Shredder once to buy Splinter some time. ...Okay, alright, sure. Once in a while, she can be of assistance. But then she delivers the final blow at the end of the movie! Who are the freakin' heroes? Turtles, or Channel 6? Ugh!
-Plot holes all over. Don't need to say what they are. Then there's also the fact that this movie is supposed to be grounded in reality, despite the turtles, yet physics & gravity have no place here, nor do the laws of science, period. Apparently overdosing on adrenaline makes up for the fact you have pretty much no blood left in your body.
-I think there was potential in the "new" (IDW inspired) origin, but they totally went the wrong way with it. The worst offender being Splinter learning ninjutsu through a drugstore handbook.
-There's always a hip-hop scene, I'm allll about that. But breakdancing to Gwen Stefani? Reeeeeeally? I know it had to be dated, but couldn't it have been to like, actual hip-hop music? Anything.
-The end is just riddled with contradiction & doesn't really explain anything at all.
-Karai is completely underused & treated poorly in general. She gets her ass kicked & then cries to daddy. Way to make a strong female lead, guys!

There most definitely is an objective point of view, I guess the best example would be a cop solving a case. He has to leave his personal feelings aside and gather evidence. Even, if he follows a hunch he still needs evidence. So I guess the case in question here is why this movie is so divided. Yes we have opinions but there are also facts that can't be ignored.

I think maybe I should of explained it like this in the first place so we can try to stay away from opinions.

Fact: There were inconsistencies with the physics in this movie. A ship container can be thrown but Shredder can be barely moved by a turtle. Raphael's Sunglasses never fall off, nor does he drop his tooth pick.

Fact: April O'neil was the central character NOT the turtles.

Fact: There were plot holes with this movie. How is Shredder supposed to survive after releasing the gas? Do we just assume he has mutagen?

Fact: The movie is very fast and there is no down time to get to know the turtles properly.

Opinion: I didn't like the Music.

Opinion: Worst Splinter Ever.

You get the idea.

The more facts we can gather of what worked (I'm sure there are some) and what didn't not based on what we like or didn't like, the better chance we have of collectively solving this divide. If that is at all possible...

So I take back my chemistry comment of the cast as that is NOT a fact. But leave they got the Basic personalities right which could have been developed further with downtime.

I have to rework my list now and really try to remember the movie but hopefully that should help.

Dude!!! Good one! Totally forgot that at that point in the film they were nearly drained of all their blood.

I also have to say, the whole blood drain plot was pretty gross though. Beat downs and whatnot is ok. I mean, sure they beat Raph half to death in the original, but we didn't exactly see blood spraying as he got hit, or the Foot breaking his arms. Do kids need their childhood heroes having their blood drained like that? When I saw that I was thinking 'and they want kids to see this...?'.

I see what you're saying, and I agree with it, but I meant what I said in the context of this thread. When you ask people to give lists of what worked and what didn't work, all of their lists won't be the same. Why? Because they all have different inputs on it, and that's where opinions come into play.

Although, I certainly agree that there are objective problems (i.e. undeniable plot holes), and it's notable that there are certain things repeated in everyone's lists, some of which can indeed be called fact. But my point is that it's impossible for everyone's input to be the same. It's (mostly) subjective. That's all I'm saying. Don't get me wrong; I'm not trying to bash your thread, I'm just making a point. I can appreciate that you're trying to limit the arguing, though.

The Good:

- Oroku Saki's scenes were very well-done (when he was just Saki, not Shredder)
- Erich Sacks was interesting. While he could have easily been more, as a businessman working with Shredder, I found him to be an appealing character. Will Fichtner really stood out from the rest of the cast.
- I liked Splinter in this movie - maybe because he's so vastly different from what we've seen before. Even though he freaking chokes the turtles with his tail, I liked him.
- The VFX were pretty great, all in all.
- I liked the look of the lair.

The Bad:

- The story was stupid. I mean full-on stupid. There are so many plot holes that if this movie were a boat it would have sunk before it left port. There are 9-year olds who could create better plots.
- I just didn't like Megan Fox as April very much.
- The turtles were too big. Their shells were big, their bodies were big, and their weapons were big. They probably couldn't fit through a human-sized door.
- There were so many ads in this movie. So many. Does anyone else remember the Victoria's Secret ad during the credits? Or when Mikey specifies he has Orange Crush in his room?
- Karai was underused. Criminally underused. She had so much potential as a badass and she kind of was just a whiny loser the whole time.
- Bullet-proof shells. That's a way of taking away all of the suspense by just making your characters invincible.
- Shredder is defeated by Megan Fox's tennis shoe.
- I didn't like the music all that much... there was nothing about it that stood out.
- Donnie always saying **** like, "there's a .000003489371 chance of something happening." It's just so stupid that the person who wrote that line must have lost a bet, because I can't imagine someone would write that as a result of their own free will.
- Mikey's boner "joke" was creepy. I mean disturbingly creepy.
- In fact, all of the jokes in this movie were awful.

Not only is Splinter being able to choke the turtles and LIFT THEM OFF THE GROUND with his tail.... the sheer size and obvious weight of the turtles in this version make it look even more fake and cartoony.

And Splinter lost to Shredder how? He would have tail-whipped him in half.