Why didn't Next Mutation use any TMNT villains...?

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

Originally Posted by Jephael

Oh yea, I didn't think of him earlier. I can see them using too many Jaws jokes, which would get old fast!

As I said earlier, you proposed the 1987 following Archie from 1994 instead of Red Sky on the You Tube.

[Galactus]

Originally Posted by Old Hob

Because people would have cried foul that they were not the same character that they remembered.

Surely fans crying foul was inevitable with the presence of Venus and how different everything was presented. Obviously the audience they were shooting for was a new generation of kids who had little or no TMNT experience.

Originally Posted by Old Hob

There are no 100% sources but it has been long held. I'm trying to track things down still about it. The closest I could find at the moment is the TMNTpedia page.

I honestly believe this to be a myth. I could see April and The Shredder but the whole reason April wasn't in the show in the first place is that Kevin Eastman wanted to retire the character. I can't see anything more than an odd cameo from her at best.

Originally Posted by pannoni1

This was a time when anything '80s/early '90s was strictly uncool if taken too seriously, so Saban attempted to make a completely new direction with the show. If the villains were created by Shredder/Foot or if they turned out to be creations of something like the Utroms, that would be understandable. The villains belonged more in a Sentai show than being about Ninjas and Mutants. Van Mi feels more like a Rita Repiusa (ten thousand years old and a vampire) than Karai. If Van Mi was the special villain on the PRIS crossover, that would have worked, but it is just so disappointing in that Saban not only failed to release live action versions, but also create characters that are still in the realm of conquering the foot.

I've never gotten the comparison with Power Rangers or Super Sentai. Power Rangers had sparks fly whenever you hit them and by the time of Power Rangers in Space had much better writing. Frankly the writing was better in PR in comparison to The Next Mutation from the beginning. NM probably is what Power Rangers would be like if it was just Bulk & Skull.