I know I'm a little late on this issue,
but I figured the best way to start off my 'weekend news' posts was
to talk about a subject that has certainly attracted controversy over
the last few months, and that has been the news that the newest
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film, scheduled to be released in 2013
directed by Wrath of the Titans' Jonathan Liebesmann, will change the
origins of the four 'heroes in a half shell' and make them aliens.
But first, a little back story...
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
officially got their start in 1984 with a comic book series created
by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. What followed was what can best be
described as 'Turtle Mania' with a hit TV show in the late 80's that
ran for a total of 10 seasons. On the big screen, there have been
four movies based on the characters, consisting of three live-action
films in the 90's and an animated film released in 2007, whose intent
was to reboot the film series after reception towards the third
live-action film was rather negative. Even still, the new film also
did not fare well with critics and wasn't really a huge success
financially either. So, Nickelodeon has taken over and along with a
new animated series coming out this year, they will reboot the film
series again with 'Ninja Turtles', produced by Platinum Dunes and
Michael Bay.
Now because Bay has generally been
involved with some pretty negatively-received projects his entire
career, most notably the live-action Transformers movies, his
involvement with the film would most likely get any fan of the show
nervous, but it wasn't until he made the following statement in March
this year when fans really started to get mad. At the 2012
Nickelodeon Upfront, Bay had this to say about the film...
“When you see this movie, kids are
going to believe one day that these turtles actually do exist when we
are done with this movie. These turtles are from an alien race, and
they are going to be tough, edgy, funny and completely loveable.”
So
yes, the new Ninja Turtles will not be four teenaged turtles who came
in contact with a radioactive substance called Ooze when they were
babies, therefore changing them into 'human-like' turtles who learned
ninjutsu under their master, a rat named Splinter. They will be
aliens, and obviously fans of the franchise aren't too happy about
that. However, because I'm not that much of a fan of TMNT, I'm not
really affected that much by this news. Even still, when I look at
this I say to myself, 'I don't get it...', because this is, in every
sense of the word, changing the back story of a long-established
story. It's like having Spider-Man acquiring his powers not from a
genetically altered spider, but from some freak accident or something
of that nature. In response to the fan outrage, Bay told them to,
quote on quote, “chill”, and that his team is “working with one
of the original creators of Ninja Turtles (Kevin Eastman) to
help expand and give a more complex back story. Relax, we are
including everything that made you become fans in the first place. We
are just building a richer world'.
So, with that in mind, let's see how
this can be either a good thing or a bad thing for the Turtles. On
one side of the spectrum, the idea of the turtles being from an alien
race does actually seem more plausible than the 'sewer and the Ooze'
storyline and let's face it, that has been done to death already in
this franchise, so it seems like perfect time to try something new.
But again, this is a major story change we're talking about here. I'm
wondering how Splinter and Shredder are going to come into all of
this. Are they going to be from the same planet the Turtles are from?
Finally, as much as I defend Michael Bay as not being the worst
filmmaker out there today, you never really know how a film of his
will turn out in the long run, even when he's not directing it. So my
advice to any TMNT fan who was outraged by this whole situation is to
just wait until the first trailer comes out and then you can view it
whatever way you like. If you're not interested in it, then don't see
it. Simple as that.
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