5 years after Viacom buys the turtles, thoughts?

[sdp]

It feels just recent that Viacom bought the turtles but I just realized it's been more than 5 years already, time sure flies. It feels like just yesterday when I read the announcement or when we first saw the concept art for the show and all the trouble with the live action movie also feels recent. But now that we've been under the viacom umbrella, we've had three seasons of the CG show, we've gotten plenty of merchandise and a movie. When Viacom first bought the turtles most people at the drome were fairly negative, I think Cybercubed nearly committed suicide and at least 200 of his post count is how Viacom would turn the turtles into sponge bob. There were definitely a few who were positive about it, I was one of those few and I remember Roseangelo as well being happy Laird would have nothing to do with the turtles anymore. Even at the time I would've preferred for Mirage to keep the turtles but I thought at least with Viacom it meant movies and shows and whatnot which Mirage didn't seem to be able to do by itself since they didn't have the money so i was fine with the purchase.


But after a few years, I think that it's been a huge disappointment. I was one of the few hyped for the new show but I had a lot faith that they wouldn't do a crappy show based on how much they spent for it and that they needed an action show in their line-up, I loved all the concept art as well and while I didn't love the final designs I was more than fine with them with the exception of Splinter and Shredder (he looked too over the top and 90s). But while I never felt the show was bad I also never got all the praise that it had, to me the show is very safe and for that reason it's boring to me even if I have enjoyed episodes. I recently decided I wasn't going to be watching the show anymore, it just doesn't hold my attention to be waiting for new episodes and whatnot. I'll definitely watch the whole show once it has finished its run though, since I did enjoy it I just can't be bothered to be watching it as it airs since it's not as interesting as say 2k3. I can't talk about the IDW comic since I don't read it but I can say I don't like the art and the blending of OT nostalgia pandering and "mature" seems like its not something I'd like but who knows.

The new movie I actually liked, I know it gets a bad rap here but while it definitely has plenty of flaws like the turtle designs and some decisions in the plot/shredder it felt like a turtles movie and I'll be watching the sequel. But I still can't not feel disappointed after the awesome confirmed live action movie Mirage had been planning before the buyout, everything they mentioned was the turtles movie we all wanted and we may never get anything like that ever again. But how about Merchandise? Maybe Viacom is not to blame too much but Playmates has shat on another turtles toyline, it started with promise only for that to be all they were going to do. Besides that I do have to give credit that Viacom has given the license to many other companies, we've gotten Lego, Minimates, those blind bag figures/bobble heads etc. Sadly those don't appeal to me so they didn't do much. Having revoltech Turtles was indeed awesome. So I guess Viacom has done a good job there. Now let's get to the videogames which have always been an important part of TMNT media. We all know Konami did a mediocre job with the 2k3 show games but they weren't terrible and Ubisoft faired similarly when they got the license but what about Activision? They made that terrible "gritty" live arcade game and I just found out they've released 3 3DS games, they're so incredibly mediocre that they didn't even register on anyones radar, at least the other companies got press about their games. Who knows for how long Activision has the license but I'd love to see another publisher take a stab at it.

So yeah overall Viacom owning the turtles hasn't been great for me, I would've preferred Mirage keeping the turtles even if it meant no turtles media for the foreseeable future, maybe we'd only be getting rumors about a new show right now but also we might've gotten a much better movie. The future of the turtles with Viacom is also uncertain, they don't shy away from getting rid of stuff that was once popular and making money for them so if they ever get tired of the turtles we may never see them again but they do have the money and at least they wouldn't shy away from an 'adult' oriented TMNT show/movie if there was ever demand for it. Let's just hope that after the current movie series and cartoon end it isn't too long before Viacom makes another one because I'd love to see what they do I could see Viacom not making a new show for more than ten years after the current one ends.

Please don't make your post into a rant of "NICK SHOW/Bay's Movie SUCKS, **** Viacom" if you don't like it be constructive like I was and if you've liked it well tell us why.