1996 movie proposal?

[turkishproverb]

I keep hearing things batted about involving a 1996 live action proposal involving a "kirby turtle" but can never find any details. IS there any truth to it, and can anyone give me any info on this?

[Kendamu]

Well, I know for a fact that Kevin Eastman came up with a Kirby Turtle that was drawn to life. I don't know exactly when or for what the drawing was made for. Obviously he was never put into any stories, though.

[discordiatookie]

Roseangelo has some info here

And a picture from Kevin Eastman's artobiography (taken on a digital camera, so it aint the clearest, but you get the idea!!

[Kendamu]

An alternate dimension of gothic proportions, eh? That actually would've been really cool to see.

[odupianist]

Maybe they could use ideas from this suggested movie for the TMNT sequel...?

[Buffy]

Those Kirby designs are interesting; one of the designs makes me think of the alien creature from all those alien movies

[veemonjosh]

Originally Posted by Goongasnootch

Well, I know for a fact that Kevin Eastman came up with a Kirby Turtle that was drawn to life.

First you draw a circle,
Then you dot the eyes,
Add a great big smile, and Presto!
It's Kirby!

[turkishproverb]

Originally Posted by discordiatookie

Roseangelo has some info here

And a picture from Kevin Eastman's artobiography (taken on a digital camera, so it aint the clearest, but you get the idea!!

Wow. Cool, but very different from Eastman's normal work.

Looks like something by Jhonen Vasquez.

[Kendamu]

Originally Posted by veemonjosh

First you draw a circle,
Then you dot the eyes,
Add a great big smile, and Presto!
It's Kirby!

You win five Internets!

[Zachatello00]

About 6 years ago, Peter did a blog-esque series of posts called "blast to the past." In them, he explained that the original 4th movie was going to be called TMNT: the Next Mutation (perhaps it sounds familiar?). In the new movie, the ooze would be continuing to mutate the turtles and Splinter, giving each of them more Super hero type abilities. If I remember correctly, Raphael and Splinter could go "beastal" (similiar to a Hulk like state), Michelangelo had a shape shifting ability, and Donatello was developing telepathic abilities, but as a nasty side effect, was loosing his eyesight. I can't remember what Leo's ability was, though I can't shake the feeling that it was a Reed Richards like stretching ability. Also, each of the turtles were wearing different types of outfits. Mike was wearing more normal clothing, as he had the ability to turn himself into a human, and go topside for re-con stuff, Leo had a new agey sort of look, complete with a rising sun head band, Don had crafted a sort of visor (akin to cyclops' visor from the xmen) that allowed him to maximize what eyesight he had left so he could continue to see. Raph and Splinter both looked pretty much the same when they weren't "hulked up."

Obviously it fell through. I don't remember why, but Peter explained it in his blogs. A couple years later, when Saban teamed up with Mirage to do the live action turtle tv show, they used the name Next Mutation, which now referred not to the turtles continued changes, but to the introduction of a new mutant turtle in Venus De Milo. I'm not sure if they still have those blogs up or not at the website. I looked for it for a little while and couldn't find them. I bet we could convince Dan to put it back up though. Peter had concept drawings of each of the turtles as well, they were pretty neat. In the end though, I think I"m personally happier with the way things turned out.

[Ninjinister]

http://www.planetracers.com/blast/prblast0036.html
http://www.planetracers.com/blast/prblast0037.html
http://www.planetracers.com/blast/prblast0038.html
http://www.planetracers.com/blast/prblast0039.html
http://www.planetracers.com/blast/prblast0040.html

[Jester]

http://www.planetracers.com/blast/prblast0037.html

The “rising sun” bandana on Leo in this version actually comes from a much earlier costume redesign session. I kind of dig the “utility belt” Leo has in this drawing. I believe Leo’s new mutation was the ability to morph his skin into a kind of nearly impenetrable chrome-like surface (shades of Ben Boxer from Kirby’s “Kamandi” comics!).

-- Peter Laird

http://www.planetracers.com/blast/prblast0036.html

This is one of five pieces which were drawn by me and inked by Kevin as possible new takes on the main characters of the TMNT universe, as part of the development process for the never-filmed fourth TMNT movie. We had put our heads together at the request of the movie studio and came up with some tweaks for the guys -- we were calling it “TMNT: The Next Mutation”. (This was before the live-action TV show.) The general idea was that the mutagen was continuing to change the turtles and Splinter, giving them new abilities -- and new problems.

Don was given the least obvious mutation -- growing telekinetic and telepathic abilities, unfortunately counterpointed by diminishing eyesight (hence the vision-enhancing goggles). We also provided him with an updated “techno” version of his bo staff.

-- Peter Laird

http://www.planetracers.com/blast/prblast0039.html

We gave Mike a more “street” look because his new mutation gave him the ability to project a human appearance onto his turtle features, allowing him to interact freely with humans.

-- Peter Laird

http://www.planetracers.com/blast/prblast0040.html

One of our ideas was to give Raphael the ability to “morph” into what we were calling “Raptor Raph”, complete with big gnashy teeth and claws to complement his big gnashy personality. This was not much of a stretch, obviously. In retrospect, while this new approach was probably appropriate for Raph, it was also uncomfortably close to what we were proposing for Splinter.

http://www.planetracers.com/blast/prblast0038.html

We wanted to give Splinter a much more active part in the battles that the turtles fought, and so he was going to have the ability to morph into a big, lithe, muscular “super rat mutant” type of thing. Okay, it’s lame.

-- Peter Laird

There you go.

EDIT: Blast you S!!! But no matter.

[gobo]

I like Eastman's side of the story better.

[Jester]

Eastman's side? Explain yourself, Fraggle.

[Kendamu]

Originally Posted by gobo

I like Eastman's side of the story better.

Can you elaborate?

[Zachatello00]

Thanks guys, I knew those had to be around here somewhere.

[gobo]

The part about Kirby. That's all I meant. This X-Turtles thing seems a good deal less interesting.

[Ninjinister]

Blast to the Past is a great way to look back on things like Laird's concept of The Sliver and action figures that never made it. I think his blog is actually an evolution of BttP.

[Jester]

Originally Posted by gobo

The part about Kirby. That's all I meant. This X-Turtles thing seems a good deal less interesting

Indeed, exactly why I didn't like Red Sky's Super Mutations.

[discordiatookie]

Originally Posted by gobo

The part about Kirby. That's all I meant. This X-Turtles thing seems a good deal less interesting.

I don't think that its 'Eastman's side' and 'Laird's side'. More like two totally seperate movie proposals for a fourth film (and goodness knows how far apart they were thought of....) For all we know, they coulda came up with the ideas together