Rise of the TMNT Movie Coming To Netflix

[LeotheLateBloomer]

Originally Posted by TigerClaw

Like it or not, People want it, Maybe not you, But I most certainly want it too.

Because you can't move on from your nostalgia.

[TigerClaw]

Originally Posted by LeotheLateBloomer

Because you can't move on from your nostalgia.

No because TMNT was at its peak during that era, They need to capitalize on that, and no I don't think for nostalgia sake, Because its far more recognizable then any other version.

[LeotheLateBloomer]

Originally Posted by TigerClaw

No because TMNT was at its peak during that era, They need to capitalize on that, and no I don't think for nostalgia sake, Because its far more recognizable then any other version.

That was that era! This isn't the 80s and 90s anymore. And they already are capitalizing on it with the Shredder's Revenge game. If you want to relish in more FW than look forward to that. (I am!) But you need to move on or you stagnate as a fan. What was popular back then will not be as popular now.

Also there are fans of the 90s films (moreso the first two) that never grew up with FW, so let's not just think about what you want.

[TigerClaw]

Originally Posted by LeotheLateBloomer

That was that era! This isn't the 80s and 90s anymore. And they already are capitalizing on it with the Shredder's Revenge game. If you want to relish in more FW than look forward to that. (I am!) But you need to move on or you stagnate as a fan. What was popular back then will not be as popular now.

Also there are fans of the 90s films (moreso the first two) that never grew up with FW, so let's not just think about what you want.

I digress, I think FW is making a comeback that is possibly influencing the upcoming CGI movie.

[LeotheLateBloomer]

Curious, are there any versions of TMNT you enjoy besides FW or IDW?

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by LeotheLateBloomer

Neatoman, I can understand your viewpoint of Rise and you make very good points. However, what is it that makes FW a bad show to you while Rise isn't?

Ok, so keep this in mind as you are reading this:
Here I will try to ignore any criticisms that can be considered subjective, such as Krang's robot body being ugly or Bebop and Rocksteady being annoying. Not everything about art is subjective, there are some aspects that can be considered good or bad no matter what they are or who is judging it, provided that they can ignore their own biases.

(This turned out to be a little too long for a preamble, so I put most of it in spoiler tags)

Spoiler:

I know it is very tempting to act as if the subjective aspect, that your personal enjoyment is all that it comes down to, because then "I like it therefore it's good" becomes all you need to say in order to defend it. However, if all it takes to like something for it to be good, then just about anything can be considered good, which just isn't the case. Plenty of people like Plan 9 but everyone also knows it's a terrible movie because it is full of problems that would drag down any movie. And it also doubtful that many people would enjoy that movie if they weren't in the mood for seeing a movie like that.

In the case of the Fred Wolf cartoon having people who say it is good, and Rise having people who say it is bad, these opinions can typically be boiled down to and summarised like this:

• "The Fred Wolf cartoon was the first TMNT cartoon I saw when I was 3-10 years old, I watched it every saturday morning and so did all my classmates, that must mean it is good"
• "Rise differs a lot from what I want TMNT to be and I think the art style is ugly, therefore it is bad"

Spoiler:

And before anyone tries to correct me with some anecdote about how that doesn't describe the origin of their personal opinion, yes I know it doesn't literally describe everyone but it general that seems to be where the defense of the Fred Wolf cartoon and criticisms of Rise seem to come from. Please don't tell me you were like 25 when you first watched the Fred Wolf cartoon and that totally means you can't just be nostalgic for it, or that Rise was the first TMNT cartoon you watched and hated it anyway or something, I know such exceptions exist. It's just that I can't account for every single damn set of circumstances that may lead to someone loving the Fred Wolf cartoon or hating Rise, OK? Even if you were to point out you are some kind of exception, I would still be able to argue my case against you because I'm trying to use consistent criteria here. Sometimes you have to generalise and those who fall outside of it aren't just automatically a slamdunk against the reasoning.

Nostalgia and expectation. Those are usually the key factors people try to claim the Fred Wolf show is good and that Rise is bad. The problem here is that this has nothing to do with trying to determine if these shows are well crafted or not, it only has to do with you specifically.

The Fred Wolf show has really bad animation for starters, and generally inexcusably low production values in general. In addition to generally being very choppy, also tended to feature several glaring errors, such as layer issues. Some people may try to excuse the problems with the animation on the budget and rushed schedule, but that isn't really a good excuse. It does not mean the show's animation was "good for what it was" or anything like that, if we're gonna use logic like that then the production values of Birdemic are "good for what it was". Because there is always a reason for the flaws of any production, we could literally get away with saying just about anything is "good for what it was", it is a meaningless defense. What the bad animation actually proves is that you shouldn't try to make 47 episodes as quickly as possible on a shoestring budget. What makes for good animation had been settled on decades before the first episode of the Fred Wolf cartoon had ever been aired. By the time the Fred Wolf cartoon first aired, there had indeed been television shows with much better animation, admittedly they often had few episodes per seasons and were in production longer before airing but that doesn't change the fact that they still looked much better. And it is also true that many other shows of that era didn't look good either but what you need to understand is that just because most of them looked bad, that does not mean "looked good for the time". They looked bad even then because they didn't have to cut corners the way they did. What you need to understand before you try to use time something was produced as an excuse for not holding up to modern productions, is that you need to what actually was and wasn't possible back then, even more importantly you need to understand there was always a minimal level of what could be considered "good enough". As I already stated, it was possible to make something that looked decent with a similar budget back then. It is technically true that a lot of modern tools make it easier to avoid and correct problems, but just because you have better tools now doesn't mean it was OK to neglect the errors back then, just because something was harder to do back then doesn't mean it was OK to just ignore it. The only times, and I really mean the only times, where the era can be considered a valid excuse is if something was literally impossible to do back then. We don't blame movies made in the 30's for not being in color and having low resolution because it simply wasn't possible film in color or HD back then, but if they have bad lighting and cinematography then we can still criticise those aspects.

The second serious problem with the Fred Wolf cartoon, which is arguably more important but that I have a much harder time convincing a lot of people of because it's easier to ignore, is that the writing of the Fred Wolf show tends to be fairly atrocious. I know some people will try, and have tried, to dismiss criticisms of continuity error and plotholes as being mere "nitpicks". What these people fail to understand or (even worse) pretend to no understand, is that errors aren't excusable because "everything has them" or because they aren't always noticeable. It is true that the human brain will filter out information that seems unimportant because the focus is elsewhere. A plot is always written to have a core focus, where you are meant to pay attention. While the ideal plot is completely free of errors, I understand this is hard to do but what even the most mediocre writer ever should be able to do, is avoid any contradictions in the core plot. Even if they fail to do so in their first draft, that is OK because that is where re-drafting and proof reading by others come in. It is not recommended that you declare the first draft to be the final draft, which I suspect was often the case given the problems with the writing and the hectic schedule. And in case you feel like countering my point by trying to say the first draft can be good enough, I literally went to university to learn creative writing. If they taught me anything it is that good writing needs to be comprehensive and worked on until it gets there, actually getting the X amount of pages out is easy, it can be done in a few hours but re-drafting it can take far longer (days, weeks, months, years). You don't typically produce good writing in a first draft and that can lead to serious problems. As an example taken from the Fred Wolf show, the first season is all about Krang wanting Shredder to build him a robotic body, that is the focus of season 1. Everything in season 1 hinges on this plot detail, we are meant to pay attention to it from episode 1 to episode 5, it is the core of the writing. As such, cause and effect related to it is something we are always meant to pay attention to. The problem is that there are several ways this opens up problems throughout season 1 and they are neither rectified or even addressed. Why does Shredder specifically have to do it? Krang very clearly has alternatives based purely on what we see in season 1, he could either program the Technodrome to build it for him or contact someone more loyal in Dimension X to help him out. It is also never made clear why or how Krang came into contact with Shredder, or why he was in any way ideal to build the robotic body for him. According to season 1, Shredder was a martial arts student up until sometime before the start of the series and allegedly the necessary details on how to build the body is something Krang taught him, we are never told if he did engineering on the side or had already recruited a team of engineers by the time he met Krang, we simply aren't given a reason to think Shredder was a better candidate to execute this task for him than any random person off the street. Shredder very clearly also follows his own agenda and even explicitly tells Krang he won't build him a robotic body because he fears being overthrown, this also puts into question why Shredder wasn't rejected because of his conflicting interests. When Shredder does finally decide to build Krang's robotic body, two more problems arise:

1. Shredder agreed because he felt there was nothing left he could do but he did have a mutation reversal ray which he tries to use.
2. Krang tells him to add an unknown component and he does so despite not knowing what it was.

[FredWolfLeonardo]

One point about Shredder agreeing to build Krang's body, and inserting the chip inside it is that he was desperate. Being desperate and impatient was always a part of his character, and intentional when it came to two "problems" you cited.

[neatoman]

Continuing here because the previous post was too long:

Originally Posted by neatoman

Previous post, click the arrow

As the episode unfolds, we see that Shredder does in fact have more tricks up his sleeves and his plans involving the ray-beam are largely independent of Krang's actions. By no means was he actually required to build Krang's body. The installation of the unknown component is also out of character for him, as we know he doesn't trust Krang and if he knows the body will work without it, it would be easier to simply refuse to do so or simply pretend he installed it. Also, given Shredder's untrusting nature, it is curious why he didn't install some kind of fail safe instead of just giving Krang exactly what he wanted. And indeed, the first thing Krang does upon getting a new body is contact his forces in Dimension X in an attempt to take command of the situation, so it is strange why Shredder did nothing to prevent this. I could go into more detail but like you already read, the previous post was too long and I don't want to go into too much detail here. The point is that this is not by any means minor criticism blown out of proportion, these are major errors in the cause and effect of season 1. It is not a subjective opinion that these parts are contradictory, or that characters act out of character, or that they don't follow cause and effect in general. Regardless of whatever I may think of anything else, like thinking the Pizza jokes are lame, these are objective. These thing happen in the show and it doesn't work, regardless of wheter or not I had actually liked the show, these would have been major problems anyway.

As for Rise. While I may not remember too clearly and I may need to re-evaluate the show after rewatching it determine if it does anything this poorly with the plot, but as far as I can remember, they did go into sufficient detail about why the characters did what they did and what their limits were (such as Draxum not being able to continue his mutation experiments until the start of the series, or what was up with the missing pieces of the Shredder armor). And when it comes to animation, I also don't remember any episode that looked like... Shit... Generally the animation of Rise ranged from being OK to actually pretty great, I don't remember seeing any obvious animation errors or the animation slowing down the frame rate in any noticeable places. Again, maybe I need to rewatch it all and make a new judgement but based solely on what I can remember, Rise does not have as many or as serious failings as the Fred Wolf show.

What I'm trying to say here is that there are some criteria that are consistent and objective for just about everything when it comes to judging the quality. If I judged any random cartoon on them, be it ones I hate, ones I love or ones I'm neutral on, I can still determine if they were well crafted or not. This isn't necessarily the same thing as my opinion of course, like I said, Rise's direction isn't what I personally want to see TMNT turn into but unless I re-evaluate it and discover something new, I can't really say it's bad outside any personal objections to it.

These objective criteria do exist and the Fred Wolf cartoon, I'm sorry to say, mostly fail these while Rise passes.

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by FredWolfLeonardo

One point about Shredder agreeing to build Krang's body, and inserting the chip inside it is that he was desperate. Being desperate and impatient was always a part of his character, and intentional when it came to two "problems" you cited.

Just take a look at the second post I made, the only reason I didn't go into it in the first one is because I'm not allowed to make longer posts:

Originally Posted by neatoman

Click the arrow to read

Basically, the problem is that even though we are told he is desperate in the previous episode, we see in the very same episode where he builds the body that he really had no reason to be. From a meta perspective, the only reason he did it was because the story needed to wrap up, not because he actually needed to do it. And even if he was desperate and impatient, that isn't excuse for him just to act out of character by going along with with what the guy he doesn't trust tells him to.

The situation speaks louder than words here. Shredder claiming to be out of options here is like a guy in a shopping mall claiming he can only go one store, he repeat it as many times as he can but that doesn't make it so.

[FredWolfLeonardo]

Read your second post. Shredder does have more tricks up his sleeve indeed, but we have to remember this is Shredder we are talking about.

If you have a Ninja master who is brash, arrogant and impulsive, that's Shredder in the 1987 show. Take those personality traits away, and you have Splinter.

The point is, Shredder always has opportunities to think things through, but he doesn't and always picks whatever is infront of him because "I hate those turtles!". It makes sense why he would go along with Krang's plan, because the constant defeats in episodes 1 to 4 just made him mindlessly obsessed with destroying the turtles to the point of not considering his options.

But I might be getting ahead of myself by discussing the Fred Wolf Cartoon in a thread about the upcoming Rise movie

[shredder orokusaki]

Yes i have regreted that i bulid krang a robot body. I should have not build it. Or if i could program it to obey only me which in that case Krang could not control it or use it against me. Maybe that what i should had done. Create it but make it so that it obeys and works only for me and not him. But l learned from my mistake! When i met the next Krang the IDW Krang and he asked me to help him and become allies i didnt agree and i tryed to kill him! I did it agian after i met the next krang the 2016 Krang. See? Because i remeber what a traitor the 1987 krang was and how many times he attacked me!!! A for rise we talked about why it failed a million times already. It would had been a success if it was like 2003 or 2012 or IDW comics. But it wasnt. It was 1000 times worse then the 1987. The next series will be as good as the 2003 or 2012 or IDW and then wil be a huge success like these was!

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by FredWolfLeonardo

Read your second post. Shredder does have more tricks up his sleeve indeed, but we have to remember this is Shredder we are talking about.

If you have a Ninja master who is brash, arrogant and impulsive, that's Shredder in the 1987 show. Take those personality traits away, and you have Splinter.

The point is, Shredder always has opportunities to think things through, but he doesn't and always picks whatever is infront of him because "I hate those turtles!". It makes sense why he would go along with Krang's plan, because the constant defeats in episodes 1 to 4 just made him mindlessly obsessed with destroying the turtles to the point of not considering his options.

Sure? But he still decides to do the one thing he always knew was a bad idea. Even if we assume he thought he was out of options when he finally agreed to build it, he had already come up the the Anti-Mutagen plot when he inserted Krang into it anyway. He could easily have postponed it or at least placed an explosive or something in the body.

Originally Posted by FredWolfLeonardo

But I might be getting ahead of myself by discussing the Fred Wolf Cartoon in a thread about the upcoming Rise movie

Well, we are trying to determine if Rise can actually be considered worse than the Fred Wolf cartoon in an objective sense. Tell you what, go and rewatch the first season of Rise and see if it holds up without trying to compare it to other versions of TMNT or confusing personal likes/dislikes for good craftsmanship.

Try to evaluate the show on criteria such as:

• Is everything necessary communicated to us the audience?
• Was there sufficient set-up for this payoff?
• Do the characters have sufficient knowledge to make the decisions they do?
• Is it reasonable to assume this character would make this particular decision based on what we know about them?
• Are there any contradictions?
• Does this animation make sense visually?
• Is the audio and video in sync?
• Can the characters be heard clearly?

Criteria such as these will help you determine if the the show is well crafted or not. Keep in mind that this is not the same thing as you liking it or not, that is a different discussion. You liking something or not is about what impression something made on you, it could have very little to do with the quality of the thing. These criteria all relate to creating a cohesive story and correctly structuring an audio-visual product, passing these is what every single cartoon should strive for. You may need to make exceptions if it is intentionally breaking them but it is usually pretty obvious when it is doing it intentionally, such as a character having amnesia or it being done for the sake of a joke, but if it is doing it intentionally and you can't tell why then it still fails.

Of course, you may get something wrong in this assessment but that is what the discussion is for.

[Jephael]

What if somebody were to come up with a new version of TMNT based primarily on the Archie comics? It would start off as slight adaptation of the first season of the original cartoon but then utilize the storyarcs from TMNT Adventures (non of the preachy "protect the environment" stuff though) as well as bits and pieces from Mirage, the 2003 and 2012 shows.

[Roseangelo]

Originally Posted by Jephael

but then utilize the storyarcs from TMNT Adventures (non of the preachy "protect the environment" stuff though)

Yeah, you have no content left.

[TigerClaw]

Originally Posted by Jephael

What if somebody were to come up with a new version of TMNT based primarily on the Archie comics? It would start off as slight adaptation of the first season of the original cartoon but then utilize the storyarcs from TMNT Adventures (non of the preachy "protect the environment" stuff though) as well as bits and pieces from Mirage, the 2003 and 2012 shows.

What I would really like to see is them do that, But set 150 years in the future, When the archie comic went to the future, They had some pretty cool and interesting stuff that went on.

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by Roseangelo

Yeah, you have no content left.

C'mon. They occasionally did try and make other points.

Boy, what if those guys knew back in 1990 that 99% of all recycling goes straight to the dump with the rest of the trash? Seriously, it's true! I only found that out a few years ago and it blew my mind. Imagine the existential crises the Archie writers and editors would have been going through if they'd known that back then. Makes you wonder what they would've written about otherwise, kinda.

[Jephael]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Boy, what if those guys knew back in 1990 that 99% of all recycling goes straight to the dump with the rest of the trash? Seriously, it's true! I only found that out a few years ago and it blew my mind. Imagine the existential crises the Archie writers and editors would have been going through if they'd known that back then. Makes you wonder what they would've written about otherwise, kinda.

I can imagine Leonardo and Raphael arguing over whether or not guns are considered honorable. As a kid I thought having Leo detest them was an interesting character trait that could've been explored a little better, especially after the death of the Mutanimals. There was also that part at the end of the Cyber Samurai arc where Future Raph straight up shot Verminator, which of course triggered Future Leo!

[sdp]

I want a Captain Planet reboot but please none of that SJW sh-t in it

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Jephael

I can imagine Leonardo and Raphael arguing over whether or not guns are considered honorable. As a kid I thought having Leo detest them was an interesting character trait that could've been explored a little better, especially after the death of the Mutanimals.

You know, I love the Archie TMNT material quite a bit... but there's something really hysterical about a ninja debating about whether or not a gun is honorable.

You really sort of have to pretend they're not ninja in TMNTA. And that's OK.

[IndigoErth]

Eh, since Leo, despite his ninja upbringing, has always kind of been into the old time Samurai stuff, since back before the time that guns were in much use, if at all, I guess it kind of makes sense for him to be a bit of a weapons snob.