Laird's vision for Secret of the Ooze

[oldmanwinters]

On his TMNT blog, Peter Laird recently shared his original pitch for the 2nd live-action Turtles movie that he typed up on his Atari ST way back in 1990. It's a very interesting read, but it's clear how far the actual film strayed from Laird's vision. Mostly notably, the film wouldn't include the Shredder (at least not on screen) and the plot would either be a Stockman/Mousers/Rat King thriller or a loose adaptation of the TCRI/Turtles in Space saga from issues #4-7.

http://peterlairdstmntblog.blogspot....on-second.html

The most interesting part to me was that this movie could set up the plot for the 3rd movie, which Laird hoped would be a "Return to New York" adaptation involving the return and ultimate fate of the Shredder, and a mutated Triceraton's team-up with the Turtles to invade the Shredder's domain. I'll admit that a Mirage Film Trilogy probably would have been awesome (in theory, anyway), but the third film might have lacked a little punch on account of many of the themes of RtNY already being present in the first movie.

How's this for an opening (or closing) scene for the second TMNT movie (maybe run under the credits): A garbage truck rumbles past the camera, heading for the landfill. It stops at the edge of a hill of refuse. The two sanitation engineers get out of the truck, and go around back to make sure the truck makes its dump properly. As the trash spills out, one of the guys sees something metallic glinting in the mess, and pulls it out. He holds it up, and in a medium closeup we see that it's the Shredder's helmet, crushed and twisted.

We both feel that the Shredder should not appear in the second TNT movie, but this might be a subtle enough way to refer to his ambiguous fate and set the scene for his appearance in a third TMNT movie (if that happens).

Anyway… one main concern is that the second (and any subsequent) movie stay as much away from the cartoon show, and as close to the original black and white comics, as the first movie did. We don't want to see Bebop and Rocksteady, or Krang, or any of the other goofy characters. We feel that there is plenty of material in the black and white books to form the basis for another good movie.

One possible approach would be to use some of the elements in TMNT book #2 (the Baxter Stockman/mousers story), or issues 3, 4 and 7. The Stockman/mousers tale is pretty straightforward, and could be lifted from the book with little alterations (have to find another assistant for Stockman, as in the movie April already has a different job). A conceivable addition would be the Rat King character that Jim Lawson created in issue #4 of "Tales of the TMNT", who was also used in the animated series, but not in the best of fashions. The Rat King could be a really neat, visually arresting character on film, and there could be some interesting interactions with him, Splinter, and the mousers.

Other notable details that didn't make it into SotO include a "love triangle" between April, Casey, and Charles Pennington.

Either Danny Pennington or April might accompany the turtles in their raid of the TCRI building only to be captured by the Utroms and placed in a suspended animation tube, ala Splinter from the Mirage comics. If April were to be captured while snooping around the TCRI bilding, then it would have given Casey Jones a reason to assist the Turtles in liberating her.

I think that there are a number of new elements from the first movie that could be easily integrated into this plot. There could be an extension of the developing relationship between Casey and April, possibly with Charles Pennington as a third party in a kind of romantic triangle (some potentially interesting contrast of Casey's and Charles' personalities here). Danny could be brought back, and possibly he could try to help the Turtles by infiltrating the T.C.R.I. building -- but he gets caught by the Utroms, and ends up in one of their suspended animation tanks, to be discovered by the Turtles… in fact, his disappearance could be one of the reasons they enter the building. Actually, for that matter it could be April who does it, doing her nosey reporter thing… except she gets too nosey, and the aliens take her captive. That might even be a good reason for Casey to go with the Turtles, getting him in on the action (and providing a good opportunity for a rescue/reunion clinch with April).

If the movie went with the Stockman/Mouser plot, then the big reveal could be that Baxter Stockman was really an Utrom, using the Mouser scheme to get money to return the Utroms to their homeworld!

We could use the whole mouser scenario that is in book 2… only tie the mousers in with the T.C.R.I. guys -- they created the mousers. Baxter Stockman is actually a T.C.R.I. alien, fronting his mouser idea as a way of making money for the company, to aid their efforts to get off the planet.
(This sets up a scene where Casey confronts Baxter (in the T.C.R.I. building, where he and April have gone to investigate further, with Casey posing as April's cameraman), socking him in the jaw… with the result that Casey almost breaks his hand, and Baxter pulls open his shirt to reveal the T.C.R.I. alien in his robotic belly."

Laird even gives his synopsis for the opening of the 2nd film, which would have introduced Stockman and the Mousers and continued to build upon the themes of Raphael's volatile temper and the strained relationship of April and Casey.

"Teenage Mutant NInja Turtles #2: The Sequel

A Proposed Outline

We open on April O'Neil doing a remote spot covering the test of a new anti-rodent device, called the MOUSER, at the laboratory of Dr. Baxter Stockman, a 30-ish, bespectacled and mustachioed black man. Stockman runs the MOUSER through its paces -- the little robot with the savage gaping jaws chases a large rat through a maze and devours it in less than twenty second -- and, in response to a question from an unnerved April about what he plans to do with his device, Stockman replies that the city of New York has already given him funds to develop an initial force of a dozen mousers, to, in his words, "begin to take care of the city's rat problem -- once and for all!" Closeup on April's face, as she reacts to this statement…

… and dissolve to a closeup of Splinter's hairy face, and pull back to show him sitting cross-legged in front of a TV set, looking very thoughtful as we hear the tail end of April's report. Nearby, Donatello works on a circuit board, soldering small pieces of wire to it… tool and miscellaneous supplies are strewn around the floor. Across from him, Leonardo sits next to Splinter, carefully polishing one of his katana blades. We hear the background noise of sparring going on.

Suddenly, Raphael flies into view, crashing down on a coffee table and smashing it into pieces. Michaelangelo, who has worked a masterful judo move on Raphael, calls out affectionate jibes from the sidelines.

But Raphael doesn't see them as affectionate. He's well on his way to losing his temper, and as he loses it, her gets more careless, allowing Mike to continually get the upper hand on him. Gradually, though, Mike starts to see that Raph is getting vicious. Splinter and the two Turtles notice it too, but not before Raph grabs one of Leo's swords and goes after a shocked Michaelangelo, who stumbles and loses his footing, leaving him defenseless against Raph's berserker rage. It looks bad…

… but just then Leo and Don grab Raph's arms, holding him back Leo yells at Raph "Are you nuts??! What are you trying to do, lill Mike??!! It's just sparring, for Gods sake… just practice!"

With a start, Raphael realizes what he's doing. He drops the sword like it's suddenly red hot, and begins to stammer out a halting apology. Splinter comes over to try to calm Raph down, but Raph's anger and shame overcome him -- he tears away and goes bounding off. Leo starts to follow, but Splinter stops him, saying "Raphael will return… let him deal with his anger first."

(Note: All this takes place in the Turtles' and Splinter's new home in the sewers, a new lair that they have fixed up since the battle with the Foot in the first movie.)

Later… Casey arrives at the TV station to pick April up for their date. April, who's been waiting outside for the last half hour, is quietly fuming… and not at all amused with Casey's half-hearted excuses for his lateness -- or by his car, a real rattletrap. They get in, and Casey tries to start the car -- it won't start. As Casey tries again, and April rolls her eyes, Charles Pennington comes out of the building. His eyes narrow a bit when he sees Casey with April, and then he smirks at Casey's malfunctioning wreck of a vehicle. "Need a lift, April?" he asks, gesturing at his brand new BMW. She hesitates… until Casey, with his usual thing layer of tact frayed even further by the bad start this date with April has gotten off to, says something like :Yeah, why don't you go ridin' with the four-eyed wonder." At this, April gets pissed, and she does just that, leaving Casey sitting in his car, giving it an occasional kick and curse.

A week or so later: April is doing a news story about a strange series of robberies, in which bank vaults were tunneled into and valuables extracted, with no trace of the culprits.

That's where the second file ends. I am not sure why I never finished it. -- PL

Anyhoo... I really wish Golden Harvest and New Line had let Steve Barron give the Turtles another crack without being sacred to death of making the films "too dark."

Oh, and how cool would it have been to have the Jim Henson puppet shop apply their talents to the Utroms? Admit it, folks, who DIDN'T want to see "Krang" on screen for the second movie? I actually had a dream about how nasty awesome he'd look! Ah, missed opportunities...