Did people not like the change?
 

I know that sometimes I think people just didn't like the change, whether the episodes were actually good or not. Interestingly there is the 1987 and 2003 cartoons that went through certain phases. The 87 cartoon started off goofy and became more serious while the 03 cartoon started serious and became goofier.

I never really thought the Red Sky season was that bad. Things changed, the tone changed and Dregg was the main villain most of the time but that doesn't mean it was bad. After all, Shredder and Krang were the main villain for 8 seasons, so I don't see why Dregg could not be given some spot light. But maybe people just wanted a definitive end with Shredder and Krang and didn't mind Dregg, they just didn't want him to be the main villain. I don't even know why some disliked Carter. I never thought he was bad or annoying and he had some interesting character development.

The Turtles mutating was not liked and I could understand why, but in most of the red sky episodes, they didn't mutate anyway. Only for a few episodes. Some I feel just dislike it because it wasn't the original. Like with Fast Forward and Back to the Sewers.

I don't understand it. Some will complain the turtles are too goofy and need to be more serious and when they do, they complain. Or when they complained in the 03 cartoon, saying they were not like the original 87 Turtles enough, and when they became goofier, people still complained. But I guess there's no pleasing some people. I was just wondering if anyone here noticed the same thing.

When change is organic or natural, it's good. But when they change things drastically to try to revive flagging interest, the results are often suspect. And in the case of TMNT, usually ill-received.

Exhibit A: The Red Sky seasons
Exhibit B: The Ninja Tribunal
Exhibit C: Fast Forward
Exhibit D: Back to the Sewers

Not sure if the Season 4 space stuff with Nick counts yet or not... time and the duration of the show's remainder will tell, I suppose.

The change never really bothered me, the core things about that show always remained the same.

The changes that happened with the Fred Wolf series in its final season, was them trying to come up with some new ideas for the series, for a show that lasted for 10 seasons, they had to come up with some new fresh stuff, by introducing a new villain and not repeat the same tropes all over again.

Red Sky was a pitiful, blatant attempt to be Timm's Batman.

Ninja Tribunal, FF, BTTS and the Nick space arc were all done at the behest of Playmates because merch.

I enjoyed both shows before and after the change in tone. I like the earlier lighter episodes of the original cartoon, and enjoyed the darker toned "red sky" era. Similarly, I liked the more serious seasons 1-5 of the 4Kids series. And I enjoyed the lighter Fast Forward season. I didn't really enjoy the Back To The Sewer season though. I found it to be kinda boring. I would've preferred that they had just done a second Fast Forward season.

I hate the red sky seasons simply because of the way they look and how they're written. It's like all the fun was sucked out of the show in an attempt to be as bland as possible.

I don't really understand that. It still kept a lot of humor actually. It did not have the slapstick but it still had funny jokes and even some 4th wall ones. It had much better action and better written characters like Megavolt and Chronos who actually had backstories. I found it to be improved in a lot of ways. It had a few plot holes but I don't think it's that bad. Plus the Red Sky theme is the best tmnt intro theme out there.

And then it randomly tries to be fun from time to time and it's just awkward.

The red sky seasons are excellent. They're roughly on par with most mid 90's cartoons not named B:TAS.

By the end of Season 7 the show had been going on for 7 years in the same format. It was time for a change.

I liked Red Sky alot while Fastforward and Btts kind of left me dissapointed.

I found the darker and more apocalyptic setting fitting for ending the show, the only thing which I think should've not changed was the design of the turtles,

Shut up, Cubed

I tried to watch Red Sky and I just found the tone shift to be too much. And the coloration was unpleasant on the eyes as well.
Once Krang and Shredder were out of the picture, I was done. As I was watching it, I was hoping to see how they would be getting by without the Technodrome.

Dregg and his assistants taking over was something of this for me
https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8042/7...5ffbc3facf.jpg

It was superb. I think I was only 10-11 years old when Red sky happened, so as a kid just about to enter my teen years I immediately took to the darker tone and more action.

Fun fact: The 2k3 series came out when I was 17. And as a 17 year old that series also gave me exactly what I wanted at that age.

Well Shredder (and Krang) are eventually replaced in every TMNT universe anyway, so its not too much a surprise.

Red Sky's fine with me. Interesting character designs, some cool plots (love that Battle Nexus-esque episode), great theme song. Dug the mutations a lot, Dregg was a good villain. It's fine. A few of the new villains are lame as hell (Chronos comes to mind) but one episode I can forgive.

Odd, I found Chronos to be interesting. And a villain that the Turtles unintentionally created, too.

The most interesting thing is that in the red sky season they actually did something different with it. Dregg was trying to act like a good guy, and almost everyone believed it, which made it harder for the Turtles to stop them. Everyone knew Shredder and Krang were evil but people thought Dregg was really good until he was exposed. One of the more interesting and darker episodes was Carter the Enforcer where it showed a future where Dregg won. It was like Shredderville, except it was darker and it wasn't a dream.

I think some people are just nitpicky about change and just want to pick it apart, whether the change is good or not. If the Turtles are goofy, they want them to be serious and then they complain. If they are serious and they want them to be goofy, they still complain.

Good in concept, yeah, just didn't care for his design/execution.

Gotta say... not that fun of a fact.

Luckily the Turtles are back in New York and continuing their rivalry with the Foot. And unlike Back to the Sewers that also brought the Turtles back to the present day and tried to get back into the Purple Dragons/Foot stuff, it just wasn't the same and was a pale imitation of earlier seasons.

Here, the series seems to get right back into the swing of things and making it more interesting with Karai and Shinigami.

Yes I know the Turtles are more than just the Foot, but in Mirage comics and other incarnations the Foot is basically just Shreder, the Elite and a bunch of nameless soldiers, with the occassional noteable henchman or two.

Here we got the Foot involving most of the major evil characters, Chris and Xever, Bebop and Rocksteady, Baxter, Tiger Claw, Hun, now Karai and Shinigami have their own faction of Foot. It's a lot of cool characters to miss out on because you ship the characters elsewhere for half a season. That's why Fast Forward should have been a 2 or 5 parter but not an entire damn season where all of the supporting cast is gone for so long. In a sense, we never got to see them ever again.. just their pale imitations in Back to the Sewers.

Luckily the Nick show didn't go overboard with the woods and outer space and brought them back to their roots.

The damnable thing is that these massive change seasons were to sell toys that never existed.

Red Sky? None of the major (or any?) characters received figures
Lost Season? Nothing outside of the Mystic Turtles, which actually came out closer to their appearance in Mutant Nightmare.
Fast Forward? This one came the furthest... only about half of the planned figures got cut.
Back to the Sewer? Nothing again.

At least Fast Forward's second half of figs, and Back to the Sewer had stuff publicly shown, though. Red Sky and Lost Season didn't have shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiznit.