5 years after Viacom buys the turtles, thoughts?

[CyberCubed]

Originally Posted by neatoman

IDW will probably continue to publish TMNT comics for a long time to come, at least until 2021 I'd wager.

I can see the IDW TMNT comic lasting about 10 years. Its most likely going to still go on after the cartoon ends.

The Nicktoon seems like it could end at season 4, that would be around 2016-2017. Another one might hit one to three years later, 2017-2020.

The Nick cartoon will probably do 7 seasons just like the 4kids series did before it ended. Ratings are still good and the merch sales keep it afloat. Likewise they'll likely want to keep the cartoon on the air for as long as the Bay Turtles movies are in theaters. I predict 7 seasons and a DTV movie.

[ryukenden]

I had my doubts at first but I'm glad that the franchise is doing well and that the current generation is enjoying the show.

[LeotheLateBloomer]

It's not all bad. There are some good things that have come out of this buyout.

I really like the 2012 series despite it's flaws. If they can lay off the pandering of the OT, it could be a lot better. But the people behind it have done their homework and know so much about turtle lore.

IDW is something I just got into reading and while I sort of dislike some of the art styles, the storytelling is pretty good. I look forward to reading future issues. I kinda wish IDW would buy the IP off of Viacom to be honest. But they're just a comic book publisher for existing brands, aren't they?

The 2014 is likely the biggest offender. While I initially thought the movie was okay at first, the more I watched it, the worse it got for me. These people didn't care about the story. JL probably just wanted to make a live action movie with a lot of action scenes. And this is a guy who says that he didn't want to ruin the source material. Pffftt! Kevin Eastman actually approved of this movie?! I'm starting to think he's becoming the Stan Lee of the IP. I can't wait to hear or read what Peter Laird has to say about this movie.

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

Originally Posted by LeotheLateBloomer

The 2014 is likely the biggest offender. While I initially thought the movie was okay at first, the more I watched it, the worse it got for me. These people didn't care about the story. JL probably just wanted to make a live action movie with a lot of action scenes. And this is a guy who says that he didn't want to ruin the source material. Pffftt! Kevin Eastman actually approved of this movie?! I'm starting to think he's becoming the Stan Lee of the IP. I can't wait to hear or read what Peter Laird has to say about this movie.

Actually, it's more like Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird were Firestorm together. Together, it was a perfect symbiotic relationship that had a balance of intellect and action, science-fiction and gritty urban warfare.

Separate the two? Disaster.

Kevin Eastman: the blood-bullets-boobs fest that was Bodycount and the mindless annual specials from IDW.

Peter Laird: the snooze-fest of Volume 4 that drags on... and on... and on... and never finishes, and never goes anywhere, and LOVES Al Gore and Apple.

So, in summary:

Blood-bullets-boobs + intellectual-scifi-overdose = Awesome TMNT

[Warhorse]

OK, Netflix and Disney have paired together to show DareDevil, and people seem to like the way things are working out, think maybe we'll see the next incarnation give it a shot on Netflix, where it might have more room to grow as a series?

[Prowler]

I don't see why any Turtle fan would be unsatisfied. The Turtles were pretty close to dying, and now they're the strongest they've been since the early 90s.

Even if the IDW comics and the Nick show have some things I don't like, at least it's better than having no Turtles at all. Now, the live action movies ,on the other hand, I'd rather not have them at all.

[Shark_Blade]

I like everything so far - the 2014 movie, 2k12 series, IDW comics, Out of the Shadows, toys etc. Praise and thanks to God for all these gifts.

Best things in my mind right now: Donnie's "death" in IDW (rep boost for Bebop & Rocksteady, oh yeah!), creepy-horror elements in 2k12 (some examples: Season 2 Squirrelanoids & Season 3 Within the Woods), Megan Fox as the perfect April O' Neil, 2k12 Revoltech figures, 2k14 accurate 1/6 scale movie figures.

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by Prowler

I don't see why any Turtle fan would be unsatisfied. The Turtles were pretty close to dying, and now they're the strongest they've been since the early 90s.

Depends, and it's a serious matter of opinion.

I personally, no matter how much I enjoy something, don't really need product for product's sake. If TMNT had "ended" a few years ago, we still as fans have been completely spoiled compared to how much attention TMNT has gotten compared to other popular franchises. If we had never gotten anything more, we still would have had plenty. And by and large, most of it was good.

Now that it's a fully-corporate product, there really is nowhere to go but down. Yes, we will consistently see more and more TMNT products being released and pushed, but... they're all of questionable quality. You can bet money that we will NEVER see another good TMNT movie, for starters, and that's a shame. The Nick show had a lot of potential, and it's alright, but the fact that it's entirely aimed at kids and dripping with 80s nostalgia and horrible writing has slowly pushed me away from it. There's only so much, "Well, it's aimed at kids" I can take before I just have to say, "Well, I get that, but it's still a badly-written show and I have other things to do." The toys, apparently, suck eggs, according to some of the members here who are making a point to collect them. The video games are pretty lousy, and even the best one, "Out of the Shadows", has gotten the "trash" label from the majority of people who played it (I don't agree with that, but it is the accepted consensus).

The only thing that really interests me, and that I've liked almost everything I've seen of it, is the IDW comics. And I'm not really collecting comics right now, so what I have seen is really limited. And even that's kind of heavy on cramming in 80s stuff "just because". But I like it better than everything else TMNT-related we've gotten for a few years.

So... (Deep breath) Feel free to call me a heathen, and I know I'm in a vast minority... but I'd honestly be happier if the sale didn't happen, even if it meant TMNT would have "faded away". As of 2010-ish, we'd already had a bunch of TMNT stuff and about 80% of it or more was "Good". Now, inevitably, the longer it gets the "push" as a big corporate product, the more crap we are going to see, and one day, as the franchise "grows" exponentially, the "Crap-To-Quality" ratio is going to flip upside down, we'll have much more Junk than Not-Junk, and that's going to be a shameful thing to see. We had a good balance. MOST of what's come out since the sale has frankly not been, objectively, very good. I don't see that trend slowing down, frankly.

"More" is not always "better", basically. Look at Mickey Mouse; he was, at one time, one of the most popular characters in the world. Now, his face is on everything from posters to toilet paper, so he remains one of the most recognizable characters in the world, but ask yourself how many people over the age of 5 even give a sh*t about Mickey Mouse? He's not at all "popular", he just sort of "exists", because he's a corporate mascot, and because he's a corporate mascot, it's impossible to do anything interesting with the character other than stick him on a T-shirt and sell it to grade schoolers.

That's kind of what I'm getting at. TMNT was "special"; it's not special anymore, it's just a product. I honestly think we were better off before. I'd be happier having a few things of good-to-great quality, than a never-ending ocean of mindless swill, which is the inevitable point the franchise is heading for.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Depends, and it's a serious matter of opinion.

I personally, no matter how much I enjoy something, don't really need product for product's sake. If TMNT had "ended" a few years ago, we still as fans have been completely spoiled compared to how much attention TMNT has gotten compared to other popular franchises. If we had never gotten anything more, we still would have had plenty. And by and large, most of it was good.

Now that it's a fully-corporate product, there really is nowhere to go but down. Yes, we will consistently see more and more TMNT products being released and pushed, but... they're all of questionable quality. You can bet money that we will NEVER see another good TMNT movie, for starters, and that's a shame. The Nick show had a lot of potential, and it's alright, but the fact that it's entirely aimed at kids and dripping with 80s nostalgia and horrible writing has slowly pushed me away from it. There's only so much, "Well, it's aimed at kids" I can take before I just have to say, "Well, I get that, but it's still a badly-written show and I have other things to do." The toys, apparently, suck eggs, according to some of the members here who are making a point to collect them. The video games are pretty lousy, and even the best one, "Out of the Shadows", has gotten the "trash" label from the majority of people who played it (I don't agree with that, but it is the accepted consensus).

The only thing that really interests me, and that I've liked almost everything I've seen of it, is the IDW comics. And I'm not really collecting comics right now, so what I have seen is really limited. And even that's kind of heavy on cramming in 80s stuff "just because". But I like it better than everything else TMNT-related we've gotten for a few years.

So... (Deep breath) Feel free to call me a heathen, and I know I'm in a vast minority... but I'd honestly be happier if the sale didn't happen, even if it meant TMNT would have "faded away". As of 2010-ish, we'd already had a bunch of TMNT stuff and about 80% of it or more was "Good". Now, inevitably, the longer it gets the "push" as a big corporate product, the more crap we are going to see, and one day, as the franchise "grows" exponentially, the "Crap-To-Quality" ratio is going to flip upside down, we'll have much more Junk than Not-Junk, and that's going to be a shameful thing to see. We had a good balance. MOST of what's come out since the sale has frankly not been, objectively, very good. I don't see that trend slowing down, frankly.

"More" is not always "better", basically. Look at Mickey Mouse; he was, at one time, one of the most popular characters in the world. Now, his face is on everything from posters to toilet paper, so he remains one of the most recognizable characters in the world, but ask yourself how many people over the age of 5 even give a sh*t about Mickey Mouse? He's not at all "popular", he just sort of "exists", because he's a corporate mascot, and because he's a corporate mascot, it's impossible to do anything interesting with the character other than stick him on a T-shirt and sell it to grade schoolers.

That's kind of what I'm getting at. TMNT was "special"; it's not special anymore, it's just a product. I honestly think we were better off before. I'd be happier having a few things of good-to-great quality, than a never-ending ocean of mindless swill, which is the inevitable point the franchise is heading for.

The movie definitely blew and the second one will most likely blow as well. Yea sucks that we wont' get a good movie anytime soon, I agree. As for the rest, while this current incarnation of the TMNT isn't my favorite and I think it's the weakest cartoon series of the 3, it still has some redeemable stuff. Although if I was younger, I'd enjoy it more, I'm sure. I can still enjoy Fred Wolf and the 4Kids toon fine after all these years, so I guess maybe this current cartoon doesn't have the "it" factor that appeals to both kids and adults?

And TMNT has been a corporate thing since the Fred Wolf series, pretty much. Okay, it belonged to two dudes instead of a company like Viacom, but mainstream TMNT has always been sorta kiddy.

Video games? Sadly the 4kids toon based ones sucked as well.

The toys suck? I cannot tell you about that I'm afraid. I've bought a few but they're all packed still. I mean, as a 24 year old guy I no longer can bring myself to play with toys and I dont' have any little brothers or cousins, so I see no need to open the toys. DO they break easily or something? My 4kids toys broke kinda easily and some had pretty stiff joints. My Raphael loss an arm after one month. A year later or so, I had to convince my mom to buy new Turtles again since they were all armless by next Christmas

[CyberCubed]

I'm content with the Nick and IDW series, but after these two series end I wouldn't mind if TMNT is put on the shelf for a good 10 years.

We'll have 3 cartoons, three major comic series (Mirage, Archie and IDW), and multiple movies. That's more than enough for a while.

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by Prowler

Video games? Sadly the 4kids toon based ones sucked as well.

And in all fairness when it comes to the 80's/90's era games, most of them are arcade style beat-em-ups, it's kind of hard to make one of those bad. The few that did not belong to that genre kind of sucked (I think we all know of that AVGN review). When I compare Tournament Fighters to the more popular fighting games of the early to late 90's, the only ones I can think of that are worse are the really early SNK games and the Mortal Kombat games.

[Leo656]

Really? I liked Tournament Fighters. I mean, not really a fighting game guy, but I could play it and beat it. I'unno, I had some fun with it. SNES version, anyways. Never got my hands on the Genesis one.

[Shark_Blade]

Holding off TMNT? Let it die into oblivion?

It may be enough for some longtime fan, but then you are preventing new generations from experiencing TMNT and that's pretty selfish. It's good they got to experience it now. It may not be to your liking, maybe some are biased by nostalgia, but the fact they like it is enough. You are not the target audience, they are. Different time, different preferences. Like, I know I could barely stay awake watching the old Star Wars trilogy but then that's considered heaten talk by the purists.

Good thing the fate of the franchise didn't fall into some unscrupulous fans. The sale to Nick/Viacom was the best decision ever made of this franchise - it was at a dying stage when TMNT 2k7 was released anyway. What a kickstart 2k12 was, absolutely brilliant way to revive a long run franchise.

[Leo656]

Nah, if people have taste they'll go back to older things without having new product product thrown at them constantly. There are brand new fans of He-Man, Dick Tracy, Thundercats, Speed Racer and Voltron every day, and those things haven't been "relevant" in ages. But people go back and rediscover them every day. You don't need to constantly pump out new plastic to create a new audience for something. All of those things, like TMNT, were only a "fad" or a big deal for a few peak years, and yet, they've stayed moderately popular enough for decades, despite not being aggressively marketed or revived every few years. People just have a natural nostalgic curiosity. Even stuff that isn't being recycled never really "goes away", as long as it was popular enough at one point.

Now, what you're talking about is totally different. You're talking about trying to keep the TMNT brand "alive" as a fad or a phenomenon through constantly being branded and merchandised so that people will buy it. That has less to do with what's good or bad for TMNT or its fans, but everything to do with companies making money.

Point of fact: They could stop doing new TMNT merchandise, TV and movies tomorrow, and the brand would never really "die", because it's already long ago reached that certain level of popularity. People would forever talk about it, write about it, and occasionally create new content about it. And "new generations" of fans would be exposed to it and become fans of it even without a barrage of crummy movies. Other than Next Mutation, there was a near-drought of TMNT "content" for almost a decade. It survived. Think about just that for a second... TMNT survived, despite there being a time when TNM was the ONLY new TMNT content being made! That's pretty impressive in and of itself, honestly. It's strong enough to be kept alive purely though its own existing fanbase and the people they in turn expose to it, to the point where it honestly doesn't need a never-ending cycle of mediocre "stuff" being churned out by a corporation that only sees it as a way to make a few bucks.

I mean, I get it, you like having a never-ending stream of plastic thrown at you, with your favorite Corporate Brand logo on it. Fair enough. I'd still argue that it's damaging to the long-term integrity of the brand, though. Especially anyone who sees the potential of TMNT as something made for more than 6-year-olds.

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Really? I liked Tournament Fighters. I mean, not really a fighting game guy, but I could play it and beat it. I'unno, I had some fun with it. SNES version, anyways. Never got my hands on the Genesis one.

Well it is kind of awkward compared to whatever the most recent version of Street Fighter 2 was out or King of Fighters '94. It's better than the Mortal Kombat games, but Mortal Kombat seemed prioritise gimmicks over the actual gameplay.

[VaughnMichael]

Not too shabby but I'd really like to see the collectors market taken better care of and I'm not talking more statues.

[shuriken]

Originally Posted by Jester

Enjoying what I like, not really caring for what I don't. Same as it was under Pete.

This. sooo this. Plus Pete was done and he said so. IDW and the 2k12 toon are great. I don't really buy the figures and the movie was, mediocre at best and an abysmal bastardization at its worst.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by neatoman

And in all fairness when it comes to the 80's/90's era games, most of them are arcade style beat-em-ups, it's kind of hard to make one of those bad. The few that did not belong to that genre kind of sucked (I think we all know of that AVGN review). When I compare Tournament Fighters to the more popular fighting games of the early to late 90's, the only ones I can think of that are worse are the really early SNK games and the Mortal Kombat games.

The SNES version is pretty alright. Nothing special but a fun enough fighting game for Turtle fans.

I agree on the early MK games, but the early SNK games? I've only played the original KoF game(King of Fighter 94, I think) on the Wii Virtual Console, but I don't think it's bad at all.

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by Prowler

The SNES version is pretty alright. Nothing special but a fun enough fighting game for Turtle fans.

I agree on the early MK games, but the early SNK games? I've only played the original KoF game(King of Fighter 94, I think) on the Wii Virtual Console, but I don't think it's bad at all.

KOF '94 is good. I'm talking about Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting, the earliest ones.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by neatoman

KOF '94 is good. I'm talking about Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting, the earliest ones.

Oh

I believe Fatal Fury was in the SNK Arcade Classics Vol. 1 for the WII and other consoles. At least I remember playing a game with the Bogards on it and they're originally from Fatal Fury. King of Fighters basically mixes the characters from ever SNK franchise.