What would you do with a reboot, with a catch...

[TrickOrTreater]

Originally Posted by Jester

Reading WarBoss' movie proposal made something POP in my mind. You know something that the 2k3 series did that just NOW dawned on me? They connected for probably the first time the more martial arts aspects of the TMNT and their feud with Shredder and the Sci-fi elements with the Utroms with the creation of Utrom Shredder. Yes, he was probably initially a cheat to make the decapitation in Return to New York pass censors, but it also kinda streamlined the whole origin.

Agreed but Shredder as an Utrom is just...no thanks.

I'm just very partial to the idea of the badass ninja master villain who is human and is badass and deadly despite of that.

It's just so cool.

[Jester]

Originally Posted by TrickOrTreater

Agreed but Shredder as an Utrom is just...no thanks.

I'm just very partial to the idea of the badass ninja master villain who is human and is badass and deadly despite of that.

It's just so cool.

Oh, I agree. Utrom Shredder is NOT my favorite verison of the character. You could almost do something similar by kinda smashing 4kids and Fred Wolf. Make Shredder a badass human ninja who teams with a renegade Utrom named Krang to not only conquer the earth but also universe at large.

[TrickOrTreater]

Originally Posted by Jester

Oh, I agree. Utrom Shredder is NOT my favorite verison of the character. You could almost do something similar by kinda smashing 4kids and Fred Wolf. Make Shredder a badass human ninja who teams with a renegade Utrom named Krang to not only conquer the earth but also universe at large.

THAT is my ideal. Ch'rell's personality but with Krang's name.

So cool.

[Bry]

IDW Krang, sort of? That's probably my favourite version of the character.

[TrickOrTreater]

Originally Posted by Bry

IDW Krang, sort of? That's probably my favourite version of the character.

I'm looking forward to reading these some day.

Past lives and lab creation aside.

[Jester]

Originally Posted by TrickOrTreater

I'm looking forward to reading these some day.

Past lives and lab creation aside.

Waltz pulls it off fairly well....much better than anything in the movie.

[TrickOrTreater]

Originally Posted by Jester

Waltz pulls it off fairly well....much better than anything in the movie.

Is the astronomically high chance of all the Turtles' and Splinter's past lives wound up in four turtles and a rat that happened to be in the exact same laboratory that also happened to be genetically experimenting on them explained at all?

[Jester]

Originally Posted by TrickOrTreater

Is the astronomically high chance of all the Turtles' and Splinter's past lives wound up in four turtles and a rat that happened to be in the exact same laboratory that also happened to be genetically experimenting on them explained at all?

Um.....mulligan?

(Not that I know of....no.

[TrickOrTreater]

Originally Posted by Jester

Um.....mulligan?

(Not that I know of....no.

Bah! Humbug!

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

Their reincarnations were driven by Fate... Splinter prayed to Buddha... oh, and there are super powerful mystical beings (Rat King, Kitsune) at work. I have no trouble accepting it in the comics. How well the reincarnation angle would work in the movie, though... I doubt Platinum Dunes would even try.

Originally Posted by TrickOrTreater

Is the astronomically high chance of all the Turtles' and Splinter's past lives wound up in four turtles and a rat that happened to be in the exact same laboratory that also happened to be genetically experimenting on them explained at all?

[TrickOrTreater]

Originally Posted by CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy

Their reincarnations were driven by Fate... Splinter prayed to Buddha... oh, and there are super powerful mystical beings (Rat King, Kitsune) at work. I have no trouble accepting it in the comics. How well the reincarnation angle would work in the movie, though... I doubt Platinum Dunes would even try.

Hmm.

That's...odd, I guess.

[The Boston Ninja Turtle]

i am not to far into it..still only on volume 5 but Splinter seems to be the one who remembers the most...from what i get he is very sure the turtles are his reincarnated sons..while the turtles have no memory of anything

[Commenter 42]

Originally Posted by TrickOrTreater

Agreed but Shredder as an Utrom is just...no thanks.

I'm just very partial to the idea of the badass ninja master villain who is human and is badass and deadly despite of that.

It's just so cool.

Exactly. I never liked that particular bend.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

Originally Posted by The Boston Ninja Turtle

i am not to far into it..still only on volume 5 but Splinter seems to be the one who remembers the most...from what i get he is very sure the turtles are his reincarnated sons..while the turtles have no memory of anything

Leonardo does. In his micro issue, he has flashes of his mother. This is before vol. 5.

[The Boston Ninja Turtle]

Originally Posted by MsMarvelDuckie

Leonardo does. In his micro issue, he has flashes of his mother. This is before vol. 5.

ah...see i havent grabbed any of the micro series...do to an ex who tossed all my comics, i only recently got back into the story

[Xav]

Originally Posted by Jester

Yes, he was probably initially a cheat to make the decapitation in Return to New York pass censors, but it also kinda streamlined the whole origin.

I don't think he was initially just a cheat, it seems like he was planned fairly early.
http://peterlairdstmntblog.blogspot....02-re-new.html

[Leo656]

Some of the other conversations in the thread are also getting close to "Well, why even call it (X) if it's going to be completely different?" territory. Insofar as what Is and Isn't important and "Why must adaptations hew so closely to the source material?"

Because... because that's the story. That's what they wrote and the story everyone knows. That's the only reason you NEED. Y'know why people don't read comics? Reboots and retcons. "I want to like these stories and these characters, but I have NO IDEA what's going on because they keep changing the who/what/where/when/how and I just don't have any idea what's what." Y'know why those same people like movies and TV shows based on comics? Not because they're "different', although they usually are, but more because they streamline and simplify things we already know, in a way that makes it easier for people to understand. People LIKE the familiar, they simply like seeing stories told in different ways across different mediums. The appeal is seeing "impossible" things that only exist on paper suddenly coming to life. You do it right and you don't HAVE to change anything, just trim some of the loose threads and everybody's happy and everybody wins.

I'm not a huge fan of "Call it the same thing but make it all brand new and different". You can't call it the same thing, then, because it's not. I'd argue that Yoshi and Saki's rivalry - which, as has been pointed out, is the entire reason for the "ninja" in "Ninja Turtles" to begin with - is a pretty big pillar of the material. Beyond that, if a person tries to change something that's been so strongly established, on some level you're insisting your "new" ideas are "better". That's the fact. On some level, you're insisting your idea is better than what's been established, otherwise there's no need to go to great lengths to change it. In this movie's case, it was most certainly NOT "better".

Again, some things do get tinkered with any time a property has been around a long time, but I'd definitely argue some things are hard-lined. "I just wanna see Turtles be funny and do martial arts and I don't care how we get there" is just fine, for some, but it's also an extremely shallow view of the material, especially from a story standpoint. The story they have/had is fine. They definitely tried to fix what wasn't broken and ended up breaking it themselves.

That said, I'm not married to the movie HAVING to have an origin story, since most people know the gist of it. Rather, I'd have preferred they tried to move the story forward instead of wasting a movie just to force their "new and different" take on the origins down people's throats. If they had made almost the exact same movie but said it was "five years in the future" from where the old movies left off... it'd STILL be a huge mess BUT it would have sat a lot better with a bunch of people, most likely. Even having a different guy as Shredder would have made infinitely more sense, for example.

So yeah, I agree we need to move on from the origin but I DON'T agree you can just do whatever you want to the story and say it's the same thing. Definitely not.

[Purse Grabbin Puke]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Some of the other conversations in the thread are also getting close to "Well, why even call it (X) if it's going to be completely different?" territory. Insofar as what Is and Isn't important and "Why must adaptations hew so closely to the source material?"

Because... because that's the story. That's what they wrote and the story everyone knows. That's the only reason you NEED. Y'know why people don't read comics? Reboots and retcons. "I want to like these stories and these characters, but I have NO IDEA what's going on because they keep changing the who/what/where/when/how and I just don't have any idea what's what." Y'know why those same people like movies and TV shows based on comics? Not because they're "different', although they usually are, but more because they streamline and simplify things we already know, in a way that makes it easier for people to understand. People LIKE the familiar, they simply like seeing stories told in different ways across different mediums. The appeal is seeing "impossible" things that only exist on paper suddenly coming to life. You do it right and you don't HAVE to change anything, just trim some of the loose threads and everybody's happy and everybody wins.

I'm not a huge fan of "Call it the same thing but make it all brand new and different". You can't call it the same thing, then, because it's not. I'd argue that Yoshi and Saki's rivalry - which, as has been pointed out, is the entire reason for the "ninja" in "Ninja Turtles" to begin with - is a pretty big pillar of the material. Beyond that, if a person tries to change something that's been so strongly established, on some level you're insisting your "new" ideas are "better". That's the fact. On some level, you're insisting your idea is better than what's been established, otherwise there's no need to go to great lengths to change it. In this movie's case, it was most certainly NOT "better".

Again, some things do get tinkered with any time a property has been around a long time, but I'd definitely argue some things are hard-lined. "I just wanna see Turtles be funny and do martial arts and I don't care how we get there" is just fine, for some, but it's also an extremely shallow view of the material, especially from a story standpoint. The story they have/had is fine. They definitely tried to fix what wasn't broken and ended up breaking it themselves.

That said, I'm not married to the movie HAVING to have an origin story, since most people know the gist of it. Rather, I'd have preferred they tried to move the story forward instead of wasting a movie just to force their "new and different" take on the origins down people's throats. If they had made almost the exact same movie but said it was "five years in the future" from where the old movies left off... it'd STILL be a huge mess BUT it would have sat a lot better with a bunch of people, most likely. Even having a different guy as Shredder would have made infinitely more sense, for example.

So yeah, I agree we need to move on from the origin but I DON'T agree you can just do whatever you want to the story and say it's the same thing. Definitely not.

I'm just quoting you because you touched on a lot of things I wanted to reply to.

I don't want "no story" "no character" but to insinuate that the ONLY way to have "story" and "character" is to have the very specific origin story you like is absurd. This movie has Splinter explain, Shredder and the Foot have been terrorizing the city for years. He is inspired by the book to train, and teach the Turtles to fight. He says "People of New York will look upon you as their only hope". This does not disqualify their reasons for fighting the foot, because it's not the one you like. It's a noble cause. Superman has no reason to do what he does, but he has the powers to do good, so he does good. To me that's more noble than revenge. I actually kind of like the fact they fight because it's the right thing to do, instead of we're fighting for the revenge of Splinter, and if we end up saving the city, meh that's cool as well...

Leo you said people like cartoon, movie, or tv adaptations of comics because it has a layer of familiarity, but that's only true to people who know the source material. I love the Walking Dead, and didn't read one issue of the comic until the end of season 2. You guys have to realize when a tv show, or movie is made, they are trying to reach a broader audience. They are trying to reach the people who don't want to sit and read a comic book. Comic books have the time to flesh things out that movies do not. I've said this a few times, the Nick toon is doing a pretty great job of fleshing out the story of Splinter and Shredder. It's very in depth, and a movie cannot do the story justice. So when I go see a movie, I want as little to no origin as possible so I can just enjoy the story they're trying to tell. A movie I hated but really liked the way they did the origin, was The Incredible Hulk with Ed Norton, they did the origin through the opening credits. Just like TMNT, it was quick, it let you know where they're coming from and why the characters are doing what they're doing.

[Cryomancer]

Warning: I am expressing myself poorly and am not sure that I really ahve a point here but here's a bunch of words on this subject I wrote without structure. Basically I see this argument as having two important sides that are both correct in certain ways.

1) We have yet to get a truly accurate adaptation of source comics. the first movie and 2k3 get close but are still ultimately "for kids" and are thus not quite there, for better or worse. Obviously a lot of people want to see a proper adaptation happen eventually. Others don't, others want a OT style movie, or insert whatever other "source material" you want here, whatever.

2) We have had many, many reboots or re-imaginings or whatever you want to call them. So we've seen like what, a dozen variations on an origin story by now. Some things change around but it mostly is the same events roughly so it can very easily feel like it's getting old at this point and a waste of screen time to see yet another telling / variant. TMNT has been part of pop culture for 30 years now, at what point do you no longer need to tell an origin every time you make a story about them?

Movies can work without explaining things. Look at Star Wars. Back in the day Darth Vader had like a two-line back story and lightsabers took like less than a minute to figure out and there were plenty of ships and planets that had no exposition to explain them at all. And everyone went nuts for it no problem because cool stuff was happening. The prequels decided to explain everything to the point where they made things retroactively uncool!

Hell if they need another origin at this point how about one where the TMNT don't even know where the hell they are from or what they are? The TCRI/movie 2 story touches on this a little bit I guess. TMNT goes all the hell over the place even in just Mirage, there's no reason they couldn't make a movie sometime in space, or traveling through time, or the bad future flooded earth with grown up Shadow and crazy hermit Raphael. It doesn't have to be fighting Shredder in New York every single time.

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

In other words, no origin is better than a half-assed origin.