If you had to end the TMNT franchise, what point would you have ended it at?

[AquaParade]

I can’t comment on 2012 as a whole, because I dropped off around season 3 or 4. I think the repetition was starting to sink in.

Those first two seasons really impressed me though. Captured the franchise perfectly, for kids. I will probably go back and watch them again at some point. There was some really cool choreography in the fight scenes, the turtles meshed well as a group, and it was decently funny at times - the star trek parody show for instance.

[neatoman]

Well, I can't really say "The 2012 is objectively good as a whole" because it really isn't, but it is in many ways good enough. Yes, in reality it is mediocre but it does have enough good elements to create the illusion that it is much better than it, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy the good parts.

Basically, these are the things the should have done to actually be good and not just seem good:

• No forced elements (Donnie's crush on April and pretty much everything about Tiger Claw for example), if something doesn't work it should be abandoned.
• Progress the plot instead of just looping around.
• No random developments like Shredder somehow getting completely paralyzed and needing bandages from a a few seconds of nerve pinches.
• No reliance on the same beats like "Oh my god, Shredder Killed Splinter! You bastard!".
• No stupid for the sake of stupid.
• No copious amounts of filler.

[Metalwolf]

If TMNT had to 'end' then I would say to bring it back around to it's older, darker, grittier roots. No Fred Wolf comedy, no kid friendliness. Just Turtles against the Shredder and his cabal of lethal mutants.

If it gas to go out, let it be remembered as the masterpiece it was when it first started, not for 'Cowabunga' and pizzas.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Metalwolf

If TMNT had to 'end' then I would say to bring it back around to it's older, darker, grittier roots. No Fred Wolf comedy, no kid friendliness. Just Turtles against the Shredder and his cabal

Yes! This, absolutely. Preach, bruthah!

of lethal mutants.

What? Gah! No, no, nonono...

[Metalwolf]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

What? Gah! No, no, nonono...

What? You don't want 'em lethal? 0_0

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Metalwolf

What? You don't want 'em lethal? 0_0

Lethal, yes. Shredder to have mutants, no.

[Leo656]

I mean... To be fair, though... "Fight fire with fire" is, at least on paper, one of the few good ideas any iteration of Shredder ever had. So I really can't be too mad about it as a concept. I could do without his mutants always needing to be bumbling and inept but I can't really find fault with the basic idea.

[Metalwolf]

Originally Posted by Leo656

I mean... To be fair, though... "Fight fire with fire" is, at least on paper, one of the few good ideas any iteration of Shredder ever had. So I really can't be too mad about it as a concept. I could do without his mutants always needing to be bumbling and inept but I can't really find fault with the basic idea.

I think that's what got me annoyed with the whole 'Bebop and Rocksteady returning' thing. Almost always they end up displacing more unique henchmen and are often made into bumbling idiots that are easily tricked. With Nick, they had the set up to at least make them more interesting, as I doubt Steranko would be as easily cowed towards Shredder, considering he's an international arms dealer used to dealing with power-hungry warlords. Shredder turned you into a mutant? Find (and fund) a rogue scientist willing to study the mutagen, or buy off Baxter Stockman. He clearly has money and pull, I'm surprised he didn't use it. Instead he gets Flanderized a bit, turned slightly derpy, and faithfully follows the old trope of Bumbling Idiot.

Rahzar (as Chris Bradford) was trained personally by Shredder and is loyal to him, which is cool and all, but boring. If he's that promising that Shredder sought to train him personally, then he should be almost Shredder's equal. He ends up badass at first, then gets nerfed and replaced. Shredder keeps punishing him for his failures, and instead of trying to improve his style and learn from his mistakes or growing resentful (and potentially turning against him) he just lies there and takes it, accepting limply every new further slip in his rank.

TigerClaw didn't get this too bad, but he did get nerfed a bit. Ditto with Fishface, although he got made 'goofy' a little bit.

The major issues I have with Nerfed and/or Bumbling Idiots mainly is that they are fine when it's a kid's show and you can't have the bad guys winning. But when you want something more meatier that makes the good guys 'work' for their win, it stops feeling as adequate. Having the bad guys able to outsmart the good guys at times make it more interesting, more compelling when the good guys win. Otherwise their win to me feels cheap and flimsy.

It's why I always hate when people defend the 'it's a kid show' mentality. It's like, it might be a kid's show but that excuse shouldn't fly forever. I recently got to refire my interest in MOTU a while ago because they realized that fans don't stay little kids forever and that it's OK to grow up. As a result, He-Man looks awesome. Skelator looks threatening (and awesome.) They did it with GIJoe in a short lesser known cartoon, you get to see how truly calculating and evil Cobra Commander can be when freed of the 'bumbling idiot' trope. That Starscream-esc voice stops being the trait of a buffoon and starts being the cold slithering voice of a man with major war crimes under his belt.

It just stinks they can't do the same with TMNT. Heavens know this franchise needs to stop living in it's Fred Wolf past.

[Andrew NDB]

As soon as you get into Shredder/the Foot employing any sort of mutants that are unpredictable wild cards or inept then it immediately makes the Shredder/the Foot into a sham.

Straight away, period.

[Metalwolf]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

As soon as you get into Shredder/the Foot employing any sort of mutants that are unpredictable wild cards or inept then it immediately makes the Shredder/the Foot into a sham.

Straight away, period.

Yeah it's like, 'Oh all the people Shredder could hire, these are the people he picks? Even rent-a-guard companies do a much better job of weeding out the duds.'

I wanted to call it 'Shredder's Village Idiot DayCare' but that would have been too kind.

[Leo656]

I don't think "Feed a dead guy to some worms and hope they merge into a clone of the dead guy" is too many rungs higher on the "We swear we're not idiots, we're a very savvy and dangerous criminal organization, honest!" scale. I think having a few mutant henchmen is just par for the course, really.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Leo656

I don't think "Feed a dead guy to some worms and hope they merge into a clone of the dead guy"

It took them 4 experiments to get it right. But they got it right. And I would absolutely take serious a criminal, possibly supernatural organization that can perfectly bring back the dead with magic worms vs. one that just employs giant, random mutants they stumble on and cross their fingers that they follow commands.

[Prowler]

More importantly, why didn't Shredder keep on creating new mutants after Behoo and Rocksteady on a consistent basis? He clearly seemed to have some mutagen left afterwards... but we're the told he did not?

Then the Punk Frogs came to life and we know it backfired. As did Ground chuck and the other one whose name I forgot in the Planet of Turtleoids film.

Mutagen man was an accident. I believe Leatherhead was also an accident as well?

And ofc the Turtles were also accidents. And why was Shredder using the ooze to kill Hamato Yoshi? Didn't he think maybe turning him into a rat could make him stronger in certain aspects?

Also, it's funny how Baxter turned into a mutant fly... without even touching mutagen/ooze. That has to be the strangest mutation in the series.

The show was REALLY inconsistent when it came to the ooze.

[Lord Nightwalker]

Well now. If my book was getting the axe, and I was in charge, I would take them out in a marvelous showdown Butch and Sundance would be jealous of.
And I would make damned sure their deaths would make a meaningful difference, not just filler fluff for the sake of killing everyone off.
Hell. I don't know. Maybe the last panels would be their spirits at peace, or maybe a museum display of their remains.
All I can be sure of is that if it was so terrible on my watch, I'd want it to end in a manner that mattered.
An apology for screwing it all up.

[shredder orokusaki]

You know how it must end. I must kill all turtles ! That what i must do And kill all Splinters too like idi with 2012 Splinter.

[shredder orokusaki]

Originally Posted by Prowler

More importantly, why didn't Shredder keep on creating new mutants after Behoo and Rocksteady on a consistent basis? He clearly seemed to have some mutagen left afterwards... but we're the told he did not?

Then the Punk Frogs came to life and we know it backfired. As did Ground chuck and the other one whose name I forgot in the Planet of Turtleoids film.

Mutagen man was an accident. I believe Leatherhead was also an accident as well?

And ofc the Turtles were also accidents. And why was Shredder using the ooze to kill Hamato Yoshi? Didn't he think maybe turning him into a rat could make him stronger in certain aspects?

Also, it's funny how Baxter turned into a mutant fly... without even touching mutagen/ooze. That has to be the strangest mutation in the series.

The show was REALLY inconsistent when it came to the ooze.

Yes, punk frogs betrayed me. It wasnt a accident. I wanted to create more mutants to help me in the fight against the turtles. That why i threw mutagen in the river that Leatherhad and the punk frogs lived. There was a fly at the room that Baxter was and it touched him. Mutagen mas was a accident after he fell into the mutagen when Rocksteady and Bebop shoot him.

[MikeandRaph87]

Originally Posted by Prowler

Is definitely not be willing to lose 2k3. But I could have done without the last couple of seasons. But still, I can accept their existence.

The Next Mutation shouldn't have existed... but it died so fast and is so irrelevant nowadays that it no longer matters. It's really easy to ignore its existence.

It was hard as a huge TMNT fan with Image and Next Mutation both being far from what a fourth grader would want after the glory days of the 1987 cartoon, the three films, Archie comic line and other media products. I prefer to blank out the two iterations that did not catch on. Then there was the 1998-2002, a little over four years the franchise was effectively dead. So you could say once CBS Saturday morning pulled TMNT (1987) from syndication it could have ended. If not perhaps end with December 11th,2019 the date of the publication of the one hundredth issue of IDW's main TMNT title. If TMNT ended there it would have been find. We have multiple series in syndication and multiple versions of TMNT in the back issue bin to discover or rediscover.

[Hockey Boy]

Originally Posted by sdp

Mirage #1, Shredder dies, Hamato Yoshi avenged. Every story after that is filler meant to milk the franchise since it was never intended and only done to cash in on the success.

But…Casey

[Cowabung-Gal]

I would’ve ended it at the 2012 series, because after that, it all went downhill, both for the tv shows and for the comics. Only downside? We’d never get The Last Ronin, which was amazing.

[Allio]

Kind of hard to say when to “end tmnt” only because there are many other franchises that are even more exploited like Batman. And then you have Ben have public domain stuff.

Originality ran out way before TMNT.