The strong winds of Hurricane Maria have wrecked the island's infrastructure. We have no power, no water, and barely internet and radio.
Please send donations to me, specifically, at drawnder@gmail.com and help me and my family, and every dollar is a difference between getting that water and going thirsty. I will try to return to blogging asap, and was even working on a atmnt fangame when the storm hit. Now, please help.
I hear you Brit's aren't fond of transparency either...
Cartoons of the eighties get a bad rap. Even the
era's greatest successes are often dispatched as 30 minute toy
commercials, cold product cranked out by factories, committees and
boring bald guys.
While it is true that the intent
behind these animated tv shows was highly mercenary, when we say that we
are selling them a little short. There is an art to crafting something
that continues to be remembered well to the future. For every
Transformers and GI Joe that is now a fixture in pop culture to this
very day, there were hundreds of Dinosaucers and Insectaurs who just
skidded in the start line and never even got going.
I REEEMEEEEMBEEEER
So while yes, Teenage Mutant HERO Turtles, the animated adaptation of a popular indie comic, was not
exactly Miyazaki shit or anything, there HAS to have been something more
to it that we're now on the 3rd season of it's 3rd reboot, and on it's
second movie of it's 3rd movie continuity. How many reboots has T Rex
and Mummies Alive had? Exactly.
While strong
commercial appeal is an obvious element, I hypothesize that malleability
of the core concept is the core reason. Mutant HERO Turtles is a
pretty silly idea, but in a few decades it's taken a stroll across the
gamut of tones a story can be told in and came out winning fans every
time.
Or rather, almost every time.
For
you see, there is a version of TMNT that nobody lvoes. It is often
considered THE WORST version. When the guys who made the franchise and
watched it be used to hawk everything from macaroni to bedsheets
consider this the point of shame, that's how you know you did wrong.
But is it really that bad? Out of sheer curiosity, decided to give it watch on the old Youtube once over. Thanks to user Oser Baya
for having uploaded the episode. It's thanks to guys like him that
Nickelodeon executives go hungry every night. That's how copyright
works, right?
But first, a little bit of history. By
1997 the original TMNT cartoon had been off the air 1 year after a
highly successful 8 season run. The popularity and toy aisle space the
show had had been usurped by The Mighty Morphing Power Rangers
Franchise, a Japanese sentai show that merely replaced all the Japanese
actors with American ones while keeping all the scenes where people wore
helmets to pretend they were under them produced by Saban.
Saban's
success allowed them to do various lesser known attempts to replicate
the Ranger's success, but getting lightening to strike twice proved
futile. So they turned their attention to their vanquished foe, and
aquired the license to TMNT.
With what they had learned of martial arts children entertainment surely they would find success, right? Well...no, not exactly.
The
show was HERO Turtles: The Next Mutation. Or as it was known in the
version I didn't watch, N***a Turtles : The Next Mutation. They couldn't say N***a because it's slang for vagina over in the United Kingdom [citation
needed]. This is why I'm making this a Euro-safe version of this article,
replacing every N***a with Hero.
So I have decided to
tackle the series' first 5 episode arc, East Meets West, hoping to see
if the show's bad reputation is earned or unearned.
And you will experience it as I did, in all it's croppy, blurry glory.
The show starts with a stereotypical
Chinese Master who trying to hold back evil from a mirror, a long with
his assistant, a female in a brown robe. Now, if you know anything about
this show, this isn't exactly a great mystery, but it might take you
for surprise if you..don't watch the intro immediately after...
Oh, yeah, the intro. You know, there is a lot of pressure to live up to TMNT's classic intro.
And this one was basically the first one to try it, and ends up pretty
bad in the list overall. It might be the worst. Here's your lyrics.
Four green turtles! Heard the news?
Changed to mutants by an ooze!
Found on the floor and raised by a rat!
Now they're HEROES. How 'bout that?
Check it out! Another one found!
Made her way to Chinatown!
With the rest, yeah, that makes five!
HERO Turtles, now they're live!
Na-na-na-na-HERO, HERO, HERO Turtles!
Na-na-na-na-HERO, HERO, HERO Turtles!
Yeah.
Basically, they outline the story to the
characters in the worst way possible. Like, every other version tries to
present the idea as an awesome one. This one it literally goes "how
bout that" like it just found out it's pitbull is pregnant.
Then
comes the basic barebones characterization every fan knows and loves:
Raph is angry for no given reason. They just walk you in on Leo and Raph
having an argument about nothing and Raph leaves angry on his bike, on
what very much feels like stock footage, even though it's the first time
I seen it.
Then while he's out there he's attacked by
Foot HEROES. I think this is the most in-media-resey TMNT, which is
both brave and...not very well done. I guess the show assumed everybody
already know all this stuff from the movies and cartoon and in a way,
they are right, but by this point the boys who grew up with a 80's
Turtles are already grown past it, and the young up and comers might
need for you to fill them in on why anything is going on.
No, no quiero pene, cabron!
Besides, this show doesn't fit into the continuity of
either version. Here, Shredder is scared Shredder from the movies, yet
that guy died because he became HHH and knocked a building on myself.
And also, here Splinter is Hamato Yoshi, not Hamato Yoshi's pet rat.
This doesn't. Also, April was in those, and isn't in this, and her
vanishing goes unexplained.
Anyway, Raph being attacked
activates Splinter's 6th sense. Which...he has now. He's all about mind
magic in this version . Which is weird but uh... Not unheard of.
Splinter bill out Rafael along with the other Turtles.
What is unheard of, though, is Splinter's blind chess playing boyfriend.
so without any previous warning day dropping with the
Foot Clan and it's goofy-looking Shredder. again not exactly movie
trailer but not cartoon Shredder.
It's barely above Live Tour Shredder.
Shredder is angry and wants to get rid of
the Turtles because they get in the way of his plans. Which
is...certainly one way to do Shredder, I guess. I would have thought
it'd be more of a personal edge to it, like uh..most versions.
Later
the Turtles reconvene at their home, where Splinter goes into a mental
trip thingy through the Dream Realm. There he meets Master Whatever, who
warns him that he's in grave danger of dragons.
And
then we learn the whole thing. Apparently a bunch of years ago the
earth was ruled by dragons. But lucky for us, the got trapped in a magic
mirror. However, Master idiot apparently tripped and let these Dragons
in to the Dream realm.
I appreciate that there's a
backstory to the main villain of this show, but honestly following where
these fucking dragons moved to at any given time should not not
require a flowchart. Besides, if I understand it they moved from the
mirror to the dreamrealm...so why the fuck does Dragondude keep peeking
through the mirror?
The Mirror Dragon reproduction cycle.
Splinter would later stupidly return to the dream realm without telling anyone, and get trapped by the Dragon.
But
before that, Mikey gets the turtles found out by the Footclan, who have
a fight with the Turtles. This is usually a big deal, and forces the
Turtles to uproot, but in this case it's more of a minor inconvenience.
However, the Turtles are faced with the horrible realization that their
master is now cathatonic.
Meanwhile, after Master Hu Cares is killed by Hothead's Daddy, we get a shocking reveal of our own: His assistant all along was...A FEMALE TURTLE! QUE QUEEEE?
When I first was going to watch this I was about
ready to feel the cringe, but I found myself somewhat drawn to find out
what was going to happen. Who is the dragon guy? What's up with the
female turtle? And my continuing to press on resulted in this series of
articles.
So, so far, none of what I've seen hasn't been also been done worst in other versions of the turtles. But we'
ll see if Venus De Milo can't screw up everything. There is also another thing I would fix...
Cartoons of the eighties get a bad rap. Even the era's greatest successes are often dispatched as 30 minute toy commercials, cold product cranked out by factories, committees and boring bald guys.
While it is true that the intent behind these animated tv shows was highly mercenary, when we say that we are selling them a little short. There is an art to crafting something that continues to be remembered well to the future. For every Transformers and GI Joe that is now a fixture in pop culture to this very day, there were hundreds of Dinosaucers and Insectaurs who just skidded in the start line and never even got going.
I REEEMEEEEMBEEEER
So while yes, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the animated adaptation of a popular indie comic, was not exactly Miyazaki shit or anything, there HAS to have been something more to it that we're now on the 3rd season of it's 3rd reboot, and on it's second movie of it's 3rd movie continuity. How many reboots has T Rex and Mummies Alive had? Exactly.
While strong commercial appeal is an obvious element, I hypothesize that malleability of the core concept is the core reason. Mutant Ninja Turtles is a pretty silly idea, but in a few decades it's taken a stroll across the gamut of tones a story can be told in and came out winning fans every time.
Or rather, almost every time.
For you see, there is a version of TMNT that nobody lvoes. It is often considered THE WORST version. When the guys who made the franchise and watched it be used to hawk everything from macaroni to bedsheets consider this the point of shame, that's how you know you did wrong.
But is it really that bad? Out of sheer curiosity, decided to give it watch on the old Youtube once over. Thanks to user Oser Baya for having uploaded the episode. It's thanks to guys like him that Nickelodeon executives go hungry every night. That's how copyright works, right?
But first, a little bit of history. By 1997 the original TMNT cartoon had been off the air 1 year after a highly successful 8 season run. The popularity and toy aisle space the show had had been usurped by The Mighty Morphing Power Rangers Franchise, a Japanese sentai show that merely replaced all the Japanese actors with American ones while keeping all the scenes where people wore helmets to pretend they were under them produced by Saban.
Saban's success allowed them to do various lesser known attempts to replicate the Ranger's success, but getting lightening to strike twice proved futile. So they turned their attention to their vanquished foe, and aquired the license to TMNT.
With what they had learned of martial arts children entertainment surely they would find success, right? Well...no, not exactly.
The show was Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation. Or as it was known in the version I watched HERO Turtles : The Next Mutation. They couldn't say Ninja because it's slang for vagina over in the United Kingdom [citation needed]. This is why I'm making a Euro-safe version of this article, replacing every Ninja with Hero.
So I have decided to tackle the series' first 5 episode arc, East Meets West, hoping to see if the show's bad reputation is earned or unearned.
And you will experience it as I did, in all it's croppy, blurry glory.
The show starts with a stereotypical Chinese Master who trying to hold back evil from a mirror, a long with his assistant, a female in a brown robe. Now, if you know anything about this show, this isn't exactly a great mystery, but it might take you for surprise if you..don't watch the intro immediately after...
Oh, yeah, the intro. You know, there is a lot of pressure to live up to TMNT's classic intro. And this one was basically the first one to try it, and ends up pretty bad in the list overall. It might be the worst. Here's your lyrics.
Four green turtles! Heard the news?
Changed to mutants by an ooze!
Found on the floor and raised by a rat!
Now they're ninjas. How 'bout that?
Check it out! Another one found!
Made her way to Chinatown!
With the rest, yeah, that makes five!
Ninja Turtles, now they're live!
Na-na-na-na-ninja, Ninja, Ninja Turtles!
Na-na-na-na-ninja, Ninja, Ninja Turtles!
Yeah.
Basically, they outline the story to the characters in the worst way possible. Like, every other version tries to present the idea as an awesome one. This one it literally goes "how bout that" like it just found out it's pitbull is pregnant.
Then comes the basic barebones characterization every fan knows and loves: Raph is angry for no given reason. They just walk you in on Leo and Raph having an argument about nothing and Raph leaves angry on his bike, on what very much feels like stock footage, even though it's the first time I seen it.
Then while he's out there he's attacked by Foot Ninjas. I think this is the most in-media-resey TMNT, which is both brave and...not very well done. I guess the show assumed everybody already know all this stuff from the movies and cartoon and in a way, they are right, but by this point the boys who grew up with a 80's Turtles are already grown past it, and the young up and comers might need for you to fill them in on why anything is going on.
No, no quiero pene, cabron!
Besides, this show doesn't fit into the continuity of either version. Here, Shredder is scared Shredder from the movies, yet that guy died because he became HHH and knocked a building on myself. And also, here Splinter is Hamato Yoshi, not Hamato Yoshi's pet rat. This doesn't. Also, April was in those, and isn't in this, and her vanishing goes unexplained.
Anyway, Raph being attacked activates Splinter's 6th sense. Which...he has now. He's all about mind magic in this version . Which is weird but uh... Not unheard of. Splinter bill out Rafael along with the other Turtles.
What is unheard of, though, is Splinter's blind chess playing boyfriend.
so without any previous warning day dropping with the Foot Clan and it's goofy-looking Shredder. again not exactly movie trailer but not cartoon Shredder.
It's barely above Live Tour Shredder.
Shredder is angry and wants to get rid of the Turtles because they get in the way of his plans. Which is...certainly one way to do Shredder, I guess. I would have thought it'd be more of a personal edge to it, like uh..most versions.
Later the Turtles reconvene at their home, where Splinter goes into a mental trip thingy through the Dream Realm. There he meets Master Whatever, who warns him that he's in grave danger of dragons.
And then we learn the whole thing. Apparently a bunch of years ago the earth was ruled by dragons. But lucky for us, the got trapped in a magic mirror. However, Master idiot apparently tripped and let these Dragons in to the Dream realm.
I apreaciate that there's a backstory to the main villain of this show, but honestly following where these fucking dragons moved to at any given time should not not require a flowchart. Besides, if I understand it they moved from the mirror to the dreamrealm...so why the fuck does Dragondude keep peeking through the mirror?
The Mirror Dragon reproduction cycle.
Splinter would later stupidly return to the dream realm without telling anyone, and get trapped by the Dragon.
But before that, Mikey gets the turtles found out by the Footclan, who have a fight with the Turtles. This is usually a big deal, and forces the Turtles to uproot, but in this case it's more of a minor inconvenience. However, the Turtles are faced with the horrible realization that their master is now cathatonic.
Meanwhile, after Master Hu Cares is killed by Hothead's Daddy, we get a shocking reveal of our own: His assistant all along was...A FEMALE TURTLE! QUE QUEEEE?
When I first was going to watch this I was about ready to feel the cringe, but I found myself somewhat drawn to find out what was going to happen. Who is the dragon guy? What's up with the female turtle? And my continuing to press on resulted in this series of articles.
So, so far, none of what I've seen hasn't been also been done worst in other versions of the turtles. But we'
ll see if Venus De Milo can't screw up everything. There is also another thing I would fix...
Goodbye, Star Wars 1313. If you still existed, I'd probably Boycott you because of Disney fumbling around with our copyright laws.
Game development is a tricky thing. Just ask Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro. Even the shitty licensed games of old should count themselves as lucky, because there were other licensed games that never even made it to the street. Police Academy-NES
MOMMY! BUY ME!
If making a videogame based on the raunchy 80's Fratboys-as-Cops franchise Police Academy seems stupid, it's because it's not the 80's anymore. But maybe it helps if I say it was going to based on the abysmal cartoon based on the already by then diluted franchise? That help?
Indeed, Police Academy was done, when it was cancelled. Done, done. "Ads in Comics" done. But it was late in the Nes' life cycle, and sending out a bunch of cartridges with "Police Academy" written seemed about as sensible as sending Hightower to catch the Zodiac Killer all of a sudden, so no dice.
"Come on you, guys, you know I can't fly as much as carry myself with telepathy! Where are you going? I'm REALLY POPULAAAAR!"
Did you hear about the all new all women X-Men? Or is...is that still a thing? It's X-Men continuity, as far as I know they're all wombat babies, now.
But to segue, years ago after the success of X-Men and X-Men 2 for the Sega Genesis, Sega hired "Adventures of Batman and Robin" developers Clockwork Tortoise to make them a game following the females of the X-Men as they battled Mr Sinister, who unleashed a man-killing virus as a ploy to world domination. Or to challenge Psylocke's claims that she wouldn't do him if he was the last man on earth.
From the short surviving video we can see Rogue, and Storm, playable and flying. Hey, as long as you're doing what I would do, Devs, how about this(nsfw thingy on link! You been warned!)?
Ok, this one might NOT be true: allegedly besides the Snes, Nes, and Genesis versions of TMNT TF, there was a a fourth version slated to be on the Sega Saturn. I read it on Taringa, but I can't find the info. It said that it was reported as such on a magazine. Any rabid infomaniacs out there willing to check every EGM and Gamepro from 1993 to 1996? For god's sake I mailed Konami and friended a guy with the name of one of the devs to FB. HALP! Marvel Universe Online
Marvel went on to have like 7 MMO's.
Oh, sure, we have a Marvel MMO NOW. But before that, Microsoft had it's meaty paws on the licence, and even had a teaser. Sure, it tells us nothing of who you would be or anything, but it would have given us that first Xbox MMO sooner.
But at some point Microsoft just went "'Nuff Said!" and cancelled the whole thing, perhaps inspired then recent MMO failiures.
Steven Seagal's The Final Option
When even Marc Dacascos won't answer your phone...
Unlike the rest of this list, this one you can play at least a bit of the first stage. Steven Seagal is...The Final Option.
So as Steven "Hard to Kill" Seagal, you infiltrated a base and chopsokeyed anyone dumb enough to try to beat you. While the pre-rendered images where nice enough, they wern't good enough for the bonebreaking aikido holds and locks Steven was known before being known mostly for needing a stunt double to walk across a door.
And for whatever reason the game came under siege. It probably wasn't all that hard to kill. It was already on deadly ground by being a Steven Seagal game, but the developers found themselves in the belly of the beast. The game might have been half past dead, but for whatever reason the rom found it's way to the public. If you want to play the game, well, that is your final option.
(In
order to be more hip with the kids today, I intend to bring you more
socially conscious messages, under the label Nega Nancy)
Are we ready for a female Ninja Turtle?
Who can forget the 80's? Awful commercialism invaded everything, even our children! When Ronald Reagan(who is not a minority, a woman, or gay. We're not judging him for what he is, we're judging him for what he ISN'T) loosened the rules of what educational television could be, the toy empires of the world saw an opening from which to launch half an hour toy commercials for their wares disguised as so called cartoons.
Bookending with a variety of statues quo enshrining platitudes, shows like Transformers, GI Joe,He-Man and more to the point, The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles where the moral teachers on the university of egotism disguised as pride, and individualism disguised as "staying true to yourself, and defending the current corporate oligarchy as "right makes might". "But, to boys only", patriarchy said.
To wit, these lessons are incredibly noxious on young cis males, but are sorely needed on unempowered groups for some reason. I consider The Ninja Turtles one of the main reasons we're not at True Equality Lv. 5 yet.
The show followed four sociopathic unemployed cis white turtles as they "saved" the earth from a grassroots movement the Foot Clan, which was lead by a foreign Colored man known as Shredder and a intersex brain creature known as "The Krang". The subtext is right there. These Turtle boys had absolutely not a plan to help the disenfranchised in New York city, but would go to any length to find and brutalize them.
But you know the story. There have been more years with Ninja Turtles products that there have been without them since they where invented. Over the years, they've proven a popular element of the culture of pop. These could be seen as fairly inoffensive stories that strike a cord with young and old alike, and that'd be the end of that. But EVERYTHING IS SERIOUS. Let's discuss the sexual politics of the Ninja Turtles.
There is no nonsexist reason why one of the Ninja Turtles can't be a woman. You might have some counter-points, but my counter argument is that you're white, or straight or a man. You don't know that I'm right because of it!
Yes, the Turtles have a female prescence in April, a cis white female who serves as the audience identification character in the great majority of TMNT stories. What, can't the boring audience identification character be a man for once? These sexists also once tried to make the audience identification character a kid named Max "the fifth turtle". Can't the cool audience identification character be a girl for once?
Either way, it is not enough, as nothing is! We need a female turtle. Now, mind you , that did happen, on the live action last ditch attempt to keep the franchise alive during the mid 90's called TMNT the Next Mutation. Her name was Venus. The maleocracy obviously rebelled against the mere idea, and the show floundered.
There was also Mona Lisa, who was almost the 5th female Turtle, until the potential rapist who made the original cartoon rebelled against the idea, and some quick(but not quick enough) changes made her into a Lizard Woman, who immediately jumped into Raphael's Turtle Dick, because most people are straight, amirite?
But that's all small potatoes. We can't change the socioeconomic background of inequality with a couple of one off cartoon characters! We need Lead characters before we'll have any real impact on the world.
I mean, the Turtles are THE HEROES of these stories. Their name is right there on the tin. Am I to believe that a young boy, fresh of a rival comic, picked up four turtles off of a petshop, they all fall off into a sewer that had mutagenic goop in it and it turned them into humanoid, english speaking, martial arts practicing mutants and they all happened to be male Turtles? That's not realistic. At least one of them could be a female.
This story is constantly retold, and as any story that is constantly retold, I believe every time it snubs my passionate ideas it does so because it hates them, and it hates me. How hard would it be if, the next time they're remaking this particular story(in like, 2 years, right?) they just take a moment to consider all the damage that is being caused by telling young girls "EY! You can't be a Ninja Turtle, live in the sewers, eat junk food, and partake in gang wars between a dude with blades and a ratman!"
Or better yet, if one of the current takes, such as the current cartoon or the upcoming sequel to the movie, took the time to adress that one of these turtles is, in fact a female (or OMG a transexual. Gay or a woman. As long as you do one of this I will clap like a seal) It's time these authors stop making excuses and start working towards what I just made up is the real goal, isn't it? Yes it is, I'm not ending that on a question.
I always wondered what bald Whopee Goldberg looks like without hair.
I'll keep it short. There's two kinds of nerd-group reactions to the idea of Michael Bay directingsodomizing destroying annihilating eradicating eviscerating producing Ninja Turtles movie. One is that, as General Garza from Expendables put it once "is no good". The second is a backlash against the backlash. A lot of us have been around the block plenty to know that us geeks can be a petulant and thankless lot, and some of us are kind of hopeless optimists.
And if you can't trust a fictional hispanic being played by a Brazilian, who can you trust?
This trailer, it is clearly not going to turn most of the General Garza's of the world into ardent supporters. In fact, it neatly matches every half-hearted joke one could make about this franchise in relation to said Bay. In fact, I kind of joked with my brother that, within the first quarter of the trailer Transformers could have popped onscreen and i wouldn't have bat an eyelash.
I'm not even gonna complain about this being bad. I'm just loving how Michael Bay can just match every single criticism we could lobby against his shit. We think we're playing him, but he's playing us. He knows what's up.
First he hits you low with expectation lowering terrible leaked scripts. Slowly he builds it up with Megan Foxes and a whitewashed Oroku Saki called Erik Sach's. And then, by the time you're watching one of these gorillas in a half-shell bend a Humvee with his body, it's over: you're just glad they're not aliens.
Michael Bay Joke Punchline opens this August. Evil remains triumphant.
I always wondered what bald Whopee Goldberg looks like without hair.
I'll keep it short. There's two kinds of nerd-group reactions to the idea of Michael Bay directingsodomizing destroying annihilating eradicating eviscerating producing Ninja Turtles movie. One is that, as General Garza from Expendables put it once "is no good". The second is a backlash against the backlash. A lot of us have been around the block plenty to know that us geeks can be a petulant and thankless lot, and some of us are kind of hopeless optimists.
And if you can't trust a fictional hispanic being played by a Bazilian, who can you trust?
This trailer, it is clearly not going to turn most of the General Garza's of the world into ardent supporters. In fact, it neatly matches every half-hearted joke one could make about this franchise in relation to said Bay. In fact, I kind of joked with my brother that, within the first quarter of the trailer Transformers could have popped onscreen and i wouldn't have bat an eyelash.
I'm not even gonna complain about this being bad. I'm just loving how Michael Bay can just match every single criticism we could lobby against his shit. We think we're playing him, but he's playing us. He knows what's up.
First he hits you low with expectation lowering terrible leaked scripts. Slowly he builds it up with Megan Foxes and a whitewashed Oroku Saki called Erik Sach's. And then, by the time you're watching one of these gorillas in a half-shell bend a Humvee with his body, it's over: you're just glad they're not aliens.
Michael Bay Joke Punchline opens this August. Evil remains triumphant.
The state of your shit is: REAL For illegal paramilitary foreign action, press 1, to say a catchphrase, press 2, to hear all options...
There have been many words shed about the recent, disheartening Ninja Turtles script leak. I was sitting at the fence of this one topic, thought not out of choice. I had written previously a long article about the silliness of changing the Mutants to Aliens, but I never got it on time.
It raped my childhood DURING MY CHILDHOOD!
It wasn't the change per se. At it's core, we have to understand that TMNT has been readapted a crazy amount of times for a franchise that isn't that old. It's got more adaptations and origins and reboots that most franchises have in their entire history. In it's short existence, there have been less years than there aren't TMNT products present in some form of media than not.
And it's somehow almost never wrong. The Original comics and the 80s Cartoon are, at a glance, ridiculously different, and while many argue that the toon is a disservice to the books, both have their fans. The 2k3 series is quite different from both of those, and it stoll found it's adepts. The more grounded Live action movies are quite a leap from the magic warrior fest of the CG movie, and it's not the difference makes either of those bad.
Happy 300th post!
In essence, the Turtles are a malleable franchise. Which is why I thought perhaps this alien thing was much ado about nothing. Besides, Bay isn't even directing this thing! I kinda liked Battle: L.A.
But here's the thing: Look at the filmography of Francis Ford Coppola. Now look at John Mc Tiernan's. Now Look at Michale Bay's. Do not compare the quality of the films(please, don't. For your own sake). Compare the variety of them.
Michael Bay at some point got enough money and clout to do whatever kinds of films he wanted. Surely, it must not have been an entirely mercenary desition to enter the movie world? There must be somethings that Michael Bay likes that he's rather make a film about? Why yes there are. Of his eleven directed movies, none of them do not contain:
America(playing the best-country-in-the-world angle)
Beautiful Cars(that are also paying Michael Bay by being onscreen)
Beautiful Women(that I'm sure some of them at least sleep with him.)
Over the Top action( by over-the-top I mean falling from a building and walking it off.)
Military Equipment and hardware
Juvenile Humor
There is no problem with any of those things.NONE OF THOSE THINGS ARE BAD. Hell, most of them work pretty well in Bad Boys(although I think it's the only movie that stopped the whole action to show rats having sex. Seriously, what are you, 14?)
The problem is that at a very early portion of his career, he realized that he didn't have to try to experiment. He could do the things he liked, and WE seemed to like it, judging by how much we where going to see it. The Island is a pseudo remake of an old movie where people are harvested for body parts, and he is unable to put any message about it except Boomaction! Pearl Harbor is a historical American tragedy and he can't deliver it without selling it off as WOOO AMERICA WINS! Michael Bay is not going to direct a medieval movie, because he can't get any U.S. army action in there. Michael Bay isn't adapting any children's franchise if he can't have something humping something else.
So when you give him Transformers, or Ninja Turtles, he isn't thinking of the best way to make that story into a movie. That's priority number 56. He's thinking how much Pro-America, how many Beautiful Cars and Beautiful Women, and Over-The Top Action and Military Equipment amd Juvenile Humor he can put in there. Because that's what he likes, and he assumes you want that too.
So it's not about the change about aliens being ridiculous anymore. This leak script proves that Michael Benjamin Bay probably convinced the writer( who is an underling of the producer, and must follow his-er guidelines) to put all the things he likes in there. Cautious optimism isn't working out anymore. The movie's obviously in the wrong hands, hands that shall not switch because hands payed money for it.
So if your like I was , and have not given up on all possibility that the future movie would be at least possibly not as bad as it could be, take heed: Michael Bay is no fan, Michael Bay is no artist, Michael Bay is no innovator, and Michael Bay only cares about Michael Bay. He's to hollow to put some heart into it, too selfish to just do his own fantasy franchise, and the only thing between him and the movie he wants is aparently us. Huh.
The state of your shit is: REAL For illegal paramilitary foreign action, press 1, to say a catchphrase, press 2, to hear all options...
There have been many words shed about the recent, disheartening Ninja Turtles script leak. I was sitting at the fence of this one topic, thought not out of choice. I had written previously a long article about the silliness of changing the Mutants to Aliens, but I never got it on time.
It raped my childhood DURING MY CHILDHOOD!
It wasn't the change per se. At it's core, we have to understand that TMNT has been readapted a crazy amount of times for a franchise that isn't that old. It's got more adaptations and origins and reboots that most franchises have in their entire history. In it's short existence, there have been less years than there aren't TMNT products present in some form of media than not.
And it's somehow almost never wrong. The Original comics and the 80s Cartoon are, at a glance, ridiculously different, and while many argue that the toon is a disservice to the books, both have their fans. The 2k3 series is quite different from both of those, and it stoll found it's adepts. The more grounded Live action movies are quite a leap from the magic warrior fest of the CG movie, and it's not the difference makes either of those bad.
Happy 300th post!
In essence, the Turtles are a malleable franchise. Which is why I thought perhaps this alien thing was much ado about nothing. Besides, Bay isn't even directing this thing! I kinda liked Battle: L.A.
But here's the thing: Look at the filmography of Francis Ford Coppola. Now look at John Mc Tiernan's. Now Look at Michale Bay's. Do not compare the quality of the films(please, don't. For your own sake). Compare the variety of them.
Michael Bay at some point got enough money and clout to do whatever kinds of films he wanted. Surely, it must not have been an entirely mercenary desition to enter the movie world? There must be somethings that Michael Bay likes that he's rather make a film about? Why yes there are. Of his eleven directed movies, none of them do not contain:
America(playing the best-country-in-the-world angle)
Beautiful Cars(that are also paying Michael Bay by being onscreen)
Beautiful Women(that I'm sure some of them at least sleep with him.)
Over the Top action( by over-the-top I mean falling from a building and walking it off.)
Military Equipment and hardware
Juvenile Humor
There is no problem with any of those things.NONE OF THOSE THINGS ARE BAD. Hell, most of them work pretty well in Bad Boys(although I think it's the only movie that stopped the whole action to show rats having sex. Seriously, what are you, 14?)
The problem is that at a very early portion of his career, he realized that he didn't have to try to experiment. He could do the things he liked, and WE seemed to like it, judging by how much we where going to see it. The Island is a pseudo remake of an old movie where people are harvested for body parts, and he is unable to put any message about it except Boomaction! Pearl Harbor is a historical American tragedy and he can't deliver it without selling it off as WOOO AMERICA WINS! Michael Bay is not going to direct a medieval movie, because he can't get any U.S. army action in there. Michael Bay isn't adapting any children's franchise if he can't have something humping something else.
So when you give him Transformers, or Ninja Turtles, he isn't thinking of the best way to make that story into a movie. That's priority number 56. He's thinking how much Pro-America, how many Beautiful Cars and Beautiful Women, and Over-The Top Action and Military Equipment amd Juvenile Humor he can put in there. Because that's what he likes, and he assumes you want that too.
So it's not about the change about aliens being ridiculous anymore. This leak script proves that Michael Benjamin Bay probably convinced the writer( who is an underling of the producer, and must follow his-er guidelines) to put all the things he likes in there. Cautious optimism isn't working out anymore. The movie's obviously in the wrong hands, hands that shall not switch because hands payed money for it.
So if your like I was , and have not given up on all possibility that the future movie would be at least possibly not as bad as it could be, take heed: Michael Bay is no fan, Michael Bay is no artist, Michael Bay is no innovator, and Michael Bay only cares about Michael Bay. He's to hollow to put some heart into it, too selfish to just do his own fantasy franchise, and the only thing between him and the movie he wants is aparently us. Huh.
I wanted to find out how different fighting games reacted to players not fighting and letting time run out. Turns out there IS more than one way to deal with it.
I wanted to find out how different fighting games reacted to players not fighting and letting time run out. Turns out there IS more than one way to deal with it.
