Replacement characters for April?

[neatoman]

So it seems that the topic of wheter or not April is interesting or really important enough to appear as the human friend of the Turtles in every iteration. An argument brought up is that franchises where the human characters are not really as important as the non-humans around them, the prime example of that being Transformers. Now when it comes to Transformers iterations we tend to get the same robot characters but new human characters every time, the human sidekicks could easily have been Spike, Carly and Chip from the G1 cartoon most of the time but what we have now are about twenty different sidekick characters in Transformers.

And it appears that some people feel the same, now I don't really agree with them but I see where they are coming from. If the April from the Nickelodeon series was called Jenny or something instead, would you really think that she was originally intended to be April? Maybe out of tradition you would think that but then she does deviate from how April is typically potrayed. Hell, even the April in the Fred Wolf cartoon is remarkably different from the one we see in the Mirage comics. There has even been attempts to replace, such as in the case with Cody.

So what do you think? Could April be replaced by another character?

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

Originally Posted by neatoman

So it seems that the topic of wheter or not April is interesting or really important enough to appear as the human friend of the Turtles in every iteration. An argument brought up is that franchises where the human characters are not really as important as the non-humans around them, the prime example of that being Transformers. Now when it comes to Transformers iterations we tend to get the same robot characters but new human characters every time, the human sidekicks could easily have been Spike, Carly and Chip from the G1 cartoon most of the time but what we have now are about twenty different sidekick characters in Transformers.

And it appears that some people feel the same, now I don't really agree with them but I see where they are coming from. If the April from the Nickelodeon series was called Jenny or something instead, would you really think that she was originally intended to be April? Maybe out of tradition you would think that but then she does deviate from how April is typically potrayed. Hell, even the April in the Fred Wolf cartoon is remarkably different from the one we see in the Mirage comics. There has even been attempts to replace, such as in the case with Cody.

So what do you think? Could April be replaced by another character?

It reminds me of when I used to watch the Sune cartoon (I wasn't kid a that time, it was the one from the 2000s, not the one with just silent pictures and Anders Jacobsson reading from the books), and remember Herman for some reason being replaced with Joakim Fröberg. He was exactly like Joakim from the books, radio series/cassette-tapes and live-action series, he lived with his mother in an apartment building (oh, the books are so muh better...).

[plastroncafe]

It's not April, it's the writing. Changing her name isn't going to change the writing. Making her a dude only further reinforces the problem that the writers have an issue with compelling female characters.

[CyberCubed]

There's nobody else they could use. IDW is trying with Angel and I guess that's the closest we'll see to a female replacement for April.

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by Original TMNT Cartoon Fan

It reminds me of when I used to watch the Sune cartoon (I wasn't kid a that time, it was the one from the 2000s, not the one with just silent pictures and Anders Jacobsson reading from the books), and remember Herman for some reason being replaced with Joakim Fröberg. He was exactly like Joakim from the books, radio series/cassette-tapes and live-action series, he lived with his mother in an apartment building (oh, the books are so muh better...).

That cartoon has very little to with the books to begin with...

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

Originally Posted by neatoman

That cartoon has very little to with the books to begin with...

Oops, I mean Herman in the cartoon replaced Joakim Fröberg from the other Sune universes.

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by Original TMNT Cartoon Fan

Oops, I mean Herman in the cartoon replaced Joakim Fröberg from the other Sune universes.

Well, yeah he did, I was pretty sure that's what you meant. What I was pointing was that the cartoon seems like a rather loose adaptation, like I don't remember any plots from the books making it into the cartoon and the characters don't seem to behave much their book counterparts.

[jenna]

April as a concept is a good idea. As a character she is strong, determined, caring and warm. As a function she provides a link between the turtles and the wider world with which they have limited access and experience.

HOWEVER.... It seems that once she is established in a universe, the writers don't know what to do with her to keep her engaging. She falls into whatever neat category has been established for her. For example, in the OT it was: blindly pursues a news story, gets herself into trouble and in need of rescue; in Nick it is: has special powers and a backstory that is more unbelievable than the mutant turtles she is friends with; in the second film it is: gatherer of information and deliverer of messages. I could go on.

A human link is essential. What's the point of mutant turtles if there is no frame of reference to "normal"? - a point the Nick writers seem to be missing. The turtles could be part of a universe of humanoid animals, but then... they are just ordinary parts of their own ordinary world. They would no longer be so special.

So basically I love the idea of April, but have only seen her written well for very brief moments.

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

Originally Posted by neatoman

Well, yeah he did, I was pretty sure that's what you meant. What I was pointing was that the cartoon seems like a rather loose adaptation, like I don't remember any plots from the books making it into the cartoon and the characters don't seem to behave much their book counterparts.

Yeah, I agree. Talking of changed characters, the 2000's cartoon version also had one character called Maria, who was supposed to be a Muslim in the 2004 videogame version "Sune och pussjakten" based on the 2000's cartoon (she appeared with veil at the outdoor basketball court). The only one of Sune's classmates named Maria in the books is Maria Perez, also an immigrant girl to Sweden, but who seemed to be from somewhere in Central America or South America. I doubt the books mentioned it very much, but since she first appeared in "Sune börjar tvåan" from 1985 (sadly I don't have just that book, but I'm still a great fan of Sune and Bert), it wouldn't be surprising if her parents were on the run from military dictatorships of Chile under Augusto Pinochet, Argentina under Jorge Videla or Paraguay under Alfredo Stroessner, Nicaragua under the Somoza family (Olof Palme hated those governments, so many refugees from Central America or South America got political asylum in Sweden) or whatever and ended up in Sweden. Roman Catholic branch of Christianity would make muh more sense even in the cartoon!

I always wondered why Isabelle was abscent, but she isn't even in much live-action universes (despite being born in Självklart, Sune from 1986).

From Sune to TMNT (actually, they were both created in 1983, Sune in mid-year, TMNT in November), I'm not a fan of 2012 schoolgoril April. April shall be the turtles' strongest link to human so she needs to have some education and a work where she can give them information (like computer company employee, reporter or scientist).

[Wolfie65]

One trick all of the various Turtle incarnations have missed almost entirely is that it would be a LONG time until the Turtles would encounter a human who would react to them the way April or Casey do.
Most of humanity would find them repulsive, scary, alien and would want them locked in cages, paraded on TV, used for experiments or even killed.
In reality, the Turtles would have had to kill pretty much all humans who happened to see them, because they couldn't afford to have someone blabbering about mutant aliens in the sewers. Next thing you know, there's cops, National Guard, Marines, Homeland Security and whatnot on their tail.

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

Originally Posted by Wolfie65

One trick all of the various Turtle incarnations have missed almost entirely is that it would be a LONG time until the Turtles would encounter a human who would react to them the way April or Casey do.
Most of humanity would find them repulsive, scary, alien and would want them locked in cages, paraded on TV, used for experiments or even killed.
In reality, the Turtles would have had to kill pretty much all humans who happened to see them, because they couldn't afford to have someone blabbering about mutant aliens in the sewers. Next thing you know, there's cops, National Guard, Marines, Homeland Security and whatnot on their tail.

The thing with April is that they save her first, so it works well in fiction at least. But your idea could have worked for an extremely hyperviolent TMNT universe even more violent than Mirage, based on "the turtles are good guys, but there's world above that doesn't understand" (no cliché, they would probably even had to kill children).

[Powder]

I'd love to see a turtleverse like that, though I think they'd have a "no kids" rule, after all, who'd believe them anyway?

[Wolfie65]

While the chances of parents believing their children if they talked about green guys with shells and 3 toes and Asian weapons coming out of a sewer are very slim, maybe Splinter could have come up with some kind of Ninja hypnosis to make the kids forget what they just saw.
Safer for everyone involved.
All it would take is 1 person in some sort of 'power' position (police, military, government, science, et.al.) who decided to check out the kids' story, no matter how unbelievable, and the Turtles would be in some major trouble.

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

Originally Posted by Powder

I'd love to see a turtleverse like that, though I think they'd have a "no kids" rule, after all, who'd believe them anyway?

Depends on their age.

[Powder]

In the states, you're a kid until you're 18, though many consider 21 to be the real "adult" age. So that'd likely be their measure for what sort of action has to be taken.

[Prowler]

In my ideal TMNT version, April is always gonna be the Turtles' first human friend and their connection with the real world. Aka the world outside of the sewers.

I think the Fred Wolf series was the one that succeeded the most at with this crucial aspect of their relationship. It's like meeting her completely changed their lives. It makes me wonder what exactly were they doing before they even met her. Did they just spend the whole day watching TV in the sewers and practicing?