A Rant/Prediction on TMNT 2014
The new Teenage Mutant
Ninja Turtles movie due to be released in August is going to suck. How do I
know this if it’s still two months away from coming out? Have I seen the
future? Am I prophet? Do I have precognitive powers? A time machine? Using the
knowledge I have on the film so far, I will explain my reasoning for expecting
that this movie is not only going to ruin the childhoods of many fans, but
disappoint general audiences as well.
Where do I begin? Let’s start with producer Michael Bay. For
some, that name alone will be enough to deter anyone from being cautiously
optimistic.
Let’s rewind to 2007. The live action big screen debut of Transformers comes out. The Transformers,
both a toy line and cartoon series that has endured much success since coming
out in the eighties, were staples for many kids back then. Michael Bay directed
the first live action film, simply titled Transformers,
and though it was a box office success, critics were divided, as were hardcore
fans. Bay’s first film in the now established series had great action
sequences, but fans disliked the addition of many human characters, which were
focused on more than the robots, and the Transformers themselves were
re-designed—some to the point that they looked completely different than their
original forms. It was an acceptable first film and established the robots well
enough that a sequel was inevitable. Audiences wanted less silly humans and
humour and more giant robot action. Skip ahead to 2009, and Michael Bay’s follow-up
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
comes out. Unlike the first film, the majority of critics and audiences loathed
this sequel, and it has been recognized by some as one of the worst films of
the twenty first century. I strongly agree. Poor quality filmmaking and
storytelling didn’t stop the movie from making a killing at the box office, and
so a third film was announced. Could the series be salvaged? 2012’s Transformers: Dark of the Moon was
another disgraceful box office success, and though it was better than the
previous effort, still failed to give fans anything new. Michael Bay said he
was stepping away from his Transformers
franchise and letting a new filmmaker step in, but that turned out to be false
and now here we are in 2014. Transformers:
Age of Extinction has just come out, and it’s getting worse reviews than Revenge of the Fallen. Some fans of the
first three films claim it has a darker tone and the robots get more focus than
before, but collectively, everyone thinks it still fails to be any different
from what Michael Bay has done in the previous three films.
So what does this have to do with TMNT? Michael Bay successfully ruined childhood memories of The Transformers with his explosion
extravaganzas, but that’s not the only thing he has unintentionally tried to
ruin. Bay has produced a number of horror film remakes through his Platinum
Dunes production company. Such titles include Friday the 13th, A
Nightmare on Elm Street, and The
Texas Chainsaw Massacre. All of these remakes are insults to the originals,
which didn’t need remakes at all, but lo and behold, the remakes still were
financially successful. How does Michael Bay find such success when so many
people despise the work he produces? Is it the audiences to blame, or the
studios, or the filmmaker/producer himself? I can’t say for certain, but the
“Bayhem” we have gotten over the years has become increasingly shoddy and
repetitive. This brings me to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. When it was announced that Michael Bay would be producing a new film based on the comic book by the same name, he said it would be titled “Ninja Turtles” and their origins would be as aliens from space rather than mutating in the New York City sewers. Of course this was met with complete outrage by fans, so the alien concept was dropped (and made into a joke which is present in the newest trailer) and the “Teenage Mutant” part of the title was tacked back on—although you may notice in the trailers the Ninja Turtles part of the title is in lettering three times the size of the Teenage Mutant part. It’s not a big deal now, but it still kind of bugs me that he would tease such a terrible idea in the first place.
So what else is going to make this movie suck? Let me
discuss the turtles themselves. The way they traditionally appear in the
cartoons is pretty simple. Green, muscular, anthropomorphic turtles with
shells, three fingered hands and feet, round heads, eyes, teeth, little
reptilian nostril slits, and each has a unique coloured mask. The new designs
are close to that, but not close enough. Now they have distinctly human-looking
lips and noses. I guess the lips are supposed to make their speech look more
accurate, but are they really necessary? And why the stupid noses? Am I just
being nitpicky? You bet, but these are the kind of changes that gets fans so
angry. Let me refer back to Teenage
Mutant Ninja Turtles from 1990: the first live action film adaptation of
the characters. Jim Henson’s creature shop created the turtles for that film.
They were suits worn by the actors with animatronic heads that blinked, emoted,
and moved their mouths to speak. They looked very close to the cartoon versions
of the characters, and it worked for the time. In the new film, the turtles are
being rendered through motion capture technology. I have to admit, it does look
much more fluent and ninja-like than those bulky suits from the 90’s film, but
the design of the 90’s turtles was much better.
Perhaps the only thing the new film has gotten right so far
is the characterizations of the turtles themselves. In case you need a
refresher, Leonardo leads, Donatello does machines, Raphael is cool but rude,
and Michelangelo is a party dude! In the 90’s film, they established Leo led
the group, Raph was a hot head, Mikey was the cool dude, and Donnie was
intelligent, but Donnie was never shown to be particularly advanced in science
and technology. The new film shows Donnie wearing funky techno glasses, and
while they look ridiculous, at least it’s being made clear he does machine this
time. The trailer depicts the others as they are meant to be depicted, and it even
gives us a glimpse at the comedic dialogue they exchange with each other, which
seems to work based off the example shown in the trailer. But one shot in the
trailer shows something completely out of character for all the turtles. One of
the turtles throws a foot clan member at a moving subway train. The guy smashes
right through the window. Last time I checked, even in movies that kind of
thing would kill you. The Ninja Turtles, though ninjas, never kill anyone. It’s
kind of like when last year’s Man of
Steel got all the Superman fans upset. Superman doesn’t kill, and the Ninja
Turtles don’t either.
As for the supporting characters, this is where the major concerns
come in. The turtles’ leader, Master Splinter, has only been shown in glimpses,
but he looks and sounds like Splinter is supposed to. How big of a part he will
play in the film is yet to be seen, but Splinter isn’t the problem. The most
glaring problem of all is Megan Fox as April O’Neal. Rewinding back to Transformers again, Michael Bay and
Megan Fox didn’t get along, so she didn’t appear in the third film, but now it
seems they’re back on good terms because she is in this new TMNT with Bay producing. April O’Neal is
a pivotal character, and Megan Fox simply doesn’t possess the acting talent or appearance
suited for O’Neal. She’s supposed to be a hard hitting news reporter, not a
supermodel with fake lips. But the most shameful casting choice of all is
William Fitchner as Shredder. The villainous Shredder has always been Asian,
until now. I have no problem with Fitchner as an actor—in fact, I think he’s
great and underrated if anything—but not casting an Asian actor as Shredder is
as much an insult to the source material as it is to fans. Plus, Shredder looks
like a Transformer! In the original film he had his usual armour, wrist blades,
a staff, a helmet, and that’s it. For the new version, it’s as if someone
(probably Michael Bay) said: we need to give Shredder an upgrade. How many
knives and swords and blades do you think we could fit on him? A dozen? Two
dozen? A hundred? Ah hell, let’s just
put like three hundred on there, that will look great! No, no it does not. It
looks bad.
One final nail in the coffin for this film is the man behind
the camera. Michael Bay has proven he can screw up a film franchise even just
acting as producer, never mind directing. But the director for this new TMNT was not a good choice—in fact, it
almost makes me wish Bay had just directed instead. Jonathan Liebesman, a
director from South Africa, has never directed a good film. His directorial
debut was Darkness Falls, an original
horror film panned by critics and quickly forgotten by everyone else. After
Michael Bay’s successful production of The
Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake, Bay
recruited Liebesman for the prequel, The
Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, which ended up being worse than the
remake. Battle: Los Angeles, a
generic alien invasion action film from 2011, did well at the box office, even
though it was completely unoriginal and completely forgettable. Then there was Wrath of the Titans, the follow-up to
the already atrocious remake Clash of the
Titans. All in all, he has yet to direct anything truly good, and it looks
like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
will be yet another one of his blunders.
Is there any hope? It was recently pointed out to me that
Michael Bay isn’t the only one to blame for his Transformers movies being so bad. The screenwriter Ehren Kruger is
also to blame. The first film, although met with mixed reviews still remains
the most widely appreciated of the four, was written by Roberto Orci and Alex
Kurtzman, who have written other successful blockbuster films such as J.J.
Abrams’ Star Trek reboot and this
year’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
Ehren Kruger was brought in to work with the two writers for the Transformers sequel Revenge of the Fallen which was a major step down from the first
film, and after that Kruger remained the sole screenwriter from both Transformers: Dark of the Moon and Transformers: Age of Extinction. He also
wrote the screenplay for Scream 3:
the weakest film in the Scream film
franchise. So who’s behind the script for Teenage
Mutant Ninja Turtles, and will it make any difference? Well, it doesn’t
look good. The original draft was penned by the writers of Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, who’ve worked on few other
projects, but it received rewrites by Evan Daughtry, who worked on the scripts
for Divergent and Snow White and the Huntsman. The chances
of a brilliant script saving this film are slim to none.
I read an article about one person’s thoughts on this
upcoming remake/reboot/reimagining, and he found it funny that older males and
females who were fans of the cartoon and first feature film as kids are all
upset because they’re ruining something sacred from their youth, and he thought
it was silly because the new movie isn’t for them, it’s for the younger
generations of kids who didn’t grow up with the original. For me, it goes
beyond just ruining the original visions for TMNT. Why can’t we get a reinvention of the turtles for a younger
audience that still maintains some elements that original fans will enjoy, but
also make it a good reinvention? Is
having Shredder decked out with a million swords really necessary? Did the
turtles really need to have lips and noses? What I would like to see is a
darker take on the material that’s closer to the original comics, but I can’t
tell if they’re trying to do a complicated and imperfect combination of the
dark, gritty comics and the cheesy, youthful cartoon from the 80’s. Whatever it
is they’re trying to do, it isn’t what the real fans want, but I’m sure it’s
what all the little kiddies in the theater seats want to see.
What got me ranting about this new TMNT film, you might ask? The latest trailer really got under my
skin in the worst way possible. It showcased more of Megan Fox than it did the
turtles, used a noisy dub step soundtrack, and only confirmed my suspicions
about how bad it’s going to be. I’m not looking forward to hating this
film—honestly I would like nothing more than to be proven wrong, pleasantly
surprised, and just enjoy the movie for what it is. But based on what I’ve seen
so far in terms of reinvention, redesign, and the filmmakers/actors involved,
it’s not shaping up to be the Teenage
Mutant Ninja Turtles film I would like to see. Instead, it’s just going to
be another sucky Hollywood remake to add to the ever growing pile. Cowabunga
dudes, it’s like, a major bummer.
Images from http://www.imdb.com/media/rm211864832/tt1291150?ref_=ttmd_md_pv
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