Has the "it's for kids' mentality been holding TMNT back?

[Werecat]

Yes the "its for kids" mentality is holding TMNT back because it is used as an excuse to not provide more depth to characters and the story.

How to Train Your Dragon 2 is critically acclaimed and has its dark moments so the "its for kids" mentality has no merit because it is only said by those who make excuses for poor work.

[Commenter 42]

Originally Posted by Werecat

Yes the "its for kids" mentality is holding TMNT back because it is used as an excuse to not provide more depth to characters and the story.

How to Train Your Dragon 2 is critically acclaimed and has its dark moments so the "its for kids" mentality has no merit because it is only said by those who make excuses for poor work.

How to Train Your Dragon and it's sequel, are kids films. They may have slightly more serious themes, but there is no denying the intended audience.

TMNT, done right, would be definitely be aimed at the 18 - 35 demo.

[Warhorse]

Originally Posted by Whatswiththeheadbands?

I think so. The mentatility that Turtles is for Kids, has made people in the general public not give Turtles the respect it deserves.

I'm sure the soccer moms who are so sure that the TMNT were created soley for the purpose of their precious, innocent little children might have something to do with how TMNT are marketed towards their little darlings.

[Commenter 42]

Originally Posted by Warhorse

I'm sure the soccer moms who are so sure that the TMNT were created soley for the purpose of their precious, innocent little children might have something to do with how TMNT are marketed towards their little darlings.

I'm sure today's "soccer moms" grew up with the TMNT, like everyone else in their 30's today.

[Sabacooza]

People today have gotten too soft and politically correct so everything nowadays offends them. It's hard to break away from all the stupid kiddie stuff not that I hate the Nick show or anything. I like it a lot actually regardless of some of it's shortcomings of late. I'd just like to see a more mature version as well. What could it hurt to try it?

[Metalwolf]

Originally Posted by Sabacooza

People today have gotten too soft and politically correct so everything nowadays offends them. It's hard to break away from all the stupid kiddie stuff not that I hate the Nick show or anything. I like it a lot actually regardless of some of it's shortcomings of late. I'd just like to see a more mature version as well. What could it hurt to try it?

They're afraid of pissing off the parents, as the parents won't allow their kids to see it if they do that. Ever notice how even some on here complain when the show tried to show some of the more scary stuff? Imagine that on a larger scale. Granted though these folks tend to have little kids and they try to let them watch something aimed at 7 and up, but Nick knows that parents won't make their kids stay away from something because they don't want to hurt their feelings, so Nick dumbs it down as much as possible.

And that's not mean in glowing terms about parents. Too many parents don't want to set limits because they are afraid of their children 'not liking them,' or seeing a child cry, so the child grows up entitled and thinking the world revolves around them, especially when parents make companies/other people kowtow to their demands.

I too want to see the Nick toon go into more deeper territory, as it would get rid of a lot of the goofier/extra MOTWs and might even make the ones we have a lot more engaging. Plus since it's aimed at an older audience, we'd likely get more coherent continuity and less of the hated plot amnesia to largely keep the characters as they are. That would be cool since I could see some of the neat plot stuff they could try, that they aren't even going to try here.

[TigerClaw]

As long as Nickelodeon holds the rights, We'll never see a more mature TMNT, I'm willing to bet that, Anything associated with TMNT, Has to get the approval of Nickelodeon, In order to sell it to Kids.

However, The IDW Comics, Even though I never read them, Appear to be somewhere between Kids and Mature.

[Turtle Park]

Originally Posted by TigerClaw

As long as Nickelodeon holds the rights, We'll never see a more mature TMNT, I'm willing to bet that, Anything associated with TMNT, Has to get the approval of Nickelodeon, In order to sell it to Kids.

However, The IDW Comics, Even though I never read them, Appear to be somewhere between Kids and Mature.

I agreed with you.

Nick TMNT is trying to balance between kids and mature, I mean...there still something serious in this version. But the main audience Nickelodeon target is kids, so the team can't go too far from this point.

The same thing both Nick and IDW are doing is, mix the history of TMNT(almost 30 years when the time they shows up).
About IDW comics, for some reason it feels like I'm watching(or reading)the animated series. It has the humor but also the gloomy side, and I can't stop myself to imagine their voice as 2k3 TMNT every time I read it.

[Panda_Kahn_fan]

My one question is though... where do you gauge the 'mature' line?

Look at IDW, it's pulling a lot of it's influence from the 'goofy' cartoon, yet it's built on the story of an entire family being murdered by an arrogant and bloodthirsty ninja master, then the father and sons being reincarnated out of their burning desire to seek revenge. That is inherently darker than a rat turned sentient seeking revenge for his dead master. Also, no we don't see the turtles hacking and slashing limbs off and blood flying everywhere, but I'm willing to bet most of the foot ninja and criminals those blades hit have fatal stab wounds, and the turtles killed their fare share of baddies. It's just not front and center when they do it.

So the question is- what is the mature you're looking for? If it's them killing, a lot of action films have clean kills with little blood- doesn't matter vital fluids and organs aren't spilling across the screen. A quick slash or cut, a few drops of blood, the foe drops dead. Severed heads from a katana and hacked limbs do not make something mature. 300, Watchmen, and Sin City weren't 'mature' in my eyes, they were just brutal and violent-a teenager's idea of 'mature'.

I've heard people say the Triceritons and federation in the fugitoid arc were 'better' in the Mirage version than in the 4kids version. Why, because the 4kids triceritons weren't jacked on drugs like some of the mirage ones were? And they didn't get a federation officer to betray her comrades because she was an addict? I thought the 4kids triceritons had a more complex culture and better development than their Mirage counterparts. Also, look at bishop- he turned one of his friends into a monster just to further his paranoid goal of stopping and alien invasion. Add in his other atrocities, and you get a pretty scary character 'wittle kiddy' show!

The 4kids series achieved a lot while trapped under the 'kiddie' label, the only thing was lacking was the blood, and the direct usage and mentioning of mature subjects. IDW has had a father getting drunk and abusing his son, Leo dealing with the idea that he killed somebody, Rocksteady and Bebop going on a bloodthirsty rampage and kill several foot soldiers. Heck, we saw Yoshi stab several ninjas through the chest! Would blood and gore and mentioning 'mature' subjects really have made any of that any better?

Ultimately, the question is; would a 'sin city' or '300 ' turtles really add anything to the mix, versus the violence and maturity of your typical action movie? Are some people really looking for maturity, or just blood and violence? I'm not asking to condemn anyone, I'm simply asking to get people to ask themselves.

[TigerClaw]

Didnt the IDW comics covered Casey Jones's back story? I think he was dealing with an abusive father, that's pretty mature in itself.

[Warhorse]

Originally Posted by Commenter 42

I'm sure today's "soccer moms" grew up with the TMNT, like everyone else in their 30's today.

Yeah, explains why the new Nick series is slowly turning into a modern take of the old toon.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

Originally Posted by Ravenshell

And that's Disney's red-headed stepchild. Probably why they didn't even put out the second half of the second season on DVD for 20 years. They really weren't crazy about us Gargs fans. (I'd like to see what other property they made that had a fan-con that ran 12 years, though.)

Disney, at least through the Eisner era, seemed a bit...grabby. They were riding high on their "second Golden Era" and started getting formulaic in their thinking, and that's when they dropped Pixar and started putting out drivel like Chicken Little and Brother Bear and Home on the Range. (As MsMarvelDuckie said.)

So it might be a matter of who's in charge and what kind of minds are on staff at the time (people who have a love for the property AND have good ideas) that would determine if they'd make a good TMNT series or not. If Diz for a hold of it during a slump, it might not do it any justice.

Too true. I'd like to think that they could do something really great with it, though, no matter who's in charge. There's so much there to work with already- they'd just have to adapt what's out there and put their own twist on it. And given what they did for Sleeping Beauty with Maleficent, I'd bet it would be pretty twisted indeed!

Also, I'd like to point out that Brother Bear was far from drivel. It was heart-felt and had a very deep theme and the story itself was quite mature, too.

Originally Posted by LeoRaph

Disney would be the worst possible thing to happen to TMNT, they would kiddify it up even more than it is now. Think about it, you're Disney you know a kids company...what would you choose as your primary version, cute or serious? The kids version would reign supreme and even if they did a mature version it would be heavily censored barely even reaching the standards of 2K3. Sure they did Gargoyles, and I loved what I saw when it was on but it was still a kids show and to be honest it was still underneath the level of 2K3.

We want a kids show AND a mature version. I don't believe Disney could do a mature version better than WB. WB do great versions of both and they DON'T hold back on the reality. These are ninjas with weapons which actually create a bloody mess, these are mutants forced to live out of normal society with no one else of their kind, freaks who know that is what people see, they are not heroes by choice they do what the have to do when they have to do it, they have no future that IS their reality. There is a lot of pain to their existence and many grey areas to explore. You think Disney has the balls to tell that story? I sure as hell don't.

WB would at least put as much effort into a more mature version as their kids version and give the characters the freedom they need. What's more they would be unique to the WB world and not drowned by the countless marvel/disney/starwars characters.

Not so. Disney may be a kids' franchise company on its surface, but it is FAR from JUST that. Ever see The Crying Game? A movie about a gay guy who ends up committing suicide (and a lot of other depressing, mature stuff in it) that was put out by one of Disney's studios. They have their own "adult" studios and projects, we just don't see them as much because they don't put the Disney "brand" on most of them. As it should be. And as pointed out earlier, Gargoyles most certainly WAS a Disney property, and it was FAR from "kiddified". I can see them doing a TMNT series or comic the same way. Heck, they revived Gargoyles in comics (under the original creator, even), and then Lexington came out as gay!

Do I think they have the balls to tell a mature TMNT story? Heck yeah, I do! When they can tell a story about Broadway accidentally shooting Elisa (and letting Dracon take the blame, BYW) they can certainly do TMNT as "mature". Or the story about Hakon the Viking chief and his thirst for vengeance and how it ultimately consumed him (literally!), or Demona's twisted views on humanity and where Gargoyles belong in the world, or even Xanatos and his finally finding redemption of sorts after all the terrible things he was responsible for- all because he fell in love and had a son. There was even an apocalyptic, dystopian story set in the future (much like SAINW) where the villain turned out to be- Lex! (A very resentful, bitter, and angry Lex, that is....) These are EXACTLY the sort of mature elements they could bring to TMNT, as well. I say, let them take a shot at it if they ever get the idea in their heads! (Or Nick wishes to sell the franchise.)

[victory_angel]

Originally Posted by MsMarvelDuckie

Too true. I'd like to think that they could do something really great with it, though, no matter who's in charge. There's so much there to work with already- they'd just have to adapt what's out there and put their own twist on it. And given what they did for Sleeping Beauty with Maleficent, I'd bet it would be pretty twisted indeed!

Also, I'd like to point out that Brother Bear was far from drivel. It was heart-felt and had a very deep theme and the story itself was quite mature, too.





Not so. Disney may be a kids' franchise company on its surface, but it is FAR from JUST that. Ever see The Crying Game? A movie about a gay guy who ends up committing suicide (and a lot of other depressing, mature stuff in it) that was put out by one of Disney's studios. They have their own "adult" studios and projects, we just don't see them as much because they don't put the Disney "brand" on most of them. As it should be. And as pointed out earlier, Gargoyles most certainly WAS a Disney property, and it was FAR from "kiddified". I can see them doing a TMNT series or comic the same way. Heck, they revived Gargoyles in comics (under the original creator, even), and then Lexington came out as gay!

Do I think they have the balls to tell a mature TMNT story? Heck yeah, I do! When they can tell a story about Broadway accidentally shooting Elisa (and letting Dracon take the blame, BYW) they can certainly do TMNT as "mature". Or the story about Hakon the Viking chief and his thirst for vengeance and how it ultimately consumed him (literally!), or Demona's twisted views on humanity and where Gargoyles belong in the world, or even Xanatos and his finally finding redemption of sorts after all the terrible things he was responsible for- all because he fell in love and had a son. There was even an apocalyptic, dystopian story set in the future (much like SAINW) where the villain turned out to be- Lex! (A very resentful, bitter, and angry Lex, that is....) These are EXACTLY the sort of mature elements they could bring to TMNT, as well. I say, let them take a shot at it if they ever get the idea in their heads! (Or Nick wishes to sell the franchise.)

Lets not forget Gargoyles: the Goliath Chronicals. I mean yeah that is kinda the Red Sky of the the Gargoyles universe, partiularly since nothing after the first episode is cannon to the orignal series.

But the end of the Gargoyles series has a three part episode called Hunter's Moon where the Gargoyle's existance is completely exposed to the city of New York and they are framed for blowing up the police station that Elisa worked at.

However in the Goliath Chronicals, one of the villains from the Hunter's Moon Trilogy comes back and an plays off the city's anger and fear about the Gargoyles and creates a group called the Quarry Men who are essentually modeled off the KKK.

Now something like that would never happen in the Nick Show, but it could happen in the IDW comics.

[Allio]

Originally Posted by TigerClaw

Didnt the IDW comics covered Casey Jones's back story? I think he was dealing with an abusive father, that's pretty mature in itself.

The comics have always gotten into mature subjects

[Ravenshell]

Originally Posted by MsMarvelDuckie

Also, I'd like to point out that Brother Bear was far from drivel. It was heart-felt and had a very deep theme and the story itself was quite mature, too.

This one never grabbed me (though the moose-run commentary was a laugh). While not outright drivel, it felt formulaic to me, downright boring for most of it, and Disney seemed to start acting like since a character death in Lion King made such a big impression, they started throwing it in everywhere. I'm a victim of feels when I watch anything... but I just didn't get that with BB.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

My point was that it was deeper and a good bit darker than some of the other fare of that time. I tend to think of it as exploring darker content, where we actually see the consequences of characters' choices and the actual "body" being shown after a character death. For example, Tarzan did it rather graphically with Clayton, where just a few years earlier, we never saw what became of Gaston in B&tB, even though they pretty much met the same end. Nowadays they are far less afraid to show a character's remains or even how they die (Clayton's was especially gruesome, compared to most.) Brother Bear seemed to be going along the same lines, where the mother bear is actually seen being killed, and then we see her body and how her death changes things. Personally, I liked it for the themes in it as much as the characters, and the use of nature as a vehicle for learning some life lessons.

This actually reminds me a bit of some of the Mirage issues from the Classics collections, like the one with Donnie and the others going out on a sort of vision quest, and releasing the trapped spirits of un-hatched dinosaur babies. Unlike Nick, Disney has a strong tradition of natural history and ecological awareness, which could serve well in doing some very mature and deep TMNT tales. (Sort of like Sons of the Silent Age.) Going back to some of their older films, especially, I could see using settings like the farm to do some very serious introspective stories from them, particularly if done in the vein of old movies like Old Yeller or the ORIGINAL version of Homeward Bound (aka The Incredible Journey). Very few people still remember that that movie was actually based on a book, too....

And let's not forget that they've done adaptations of some pretty serious stories in their animated films, too. Hunchback was full of some very dark imagery and themes, in spite of it being a "kids' movie". The original material was far more mature, of course, but Frolo's bigotry and the idea of oppression and the mistreatment of outcasts was very prevalent there. Not to mention the religious and spiritual imagery and undertones, which were surprising coming from a "kids' movie" company. That gargoyle turning into a grinning demon at the end as Frolo fell was just- well, Nick would probably never go there....

[victory_angel]

and it's recent film Big Hero Six had serious subject matter in it. Such as the choice between acting out of anger and rashonally solving the problem. Loss of someone you deeply care for and admire, depression brought on by that sense of loss, self sacrifice for the greater good. Who here couldn't see Leo, Raph, or even Mikey (though you might want something other then the Nick incarnation for that one) hauling Donnie upside down over their sholders like Todashi does with Hiro so he can get a new perspective.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

Yup! That's exactly the sort of thing I was thinking of!

[Warboss74]

Originally Posted by Panda_Kahn_fan

My one question is though... where do you gauge the 'mature' line?

Look at IDW, it's pulling a lot of it's influence from the 'goofy' cartoon, yet it's built on the story of an entire family being murdered by an arrogant and bloodthirsty ninja master, then the father and sons being reincarnated out of their burning desire to seek revenge. That is inherently darker than a rat turned sentient seeking revenge for his dead master. Also, no we don't see the turtles hacking and slashing limbs off and blood flying everywhere, but I'm willing to bet most of the foot ninja and criminals those blades hit have fatal stab wounds, and the turtles killed their fare share of baddies. It's just not front and center when they do it.

So the question is- what is the mature you're looking for? If it's them killing, a lot of action films have clean kills with little blood- doesn't matter vital fluids and organs aren't spilling across the screen. A quick slash or cut, a few drops of blood, the foe drops dead. Severed heads from a katana and hacked limbs do not make something mature. 300, Watchmen, and Sin City weren't 'mature' in my eyes, they were just brutal and violent-a teenager's idea of 'mature'.

I've heard people say the Triceritons and federation in the fugitoid arc were 'better' in the Mirage version than in the 4kids version. Why, because the 4kids triceritons weren't jacked on drugs like some of the mirage ones were? And they didn't get a federation officer to betray her comrades because she was an addict? I thought the 4kids triceritons had a more complex culture and better development than their Mirage counterparts. Also, look at bishop- he turned one of his friends into a monster just to further his paranoid goal of stopping and alien invasion. Add in his other atrocities, and you get a pretty scary character 'wittle kiddy' show!

The 4kids series achieved a lot while trapped under the 'kiddie' label, the only thing was lacking was the blood, and the direct usage and mentioning of mature subjects. IDW has had a father getting drunk and abusing his son, Leo dealing with the idea that he killed somebody, Rocksteady and Bebop going on a bloodthirsty rampage and kill several foot soldiers. Heck, we saw Yoshi stab several ninjas through the chest! Would blood and gore and mentioning 'mature' subjects really have made any of that any better?

Ultimately, the question is; would a 'sin city' or '300 ' turtles really add anything to the mix, versus the violence and maturity of your typical action movie? Are some people really looking for maturity, or just blood and violence? I'm not asking to condemn anyone, I'm simply asking to get people to ask themselves.

It's debatable whether the turtles have killed anyone in the IDW series. They made a big point about Slash being their first kill, but we know he survives. The Shredder makes a point to not have Dark Leo kill anybody which is in stark contrast to his run through everybody attitude. All the dark and mature things are being done by the villains in the series. Yoshi/Splinter has done some questionable things, but nothing so serious that they can't label him a good guy. There in lies the issue. The turtle's are trained in deadly combat, so let that take place. That to me is the brilliance in a lot of the Mirage work is that they take part in killing enemies, and they have to come to terms with/question what they've done.

[Coola Yagami]

Yeah people don't seem to get it when it comes to the killing thing. The Turtles kill, but they don't go super over the top like everyone seems to think. There isn't stuff like decapitation or brains and guts flying around as the turtles bathe in the blood of their enemies. That's just stupid and it's not that kind of story.

It's more like Leo and Raph stabbing and occassionaly impaling a bad guy or two, but more like a 'matter-of-fact' thing that happens during battle. Shredder aside, since he is a major character, anything the Turtles do against the Foot and minor bad guys isn't overly glorified and whatnot. It's just.. when Leo takes a random swipe at a bad guy, we actually see him CUT SOMEONE WITH HIS SWORD instead of the camera panning away, or doing that stupid 2K3 thing where a sword slash somehow knocks you back as if it was a punch to the face.

Surprisingly, even the first movie had Leo swipe Shredder across the arm. No blood, but it wasn't needed to get the point across and it shows that hey.... Leo's swords can actually cut things and if you mess with him, you risk getting sliced and not just kicked in the face.

I don't ask for bloody-as-hell fights in a movie, but don't insult the audience by having characters used sharp weapons that are just there for show.