Your honest thoughts on Fred Wolf's Shredder

[FredWolfLeonardo]

Originally Posted by Utrommaniac

It would be nice to see what they could have been without having to go full IDW.

The answer to that is somewhere along the lines of season 1, 2 and 7 of the OT where Shredder was at his most competent (not counting the Red Sky seasons).

Anyways, I absolutely love this incarnation and I am adamant in my belief that this is the best Shredder of all time, for one simple reason: He is super entertaining and fun for the vast majority of the Original Cartoon's run.

Sure, many of the other Shredders are entertaining too for their great fighting skill and menacing demeanor, but that only works up to a point.

The Shredder is an incredibly cool concept, a ninja wearing samurai armour who leads the Foot Clan and has incredible martial arts skills, but in order to make a character who is more than novelty and lasts for more than a few issues, you have to give the character personality traits that will stick in people's heads.

That is precisely what this Shredder is, very memorable because of his personality that always saw him either bickering with Krang, insulting Bebop and Rocksteady and interacting with other characters in ways that always left a smile on my face for more than 100 episodes.

Sure, it cost him a lot of his competence in battle, but its a trade-off that I'm willing to endure if it means that the character himself doesn't get boring after a while.

I can imagine this Shredder doing a lot of everyday human stuff because of how his personality just comes off so naturally, whereas I just find it too ridiculous to imagine for the other Shredders.
Like for instance:

Can I imagine this Shredder going to the bar and having a good time? Of course!
Can I imagine him hosting his own television show and becoming popular? Without a doubt!
Can I imagine him enjoying his meal? Well, I think he might be the only Shredder not to look stone-faced while having his meal.

Other people have mentioned other good things about this Shredder such as his design and voice performance with James Avery which I will not repeat, but I do think there is one thing that makes him stand out that much more:
the stakes.

Think about it.
If this Shredder got his way, what would happen?
The world would be an absolute disaster, as the technodrome would literally decimate anything in its path with Shredder likely ruling alongside Krang, if he doesn't betray him like in Shredderville.

Other Shredder's have had ferocious inventions, but can any of them lay claim to having a death machine that can span a threat across multiple dimensions?
I don't think so.

Now, someone will eventually make the arguement that the technodrome was in-effective for most of the show's run, and you would be absolutely right about that.
However, that's precisely what made it all the more threatening when it did get rolling a handful of times.

Same with Fred Wolf Shredder's fighting skills, he may have been getting his arse kicked by the turtles a lot, but that made his competent moments all the more awesome, when he gave out his fair share of beatings to them on occassion (such as beating all four turtles in The Incredible Shrinking Turtles and Shredder Triumphant).

Also, who could forget the 7 episodes involving Shredder in the Red Sky seasons?
They had him doing all sorts of stuff that was not the norm, such as blowing up the Channel Six building and showing a tenderness and caring side towards Krang.
It would've become old if it went on for too long, but what we got of Shredder in seasons 8 and 10 was a different and interesting take on an established character that we had grown to love.

That is all for now.