Shifting power levels

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by pferreira

No they didn't have personalities. Leonardo was a leader, Raphael was just angry, Donatello was gadget man and Michaelangelo was the young Turtle. Wise added to their personalities, fleshing them out and developed their identities, the comics adopted these new traits. Check that nostalgia you have, it's clouding your judgement.

Wise again is not a hack and if you did a bit of research you'd discover a lot of the scripts by most writers generally were paying homage to 1950s sci-fi movies. Silver age comic books? Yeah right. I'm assuming Wise also did care about the show, he was heavily involved throughout and is still bitter about how the network treated him. Does that sound like someone who doesn't care?

What the hell are you talking about? The personalities were established by the micros, that's basically the whole reason those exist, to flesh out the characters. The show just made them easier for small children grasp.

As for you still claiming Wise isn't a hack, you didn't adress any of my points about his recycling of plots or failures to write scripts that fit the meager 20 minute run time. Instead you pointed out that I got his inspiration wrong as it was 50's B-movies rather than silver age comics, which doesn't even matter. It doesn't matter if Wise pulled from 50's B-movies or Silver Age comics because they both tended to have plots that were already considred overused and worn out by 1987. I'm pretty sure most children at the time had already seen shrinking ray episodes in many shows before they even got to Turtles.

And it's worth pointing out that since most of the man's scripts were transcribed from the works of others and recycled for multiple uses, that shows he probably didn't care. Writing a third of the show doesn't mean much when you did it by cheating.

Sure, he might be butthurt over bad treatment, but when he runs around basically saying:

"Everything everyone loves about TMNT was all me! **** Eastman and Laird, **** Steve Murphy, **** Jim Lawson, **** Steve Barron, **** 4Kids Entertainment, **** Nickelodeon, **** IDW, **** the voice cast of the show I worked and **** my fellow writers! Despite just being one writer on a show with dozens, not being the original creator and the property having gone through multiple iterations that all deviate from my work in major ways, my version of it still matters the most and was never topped!"

That implies something far more despicable than a disgruntled ex-employee...

[CyberCubed]

As for you still claiming Wise isn't a hack, you didn't adress any of my points about his recycling of plots or failures to write scripts that fit the meager 20 minute run time. Instead you pointed out that I got his inspiration wrong as it was 50's B-movies rather than silver age comics, which doesn't even matter. It doesn't matter if Wise pulled from 50's B-movies or Silver Age comics because they both tended to have plots that were already considred overused and worn out by 1987. I'm pretty sure most children at the time had already seen shrinking ray episodes in many shows before they even got to Turtles.

Literally all cartoons rehash stories from old movies/comics/TV shows.

You're kidding yourself if you think what's going on in other cartoons is something "new and never done before."

[Yabuturtle]

Can I be a moderator? Not one moderator has shown up and said that this is getting way off topic.

Because it is. Does anyone really care which turtle series is better? We all have our tastes. In some ways the 87 toon is better than the 03 and 12 toon and vice versa. Nothing to get steamed up about.

I think it's best if we save this for another topic. Or just move on.

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

The first season was animated by TOEI, why don't you ask them since they're an anime company who produces shows like Dragonball Z, Sailor Moon or One Piece?

I fail to how that's relevant.

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

The bandana errors still don't affect the animation quality of an episode. You're looking for coloring errors, not the actual animation. The show is nearly 30 years old and holds up better than any other animation show from that time period.

Two of them are much worse than simple soloring errors, the first one you should be able to what's wrong in a still image, the third was a layer error you'll really only notice when you see it in motion.

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

And there's nothing wrong with these plots. They were all done a different way almost each time, and the actual plot of the episode to solve the problem was done differently each time. The episode where Shredder/Krang are trying to freeze the earth by draining the sun isn't anywhere similar to episodes where they shrink the Turtles or bring movie characters to life.

Weren't there like five episodes of someone getting shrunken down? You don't think that's a little too much?

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

The plots are silly, sure, but that's the nature of the show. What's wrong with using ideas such as those in a show that's not intended to be a serious series?

The problem is not that they're silly, the problem is that it's the same crap again and again which we have seen in countless other cartoons and the show never did anything to push the bar for what could be done with them or really did anything all that different from any other cartoon.

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

That was the joke. And that scene was less than 2 minutes, not "half the episode" or whatever you're trying to claim.

That was the house cleaning in Turtles Everywhere I claimed went on for too long, the pointless break-out was more about how it's just the scene is boring filler. That's really my problem with both, they're boring filler scenes in 20 minute long cartoon episodes that are meant to be self contained, self contained tv episodes that are 20 minutes long should not need filler scenes.

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Pizza topping jokes are what you're complaining about? A harmless gag that went on no more than a minute or less for an episode?

The running gag about pizza toppings was not funny, yet it was in most of the episodes and I just asked why a joke that wasn't especially funny in the first place needed to be repeated so often.

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Literally all cartoons rehash stories from old movies/comics/TV shows.

You're kidding yourself if you think what's going on in other cartoons is something "new and never done before."

Yes, most cartoons do but I think this one did it too often and rather poorly.

[CyberCubed]

Originally Posted by neatoman

I fail to how that's relevant.

Because TOEI is a popular anime company and at the same time in 1987 they were producing the Dragonball anime. You're talking about a professional Japanese animation studio who made the mistakes.

Weren't there like five episodes of someone getting shrunken down? You don't think that's a little too much?

There was the main episode where they get shrunk in Season 2, and the only other one I can think of is that filler ep where some guy who collects boats shrunk Michaelangelo down. I agree that second episode was fairly boring, but it was from some random writer. I don't think there's any other episode.

The problem is not that they're silly, the problem is that it's the same crap again and again which we have seen in countless other cartoons and the show never did anything to push the bar for what could be done with them or really did anything all that different from any other cartoon.

These are all staples of superhero cartoons though. Even JLU did a body transfer plot between Flash and Lex Luthor, and that episode aired in 2006! And as I said, the actual plots of the episodes and how the episodes reached their conclusion was different each time.

The episode where the Earth was being pulled toward the sun and everything was heating up was completely different from the episode where they were flooding New York with ocean water making it a sunken city. The Turtles didn't always break into the Technodrome every ep, they did different things and the destination from point A to point B was always different.

Again, I know these are silly plots that wouldn't fly in a more serious cartoon, but again, the OT wasn't trying to be a serious show so it didn't matter.

That was the house cleaning in Turtles Everywhere I claimed went on for too long, the pointless break-out was more about how it's just the scene is boring filler. That's really my problem with both, they're boring filler scenes in 20 minute long cartoon episodes that are meant to be self contained, self contained tv episodes that are 20 minutes long should not need filler scenes.

While I don't remember that episode too well, the OT didn't have long extended fight scenes like modern shows have so they filled the scenes with other common household stuff. Even then I don't remember it being too common in other episodes. I have no problem seeing the Turtles rent VHS tapes to watch monster movies, etc...it makes them look "normal" like they're not just sitting around waiting for Shredder to take over the world again.

The 2k3 series also showed them have leisure moments in the lair not really doing anything important like Mike bagging comics or playing videogames.

The running gag about pizza toppings was not funny, yet it was in most of the episodes and I just asked why a joke that wasn't especially funny in the first place needed to be repeated so often.

This wasn't in every episode, and when it was it was always brief and went by quickly. Most cartoons of that era had running gags that were repeated. I'd love to see what you think of the Pokemon anime since it does the same exact thing.

Yes, most cartoons do but I think this one did it too often and rather poorly.

The original cartoon came out in 1987, DC/Marvel comics were only just starting to get serious at the time (1986 was when DC had their crisis for example), and look at Superfriends that aired in the early 80's, or the old 80's Spiderman cartoon. Those shows had awful animation, dull plots, and main characters with no personality. Batman and Superman had the same personality in Superfriends, you could not tell the difference. All the Turtles and villains all had distinct and unique personalities in the original cartoon.

[pferreira]

Originally Posted by neatoman

What the hell are you talking about? The personalities were established by the micros, that's basically the whole reason those exist, to flesh out the characters. The show just made them easier for small children grasp.

If I look at Issues 5-8 I don't see where all this personality you talk about exists. You have a good point about the micro series, I never thought about that but it wasn't part of the ongoing series so I can't really count that.

Originally Posted by neatoman

As for you still claiming Wise isn't a hack, you didn't adress any of my points about his recycling of plots or failures to write scripts that fit the meager 20 minute run time. Instead you pointed out that I got his inspiration wrong as it was 50's B-movies rather than silver age comics, which doesn't even matter. It doesn't matter if Wise pulled from 50's B-movies or Silver Age comics because they both tended to have plots that were already considred overused and worn out by 1987. I'm pretty sure most children at the time had already seen shrinking ray episodes in many shows before they even got to Turtles.

And it's worth pointing out that since most of the man's scripts were transcribed from the works of others and recycled for multiple uses, that shows he probably didn't care. Writing a third of the show doesn't mean much when you did it by cheating.

He cared enough to write finales, he cared enough that he ended up being forced to leave because he didn't like how the network wanted the Turtles written. And I still don't understand where all this talk about recycling scripts comes from. Yeah ok Wise is known to reuse his own past ideas but he always does something differently with his ideas. Most writers are like that. Not sure why you're singling him out over other writers. Also his script ideas couldn't really be considered "overused and worn out" if they were homages right? In today's movies and cartoons people reference stuff like the 80s Turtles or Ghostbusters, He-Man whatever. I didn't mean little references, I mean they say they want to create the next Ninja Turtles or Ghostbusters through structure and content.

Originally Posted by neatoman

Sure, he might be butthurt over bad treatment, but when he runs around basically saying:

"Everything everyone loves about TMNT was all me! **** Eastman and Laird, **** Steve Murphy, **** Jim Lawson, **** Steve Barron, **** 4Kids Entertainment, **** Nickelodeon, **** IDW, **** the voice cast of the show I worked and **** my fellow writers! Despite just being one writer on a show with dozens, not being the original creator and the property having gone through multiple iterations that all deviate from my work in major ways, my version of it still matters the most and was never topped!"

That implies something far more despicable than a disgruntled ex-employee...

Ok yeah Wise does tend to exaggerate his involvement but again like I said it's because the show meant a lot to him. I mean he wrote for it for 9 years! Of course he feels an entitlement over it. Also some of his views regarding the 80s series totally go against your perception of him. One example off the top of my head is him not being happy with Jack Mendelsohn adding more comedy to the show, making it more family friendly so he actually agrees with you about there being too much comedy in the show.

[ToTheNines]

Originally Posted by pferreira

If I look at Issues 5-8 I don't see where all this personality you talk about exists. You have a good point about the micro series, I never thought about that but it wasn't part of the ongoing series so I can't really count that.

They've been collected with 1-11 at every turn and are absolutely part of the ongoing narrative. You're officially reaching.

[Powder]

Yeah, their events are directly referenced/continued in the otherwise numbered issues.

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by pferreira

If I look at Issues 5-8 I don't see where all this personality you talk about exists. You have a good point about the micro series, I never thought about that but it wasn't part of the ongoing series so I can't really count that.

Uh, no. As already stated by ToTheNines and Powder, the micros certainly count.

Originally Posted by pferreira

He cared enough to write finales, he cared enough that he ended up being forced to leave because he didn't like how the network wanted the Turtles written. And I still don't understand where all this talk about recycling scripts comes from. Yeah ok Wise is known to reuse his own past ideas but he always does something differently with his ideas. Most writers are like that. Not sure why you're singling him out over other writers. Also his script ideas couldn't really be considered "overused and worn out" if they were homages right? In today's movies and cartoons people reference stuff like the 80s Turtles or Ghostbusters, He-Man whatever. I didn't mean little references, I mean they say they want to create the next Ninja Turtles or Ghostbusters through structure and content.

Ok yeah Wise does tend to exaggerate his involvement but again like I said it's because the show meant a lot to him. I mean he wrote for it for 9 years! Of course he feels an entitlement over it. Also some of his views regarding the 80s series totally go against your perception of him. One example off the top of my head is him not being happy with Jack Mendelsohn adding more comedy to the show, making it more family friendly so he actually agrees with you about there being too much comedy in the show.

David Wise's scripts don't just happen to be sort of similair to each other, they're undeniably recycled. If have the time you can compare the following of TV episodes that he scripted:

1. Transformers, Kremzeek
2. TMNT, The Big ZIPP Attack
3. Mighty Ducks, Zap Attack

All three are way too similar to just be cute little homages.

[pferreira]

Originally Posted by ToTheNines

They've been collected with 1-11 at every turn and are absolutely part of the ongoing narrative. You're officially reaching.

Well it's kind of weird, I never noticed the huge character development in the early issues. As I said Wise brought much more than as was in the comics. A lot of what personality was in the 80s cartoon was then integrated into the Mirage comics, then taken for the other media. Remember this is the mid-1980s and Turtles was still pretty new. The groundwork hadn't been laid out yet.

[pferreira]

Originally Posted by neatoman

David Wise's scripts don't just happen to be sort of similair to each other, they're undeniably recycled. If have the time you can compare the following of TV episodes that he scripted:

1. Transformers, Kremzeek
2. TMNT, The Big ZIPP Attack
3. Mighty Ducks, Zap Attack

All three are way too similar to just be cute little homages.

When you are writing hours of TV yeah you're going to recycle scripts. Planet of the Turtles vs Planet of the Turtleloids is an example. But when you have 65 episodes to write it can happen. It's not unknown in TV for writers working on multiple projects to reuse ideas. I mean Douglas Adams is seen as a genius but he recycled a lot of his Hitchhiker ideas with Doctor Who. It's not uncommon. I'm sure they're lots of other writers who do that. Star Trek did it all the time, does that mean it's full of hack writers?

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by pferreira

When you are writing hours of TV yeah you're going to recycle scripts. Planet of the Turtles vs Planet of the Turtleloids is an example. But when you have 65 episodes to write it can happen. It's not unknown in TV for writers working on multiple projects to reuse ideas. I mean Douglas Adams is seen as a genius but he recycled a lot of his Hitchhiker ideas with Doctor Who. It's not uncommon. I'm sure they're lots of other writers who do that. Star Trek did it all the time, does that mean it's full of hack writers?

Planet of the Turtles and Planet of the Turtleloids had different writers, similarites are probably unintentional, so I don't have the same problem with that.

There's nothing wrong with using the same ideas but Wise didn't just reuse ideas, he reused the scripts themselves. The three episodes listed aren't just similar, they're the same, beat for beat.

[Powder]

Originally Posted by pferreira

A lot of what personality was in the 80s cartoon was then integrated into the Mirage comics, then taken for the other media. Remember this is the mid-1980s and Turtles was still pretty new. The groundwork hadn't been laid out yet.

Utter horse sh*t. You're a reprehensible FW fanboy.

[Wesley]

Originally Posted by Yabuturtle

It would probably be best if we save this for another topic. Some think the 87 toon is garbage, others think it's great. I think it's a good cartoon. It has faults like any other toon but it was great for the time. Some of it's dated but still has funny jokes, especially 4th wall ones and the banter from Shredder and Krang alone could make a great spin off. xD

But in this topic, I just wonder how villains can be tough and then turn out to be wimps. Sometimes when they turn into wimps, they become threatening again. Bebop and Rocksteady for example shift back and forth. Becoming threats and then later push overs.

I agree with what Yabuturtle said in the first paragraph. We need to get back on topic. I think the reason why the villains seem threatening in one episode and a joke in another one is down to different writers. It is odd to see Shredder protrayed as a serious threat in Ninja Sword of Nowhere and shown to be a joke in Mutagen Monster.

[Yabuturtle]

Originally Posted by Wesley

I agree with what Yabuturtle said in the first paragraph. We need to get back on topic. I think the reason why the villains seem threatening in one episode and a joke in another one is down to different writers. It is odd to see Shredder protrayed as a serious threat in Ninja Sword of Nowhere and shown to be a joke in Mutagen Monster.

Thank you! It is very nice to know someone listened!

It is most likely due to different writers. Thankfully in the red sky season Shredder and company became a little more threatening. I do wish Krang had his android body in the red sky season. We probably could have seen him toss the turtles around, change his hands into so many weapons and even grow to the size of Godzilla again.

General Tragg however was pretty consistent. About every time the Turtles fought him, they always struggled against him.

[CyberCubed]

I want this thread locked right now.

[ToTheNines]

Originally Posted by pferreira

Well it's kind of weird, I never noticed the huge character development in the early issues. As I said Wise brought much more than as was in the comics. A lot of what personality was in the 80s cartoon was then integrated into the Mirage comics, then taken for the other media. Remember this is the mid-1980s and Turtles was still pretty new. The groundwork hadn't been laid out yet.

You ain't gotta lie dude. Mirage WAS the groundwork. David Wise and company certainly had some original ideas and added to the mythos, but they did not invent the TMNT.

Even if you want to make believe that Mirage turtles didn't have personalities until 1991 or whatever, outside of the archetypes Mirage Leo is very different from FW Leo, Mirage Raph is very different from FW Raph, etc. etc. all the way down the cast list.

Originally Posted by Powder

Utter horse sh*t. You're a reprehensible FW fanboy.

Yup yup.

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

I want this thread locked right now.

[ToTheNines]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

I want this thread locked right now.

Wish in one hand, sh*t in the other..





And then eat the sh*t.

[TurtleGuy]

How did we go from talking about shifting power levels to yet another Fred Wolf vs Mirage argument?

Seriously, guys. What the hell?