Will There Ever Be A Wholly Unique TMNT Again?

[Powder]

In 1984, the original Mirage comics debuted, & that breakout iteration set a standard for certain story elements & characters to always come back in some form.

The Fred Wolf series comes along, borrows & significantly changes a number of these elements, & from then on, does entirely its own thing. Beyond Shredder, The Foot, & a loose concept of Utroms, there is no adaptation of previous material. You could argue this was once the most unique version, but since everything that came after is based on it, it's not as unique anymore.

Archie comics begins as a Fred Wolf adaptation, then spin-off, but eventually follows the same formula of leaving other things behind in favor of creating original stories/characters that for the most part fit the tone/style of the cartoon it was based on. I'd argue the latter half is mostly forgotten/unused.

TMNT gets its own anime OVA in Japan, based on a toyline. Uses Fred Wolf's universe as a jumping off point/setting but creates Super Sentai/tokusatsu inspired armor/mutations, kaiju, Japanese folklore, etc. Cool as hell if you like Japanese media, but most dismiss it as a novelty.

The live action films borrow this & that from Mirage/Fred Wolf narratively but introduce a lot of original albeit safe characters.

Image takes the turtle reigns for a time, with their "Vol. 3", which was intended to be a continuation of Mirage, but went into some pretty extreme territories to take TMNT into the then world of modern 90's comics. It was notably violent, Superhero-heavy, & altered each of the turtles to be visually distinct. Donatello becomes a cyborg, Raphael inherits The Shredder mantle, among other things. Folks don't take kindly to those parts. They introduce some new characters & themes but largely come off as Mirage on steroids.

The Next Mutation is almost entirely original. Beyond the use of Shredder/The Foot (both dismissed within the first few episodes) it features a new & diverse cast of villains, a twist on the origin which includes a fifth turtle (an infamously controversial move), designs which deviate from the status quo, Chinese mysticism, astral projection, etc. Black-balled.

4kids develops an animated series with co-creator Peter Laird, as a somewhat kiddified adaptation of the Mirage comics, with some original characters/stories added, & many creative liberties taken. Over time, it sticks to telling its own tales, & goes through several iterations of re-boots with new concepts & characters, from living in the future, a cyber world, & a mystical realm with dragon avatar transformations. All of which disliked by the majority of fans.

TMNT, the CGI film, while standing on its own, tonally, may as well be the 4kids series. It does introduce new characters & ideas, but stays pretty close to home as far as what was then currently established for the brand. The film was a success but most fans were bored to death by Winters & the monsters.

IDW starts up a brand new TMNT comic book series. It begins with a shockingly unique origin, reincarnation meets lab testing, as well as a brand new protagonist, & themes of the supernatural. At first, it leans into Mirage's tone & art style, but very quickly becomes TMNT jambalaya, which is to say a little bit of everything all at once, re-using characters from Fred Wolf, 4kids, etc, & at times even re-telling the same stories with a new coat of paint.

2012 debuted our first CGI-animated cartoon, which more or less borrowed the Fred Wolf origin story, with some minor changes. It creates many new original characters, but it too turned out to be TMNT jambalaya, adapting characters/stories from Mirage, Fred Wolf, & the live action films, with a dash of original things scattered throughout.

Michael Bay & company began work on their live action Platinum Dunes films around that same time. The original "Blue Door" script leaked, which was something completely insane & original, the only familiar or "traditional" components being Bebop/Rocksteady's inclusion. The turtles were aliens from another dimension kept & tortured as lab subjects by the millitary, led by a Shredder (Colonel Schrader) who himself was secretely a creature from space, covered in spikes in his fully revealed form. Fans lashed out quite vocally, & it was significantly re-written to follow a fairly typical pattern. The designs were very distinct, but widely regarded as the worst aspect of the series.

Batman VS TMNT, sort of a footnote version, but nonetheless a very successful one. TMNT jambalaya. Fred Wolf references/characters with IDW tone/style. Plays it very safe, only includes what the most basic of fans will be familiar with, for accessibility's sake. Understandable, given it's a crossover with such a famously popular & iconic property.

Rise of the TMNT was arguably the single most unique deviation from the norm, changing almost every possible thing imaginable. Designs, weapons, personalities, origins, settings, all different, featuring also a cast of mostly new villains/friends, high-profile voice talent, & a relatively off-brand sense of humor & art direction to boot.

The Last Ronin may be only a mini-series as of this post, but it's about to get a prequel, & may set a new precedent in turtle comics moving forward. Suffice to say, it is an original universe, but clearly inspired by Mirage/IDW. The original story pitch, drummed up by Pete & Kev in 1987, was intended to be FOR Mirage (if you've read vol. 2 #1, remember the opening sequence of a dismal future, that's what was being teased there), but instead, it was re-worked into something that would stand alone. It introduces some new characters, but they basically just replace the likes of Shadow, Pimiko, etc, & Karai once again has family ties to Shredder as in 4kids, IDW & so on. I would argue it too is a kind of TMNT jambalaya, though borrowing significantly less from Fred Wolf outside of perhaps robotic Foot Soldiers.

The most unique & original interpretations, I'd say, are as follows:

-The Next Mutation
-Rise of the TMNT
-"Blue Door" draft of PD films

All 3, were for the most part, panned by fans.

Whenever The Next Mutation comes up, people say things like "We don't talk about that one." or use it as the rock bottom point of reference for how bad TMNT can be. It took over 20 years for the world to warm up to the idea of a fifth, female turtle, as a result. None of the characters it established would ever be revisited again, until 2022, in which a Frankenstein's monster inspired version of Venus was introduced in the IDW series, perhaps serving as a commentary for what she was or represents. Nothing remotely Chinese has really been drawn from since. The turtles not being blood related is an idea that still boils blood for many, even if realistically, the turtles would likely NOT be from the same clutch of eggs anyway (going by how pet shops work). Overhead bandanas didn't make a full-time return until Rise, & they were not well received in that version either.

Rise has an extremely passionate cult following, but is overwhelmingly rallied against by the majority of the fandom, at least on social media, anyway. Its angular, fast paced, anime-inspired animation style & modern humor is off-putting for most fans over a certain age, who are used to more traditional western cartoons. Creative changes to the main four, like making each turtle's design & turtle species unique, altering Mike & Raph's weapons, the introduction of mystical powers, & Leonardo's leader role going to Raph, were also large points of contention. It took place in a world inhabited by Yokai, creatures of Japanese folklore, & put the turtles in scenarios they would never have otherwise been inserted in, from Basketball tournaments to working in the food service industry to comedic effect.

The leaked "Blue Door" script & its concept of alien turtles was considered so sacrilegious & poorly conceived that it made national headlines & forced a million dollar company to scramble for ways to correct it. The turtles had to be broken out of a military facility by Casey Jones, who worked there as night security & was shocked & horrified upon discovering them in captivity. Over the course of the story, it would be revealed they were the "last" of their species, from a planet on which their kind was once dominant. Everyone hated the idea of turtles/Shredder who were not of this earth, or that we would eventually see a lot more of their kind in potential sequels.

In some of the other, more successful series', there would be turning points that went into original territory, but those periods would also be regarded poorly. The 4kids series, for example, many of its original characters are disliked, or forgotten, particularly when it concerns the Ninja Tribunal, Fast Forward, & Back To The Sewers seasons. The turtles becoming giant dragons, digital entities, etc, all met with lukewarm to outright negative responses. The Red Sky seasons of Fred Wolf's 'toon were also not terribly successful or fondly remembered, despite a wide variety of original characters & themes being introduced. Any time Shredder (& to a lesser extent Krang/Bebop & Rocksteady) aren't a part of the status quo in some way, viewership goes down, & complaints are made. When settings other than NYC or Dimension X are involved, it's the same.

[Powder]

So what does this tell us? The tried & true is what sells, & frankly, it's all that anyone (as far as the core casual audience is concerned, anyway) wants. TMNT jambalaya, as we call it around here, that's the majority of TMNT iterations in general, at least when it comes to those with staying power. You've got to mix & match Mirage, & Fred Wolf, basically, or your TMNT vision won't survive. People don't like different designs, origins, weapons, etc. They are very cautious toward new characters or settings, & secondary mutations or fifth turtles will be incredibly divisive matters.

I think that sucks. Outside of Mirage, Fred Wolf, the two standards for adult or kid aimed TMNT, my favorites are the ones that stand out most from them. Rise, Next Mutation, Super Turtles, Ninja Tribunal, Soul's Winter, I am happiest when the property is given some leg-room to try new things & see what sticks. I enjoy every version of TMNT in some way or another, because I love the concept at its very core, but I really don't want to get the same things over & over & over, as we have been. With the license being held by an entity like Viacom, & their experiments like Rise failing, it seems like we're pretty much doomed to just get TMNT jambalaya forever. That doesn't leave much for the hardcore fans to get excited about, IMO.

With all that being said, do you think we'll ever get an entirely original (or at least close to that) vision of TMNT again one day? I would personally love to see it, even if it sucks. Just keep trying to do different things, maybe it'll be what the series needs.


Show me TMNT based in feudal Japan, where they're yokai or something, raised by a priest, traveling the countryside to protect farmers from ninja assassins & other yokai/demons, raising animals, making medicine & weapons themselves. Something like Mushi-shi meets Samurai Champloo.

Show me a balls to the walls violent/horror iteration, where the turtles, being freaks of nature raised in the shadows, aren't quite right in the head, & don't understand the codes of society. A world where their heroics are incidental, & they actually pose more of a threat, rather than serve as patrolmen.

Show me a Spiderverse-inspired team up, where 4 turtles, one from each key universe, work together to take down a universe hopping baddie.

Do a period piece! Use a different world culture altogether instead of Japan/ninjas! Try a new medium like claymation or puppetry! There's so much that could be tried out, I hate to think that the days of experimenting are over now, or won't be seen again for a long time.

[neatoman]

New TMNT material is always derivative work by definition but I think I understand what you're trying to say. If I have to answer this, I don't believe making something different for the sake of making something different is really all that well-motivated. What you need to first and foremost consider is if you are making changes for the sake of fixing problems and if your fixes make sense in the story itself.

An example of something being different and creating problems of it's own is giving April psychic powers in the 2012 cartoon. I remember Ciro Nieli talking about how difficult it was to write a girl with superpowers, and this may be the reason for some of the strange development taken with them in the story, like how they are barely used in the first three seasons and then introducing that crystal to make her better at using them as well as giving her that temporary turn to evil. This isn't really a problem that needed to exist in the first place, the character wasn't depicted with any such powers before the show and I don't think anyone thinks it's a better solution than having been Stockman's lab assistant, meaning it was a problem he just decided to create for himself rather pointlessly.

A change that can be argued to work out for the better is making Shredder an Utrom in the 4Kids show. We are lead to believe he's human for the first season while still dropping hints that he is an alien. This basically allows him to take on the role he had in the comic without the need to explain his resurrection over and over again, while then still allowing him to seem like a credible threat once the series shifts to having many of the villains be alien invaders and such. It may not be the most popular change out there and it's arguably still not necessary in a purely adaptational sense but the motivation for the change still more understandable than certain others.

As for concepts like just making horror movie about the TMNT, you could do that and it might even be good but I don't really see the purpose of it.

[Andrew NDB]

That's what I'd advocate for. A truly unique incarnation of TMNT, preferably an experiment into once again making them more geared to adults.

You say this, though, and right away people will say, "You must want a 1:1 adaptation of the Mirage comics!" And it's really very strange. There's like this ongoing expectation that if there's a new generally children-oriented incarnation, sooner or later we have to get a new version of Krang, or Shredder, or Bebop, or Technodrome, and just keep recycling all these news versions of old things, and then recycling them again.

You don't need to. You can remove everything surrounding the TMNT and boil them down to just 4 ninjas that are mutant turtles that are living in the shadows and come up with totally unique takes. It's not even that difficult to brainstorm.

[Leo656]

I really like a good "Elseworlds" story but I've never read one that made me highly interested in seeing an entire ongoing universe of it. Doesn't mean those things can't be explored as one-shots or limited series or animated films or whatever, those are generally fun.

As far as longform stuff, I'm on-record with my opinion on fiction or adaptation that once the names of the characters are the only significant thing that carries over, you may as well be creating an original work at that point. I still firmly believe that we've never seen a TMNT universe "played straight" that was ever done to its full potential and never one that even significantly advanced the plot or the characters to any type of satisfactory "conclusion", so I'd be more keen to actually see THAT happen before any type of Elseworlds story becoming the New Normal on an ongoing basis.

Those do sound like neat story ideas that I would like to read, but I'd like them better as mini-series than anything.

[DarkFell]

Even though I didn't watch much of Next Mutation, I was impressed with the work that was done for the foam suits and the animatronic masks. I even got to see a clip of how a few guys within the studio (I think all of them were brothers), put their heads together on how to design the characters.

Plus, we got this.


The BayTurtles Blue Door script was probably written by people that didn't really appreciate the franchise, and maybe only read a few issues of the comic books.

Personally, I loved how the first 1990 TMNT movie was done, but Henson felt like it was too dark.

I guess that a few TMNT fans will have to amass every single bit of TMNT media from comic, cartoons, to movies, and figure out what worked and what didn't. That could help to compose a different story.

The tricky stuff will be: will it be meant to sell more merch, or will the next idea tell a good original story?

Can it be suitable for all audiences without getting too goofy or childish, or, will it be meant for the kiddos?

Some peeps in this forum have mentioned that if a MA version of TMNT was ever made, it could learn from how Gotham was directed. What are your thoughts on this?

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by DarkFell

Some peeps in this forum have mentioned that if a MA version of TMNT was ever made, it could learn from how Gotham was directed. What are your thoughts on this?

Gotham? You mean as to how to avoid doing something in a really consistently terrible way?

[Leo656]

Right? That show was f*cking terrible!

"What if we made Smallville... but like... it was ALSO like Adam West Batman half the time?"

"Dude, this is good crack."

"IIIIIIIIII KNOW!!!"

[IndigoErth]

I'm fine with trying new stuff...but my line is drawn at effing with who the TMNT are. Change them and it loses me. Which was what Rise lost me on; which is what making Leo act like a butthead the 2007 movie lost me on; which is what some parts of 2014 lost me on, but 2016 largely got me back. I'm still around because I love who the TMNT are a characters and changing that is, for me, no longer even TMNT; esp if my fave isn't my relatable fave anymore. On the other hand, ideas for new stores and places to visit? Cool, lets do it.

A TMNT horror film would be totally left field and I'd love to see it, but I'd rather the TMNT are still their normal selves and the heroes in the middle of it. Someone a while back suggested the Rat King for a horror film and I still really want that.

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

Originally Posted by IndigoErth

Someone a while back suggested the Rat King for a horror film and I still really want that.

If the Rat King can carry a movie, who should the Turtles fight, except for the Rat King himself? Should they just hack and slash ordinary rats to death on their way to his hideout? Or should they end up attacked by a hypnotized Splinter? Or should the Rat King build robo rats? Or should the Rat King mutate some of his rats.

[Zachatello00]

I'll be the unpopular wet blanket and say that while it's possible that "unique" versions of TMNT will be released in some shape/form/fashion, I'm not sure it's something that I, as a fan, really want.

I'll borrow from another franchise to make my point, but I'm one who hasn't largely enjoyed much of anything that's come from Star Wars since Return of the Jedi, though some projects have been more enjoyable to me than others. But in a conversation with a friend who asked "What would you like to see from Star Wars," I answered: nothing. It's good as is, and I'm happy to enjoy what's there.

That's what I thought was going to happen with TMNT as the 90s rode off into the sunset. I assumed that TMNT would be a thing of the past, and kind of die with the decade, to live on only in our minds, hearts, and various collected VHS tapes. And I was okay with that. I'll admit that the 2k3 series - which obviously proved that wrong - was, in my opinion, one of the best things to come from TMNT, and so I'm grateful it was able to see release, and the original NICK toon had it's moments, too. But the more that TMNT moves forward, the more trouble I've had moving with it.

I was less than excited today to hear that Seth Rogen's TMNT movie is evidently going to be something of a pilot for the next animated series (hard to judge, I suppose, as we know very little about it), but I suppose it's easy enough to let TMNT move on without me, because, well, as I think about it, I guess a man in his early 40s isn't the target audience anymore. But the further it gets away from what it was originally created to be, any franchise, I think, risks becoming too.... much(?).

Wow, that was more than I meant to post. Alright, blast away!

[CyberCubed]

The problem is the more unique TMNT gets, the further "off-brand" it gets. Even then all these unique series borrow elements from previous.

Even what Rise did wasn't that unique since the Turtles gaining mystic powers and an ancient demon Shredder was already done in the Ninja Tribunal arc of the 2003 series. The IDW comics and Nick 2012 cartoon were of course largely a merge of all elements of previous TMNT series into one.

The disturbing nostril movies were largely using Fred Wolf elements, besides those hideous noses that mentally traumatized me back in 2014 and I have yet to fully recover 7 years later. God I still have nightmares just thinking about it.

[IMJ]

Anyone here ever play those really good, "dungeon crawler" style Marvel games? There was an X-Men one and then the rest were called "Marvel Ultimate Alliance"?

TMNT lends itself to that formula incredibly well.... all four Turtles on screen, maybe with Casey, Splinter, etc. All controlled by one player on the fly and action commands for the rest while they are not controlled...