Debate of the Day: Does It Matter if the Ninja Turtles Are From Space?
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMAA3wr9fa0
The internet is on fire after the news that Michael Bay dared to change the origin story of the Ninja Turtles, which will claim that they are in fact aliens. Rabble rabble rabble!
I hate Michael Bay as much as the next guy, but to me this fell into the “really not a big deal” column. No, they don’t have to be Teenage Alien Ninja Turtles. You can still mutate in space. And really, was their old origin story that compelling?
To be honest, I didn’t even know what it was until I watched this video, which is from the TMNT 25th anniversary which finally explains where the turtles came from. Any less ridiculous than crash landing from space? Not really, but apparently everyone thinks this is butchering their nostalgia. What do you think?
It’s not a big deal since I’m very much over the ninja turtle thing, but it is a perfect example of pointless stupidity. Maybe he can make them middle-aged wizards to? Then they can be Middleage Alien Wizard Turtlesque Beings (seeing as they aren’t really turtles either if they are aliens). Is making them aliens REALLY going to deepen the story at all? Reeeeeaaaaaalllly? Nope. It’s just going to take something familiar and (in it’s way) classic and dick it around into something stupid(er) and possibly unrecognizable. Take any franchise you love, say Pokemon or Game of Thrones or something. Now pretend Michael Bay is rebooting it, but now the main characters are all from space based only on the fact that Transformers are from space and they made him a lot of money. How do you think that would turn out?
I was never a purist as i never read the comics, but i did see all
all three movies opening nite, was present at the coming out of our shells tour, had the toys, bed sheets, clothing etc
But i do know from TMNT II :The secret of the ooze where my
Turtles came from, i was not too happy with the third but it brought back casey jones and got rid of keno. Anyways im sick of them takimg franchises and rebooting them to suit there needs. I grew up with one image ninja turtles, and thats what i’ll stick with thanx
So let me get this straight. If someone did a remake of Spider Man but made Peter Parker turn into Spider Man by getting blasted out into space rather than bitten by a spider, you wouldn’t find this appalling?
The question here is why? Why in the hell does Bay feel the need to change the story? Being aliens or being dropped in mutant ooze? Neither one is more believable than the other so why change the original story?
Bay is a fool. Tinkering with the origins of one of the most popular childhood heroes in recent history is just plain stupid.
How about remake Spiderman so that instead of being bitten, he inherits his scientist dad’s spiderman project and turns into him that way? Oh wait.. they are doing that..
To answer the article headline: YES.
I just see it as making it needlessly complicated, in the original a boy bought some pet turtles then accidentally dropped them in the sewer where they were mutated by experimental ooze that was thrown out by some company… it’s a simple concept, stupid, but simple. The only question that need answering was what was that ooze that changed them into mutants.
Now with this space crap thrown in they could be aliens or in your view mutated by space rays, and that gives rise to even more questions about their origin. If they’re aliens where did they come from? how did they get to earth? why were they sent to earth? Or if they were mutated in space then how did that happen? cosmic rays? solar radiation? why were there turtles in space to begin with? and what about Splinter? … etc. And I bet you dollars to doughnuts they’ll answer them in the crappiest most explosion filled way possible. It would only serve to make an already ridiculous concept even more ludicrous.
@MZC Don’t forget, April O’Neil better be thin and have some big tits.
It’s like George Lucas and Michael Bay have a competition to see who can wreck the 80s more.
Not to be a snob, but if he really does stick with this origin story, sorry but I’m not going to see it. I wouldn’t mind if he changed it to something different besides “ooze”, but space turtles? That just doesn’t mesh.
I remembered exactly how the teenage mutant ninja turtles came to be. When I heard that Bay is planning on making them aliens, yeah, I got a little upset.
I don’t like how Hollywood likes to change things that I enjoy and feel work, and this is just another one of those instances. The origins of the turtles is something that’s familiar to me and every bit a part of the show as cowabunga, pizza, and nun-chucks.
If the turtles are changed into aliens, I don’t think they’re really turtles then. If they become mutated aliens, I argue that wouldn’t really matter – we, here on Earth, would still just consider them aliens. So, to me, even the name wouldn’t fit very well anymore.
I also agree with MZC about raising more questions.
I don’t want a different backstory – I just want good old TMNT action! Complete with the flair of the 80’s and 90’s.
I’m okay as long as:
1. there is actual dialogue and decent acting in addition to explosions
2. no wrecking-ball testicles
In short: yes.
It’s not even that Bay will change the origin (which I am still livid about on principle, as TMNT was the first show I ever got really into a a kid), it’s that making the turtles originate in space opens the plot of the movie up to everything else being from space, too. I don’t want “Transformers: Ninja Turtles.” I guess being from space does allow the inevitable Mciahel Bay explosions to actually make sense, as the normal, Earth-bound turtles didn’t blow too many things up.
Michael Bay just want to find ways to blow things up. Because if there are aliens, there’ll be spaceships with guns and lasers and missiles. See where I’m going? Mutan ninja’s don’t go blowing things up. They go stealthy and sh*t. But alien ninja’s, well that’s a different story.
The problem is there are exactly four things you cannot change about TMNT. If you change any one of those things they literally are not making a TMNT movies.
They have to be Teenage
They have to be Mutants
They have to be Ninjas
They have to be Turtles
You could make splinter into an old Sony AIibo that got hit by lightning and gained sentience Short Circuit style. You oculd turn the Shredder into a cyborg alien from mars. You could make Casey Jones an actual old-timey train engineer and April O’niel could be a work out old crack whore. Just so long as you have Teenaged Ninjas who happen to be Mutated Turtles you are still making a Teenage Mutant ninja Turtle movie.
Aliens are first and foremost NOT TURTLES. Even turtle-shaped aliens are not turtles. unless common Terrestrial turtles evolved from ancient turtleoid aliens so that all turtles are in fact aliens, it’s impossible for an alien to be a turtle.
Even if they’re teenaged mutants who know ninjitsu they are now Teenage Mutant Ninja Aliens at this point.
Meanwhile, it’s entirely likely that they’re making them aliens because bay thinks mutation is too unrealistic, so chances are we’re dealing with perfectly normal turtle-oid aliens.
So we’re dealing with Teenage Normal Ninja Aliens.
Assuming they’re actually going to be teenagers at all (how many adolescent beings fly interplanetary missions?) or that they actually know Ninjitsu as opposed to some weird alien martial art.
It sounds silly and nitpicky, and it is. But seriously, it’s just a pointless, retarded change for the sake of change.
As terrible as his Transformers movies werte, the transformers at least still TRANSFORMED.
Could you imagine making a Transformers movie where the alien robots did NOT transform? That’s exactly what we’re looking at here. A Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie that features characters who are not Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Also worth noting: TMNT started out as a total trubute to Daredevil. Eastman and Laird LOVED Daredevil comics. That’s why the turtles’ enemy were a clan of ninjas called the FOOT (As opposed to The HAND who were Daredevil’s enemies) And the little ginger kid in that above video? Matt Murdock.
In the original comics at least, they do a direct copy of Daredevil’s origin for a panel or two, a young man pushing a blind lady out of the way of a canister of toxic chemicals that bounced off the back of a truck. It hits him in the eyes then rolls down into the sewer where it exposes Splinter and the Turtles.
The same accident that created Daredevil created the TMNT.
Changing that ti aliens effectively destroys one of the greatest Easter Eggs of comicbook history.
Bah, forgive the typos, please. Fighting a cold and low on sleep
This is just further proof of how terrible a director Bay is. Everything he does makes me angry and then I get depressed because I know somehow his terrible ideas, awful, cringe worthy dialogue, juvenile humour and offensive portrayal of other races will get him paid.
He should stick to special effects as a career. Leave the trickier tasks like plot, character development, writing and directing to someone with half a brain, one that hopefully isn’t located in their dick or up their anus.
I think Michael Bay is on a mission to ruin everything from the 80’s starting with the biggest properties. First he completely ruined Transformers for an entire generation and now its the Turtles turn. Just keep in mind this is the guy that made Armageddon do you really expect better than this ???? Just wait until next year when Micheal announces he is going to make a new Master Of The Universe movie or possible Go-Bots can’t be any worst than anything else the guy has ever made.
Galahad,
thank you for the DD origin input. I was going to say that but you beat me to it.
and yea… stick with the original origin. changing the origin changes the TMNT.
keep in mind that although we all mostly love TMNT from cartoons they were initally a pretty graphic/brutal comic.
it’d be like changing the spiderman or xmen origins. (mutants??? nah… shape shifting super powered alien robots).
spiderman… bitten by a spider? Nope.. his dead father gave him the powers from beyond the grave to avenge him and fight crime.
but… that doesn’t change anything right?
I agreed with Shiner. The origin itself does not matter, but why change it? Knowing how bay works and after seeing transformers 3, he probably wants them to be Aliens so he ca recycle some of his space footage and say that the space race was started so we could get to the moon and discover the turtles first.
There’s no real reason to change it. Just leave it be.
The only way I see them fitting ANYTHING alien into the TMNT story would be if the ooze that transformed them was alien in origin. That would be okay for me to deal with. Of course Michael Bay will still f*ck it up and I won’t watch it unless I’m already almost blind from intoxication. That was the only way I could watch the last two Transformers movies.
honestly I don’t care if he changes the origin I just wont watch the movies. When marvel ruined X-men origins wolverine I didn’t get super pissed and stop reading comics i Just didn’t watch X-men movies again. So if Bay wants to change the origin let he will just end up losing fan support.
I agree that it feels like Bay is trying to ruin everything beloved from the 80’s (though does anyone else find it ironic he did not do G.I. Joe the one show full of human soldiers and explosions). What we are going to get is a movie with 4 characters sharing almost nothing with the 4 turtles from the franchise except maybe their names, and some air headed barbie doll “actress” who at some point is bent over something suggestively accompanied needless explosions and impossible to follow action and “plot”. At this point I think Bay is just grabbing random scripts that call for explosions and picking a random franchise’s name to slap on it and then getting someone to tweak the script so it fits as loosely as possible, after all how else would you explain transformers 3?
I’ll tell you this is just depressing news. I does matter what the origins of the turtles are and that’s apparent. Shouldn’t even really be up for debate. Michael Bay just needs to take a step back from the reboots for a while. It just gets old after so many reboot titles, I think enough is enough. But I don’t think the generation I came from that grew up with turtles heavily in their lives never needed or even wanted a turtles reboot. There has already been far to many attempts at the franchise as it is lately. I think they just need to let it go and enjoy it for what it was. I mean as far as i’m concerned the ninja turtle franchise ended years ago.
Your age is showing, Paul. It’s always so jarring when it does that.
Seriously, though, just because you don’t care doesn’t mean no one else should, especially since you’re clearly not a fan (corect me if I’m wrong, but I know I’m not; you didn’t even know their origin for Pete’s sake). You marking it “not a big deal” thus has no weight or relevance.
I mean, I’m not a fan of Pokemon (was too old for that fad by about two years), so would my opinion on some alteration to it matter to you? Of course not. So, no offense, but I guess my response to your “who cares?” is “who CARES about your ‘who cares?'”. I’ve known the Ninja Turtles’ origin story since before I knew my letters and numbers. I care, and I think Michael Bay is just the worst right now. Maybe the movie will be good, I don’t know, but turning the Turtles into aliens won’t be the reason for it.
The origin changes a bit from version to version. In the 80s cartoon Splinter was Hamato Yoshi and transformed into a rat, in the comics, movies, and subsequent cartoons Splinter was Hamato Yoshi’s pet rat who mutated along with the turtles. April O’Neil has been a lab assistant, a news reporter, and an antiquities dealer. I don’t have a problem with a minor tweak here or there. The ninja turtles have been remixed several times now, each version brings something a little different. The core story though of pet turtles falling into a sewer, being mutated by ooze and trained in martial arts by a rat who named them after renaissance artists has remained pretty consistent. Sure the whole damned thing is silly, but it’s a concept I grew up with and have tremendous affection for. The origin of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is as essential to the story as Superman being from Krypton, or Spider-man being bitten by a Spider. Part of what makes the characters special is the random happenstance of their mutation. With Michael Bay bandying about phrases like “alien race” it connotes the turtles are just a few of many others, and diminishes the uniqueness of the characters within their own world. As far as I understand it’s still in the script phase of pre-production, so I’ll reserve judgement until I see something more. If anything else this will be something like the sixth or eighth time the turtles have been re-done, not including the new Nickelodeon cartoon. If it is truly awful I can just round file it with the third live action movie, or the live action TV series.
“Shiner_Manon 22 Mar 2012 at 2:27 pm
So let me get this straight. If someone did a remake of Spider Man but made Peter Parker turn into Spider Man by getting blasted out into space rather than bitten by a spider, you wouldn’t find this appalling?
The question here is why? Why in the hell does Bay feel the need to change the story? Being aliens or being dropped in mutant ooze? Neither one is more believable than the other so why change the original story?
Bay is a fool. Tinkering with the origins of one of the most popular childhood heroes in recent history is just plain stupid.”
You sir are a champion and said what I was going to.
“Mutant turtles from space?”
Sounds a bit like “Biker mice from mars?”