Why was there only one "Retromutagen ray generator"?

[neatoman]

No seriously? Why did Shredder only ever build one? It's never implied to have been harder to create than anything else in the series, so he could just have built a second one. It isn't because it's fake either, if it wasn't real then he wouldn't have tried to use it himself as a weapon. It sure isn't because the initial plan failed, because there are several other instances where such a weapon could be useful. A weapon against the turtles is also not the only possible use either, as it could be used to revert mutants who turn on him or cure himself if he ever got mutated by accident, not to mention that it would be decent way to bribe other mutants who might want to revert back to human form.

I know they might never have made more than five episodes in the first place, but it is rather strange to treat this device as if it's a unique item that can't be replicated. Even in the first five episodes it's arguable that it's a weird inclusion. Not only could he have made multiple ones and armed his robots with them, he could have thought of the idea much earlier. Instead he creates two new mutants, builds an army of MOUSERS and summon the Rock Soldiers before he thinks simply undoing his accidental creations is the best possible option. What's arguably weirder is that he creates it around the time he also gives Krang his body, something he avoided doing because it was a last resort.

There are a lot of things that are just wrong with the actual plot of season 1, it's "better" because there is some level of progression and consequence that is rarely found in the other seasons, it's just that "better" shouldn't be confused for "actually good" or even "good enough". The ray generator is just one of many things that can be rather easily picked apart like this.

Spoiler:

And yes, I realise simply just killing the Turtles would have been the simplest solution, there's not much reason they wouldn't have been able to avoid this raygun the same way they avoid all other rayguns in the show. I'm just pointing out the problem with the properties of this particular device.

[Zog The Magnificent]

I imagine it's for the same reason why all evil villains never try a plan twice, even when the failure wasn't related to the plan itself. It's in the the cartoon villain handbook, right next to "Never just shoot the hero; always dangle him above a pit and gloat about your plan for 5 hours."

[cammy85]

Well, he only needed it once to demutate the Turtles, then he could easily handle Splinter. He had spent time offscreen in Season one mutating the other punks; so with the Turtles gone, the combined forces of the mutants, Foot solders and possibly Krang's troops (assuming Shredder acts the way he did in the ream episode Shredderville) would overwhelm the city. We saw that happen in Turtles Forever and Batman vs TMNT.

In "Revenge of the Fly", it was learned that he needed a rare crystal to power it which they conveniently found outside the Technodrome in the ocean. But then it was destroyed again and then conveniently reassembled for use in "Wrath of the Rat King". Shredder at least learned from that and had a Retromutagen cannon ready in "Turtle Trek".

A similar example would be in "It Came From Beneath The Sewers" where the same fragment of the Eye of Sarnath which shrunk the turtles and everything in the previous episode suddenly caused some Dimension X mud to mutate into a huge city-overtaking plant creature.

[CyberCubed]

The rule is that evil villains never try the same plan twice. If it fails the first time they don't do it again. Many of Krang's inventions could have worked a second time but they moved onto the next thing.

[sdp]

Star Wars tried the Death Star twice, thrice if you count Episode 7.

Always bothered me in those 80s or poorly written 90s cartoons when an idea is abandoned just because of some factor that could be covered next time or something that wouldn't be able to be replicated again.

[Prowler]

Shredder suddenly had a retromutugen thingy in the season 8 episode "Turtle Trek" again. Makes me wonder why it took so long for Krang and him to invent something like that again.

As for Splinter, turning him back into a human was technically the main goal of the Turtles in the early seasons, but then he turned back into a human in that one episode and it only lasted for a day or so. Splinter realised humans were so ****** to each other he'd rather just stay as a rat instead.

[cammy85]

The retromutagen cannon was created by the Rock Soldiers and maybe other helpers while Shredder and Co. were stuck on Earth as part of the overall plan in the end. Maybe the Wrecking Crew helped too?

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

Originally Posted by Prowler

Splinter realised humans were so ****** to each other he'd rather just stay as a rat instead.

I think it was Splinter's way of getting over that he couldn't become Human again.