Is there anything about Rises that you appreciated/respected

[Groverman62]

For me its the fact that it did its own thing.

I liked the 2012 show but it could get frustrating how it was constantly just plugging references, reimaginings and the like of past versions particulary the 80s show. Didn't really bring much new to the table. It was especially weird how in some cases like Tokka the new version is far removed that the only thing connecting them is the name.

This show featured several of its own plots and characters and respect that it wasn't constantly reminding us of the fred wolf show, but rather just be its own thing

Anyone else

[IndigoErth]

It's hard to really feel respect or appreciation for this show, but two things I give it props for:

1. They didn't make Mikey an idiot.

** However they lose points for kind of losing him in the background by making everyone else too much like him.

2. Female characters were treated like a normal part of the world, not just as a token character or a one-off appearance by a rare female character that seemed to take effort to include.

[FredWolfLeonardo]

I have only seen halfway through season one, but here goes:

1. Making Raph the leader instead of Leo, though I wish they kept Raph as leader in the end.

2. A lot of fun new villains like Baron Draxum, Anchor Man, Hypnopotamus, Meat Sweats, etc. Seeing them all in a musical was a riot too.

3. Funniest Donatello ever. Leonardo also has his fair share of funny moments.

4. Making Raph a lovable teddy bear instead of a hothead. I find hot-headed Raph to be tiring so seeing him done differently in the first time since the 80s cartoon is so refreshing.

5. The animation and action scenes, full of colour and very stylish.

6. The voice acting, which is very memorable. None of the characters voices feel dull or out of place imo.

7. Cool and catchy theme song, even if feels a bit too familiar to 1987 and 2012.

8. Making Mikey an artist, and toning down his mania.

[Leo656]

Not a single thing. I have more respect for The Next Mutation quite frankly.

[neatoman]

I respect that it had good action scenes with good animation and that it doesn't fuck up it's plot the same way the 2012 show did. Those parts I genuinely respect regardless of my personal opinion.

In terms of objective criteria there isn't much I can criticise the show for. I don't think the direction it went, that is to say it being a near pure comedy often set in an underground demon city, is very good for a TMNT show. That sort of thing seems like something that would be decent for side-stories but not the primary focus. That and changes like having Raph use a tonfa instead of sai just screams of change for the sake of change, not really something you should do.

That said there is one aspect of Rise's direction I do appreciate, it doesn't try to clone the Fred Wolf cartoon like so many of other Viacom projects. The closest it gets is making the Mutagen turn people into animals. Not an automatic win exactly but it's probably for the best that the show never had Reporter April, the Technodrome, Krang, Dimension X or really most of that stuff.

And yes, the middle finger to anyone who expected Bebop and Rocksteady to show was very appreciated.

[Andrew NDB]

No, nothing.

[Autbot_Benz]

absolutely nothing.

[Poweranimals]

Originally Posted by neatoman

I respect that it had good action scenes with good animation and that it doesn't fuck up it's plot the same way the 2012 show did.

How did it f-ck up its plot?

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by Poweranimals

How did it f-ck up its plot?

It's a little difficult to explain how the 2012 show's plot didn't really work in a simple way, if I had to explain it as briefly as possible it would be that it was rather thin and repetitive. While I understand the 2012 show is more well liked, it doesn't actually work as a whole. So even if the show got over 120 episodes, everything it wanted to could probably have fit neatly within about 40 episodes, maybe even as few as 25. I say this because it goes through the same few beats several times over.

I think the best way to demonstrate this is with isolating character arcs, this could be a bit lengthy so I'm putting it under spoiler tags:

Spoiler:

Karai:

1. Introduced as Shredder's villainous daughter and has a mostly antagonistic role.
2. Finds out Splinter is her biological father and turns good immediately (things could be said about that but let's keep this as short as possible).
3. Is mutated into a mindless snake and slithers around.
4. Is returned to a human form that can shape shift and is effectively reset to a villain thanks to a mind worm.
5. The worm is purged and she returns to the good guy agenda.

Here we essentially see Karai go through the same arc twice, mind control effectively being the excuse to make it happen in-universe. If points 3 through 5 were removed, nothing about her actual character would change. She would not be able to turn into a snake sometimes if they were removed but this had very minimal impact on her character or the plot. The whole snake thing was effectively just an excuse to keep her out of the story for a while.

Kirby O'Neil:

1. Kidnapped by the Kraang and kept prisoner by them for all of season 1. This forces April to live somewhere else.
2. Shortly after he's rescued by the end of season 1, season 2 just starts with him mutating into a bat creature. April is once again forced to live somewhere else.
3. He is returned to human form more than halfway through season 2 and doesn't really do anything for the rest of the season.
4. He is once again mutated right before he is about to flee the city with the main characters, keeping him out of the first half of season 3.
5. Despite being free and human for the rest of season 3, he still doesn't do anything until he is blown up with the rest of the planet, once again keeping him out of the plot for the first half of season 4.
6. Is still practically a non-presence for the rest of the series.

Kirby is a really weird character, it seems like he primarily exists as a consequence of deciding to turn April into a teenager, which is probably why he is sidelined even when he's still in the picture. Some people might say Kirby isn't really a character children would be interested in anyway and they may be correct, but he doesn't have to be inherently uninteresting or have a boring dynamic with his daughter.

Shredder:

1. Goes to New York because he realises Splinter is there.
2. Sends out his henchmen to track down Splinter.
3. Beats up Splinter by the end of season 1 but doesn't kill him because he is stopped in time.
4. Goes off to get Tiger Claw because allegedly he's not useless (even though Tiger Claw is shown to be fairly useless as time goes by anyway) and is out for about half of season 2.
5. Accidentally mutates Karai when trying to kill Splinter and blames Splinter.
6. "Kills" Splinter by the end of season 2 and just hangs out in the empty NYC, refusing to do anything about the Kraang despite being told that's a bad idea.
7. Does the aforementioned brainwashing of Karai to try and kill Splinter again.
8. Kills Splinter for real but in what was changed to be an alternate timeline so it didn't happen.
9. In the new timeline Splinter nerve pinches him and somehow that injures him so he looks like he was in a car wreck (I don't know, maybe they had a more severe thing planned and just made it nerve pinches for the sake of time or budget?).
10. Shredder decides to get mutated and kills Splinter (actually for real this time) and is then killed by Leo.
11. Is briefly brought back through a demonic deal and then kills himself.

Shredder generally doesn't play much of an active role aside from when the plot absolutely needs him to. This wouldn't be much of a problem except he is allegedly the main villain (the Kraang are arguably a bigger threat than him and play a more active role but Shredder is still presented as the big bad). His overall goal is to kill Splinter and generally does not seem to care much about anything else, he does try to be a crime boss but it doesn't seem to connect much to his goal of killing Splinter. In fact, considering he was seemingly fine with aliens ruining the planet, what exactly did he want aside from killing Splinter? I think they tried to take what Shredder was in the original comics and make it work as big bad here, but a big bad for something on a larger scale needs to be more than "I want to kill one guy and nothing else". And again, this lead to needless repetition.

Keep in mind that most of the major character arcs have similar problems, these are just some clear examples.

It's mostly little things that span over the whole series, not so much something I can pick out a single episode to demonstrate the problem. It's kind of like of the show was a brick house made without mortar, you know, might look solid but is clearly unstable on closer inspection. I don't expect anyone to just get if they're just casually watching the show.
Ultimately, the 2012 show has a really weird and yanky plot. It clearly wants to have a plot but what it has seems like it was intended for a much shorter show and whoever was in charge didn't seem to have the confidence to expand upon it properly. Even worse than that, didn't even bother to explore the natural outcomes of what got established.

[mrmaczaps]

It ended...

[AquaParade]

Wasn't for me but I respect the work that went into the action scenes and storyboarding. Electric.

[Bahamut810]

Overall I liked it, and it got me back into TMNT after a long time away. I thought the characters were enjoyable and entertaining. I can agree that with how 'out there' they were that some of their personality traits made them feel samey at times. The animation was awesome, especially the 'key' battles...and trust me I am a sucker for those amazing combat scenes.

I also appreciated that they just tried to take the base idea, and do their own thing. We got new characters and integrated concepts not typically associated with the TMNT I grew up with (the old cartoon, rather then the Comics)

[Zulithe]

I only watched the first like 3 episodes, and some clips on youtube of later episodes. That's how much I didn't like it. So I can only go based on that.

I thought the action was super fun and I liked the energy. I mean it didn't feel like what I want from TMNT action, but was it well done: yes.

That's all I have to say. Glad it's done, time to move on.

I hope the industry learned some kind of lesson from the disasters of Thundercats Roar and Rise of the TMNT, and projects similar to these. There are ways to properly reboot old properties, and those were not examples of how.

[LeotheLateBloomer]

Yeah, I can't say anything good about it. There are plenty of good TMNT versions to enjoy and this wasn't one of them.

[Allio]

The Sakuga was good.

[TylerD]

Honestly, some of the comedy could be pretty funny. I am just watching it now with my 3 year old son, and I find myself laughing at certain parts. Overall it's definitely not my cup of tea for Ninja Turtles, but I do laugh from time to time so I appreciate that a bit.

[TylerD]

Honestly, some of the comedy could be pretty funny. I am just watching it now with my 3 year old son, and I find myself laughing at certain parts. Overall it's definitely not my cup of tea for Ninja Turtles, but I do laugh from time to time so I appreciate that a bit.

[Noxonius]

I do like the visual style, I think they did a great job on that. It's very vibrant and comic-esque, I really dig it.

However, I feel like it was a bit too early for another TMNT cartoon. Which is probably what killed it. People just barely got off Nick TMNT and I would argue that many were ''burned out'' at that point, myself included. Also it is becoming increasingly difficult to come up with good ideas for new series.