Back in May, I did a blog post on the
news regarding the upcoming film reboot of the Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles franchise, simply titled 'Ninja Turtles'. As you probably
have heard by now, producer Michael Bay enraged many TMNT fans when
he announced in March that the origins of the Turtles were going to
be changed for this new movie. Instead of being baby turtles that
came into contact with a mysterious substance known as Ooze, these
Turtles would be aliens from another planet. Obviously, that pissed a
lot of people off but considering Michael Bay's track record, that
isn't really a surprise. As for me, I believed that those enraged
fans should just wait and see how the final product was going to turn
out because we hadn't gotten any real information on the plot or even
any actual footage at that point. However, a lot has changed since
that first announcement back in March. Recently, the film was delayed
another year or so from its original 2013 release due to script
issues. This was later followed by the leak of what was apparently
the first draft of the picture, which continued to worry TMNT fans
about this new project due to its overall quality.
In June, it was reported that Paramount
had halted production of the movie because of issues with the script.
While it did seem like it meant that the project was officially
canned (something that I'm certain those angered fans rejoiced at),
later reports denied that this was happening. Instead, it was now
being reported that the film was delayed from its original December
2013 release to May 2014. Now, when it comes to this delay, I really
can't comment about it that much. After all, it's very common for
Hollywood to delay a movie and usually the reason for this is because
of the film's script. After all, look at how World War Z is faring
right now. But while that movie's script problems arose after the
film was already shot, this delay comes as the movie hasn't even
started filming yet, something that can very much spell doom for this
project.
So what was it about this script that
caused the movie to get delayed anyway? Well, maybe it was because
that the first script of the movie was actually really bad. Recently,
a supposed first draft of the film was leaked to the internet labeled
'The Blue Door' and was said to be written by Josh Applebaum and
Andre Nemec, the two hired to write the script for the film. Now I
for one can't really say whether or not this script is actually
legit. It was recently removed from the site it first appeared on,
TMNTNOTTANT, by Paramount so I can't put a link to the script in case
any of you were interested in reading it, which could mean that it
may just be real. Michael Bay responded to this leak by saying that
this script 'was written before I, or anyone at Platinum Dunes, was
involved with the project', that it 'saw the shredder a long time
ago', and that fans should just 'wait for the movie'. Really, if you
have read it, it's up to you decide whether or not you think it was
actually real. So now let's delve into what was in this so-called
'first script'.
Well, in this script, Shredder is
working for the government, is named 'Colonel Schrader' (get the
connection?), and is secretly an alien. He also runs a government
agency known as 'The Foot', which is basically this story's version
of the Foot Clan. Both the Turtles and Splinter are aliens from a
planet in Dimension X (a key location in the animated series). As for
the human characters, Casey Jones, the main protagonist in this
story, is an 18-year old security guard/hockey player while April
O'Neil (also 18) is his girlfriend who is moving to New York for an
internship with CBS, which brings a problem to their relationship.
Basically, this whole take on TMNT feels like the Transformers movies
all over again. Why? Because by making Casey Jones the main
protagonist, it makes it seem like they would be focusing on him and
April more than the Turtles, which was one of the biggest problems
with Bay's Transformers movies as it focused on the humans rather
than the Transformers themselves.
It seems like this project can never
really catch a break. First, the announcement that the Turtles were
now aliens, then the delay, and now this whole problem with the
supposed leaked script. For the record, I'm still kind of optimistic
about this project but if that script was actually real, then I have
a feeling this isn't going to end well. Again, this is coming from a
guy who has never really been that much of a TMNT fan so I'm not as
mad as any longtime TMNT fan would be in regards to this whole
ordeal. However, that script is really shocking. If it is real, I'm
surprised that writers Josh Appelbaum and Andre Namec, who wrote the
excellent Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, would write such a
horrible script. But even so, as TMNT co-creator Peter Laird (the one
not involved with this new film) said, “All true TMNT fans should
be grateful to the new 'powers that be' that they did not allow this
wretched thing to go any further. It could definitely be taken as a
good sign if that is the case." Part of me is now very much
interested to see how the end result of this reboot is going to turn
out now, especially because of everything that has gone on since it
was first announced.
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