Is there a "toxicity" in this fandom?

[CyberCubed]

The funny thing is Baxter mutated into a fly turned out to be one of his most iconic forms for over 30 years. Yet at the time that episode was written in 1988, it was just intended to be a horror movie parody. In the same reason we also got Rex-1, who was a blatant Robocop parody. The Pizza Monsters was a blatant parody of Alien with them having almost the same designs.

As said most of us were kids when the original cartoon was airing so until we got older I had no idea almost all its concepts were sci-fi parodies/homages, a lot to older fiction.

So while the Nick cartoon did go overboard with horror movie parodies at some point, it's not really the first TMNT cartoon to do that.

[neatoman]

I'm not sure anyone anyone is disputing that though. It's just that in the Nick show you parodies of Friday the 13th, Harry and the Hendersons, Thing, Napoleon Dynamite, Elm Street/Carebears and Christine/Rat Fink right after each other. That's literally six episodes in a row dedicated to being parody or at least homages. If the Turducken episode is meant to be anything in particular, that makes seven.

Is that the most egregious use of parody in the franchise? I don't know, but it is very noticeable.

[Zog The Magnificent]

I still haven't really heard an argument that actually explains why the parodies and/or homages are a bad thing. It seems to go:

"The Nick show had a lot of horror parodies."

"Yes, and...?"

"That's bad."

"Because...?"

"Because there were a lot of them."

"But why is that bad?"

"The Nick show had a lot of them." Etc.

I still have not heard one actual reason WHY it's a bad thing. As far as I'm concerned, if they're well written (except that Bigfoot episode), then who cares? It's still a good episode that just so happens to be based on something else.

[neatoman]

I'm not really arguing that it's bad myself, I'm just pointing out why it may be perceived of as overdoing it.

[Coola Yagami]

Originally Posted by Zog The Magnificent

I still haven't really heard an argument that actually explains why the parodies and/or homages are a bad thing. It seems to go:

"The Nick show had a lot of horror parodies."

"Yes, and...?"

"That's bad."

"Because...?"

"Because there were a lot of them."

"But why is that bad?"

"The Nick show had a lot of them." Etc.

I still have not heard one actual reason WHY it's a bad thing. As far as I'm concerned, if they're well written (except that Bigfoot episode), then who cares? It's still a good episode that just so happens to be based on something else.

It's bad cause they were back to back. Spread em out. We didn't need a horror season.

[Sumac]

Originally Posted by Zog The Magnificent

I still haven't really heard an argument that actually explains why the parodies and/or homages are a bad thing. It seems to go:

"The Nick show had a lot of horror parodies."

"Yes, and...?"

"That's bad."

"Because...?"

"Because there were a lot of them."

"But why is that bad?"

"The Nick show had a lot of them." Etc.

I still have not heard one actual reason WHY it's a bad thing. As far as I'm concerned, if they're well written (except that Bigfoot episode), then who cares? It's still a good episode that just so happens to be based on something else.

I didn't like the tone and humor of the 2k12 series in general. Without remotely interesting plot, weakness of the writing was magnified, which made me even less interested in keeping up with it.

[Vegeta]

The horror parodies were torturous for me as it isn’t what I want from a TMNT show, especially not for half a season. Love spooky stuff, not from a sanitized Nick show. I’m unusually sensitive to bad pacing I admit. I restarted the idw run and I’m in the trial of krang arc and I didn’t remember everything after issue 50 struggling to find its nucleus for so long.

[CyberCubed]

All of TMNT stories are parodies or homages. The Notes of the Underground arc in 4kids is a parody of every underground mutant society and ancient civilization from the dawn of sci-fi media. Especially since they kept going back there.

Nano was a parody of every robot/nano story from sci-fi about a infant like robot trying to become more human and killing everyone. Garbageman ripped off that Batman:TAS episode that did the same thing. The entire Justice Force, etc.

[Zog The Magnificent]

Originally Posted by Coola Yagami

It's bad cause they were back to back. Spread em out. We didn't need a horror season.

This still doesn't feel like a very compelling argument. We didn't NOT need a horror season. If they're all together or spread out, what difference does it make? I fail to see why that makes them bad.

Originally Posted by Sumac

I didn't like the tone and humor of the 2k12 series in general. Without remotely interesting plot, weakness of the writing was magnified, which made me even less interested in keeping up with it.

Fair enough. Though we disagree to the quality of the writing (other than the wretched Bigfoot episode), I can understand not liking it simply because it just doesn't hit right, or you just don't like horror in general. Personally, horror is my favorite genre, so horror parodies are right up my ally, but I could understand how they might get tedious if it's something you're just not a fan of at all.

Originally Posted by Vegeta

The horror parodies were torturous for me as it isn’t what I want from a TMNT show, especially not for half a season. Love spooky stuff, not from a sanitized Nick show. I’m unusually sensitive to bad pacing I admit.

I'm not sure I agree with the idea that the Nick cartoon was "sanitized." That show could get downright DARK when it wanted too, and it took itself pretty seriously most of the time. I mean, until IDW, the only other version that killed off Splinter was the Mirage comics. And unlike pretty much every other version, the turtles ACTUALLY kill Shredder, in an homage to Mirage no less. Not to mention adapting Rat King's City at War plot, just to name another example. I would say the 2012 show was the most/second most serious version of the turltes as far as the cartoons go.

As far as just not liking horror, same as above. I can understand if that's just not your thing.

EDIT: And I completely forgot, the 2012 show is the only one that took a comparable amount of time at Northampton. The 2003 show just had a brief 2 parter, and IDW only had 4 issues. I actually didn't like it as much the first time I saw it, but after reading Mirage by the time I got around to watching it again, I realized what the point was and what they were going for, and was able to appreciate it a lot more.

[Andrew NDB]

Honestly, 2012 was the only cartoon whose "tone" I found any enjoyment in. It's way "darker" than 4Kids, for example, whose darkness was only superficial and outweighed by all of the nonsense they packed into it.

[Vegita-San]

whatever happened to the infamous ciro these days?

had breif fame as someone who re invented something, rather than created something of his own, and then vanished. wasn't a big fan of his in the end...but he did create one of the last good tmnt projects we'll ever get out of nick most likley.

and I agree. one or two of the horror stuff was fun. I remember liking the dream bears...but that was about it. other stuff was so out there, like monster april mom, and it never got followed up on, that it was pointless filler. and just served to satisfy the horror fetish this show seemed too have.


I still say this show doesn't always have too be dark. TMNT 2K3 was the perfect tone of seriousness and fun without being over the top dour. at least for the first four seasons. went way too cutesy with the art style in the finale season (and that odd appearance of karai at april's wedding was outright character assasination).....but for the most part, it was what I Wanted to see in a turtles series.

for the few things 2012 got right, it got alot wrong.

[Cowabung-Gal]

Originally Posted by Vegita-San

whatever happened to the infamous ciro these days?

Trigglypuff probably ate him.

[Sumac]

Originally Posted by Zog The Magnificent

Fair enough. Though we disagree to the quality of the writing (other than the wretched Bigfoot episode), I can understand not liking it simply because it just doesn't hit right, or you just don't like horror in general. Personally, horror is my favorite genre, so horror parodies are right up my ally, but I could understand how they might get tedious if it's something you're just not a fan of at all.

I didn't like writing quality of the show in general, starting with the Season 2 (I thought Season 1 was almost as good as 2k3) and it was made worse by boring parodies. And its not like I dislike horror, it is much worse: I am completely indifferent to it. Which means story becomes boring to me, whenever, it attempts to evoke horror tropes.

Originally Posted by Zog The Magnificent

I'm not sure I agree with the idea that the Nick cartoon was "sanitized." That show could get downright DARK when it wanted too, and it took itself pretty seriously most of the time.

Maybe I've missed said darkness behind Monster of the Week episodes and grotesque designs of said monsters. As for TMNT cartoon having people being killed...2k3 did that. Not with the main characters, but still.

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

Honestly, 2012 was the only cartoon whose "tone" I found any enjoyment in. It's way "darker" than 4Kids, for example, whose darkness was only superficial and outweighed by all of the nonsense they packed into it.

I think, we've watched really different shows.

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

Honestly, 2012 was the only cartoon whose "tone" I found any enjoyment in. It's way "darker" than 4Kids, for example, whose darkness was only superficial and outweighed by all of the nonsense they packed into it.

... That's... A really weird way to defend the 2012 show...

[Zog The Magnificent]

Originally Posted by Sumac

IMaybe I've missed said darkness behind Monster of the Week episodes and grotesque designs of said monsters. As for TMNT cartoon having people being killed...2k3 did that. Not with the main characters, but still.

Just to name a few:
-The copius amounts of body horror, and playing mutation as a serious and traumatising thing.

-an alien invasion plot that is once again played seriously, in terms of stakes for the Earth and the paranoia of invasion.

-The lenghts the villains are willing to go to, and DO go to.

-The fact that Timothy was mutated and never successfully cured.

-The downright psycopathic obsessiveness of the Shredder. He's not worse than Ch'rell in terms of scope, but he's played as a much more personal foe, and the things he does, including killing of Splinter, the kidnapping, brainwashing, and obsessive entitlement he has towards Karai, the fact that he is willing to let himself die along with the Earth just to kill Splinter, etc. The list goes on. He is played as a genuinely frightening psychopath who cares for nothing but himself, and who goes out of his way to hurt people who he feels wronged him.

-Slash's debut episode.

-Everything about this version of the Rat King.

-The fact that the whole situation with Karai, from her initial kidnapping, mutation, and brainwashing, is played entirely straight for just how much emotional anguish it causes for all involved, Splinter most of all, and not made light of.

- The horror episodes, whether you like them or not, are genuinely good horror homages, and are generally pretty creepy and effective. Though I'm sure we disagree on this point.

-The fact that Zog regains his senses, calls the Turtles out, then kills himself to ensure the Triceratons can make it to Earth.

-The fact that the Triceratons succeed in destroying the Earth. (Though even I'll admit that they ruined the moment with Casey's "This is awesome!" I suspect they wanted to balance out the darkness of everyone dying, but they went a little too far in that regard).

-Everything with the Aeons

-The fact that the Utroms were basically enslaved against their will the entire time.

-The fact that villains actually die in this series, and some do so onscreen, something not even the 2003 show did.

-The level of violence they were able to get away with in this show, far more than the 2003 show ever got away with (Shredder being decapitated, Zombie Shredder, Tiger Claw getting his arm cut off, seeing the Rat King's corpse, Splinter getting impaled, Kavaxas killing several people in pursuit of his goals, etc).

-The whole Kavaxas arc in general, especially Zombie Shredder.

-The fact that the good guys, INCLUDING the Turtles, kill people. This one seems like it should be especially important, since it's once of the biggest complaints that people have about every version of the turltes ever since Mirage. "The turtles never kill anyone!" Well, in this show, they do. The most notable, of course, being the fact that they all go into "Owari" explicitly trying to kill Shredder's henchmen, and the fact that Leo DOES straight up decapitate Shredder. Not even the IDW turtles have been able to kill someone directly.

Well, there's my list. So I guess there's one thing I agree with you on. We DID watch different shows.

[neatoman]

Not to derail the conversation, because my own argument here isn't really about whether or not the show had dark moments to begin with, but a lot that stuff just seemed kind of shallow and sloppy to me or at least that it tended to get undermined in some sense.

So let's take the Timothy thing as an example, is his mutation sad? Kind of but it's still more or less treated like a joke because it happened because he was being stupid. And is it true that he was never returned to human form? Yes but not for any logical reason, he isn't even talked about after a while and they figure out the cure for mutations, meaning it's more or less just an abandoned plot thread. In fact let's remember that while they try to hand wave the cure for mutations away as being resource intensive to make, the introductory episode of it shows that it only takes one drop to completely reverse mutations. So any instance of mutation being used as a source of drama is undermined when you know virtually none of the mutants really needed to stay mutants.

Yes, of the show tried to have dark moments and some of them might genuinely have worked but... Most of them are just so shallow and sloppy when you remember that they don't even make much sense with the world building. The Triceratons blowing up the earth is another one I could point to because it didn't last, they literally went back in time to prevent it from happening in the first place, why should I take it seriously?

[Zog The Magnificent]

Originally Posted by neatoman

Not to derail the conversation, because my own argument here isn't really about whether or not the show had dark moments to begin with, but a lot that stuff just seemed kind of shallow and sloppy to me or at least that it tended to get undermined in some sense.

So let's take the Timothy thing as an example, is his mutation sad? Kind of but it's still more or less treated like a joke because it happened because he was being stupid. And is it true that he was never returned to human form? Yes but not for any logical reason, he isn't even talked about after a while and they figure out the cure for mutations, meaning it's more or less just an abandoned plot thread. In fact let's remember that while they try to hand wave the cure for mutations away as being resource intensive to make, the introductory episode of it shows that it only takes one drop to completely reverse mutations. So any instance of mutation being used as a source of drama is undermined when you know virtually none of the mutants really needed to stay mutants.

Yes, of the show tried to have dark moments and some of them might genuinely have worked but... Most of them are just so shallow and sloppy when you remember that they don't even make much sense with the world building. The Triceratons blowing up the earth is another one I could point to because it didn't last, they literally went back in time to prevent it from happening in the first place, why should I take it seriously?

Before I say anything else, I have one question for you. Do you believe the 2003 show was darker and more serious in general? Because if your argument is that neither show did either very well, then that's one thing. If you think both were ultimately too kiddy or not very good or whatever, then that's really just an opinion and there's no point in taking the conversation further. However, if your argument is that the 2012 show didn't do it as well as the 2003 show, then that would be a different conversation, and one that would have the potential to yield some potentially interesting discussions.

[CyberCubed]

I think Timothy being mutated into Mutagen Man is sadder now that we know he was just left frozen on Don's wall and they never de-mutated him, so the kid basically signed his own death warrant. When the show was airing most of us thought the writers would de-mutate Timothy at some point, but since they never did, it makes his role in the show a tragic one.

The kid just wanted to look up to the Turtles, and although his character was purposely annoying, he meant well. So then he turned into a literal mutant monster, then was frozen...and then...left to rot. Who knows what happened after, given they show his canister at the bottom of that arena in the Mad max future episodes. So a tragic end.

[Cowabung-Gal]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

I think Timothy being mutated into Mutagen Man is sadder now that we know he was just left frozen on Don's wall and they never de-mutated him, so the kid basically signed his own death warrant. When the show was airing most of us thought the writers would de-mutate Timothy at some point, but since they never did, it makes his role in the show a tragic one.

I know. The guy had a family, probably a mom who’s still waiting for him to come home…

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by Zog The Magnificent

Before I say anything else, I have one question for you. Do you believe the 2003 show was darker and more serious in general? Because if your argument is that neither show did either very well, then that's one thing. If you think both were ultimately too kiddy or not very good or whatever, then that's really just an opinion and there's no point in taking the conversation further. However, if your argument is that the 2012 show didn't do it as well as the 2003 show, then that would be a different conversation, and one that would have the potential to yield some potentially interesting discussions.

Maybe not darker per se, there are definitely things like the constant mutilation of Baxter and SAINW that can can be comparable, but I'm more thinking about consistency. Part of the reason I find the 2012 show to be kind of frustrating to watch is because it just kind of throws in ideas that might seem good in isolation but just falls apart in the greater context of the show, a notably bad example being that what the Utroms are in relation to the Kraang is flipped in their second appearance, which is a needless and quite frankly bizarre contradiction that I don't even understand how it ended up in the show. By comparison, I would hardly call the 2003 show flawless but the ideas presented hold together much better and the plot largely makes more sense because it's more difficult for me to point out even a quarter as many bizarre things that don't make sense in the broader context.

So let's take the storyline with Ch'rell and compare it to the storyline of 2012 Shredder.

Here's Ch'rell's throughline before the season 5 retcons:

• He is a major crime boss in New York and he is looking for some mysterious enemies.
• Whoever his enemies are, they are very elusive and something about them makes the discovery of ancient super-tech uninteresting to him.
• He has access what appears to be a humanoid robot of a "unique origin" and a deliberately empty stomach cavity.
• His conflict with the Turtles comes from him initially suspecting them to be working for his enemies.
• He is revealed to be capable of handling a mysterious sword that others can only wield with the help of a special gauntlet.
• His conflict with the turtles escalates when they manage to defeat him in a way should have killed anyone else but not him.
• He decides to kill the Turtles in order to continue his search uninterrupted.
• When they return from hiding, it is revealed that is much older than any human could be and he somehow survived without his head.
• His enemies are subsequently revealed to be aliens and that he was a prisoner being transported before the ship crashed on earth.
• From this point his motives are made crystal clear, get off earth and conquer his homeworld.
• When he is seemingly killed again, Karai is forced to get the fighting factions under control while he is healing up, showing that unity is difficult to achieve without him.
• His moves after this are done to forge as many connections as he can in order to find a way off earth.
• When the Triceratons invade earth and some of their tech is left on earth, he using the connections to salvage the tech himself.
• With the Tech he builds a spaceship and is stopped at the last minute, leading to him being put on trial and sentenced.
• Without him, the factions once again split off.

Not without hiccups of course, it's not really clear how he survived TCRI's destruction for instance, but the core plot makes sense and so does his motives.

As 2012 Shredder, it goes like this:

• He has spent 15 years looking for Splinter, and only finds a clue in the form a shuriken, which prompts him to move his entire operation to New York.
• He gets two guys to try and get to Hamato Yoshi who both fail and he tries to do it himself instead.
• He almost gets to the Turtles but is distracted by his allies having been turned into monsters.
• These events lead to him deciding to destroy all of NY's sewer system which he never tries again because it failed once.
• When he finds out about Stockman, he forces him to work for him.
• When he finds out that aliens exist, it largely seems to disinterest him, even though he is warned that it might cause problems.
• It is revealed that he kidnapped Karai as infant and raised her to hate Splinter as a form of revenge.
• He then leaves to find a new ally who will be more useful than the ones he already has (who, let's be honest, turns out to not really be that competent once he shows back up), leaving Karai in charge for a while.
• After what's quite honestly just one single failure, he decides to mutate Baxter and it leads to no real consequence, Baxter remains totally loyal.
• When Karai finds out the truth, he uses her as bait for a mutation trap and when it goes wrong, he blames Splinter for it.
• He helps the Kraang mutate all of New York as part of his misguided revenge attempt.
• Even though by all logic he should think that he got what he wanted, he sticks around in New York anyway, even though he is told that is dumb idea and letting the Kraang do whatever they want could hurt him in the long run.
• He mutates Bebop and Rocksteady and just like with Baxter, somehow leads to him just getting loyal henchmen who really shouldn't be loyal to him.
• He then mind controls Karai, as to show that he still values her in some sense.
• Time Travel episode reveals he had a messed up ego from the start and always operated on nonsensical logic.
• When he is forced to work with Splinter to save the world, he betrays him for his own messed up ego and it destroys the world, including anything we know he valued and he could have easily waited like five seconds for his betrayal.
• When time is reversed and his betrayal is prevented, he is given some nerve pinches that somehow forces him to need mutagen specifically to recover and that turns him into a monster.
• As he is still shown to value things other than getting revenge on Splinter, he decides to get further modified to not care. But then a key part of his defeat is making him realising he still cares.
• Later the henchmen who were loyal despite having no real reason to be loyal are tricked into turning him into a zombie puppet, one who inexplicably regains some semblance of free will to go back to hell.

And keep in mind that this only isolates the main versions of the Shredder for simplicity's sake, if I were to try explain this in more detail, it might be more apparent that the 2012 show is the far more disjointed and awkward of the two. As for Shredder is depicted here, his motives are what exactly? Screw with a guy he pretends is to blame for all his problems because he values nothing else... Unless it's convenient for him to value other things or actually put logical thought into what he's doing? It's not like Ch'rell was a great character, he's actually a fairly shallow villain, but I understand the through line, what he is trying to achieve and what motivates his actions. It would of course be great if there were some layers to his character beyond "I want to get into space so I can conquer entire planets" but it does work just fine because nothing seems random. With 2012 Shredder it seems like the opposite, they wanted to make him layered but his actions don't follow a consistent logic for his ultimate goals beyond "I hate Splinter, so let's screw with him" are and he just kind of seems to be ending up in whatever situation the plots needs to, not because it follows any sort of natural plot development.

We can sort of think of it like this, the 2003 show is more or less written with the logic of "A leads to B, which leads to C", maybe not super exciting all the time but the core is still solid. While the 2012 shows seem to be written more like they wanted certain scenes or sub-plots but didn't really care how they were glued together, so kind of like "Let's do B then D, let's just figure out A and C later", for example the random development that allowed them to sure all of New York despite establishing that the cure can't be made in bulk, it's just really sloppy in that sense. They kept writing themselves into corners and it could get painfully bad at times.