20 something years later, how do you feel about Utrom Shredder?

[Prowler]

I remember how, in season 1, Shredder looked unstoppable. Leonardo cutting his head off and then him getting up and picking his head up left my 13-14 year old self quite stunned.

Then came the Secret Origins 3-parter in season 2 where it gets revealed that Shredder was an Utrom all along...

It was disappointing because it made The Shredder an alien and also meant it wasn't a real martial arts master behind the armour, but some Utrom in an exosuit playing with joysticks and buttons. Later in the series they kind of rectified this by revealing that Oroku Saki was actually the original Shredder many years ago and that Chrell made an exosuit out of his dead body or something.

It ended up working fine for the series, even if I still believe that alien Shredder is not a good concept on paper. Quite an interesting contradiction, I must say. I've accepted a long long time ago that Shredder is an Utrom named Ch'rell in this series, so I'm not "bitter" about it or anything and haven't been so for many years now. So no, I wouldn't change his origin/background on this show.

[frank_one]

I'm feeling pretty good about it. It was a crazy idea that added a new spin to an old story and it worked very well.

[CyberCubed]

It's fine, I haven't thought about it anyway since there was a real human Shredder in Season 5 he was based on.

[neatoman]

I got the impression that because Shredder was never really designed to be the main villain in the first place, yet convention kind of demanded he'd have a bigger role, some alterations had to be made regardless. A problem with the idea of Shredder as the main villain, is that the guy who was little more than a glorified mob boss doesn't work as the big bad once you introduce far tougher villains, like the horde of triceratops aliens for instance. The decision to make him an Utrom was likely a compromise, he was thus weak enough to essentially come across like the human character he initially pretended to be, yet resourceful and ambitious enough to still be a problem when the stakes were raised.

And judged in isolation without any complaints about expectations set by previous incarnation, it's not like it's nonsensical within the show itself. Season 1 foreshadows this very clearly:

1. He's using a sword that can't be held by human hands.
2. It's made from the same substance as some robot thing.
3. The robot thing is stated to belong to some nebulous enemy of his.
4. He survives getting his head cut off somehow.
5. The Guardians protect this enemy of his.
6. The people the Guardians work for are revealed to be brainlike aliens, using those robot things covered in fake human skins to disguise themselves.

It's not a leap to assume Shredder himself would be one of these brainlike creatures himself, if anything it's the natural conclusion. The only reason you wouldn't at least consider it as a possibility if you paid attention, would be if you're too hung up on Shredder being human based on expectation set by previous incarnations.

And... Well, I suppose this is the elephant in the room, this may have been the first but not the last time Shredder was mainly depicted as something other than a normal human being. IDW, Rise and presumably more than a few future iterations don't really depict Shredder as a normal human being. The 2012 did initially have him as a normal human but towards the end he was depicted as a hulking monster and a zombie. The makers of Mutant Mayhem admitted they didn't use Shredder for the first movie because they couldn't square the plot with having a major villain who is just some guy, implying they might try something like this again. I kinda suspect that a lot of writers would agree with me that it's weird to have a setting full of crazy stuff but effectively just make the primary villain Tony Soprano with bladed shoulder pads, the setting kind of demands a bigger scope villain.

[Andrew NDB]

It was laughable. A gimmick just so they could show Leonardo FAKE decapitating him. Utrom Shredder was just evil for eeeevil's sake and cardboard thin, 0 motivation.

[Icebot]

I thought it was a cool idea. Not revealing it until Secret origins made it enjoyable to me.

I’m still surprised Hun didn’t know Shredder was an Utrom until Exodus.

[ToTheNines]

Utrom Shredder? Sounds Swedish!

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by ToTheNines

Utrom Shredder? Sounds Swedish!

Yeah... I've spoken Swedish my entire life and I can't think of words that sound even remotely similar to "Utrom" or "Shredder", at least none that make the slightest bit of sense together.

Then again, the joke was uttered by an FW turtle, who are known for making shitty, bad, toothless and poorly thought out jokes, so... On point?

[Heyowakka]

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by neatoman

Yeah... I've spoken Swedish my entire life and I can't think of words that sound even remotely similar to "Utrom" or "Shredder", at least none that make the slightest bit of sense together.

Then again, the joke was uttered by an FW turtle, who are known for making shitty, bad, toothless and poorly thought out jokes, so... On point?

Utrom definitely doesn't sound Swedish... or any other human language, for that matter. It sounds like a made up word.

Meanwhile, there's a Utrom named Obligado which is nearly identical to the Portuguese word "Obrigado" which means 'thank you' or "being forced to do something'. I believe I've pointed this out in that thread about TMNT characters with the coolest names already.

[ToTheNines]

Originally Posted by neatoman

I got the impression that because Shredder was never really designed to be the main villain in the first place, yet convention kind of demanded he'd have a bigger role, some alterations had to be made regardless. A problem with the idea of Shredder as the main villain, is that the guy who was little more than a glorified mob boss doesn't work as the big bad once you introduce far tougher villains, like the horde of triceratops aliens for instance. The decision to make him an Utrom was likely a compromise, he was thus weak enough to essentially come across like the human character he initially pretended to be, yet resourceful and ambitious enough to still be a problem when the stakes were raised.

And judged in isolation without any complaints about expectations set by previous incarnation, it's not like it's nonsensical within the show itself. Season 1 foreshadows this very clearly:

1. He's using a sword that can't be held by human hands.
2. It's made from the same substance as some robot thing.
3. The robot thing is stated to belong to some nebulous enemy of his.
4. He survives getting his head cut off somehow.
5. The Guardians protect this enemy of his.
6. The people the Guardians work for are revealed to be brainlike aliens, using those robot things covered in fake human skins to disguise themselves.

It's not a leap to assume Shredder himself would be one of these brainlike creatures himself, if anything it's the natural conclusion. The only reason you wouldn't at least consider it as a possibility if you paid attention, would be if you're too hung up on Shredder being human based on expectation set by previous incarnations.

And... Well, I suppose this is the elephant in the room, this may have been the first but not the last time Shredder was mainly depicted as something other than a normal human being. IDW, Rise and presumably more than a few future iterations don't really depict Shredder as a normal human being. The 2012 did initially have him as a normal human but towards the end he was depicted as a hulking monster and a zombie. The makers of Mutant Mayhem admitted they didn't use Shredder for the first movie because they couldn't square the plot with having a major villain who is just some guy, implying they might try something like this again. I kinda suspect that a lot of writers would agree with me that it's weird to have a setting full of crazy stuff but effectively just make the primary villain Tony Soprano with bladed shoulder pads, the setting kind of demands a bigger scope villain.

Originally Posted by Heyowakka

https://i.imgur.com/SfOitnf.png

[FredWolfLeonardo]

The Utrom Shredder would've been less hated if his real name was Krang.

I liked the twist. Ch'rell was a bit ridiculous looking, but intimidating regardless.

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by ToTheNines

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/i...RKv84BEqwoKA&s

Funny, but you should probably change that to Meadow asking if Tony is an Utrom, then have a have small brain-squid-thing crawl out of his stomach with a paranoid stare.

[Antoniocafe]

I didnt love it, but i didnt hate it. It didn't really add all that much to the character. The majority of the time, the character wasn't even portrayed as The Shredder. Most of the time that the character was onscreen, he was portrayed as Oroku Saki. Outside of a few appearances here and there, you wouldn't have even known that there was an utrom in there.