The 2007 movie timeline makes no sense

[Leofan26]

I guess it’s supposed to be connected to the past 3 live action films but Karai wasn’t introduced till the 2003 series.

Not to mention the intense rivalry Leo and Raph had in this.

This felt more like a final for the 2003 series.

Does any one else feel this way?

[CyberCubed]

Karai never appeared in the old movies, and this was the first time they met her. So what is the issue here?

[Powder]

I take it as its own thing. Pretty sure Munroe just made a throwaway comment, regarding that supposed connection. Sure, there's a shelf of easter eggs, but I think that's all it was ever intended to be. Makes no sense for it to be anything else.

[Jester]

Originally Posted by Powder

I take it as its own thing. Pretty sure Munroe just made a throwaway comment, regarding that supposed connection. Sure, there's a shelf of easter eggs, but I think that's all it was ever intended to be. Makes no sense for it to be anything else.

Especially since some of those include trophies from adventures involving triceratons and the like.

[Leo656]

It's like the people who made "Masters of the Universe: Revelation" saying "It's a sequel to the 1980s cartoon!" when no, it VERY clearly is NOT that. It'd make a ton more sense as a sequel to the 2003 MOTU reboot, if anything, but that show wasn't as popular so calling it "a sequel" to that wasn't going to get the same attention.

It's just stuff people say to get attention and doesn't hold up under any scrutiny whatsoever. All Marketing Is Spin. It wouldn't be a big deal, except that people take it seriously and then get angry when "Hey, this doesn't fit Perfectly!" Of course it doesn't, they lied, it's not actually a "sequel" or "follow-up" or any of that. People are supposed to understand that implicitly.

[Andrew NDB]

It wasn't marketing. It was the writer/director telling us that it's a TMNT1-3 sequel. You can make your own head canon if you really want to, but that's on you.

[Leo656]

Maybe in their opinion it was. Based on factual evidence, it was not. Just like MOTU: R.

That show wasn't a sequel to Filmation MOTU, it was its own thing with some Easter Eggs. The CGI TMNT movie, same thing. A blink-and-you'll-miss-it shot of a scepter does not a legit sequel make.

[Zog The Magnificent]

I'm sorry, there's a debate on how this movie fits in with the three live action ones? It doesn't fit at all. It never has, it never was supposed to, it's always been it's own thing. I didn't even know that people were questioning it.

I mean, if a minor easter egg referencing something else counts as rock-solid, bona fide evidence of continuity, then the Archie comics are in continuity with Sonic because of that one time they appeared in a panel of Sonic. Unless, of course, that's just a minor little nod just for fun. Like the shelf in TMNT 2007.

[Leo656]

Right, or like saying Archie Sonic was a continuation of Sonic SatAM, since they share characters and a few scant episodes of that cartoon were actually adapted into the comics.

Or better yet, like saying Archie TMNT was a sequel to the FW TMNT cartoon, because the book started out with a three-issue mini-series that adapted the cartoon, before IMMEDIATELY going off into its own thing that became highly contradictory of the thing it was a supposed "sequel" to.

There are shared elements between them. Some individual events may have happened in each "universe" mostly the same way, or even Exactly The Same Way.

But they're not legitimately "sequels" or "continuations". Even if at some vague point they were intended to be, and even if the writer tries to force it to fit, the fact remains they are generally incongruous with the thing they're supposedly continuing.

[Andrew NDB]

There is no "they." It was the writer/director and he was very clear about it.

[Leo656]

If he was serious about TMNT being a "sequel" to the original trilogy then he did a terrible f*cking job of it.

The evidence is weighted heavily on the side of, "It's its own thing with some callbacks", FAR more than "It's A Legit Sequel". You can "say" whatever you want, but you also have to follow through.

Kevin Smith can say over and over again, "MOTU: R is a sequel to Filmation!" But only a f*cking idiot would watch MOTU: R and actually still believe that. He was the "writer and director" of that show, and the fact is, what he said simply isn't true. MOTU: R contradicts Filmation MOTU at nearly every turn; he said what he said for marketing purposes, nothing more. It Gets Buzz.

Munroe and TMNT, same exact thing. Exactly the same thing. Marketing buzzwords that some people took way too seriously. He can say it until he's blue, he's still wrong.

What's the connective tissue? A single two-second shot at the very end of the movie. NOTHING else.

Reed Richards can't stretch far enough to make the "It's a sequel!" argument convincing.

[sdp]

Kevin Munroe posted on this forum and was always vague about it. I know because I always asked him, If you look at interviews online he always changes his answer and never gives it as "yeah it's a sequel". In fact IIRC he would say "events similar to the first movie and perhaps the second movie happened" and stuff like that.



It's not in continuity with the other live action movies. It's its own continuity. People just like to put it in that timeline because it's s movie and the ending Easter egg that has the time scepter but that's only an Easter egg. You don't see people arguing Sonic is in continuity with Archie TMNT.
The universe does resemble the 2k3 one a little but it doesn't make sense in that continuity either.

[CyberCubed]

Originally Posted by Jester

Especially since some of those include trophies from adventures involving triceratons and the like.

Remember in 2007 Mirage released a bunch of prequel comics that took place right before the 2007 movie. Most of them were to show they went on other adventures before the movie (it shows how Raph meets the original Nightwatcher and takes on his mantle, etc), and the Triceratons were obviously met in the movie universe at some point prior to the movie.

[Zog The Magnificent]

It's a broad strokes stand-alone movie. The movie assumes you understand the basic details of the setting, like their basic personalities, the fact that they live in New York and fight the Foot Clan, and in general who the supporting cast is. That way the movie can do it's own thing without having to use time up establishing the setting.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Zog The Magnificent

It's a broad strokes stand-alone movie. The movie assumes you understand the basic details of the setting, like their basic personalities, the fact that they live in New York and fight the Foot Clan, and in general who the supporting cast is. That way the movie can do it's own thing without having to use time up establishing the setting.

Basically, yes. But Munroe saw the first two movies as in continuity (and then there's the scepter from 3, which had to have been a late add-in) but did not want to scare new people away by broadly making it TMNT 4 or anything.

Truthfully it does not FEEL like TMNT 4, of course. But it was supposed to be. Kind of.

[Leo656]

And "Superman Returns" is supposed to be "The REAL Superman III" according to the writer, director, and even WB who owns the entire shebang and can entirely dictate which Superman films are "canon" with each other and which aren't. But some people still push back on that, hard... mostly the ones who don't like the movie. But regardless, "Word of God" says it's "The Real Superman III".

That movie actually can make that case pretty strongly, though. A lot more strongly than TMNT can claim to be a sequel to the other TMNT movies, at any rate. It's still vague, and there's still contradictions or redundancies in spots, but SR actually works pretty well as a sequel to Superman II. In fact, without it, there'd be no real reason for SR to even exist, objectively.

TMNT can't say that. It exists, in a vacuum, as a complete standalone movie and the only connective tissue to the earlier films are stapled-on at the very end. They don't actually affect anything, and if you've never even seen the earlier films, it has no bearing on your ability to understand or enjoy that one on its own.

So again, if it IS a "sequel"... it's not any good at being That. I don't have any huge problems with the movie, other than it's... just kinda There. But a "sequel" should be more than just, "We did three movies, then we waited a while, and then did another movie that has nothing to do with the ones we did forever ago but is technically 'The Next One'."

Also, to be clear, if someone WANTS to pretend it's in the same universe as the original films, I don't have any huge problem with that either, that's their business. I prefer to look at it like Archie TMNT was to FW TMNT, an "offshoot universe" rather than a true "sequel" universe. "Some of the same things happened, some didn't, and the ones that did probably happened a little or a lot differently than what we saw originally." There's just too many incongruities, otherwise.

[sdp]

Monroe only said vague comments to appease fans who constantly bombarded him with "IS IT IN CONTINIUITY!@!111". Granted I was one of those but he was asked this literally all the time. The comics Cubed mentions further show how different this universe was from the previous movies. Clearly any sequel would've solidified that it was its own continuity as it built its own world that would contradict the previous movies. The only reason this is a debate is because the movie didn't get a sequel.

If you look up my posts leading up to 2007, I wanted the movie to be in continuity with the original films badly. But after I saw it and saw the universe the tie in material had made; It made no sense to keep it in continuity since it's its own thing basically. And I'm normally the one that wants to shoehorn continuities together for fun, it just doesn't make sense here.

Originally Posted by Leofan26

This felt more like a final for the 2003 series.

Well it's incompatible with 2003 for various reasons but at the very least the turtles/april/casey/karai sort of share the same personalities so you'd be less lost than the different personalities the live action movies have. The success of the movie toys basically helped renew another season of 2k3 which is why Back to the Sewers despite being another season have new designs heavily influenced by the movie, hell April becomes a Ninja like the movie version was.

Now if you want the 2007 movie to be in continuity with something, I think it fits better as a movie for the 2012 movie. There's a few contradictions but makes more sense than 2k3/movie trilogy.

[Turo602]

Honestly, I don't see how it doesn't fit. Obviously, it's very much its own thing like Superman Returns, but it was still made to feel like the other films had already happened, hence Shredder's absence, the Turtles' glory days behind them, and April and Casey being together.

Karai was only there because the cartoon had already established her as Shredder's daughter and leader of the foot. So even if she wasn't a thing in the old movies, we're supposed to accept that was a long time ago and the rest can be filled in by the cartoon.

To say it's a sequel to TMNT 3 would be wrong, but it was still made as a sort of catch-all in terms of continuity. Adults would be able to follow along because of the old films and kids would be up to speed from the cartoon.

[Andrew NDB]

Munroe wanted to do like a City at War movie next but mixed with Shredder's resurrection but that was never in the cards for a myriad of reasons. The 2003 cartoon was not really on his brain at any point in the 2007 movie or beyond.

[Cowabung-Gal]

It’s about as confusing as the “Halloween” franchise, IMO.