Another movie from Platinum Dunes in the works - new writer hired

[TigerClaw]

Originally Posted by Leo656

No more goddamn live-action cartoons. It's a broken premise for this brand. We've had exactly ONE adaptation that wasn't a cartoon either literally or metaphorically (and some would argue that the 1990 film is still at least "half a cartoon"). It's been done. Never well. People love to pull out the "_______ and Movies are not the same" card, and so I'm dropping it now. Cartoons and Movies are not the same, and what is "charming" in one arena is absolutely puke-inducing elsewhere.

No more live-action cartoons. If you're not actually going to try and do anything constructive with the brand except sell toys exclusively, then maybe it's altogether time to stop making movies about it. Which is what I've been saying since the last one and will continue to say until "forever" as I don't have any faith in Hollywood to do it properly.

I'd rather never see a TMNT movie made for the entirety of the remainder humankind's existence on this planet, rather than yet another goddamn cartoon riff when we've had about 80 of them across all media. I'd rather see the entire brand die and its ashes shot into the sun, and I mean that with absolute sincerity.



Why do we not have a vomit emoji? That's the exact opposite of what a TMNT movie should be. On every single conceivable level. From the toothless "threats" to the cornball "villains" to the constant need to stop and crack jokes even while supposedly serious things are happening, to how brightly-lit and over-saturated with color everything is, to the basic premise being a $200 million CGI bonanza where the Boss Fight is either a hole in the sky or a video game character. And what's worse, that's exactly what they tried to do with the last movie and it didn't even come close to working. I mean yeah, a handful of people were jizzing themselves over finally getting Bebop and Rocksteady, but the thing absolutely bombed at the box office, which means that most people who watched the trailers decided for themselves, "This looks awful, I'm staying home". So I swear, we need to start collectively having better priorities with regard to what this franchise needs to do. Or else it's going to die and it will DESERVE to.

A TMNT movie should have nothing at all in common with a MCU movie. Or any super-hero movie, really. They're not even the same thing conceptually. I don't think it even needs to be said anymore that a big problem with TMNT movies in general is that they keep trying to make them into "super-hero movies" and make them a "blockbuster movie franchise" when that can't happen anyway since they don't even fit the "blockbuster" template. Nor should they.

The last movie did its absolute best to be "A Marvel Movie" AND a cartoon pastiche, and it tanked hard and made about half of what the previous one did. Both BayTurtles movies are choking up $5 bins everywhere. I can't fathom even a little bit why anyone would see a path to success in that formula at all. It's not even a case where like with some movies, "Well, they're divisive but they still made money". The last movie was a failure at every single level: People didn't care enough to go see it, AND it lost a fortune. Can we stop pretending that More Jokes and More Bebop is what this franchise needs? That's pretty well proven to be a fallacy once and for all.

The only time a TMNT movie ever got good reviews AND was liked by most fans AND made money, was the very first one. Ever since then, it's been "more cartoon sh*t" and the results speak for themselves. The only thing they can OR should even attempt to do, is go completely back to Square One, scrape off all the cartoon "barnacles" and try playing it "straight" for once. Forget about making $500 million and aim for something a lot smaller, more intimate, and character-based. It doesn't even have to be "gritty", since people love to play the Extremes Game with this brand and pretend it has to be All Goofy or Violent Bloodbath; it should just at the very least feel like it wasn't written in a goddamn board meeting with some McDonald's nitwit tossing out story ideas. Which is what they've ALL been except for the first one.

Problem is, you're always gonna have one or two "But I want muh Krang" people poisoning the well. And that means we're ONLY gonna get more "cartoon junk" if they keep making TMNT movies. Because the people making them think we're all idiots and we collectively do very little to prove them wrong.

This is why the fandom is split. I want TMNT done in a certain way and you want it done in a certain way. There is no right or wrong way to approach it.

IDW has become the template to make a good TMNT movie based how they developed the story and characters.

[Leo656]

No, you're incorrect. Not about the fandom being split, but that there's no "Right" or "Wrong" way to do a movie.

They've tried to make the cartoons into a movie six times. It doesn't work. They went ALL-IN on it with the last one and it didn't just "fail", it self-destructed.

The definition of "Insanity" is doing the exact same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result.

The "Right Approach" would be in trying THE OPPOSITE of what they've been trying and failing to do for the last 25 years.

There IS a "Right Way", they just don't want to even attempt it because there's always gonna be someone banging the "We Need More Bebop" drum.

So, yeah, no, you're absolutely incorrect. Has nothing to do with You nor I; everything to do with, That Way Doesn't Work. And they need to get away from that approach.

OR, they could gamble it all on Krang again and throw another $200 million in the sh*tter. Worked great last time!

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

At this point, I genuinely don't know why TMNT as a brand or a property is still viable.

The comics are going well enough, but at this point in entertainment, I don't think IP can flourish past a certain point outside of comics. Does The Walking Dead make most of its money from comics, or the TV show and video games? Willing to bet the comic cash is a drop in the bucket.

What about Batman or X-Men comics, versus the shows, movies, toys, and merchandise?

So if comics aren't the way to make bank with a franchise, and it's all about the media and merch... your media better be damn impressive. The Nick cartoon may not have been my cup of tea, but it did well enough, right? Kids and adults both liked it. But it's over now.

Does anyone watch Rise? This isn't a slag, this is a question. I don't see that many of the toys or merch in stores, and the release schedule for the episodes has been pretty spotty from what I hear.

And the movies tanked; failed, shat the bed; crashed and burned in spectacular fashion.

Right about now, it seems evident that the brand is lagging. It either needs a kickstart (which seems unlikely) or it needs to go away for awhile, before getting rebooted again ala 4Kids or 2k12. And if a schmuck like me can ask these questions, you can bet the suits in Nickelodeon are doing the same.

Anyway. This concludes my op-ed. Professor Cylons thanks you for your time.

[IndigoErth]

Originally Posted by Leo656

OR, they could gamble it all on Krang again and throw another $200 million in the sh*tter. Worked great last time!

Bringing Krang into it could have been okay-ish imo had he -- and all of the time and money spent including him -- not been entirely wasted. They could have used him for a classic alien invasion style movie, with the TMNT being the heroes that save the city/world, but instead they treated it like a video game, where they do all this other junk through most of it and Krang was just the final boss fight, instead of actually posing any kind of real threat throughout the movie. If Krang was to show up in a TMNT film one day, these were the wrong people to do it.

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy

At this point, I genuinely don't know why TMNT as a brand or a property is still viable.

The brand's not going to last forever. All it has carrying it right now is nostalgia, and the sincere adoration of Fans Of A Certain Age. I'll be shocked if it's still anything but an action figure line aimed at nostalgia collectors, in another 20-30 years.

Collectively, our kids won't care as much as we do/did about the brand. TMNT isn't going to be a lifelong obsession for them the way it is/was with Us, it's just going to be one of a hundred other things they liked a lot when they were young, then stopped caring about once they aged out of it, and pretended they never liked much at all once they get to the age of being "Too Cool for it".

And that's 100% because when we were kids, they had multiple TMNT iterations so the property "grew up" with its fans. In 2020, all the pen-holders know how to do is remind everybody about 1989. But the actual quality of the TMNT movies and shows is all aimed at little kids; the ONLY appeal for anyone over the age of 10 to even look at the things they're making now, is, "Well, I've always liked the brand." NOT because those movies and shows are of quality, or hold genuine and sincere appeal for those 30-somethings; they're not, and they don't, but they'll give a quick Nostalgia Buzz if you're a certain type of fan and that's all they even try to do. And that's "fine", but liking TMNT shouldn't be a "hold your nose and take your medicine" kind of affair.

As it is now, TMNT in its current form is officially one of those things you're supposed to watch for a bit when you're 8, then move on from. That was not the case when WE were kids, but that's the state of things now, and that's what the audience is doing, and that's why the brand is going to die off. Maybe not tomorrow but sooner than anyone thinks. The people running the brand don't know how to make a sincere connection with any audience, nor are they trying to; ALL they want to do is keep little kids out of Mommy's hair for a half hour. You can't maintain a so-called "evergreen" property that way.

Look at the actual data, whether it be here, on FB, or do a little legwork on Google: They SAY TMNT is a "kids brand", but are kids actually the ones watching the shows, going to the movies, buying the toys? No, No, and No. SOME kids do, for a little while, once they're too old for Paw Patrol and before they get a little older and become Marvel fanatics instead; but the vast majority of people consuming TMNT products Right Now are the same people who were doing so 30 years ago. The EXACT same people. ALL the money flowing into the brand is from the same people who fell in love with it in 1988, save for a few outliers who've stumbled into it along the way (and are still a vast minority in the Big Picture). To our kids, TMNT is just a fad in between other fads they got into briefly and then forgot about. They don't care. They're not going to. And why should they, anyway?

Whether anyone likes it or not, the whole thing dies with us. When the 30/40-somethings stop caring and eventually slowly pass away, the "next generation" isn't going to be banging the drum to keep the TMNT "brand" alive. They were given no reason to care, so they don't care. THAT is what's going to happen. So if you're confused as to How or Why TMNT remains a "viable" brand in 2020... don't "worry", eventually it won't be.

Don't take that to mean that the brand is going to vanish entirely. I don't think that; I think it's simply going to be like Thundercats generally is, or what He-Man/MOTU is most of the time: A toy license that comes around every few years to sell $50 action figures to adult collectors with nostalgia boners. At some point, though, I completely expect that the comic books and cartoons and movies will all stop entirely. I mean, they'll have to stop once it becomes obvious that they don't sell. But the one avenue where TMNT has proven to be a consistent winner is the toys, and as stated even brands like Thundercats, where nobody's asking for a new cartoon and a movie would likely bomb harder than anything ever made, have proven that they can do huge business in short spurts every few years selling plastic to grown-ups who never grew up.

So yeah, that's the future of the TMNT brand circa 2040 or so. Maybe sooner. But that's the inevitability: No movies, no cartoons, not even any comics, just lots and lots of collectible action figures.

Honestly, I'll take that "Dark Future". If everything ELSE has to be junk but the toys can at least be cool, then whatever, that's fine.

But its the only way things can turn out, because they HAD a chance to grow a New Generation of TMNT fans over the last 20 years and they completely wasted it.

[TigerClaw]

Whoever they get to do the next TMNT Movie. It has to be someone who actually cares. The new TMNT movie needs somebody like a Jeff Fowler. The director of the Sonic Movie. He loved Sonic and made a good movie out of it despite the issues with the first design of the character. But that movie turned out to be extremely successful. And it shows if you have somebody involved who actually cares about it.

So whoever they hire to make the next TMNT film. It better be someone who knows about TMNT and I hope they take inspiration from the IDW comics. Which are at this moment the standard for how TMNT should be done.

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by TigerClaw

So whoever they hire to make the next TMNT film. It better be someone who knows about TMNT and I hope they take inspiration from the IDW comics. Which are at this moment the standard for how TMNT should be done.

- Dozens of random mutant characters, so that the TMNT are not in any way special.

- An unwieldy supporting cast which often threatens to make the Turtles "guest stars" in their own title.

- Inconsistent character motivations.

- Subplots which go on forever before being brushed aside without ever being resolved to any satisfactory conclusion.

- A firm "PG" mandate from the corporate office.

- Cramming stuff from various disconnected TMNT lines that have nothing to do with each other, just to make someone go "Hey! I remember that from when I was a kid!"

- When things get slow, add a Fifth Turtle and make sure she's got a uterus, because it's totally about Story and not being desperate for attention, at all.

........THAT is how TMNT "should be done"? Sorry, I think you're alone on that island. The only "standard" it seems to uphold is, "TMNT is generally a mess. Here's One More Mess." Maybe it's more of a delightful mess than a tragic one, but... "The way it SHOULD be done"?! Holy sh*t, I think I cracked a rib.

I know lots of people who like the IDW comic just fine - while they're always, ALWAYS being sure to add the "Y'know... for what it is" qualifier. But I've never heard anyone EVER say "This is the perfect example of what TMNT should be." That's... well, "It Is What It Is."

[PizzaPower1985]

Originally Posted by CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy

At this point, I genuinely don't know why TMNT as a brand or a property is still viable.

The comics are going well enough, but at this point in entertainment, I don't think IP can flourish past a certain point outside of comics. Does The Walking Dead make most of its money from comics, or the TV show and video games? Willing to bet the comic cash is a drop in the bucket.

What about Batman or X-Men comics, versus the shows, movies, toys, and merchandise?

So if comics aren't the way to make bank with a franchise, and it's all about the media and merch... your media better be damn impressive. The Nick cartoon may not have been my cup of tea, but it did well enough, right? Kids and adults both liked it. But it's over now.

Does anyone watch Rise? This isn't a slag, this is a question. I don't see that many of the toys or merch in stores, and the release schedule for the episodes has been pretty spotty from what I hear.

And the movies tanked; failed, shat the bed; crashed and burned in spectacular fashion.

Right about now, it seems evident that the brand is lagging. It either needs a kickstart (which seems unlikely) or it needs to go away for awhile, before getting rebooted again ala 4Kids or 2k12. And if a schmuck like me can ask these questions, you can bet the suits in Nickelodeon are doing the same.

Anyway. This concludes my op-ed. Professor Cylons thanks you for your time.

I was thinking about this yesterday... as with Superman, Batman, Spidey (any decades long superhero that has had a gazillion adaptations)... where does the franchise go from here?

There IS only 1 solution. Uno, singular. 1 final attempt that will be new. A straight, near humorless (humor can come from the absurdity), balls-to-the-wall riff on Mirage. No multi-colored masks, no pizza, and at this point, maybe not even a prolonged Foot Clan arc. IF we want new, if we want a TMNT with VERISIMILITUDE, we should set up a trilogy that gives us the tone of early Mirage books, maybe with some fanciful brand stuff in the sequels like Krang and a utrom invasion, Bishop etc. Some of us even have fantastic outlines (wink, wink).

I mean IF we want NEW. IF we don't want a goddamned cartoon, then yeah, that's the only route to take but none of the older TMNT comic book fans are in charge, so.

[Whatswiththeheadbands?]

Originally Posted by PizzaPower1985

I was thinking about this yesterday... as with Superman, Batman, Spidey (any decades long superhero that has had a gazillion adaptations)... where does the franchise go from here?

There IS only 1 solution. Uno, singular. 1 final attempt that will be new. A straight, near humorless (humor can come from the absurdity), balls-to-the-wall riff on Mirage. No multi-colored masks, no pizza, and at this point, maybe not even a prolonged Foot Clan arc. IF we want new, if we want a TMNT with VERISIMILITUDE, we should set up a trilogy that gives us the tone of early Mirage books, maybe with some fanciful brand stuff in the sequels like Krang and a utrom invasion, Bishop etc. Some of us even have fantastic outlines (wink, wink).

I mean IF we want NEW. IF we don't want a goddamned cartoon, then yeah, that's the only route to take but none of the older TMNT comic book fans are in charge, so.

The pizza can be kept, but more like the 4kids show where it's just another type of food they eat, rather than the only food they eat. The turtles should eat Pizza, Chinese food, Mexican food (I can see Leo also being a fan of sushi)

Bishop in a live action movie would be awesome. Maybe even get Hugo Weaving as a direct reference to how the 4kids bishop was directly based on Agent Smith. Although Hugo would be too old to pay it idk

[TigerClaw]

Non of the things you guys want for the movie is going to happen as long as Nickelodeon is in control of the brand.

They are never going to make a TMNT movie that appeals to a mature audience. Its meant to be for all ages.

Right now the only good TMNT is the IDW comics. Rise of the TMNT is meant for a much younger audience and I know some people here aren't a fan of it and some are. But whatever.

The fact to the matter is. When they do the next one. They are gonna play it safe.

[IndigoErth]

Though "new" is a dangerous word if used too loosely. PD tried to do "new." Because apparently the belief about what "new" is, is rebooting from the start and effing up the important things that shouldn't be touched.

Screwing with what's already in place is not the kind of "new" I want... The new I want is for them to step FAR the hell away from the origin and the important established things and find an empty time period with adult Turtles and room for development and come up with a legit new story that fits nicely into the TMNT brand.

Keep it down to Earth. And if they really have such a hard time not going for the explosive, hyper, overdone action scene style of film... then maybe go the sci-fi angle and hit up a Dimension X/outer space story and do the crazy stuff there.



I'm entirely opposed to any belief of something like TMNT needing to be rebooted from the beginning over and over and over. Anyone who isn't even loosely familiar with them but becomes interested this far into the franchise has plenty of other films and material they can go back and check out if they want to understand the origin; or have parents who can find that for them.

edit: Though if anyone ever tries to go "new" again by choosing the 'Rise' type of characterization and personalities for them and making Leo like that... screw it, I'm just gonna burn down the world, somehow. (Too much of a sucker for that guy, so do right by him and I'm probably sold at least a little.)

Originally Posted by TigerClaw

They are never going to make a TMNT movie that appeals to a mature audience. Its meant to be for all ages.

BUT. But. While they may not have made it themselves, they did allow DC the freedom to do that Batman/TMNT animated movie, which definitely isn't for little kids.

So I'm not entirely convinced that Nick is NOT willing to go there -- esp as they've surprisingly actually aired that movie on their own channel a few times -- but only via another company. Sooo if they'll just keep licensing them out to others who DO want to do it, yeah, that would be fantastic.

[PizzaPower1985]

Originally Posted by IndigoErth

Though "new" is a dangerous word if used too loosely. PD tried to do "new." Because apparently the belief about what "new" is, is rebooting from the start and effing up the important things that shouldn't be touched.

Screwing with what's already in place is not the kind of "new" I want... The new I want is for them to step FAR the hell away from the origin and the important established things and find an empty time period with adult Turtles and room for development and come up with a legit new story that fits nicely into the TMNT brand.

Keep it down to Earth. And if they really have such a hard time not going for the explosive, hyper, overdone action scene style of film... them maybe go the sci-fi angle and hit up a Dimension X/outer space story and do the crazy stuff there.



I'm entirely opposed to any belief of something like TMNT needing to be rebooted from the beginning over and over and over. Anyone who isn't even loosely familiar with them but becomes interested this far into the franchise has plenty of other films and material they can go back and check out if they want to understand the origin; or have parents who can find that for them.

edit: Though if anyone ever tries to go "new" again by choosing the 'Rise' type of characterization and personalities for them and making Leo like that... screw it, I'm just gonna burn down the world, somehow. (Too much of a sucker for that guy, so do right by him and I'm probably sold at least a little.)



BUT. But. While they may not have made it themselves, they did allow DC the freedom to do that Batman/TMNT animated movie, which definitely isn't for little kids.

So I'm not entirely convinced that Nick is NOT willing to go there -- esp as they've surprisingly actually aired that movie on their own channel a few times -- but only via another company. Sooo if they'll just keep licensing them out to others who DO want to do it, yeah, that would be fantastic.

I like a lot of this here... Down to earth... at least for the 1st film. The fanciful sci-fi stuff won't work, at least until sequels... Origin should be like a 1 minute sequence just to set up this incarnation and its rules. We've just got to get it back to a 2K3/IDW/Mirage flavor and NOT try to make a Saturday morning cartoon.

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by Leo656

The definition of "Insanity" is doing the exact same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result.

Pretty sure the actual definition of insanity is an inability to function in society and obey laws due to mental illness... But I wouldn't exactly trust someone who intentionally greenlights movies with the same approach as a bunch flops to pay their taxes either (if the Producers is to be believed), so I guess that would be close enough....

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

Originally Posted by Leo656

The brand's not going to last forever. All it has carrying it right now is nostalgia, and the sincere adoration of Fans Of A Certain Age. I'll be shocked if it's still anything but an action figure line aimed at nostalgia collectors, in another 20-30 years.

Spoiler:

Collectively, our kids won't care as much as we do/did about the brand. TMNT isn't going to be a lifelong obsession for them the way it is/was with Us, it's just going to be one of a hundred other things they liked a lot when they were young, then stopped caring about once they aged out of it, and pretended they never liked much at all once they get to the age of being "Too Cool for it".

And that's 100% because when we were kids, they had multiple TMNT iterations so the property "grew up" with its fans. In 2020, all the pen-holders know how to do is remind everybody about 1989. But the actual quality of the TMNT movies and shows is all aimed at little kids; the ONLY appeal for anyone over the age of 10 to even look at the things they're making now, is, "Well, I've always liked the brand." NOT because those movies and shows are of quality, or hold genuine and sincere appeal for those 30-somethings; they're not, and they don't, but they'll give a quick Nostalgia Buzz if you're a certain type of fan and that's all they even try to do. And that's "fine", but liking TMNT shouldn't be a "hold your nose and take your medicine" kind of affair.

As it is now, TMNT in its current form is officially one of those things you're supposed to watch for a bit when you're 8, then move on from. That was not the case when WE were kids, but that's the state of things now, and that's what the audience is doing, and that's why the brand is going to die off. Maybe not tomorrow but sooner than anyone thinks. The people running the brand don't know how to make a sincere connection with any audience, nor are they trying to; ALL they want to do is keep little kids out of Mommy's hair for a half hour. You can't maintain a so-called "evergreen" property that way.

Look at the actual data, whether it be here, on FB, or do a little legwork on Google: They SAY TMNT is a "kids brand", but are kids actually the ones watching the shows, going to the movies, buying the toys? No, No, and No. SOME kids do, for a little while, once they're too old for Paw Patrol and before they get a little older and become Marvel fanatics instead; but the vast majority of people consuming TMNT products Right Now are the same people who were doing so 30 years ago. The EXACT same people. ALL the money flowing into the brand is from the same people who fell in love with it in 1988, save for a few outliers who've stumbled into it along the way (and are still a vast minority in the Big Picture). To our kids, TMNT is just a fad in between other fads they got into briefly and then forgot about. They don't care. They're not going to. And why should they, anyway?

Whether anyone likes it or not, the whole thing dies with us. When the 30/40-somethings stop caring and eventually slowly pass away, the "next generation" isn't going to be banging the drum to keep the TMNT "brand" alive. They were given no reason to care, so they don't care. THAT is what's going to happen. So if you're confused as to How or Why TMNT remains a "viable" brand in 2020... don't "worry", eventually it won't be.

Don't take that to mean that the brand is going to vanish entirely. I don't think that; I think it's simply going to be like Thundercats generally is, or what He-Man/MOTU is most of the time: A toy license that comes around every few years to sell $50 action figures to adult collectors with nostalgia boners. At some point, though, I completely expect that the comic books and cartoons and movies will all stop entirely. I mean, they'll have to stop once it becomes obvious that they don't sell. But the one avenue where TMNT has proven to be a consistent winner is the toys, and as stated even brands like Thundercats, where nobody's asking for a new cartoon and a movie would likely bomb harder than anything ever made, have proven that they can do huge business in short spurts every few years selling plastic to grown-ups who never grew up.

So yeah, that's the future of the TMNT brand circa 2040 or so. Maybe sooner. But that's the inevitability: No movies, no cartoons, not even any comics, just lots and lots of collectible action figures.

Honestly, I'll take that "Dark Future". If everything ELSE has to be junk but the toys can at least be cool, then whatever, that's fine.

But its the only way things can turn out, because they HAD a chance to grow a New Generation of TMNT fans over the last 20 years and they completely wasted it.

$hit, man, I think you nailed it there. I'm convinced.

I mean, look around here. Most of the newer fans who came in because of the 2012 cartoon are gone. I could name several, good kids, not here anymore.

The brand didn't capitalize on the newer fans, so they lost interest and moved on. The old guard is all that's left, really, and like you said... we're not gonna last.

[PizzaPower1985]

Yeah, going through the last few pages of this thread has made me realize... I honestly could give $hit about a future TMNT movie, because superhero movies mostly suck and my preferred version is a pipe-dream. It's probably because I'm just old and bitter but I haven't seen a string of really great entertaining superhero films in a long time. That's not to say that Marvel hasn't had its share of greats (mostly before the MCU). DC too. Wonder Woman was excellent. Marvel between 1998 and 2008 was pretty good. Early MCU was excellent. But there have been very few times where consistent superhero movies back to back to back have held my interest. A new TMNT film is just going to be another cartoon. Because that's all Nickelodeon knows how to do.

[Cyndaquilfan123]

Originally Posted by CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy

$hit, man, I think you nailed it there. I'm convinced.

I mean, look around here. Most of the newer fans who came in because of the 2012 cartoon are gone. I could name several, good kids, not here anymore.

The brand didn't capitalize on the newer fans, so they lost interest and moved on. The old guard is all that's left, really, and like you said... we're not gonna last.

Hey, I'm here because of the 2012 cartoon. Not all of us kids you talk about are gone. The 2012 cartoon made me and many others a fan for life.

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

Originally Posted by Cyndaquilfan123

Hey, I'm here because of the 2012 cartoon. Not all of us kids you talk about are gone. The 2012 cartoon made me and many others a fan for life.

Well $hit, man, I'm glad you at least stuck around.

[Leo656]

The best thing about 'Claw is how whenever he tries to debate or dispute me, he ends up thoroughly proving my entire point.

Yes, it's impossible for anything of substance to get made into a TMNT movie so long as Nick owns it. I've been saying that for 10 years and we've seen it proven twice beyond the shadow of any reasonable doubt. And that's WHY the brand is not going to last forever and is going to be shelved a lot sooner than anyone wants to think about.

The problem is, "fans" who insist that a cartoon show they fell in love with in 1987, when they were still wiping boogers on their TMNT bed sheets, still needs to be the driving force behind the brand and it's storytelling NOW in the year 2020.

They spent 30 years begging for Bebop, Rocksteady, Krang, and a movie that tries to be a live-action episode of the FW cartoon. They did it, almost nobody liked it and it lost a ton of money. We should FINALLY be allowed to move on.

Some people don't "get" that THAT approach isn't going to work anymore. If they don't aim higher, the brand is dead.

The "all ages" argument also exposes the level of thought - or lack thereof - on the part of those who try and use that "logic". Nobody is saying it has to be R-rated and violent, they're saying STOP treating the brand like a literal cartoon. Anyone who can't see the distinction simply has no ability towards thought and reason. Just because children watch SOME of the TMNT media does NOT mean that ALL of it has to or SHOULD be aimed entirely at 8-year olds.

That way of thinking, right there - "SOME of it's for kids, so ALL of it needs to be for kids" - needs to go away forever. And so do the fans who think that way, quite frankly. That whole attitude is what's singlehandedly holding the franchise back from ever reaching greatness, or even actual "popularity" again.

You HAVE to expand your brand or your brand dies. If Superman, Batman, etc. weren't allowed to reach out to different audiences, they'd be gone. You evolve, or you die.

I used to hope TMNT could get to that "Batman Level" one day, but it's never happening. Because some people are perfectly fine trying to wallow in nostalgia at the expense of everyone who chooses NOT to live predominantly in the past. That's incredibly frustrating.

[Whatswiththeheadbands?]

Everything Leo has just said I agree with 100%. Franchises that stagnate and don't try new things die out and are eventually forgotten

[PizzaPower1985]

Originally Posted by Whatswiththeheadbands?

Everything Leo has just said I agree with 100%. Franchises that stagnate and don't try new things die out and are eventually forgotten

I'm learning very quickly that most of what Leo says, believes or puts into an argument is going to be objectively correct. I have the advantage of sharing a lot of the same opinions and a lot of the same fandoms as Leo too, so we pretty much agree on most things.

Evolving is important, BUT the TMNT have evolved A LOT over 30 years. They just no longer are evolving.

Ciro Nieli was an older fan, presumably an original turtle fan during turtlemania in the 90's and look at the power he had with 2K12. Look what he did with that show. He could have easily gave us an "evolution" of the 2003 show... brought it a step up. But no, it was cartoony in the negative sense of the word and the show's humor was juvenile and NOT aimed at Leo, myself or many other "old" fans. Ciro could have turned the franchise towards what it currently needs to be but he didn't do that. Why? I have a hard time believing Nick got in his way that much.