I make no apologies that I grew up on the heroes in a half shell, and were in fact the first thing I learned to draw well. That said I'm a huge biased fan of the first film. Its probably one of the first comic book films at the time that took the source material and gave it some respect. It wasn't dark and gritty per say but it did make an attempt to try treat the material with some respect.
Sadly the Turtles may be more known for the 80s cartoon where they battled Shredder and Krang ALL THE TIME. The problem here is that to most people outside of the comics, they only know associate the villain of the franchise with Shredder, which ended up hurting the live action franchise when it came to its sequel.
As a kid, I had no problems at the time, because only with age you can only learn to appreciate studio politics and over protective parents. The Secret of the Ooze seems like a valid attempt at recreating the cartoon experience. I really never understood the title of the movie other than being what transformed the Turtles into what they are now. Of course its mentioned in the first film to April, so I kinda found it redundant. Then I started to read the comics.
While I'm not a fan of later storylines, the story behind the ooze gets a little clear with its ties to the uptroms. Exploring IMDB and wikipedia (yeah not the most credible of sources), the sequel was supposed to follow the more mature vein of the first movie. Thanks to parents and the almighty dollar, we got a weaponless plot hole of a sequel. Now a supposed cliffhanger for the sequel was to reveal Professor Jordon Perry as a shell for an uptrom! It would of gave a lot more credit to the title of the sequel and would of opened up the world for the very harshly maligned part III.
Part III is an interesting failure since I liked most of the Turtle's stories that was as much set in reality and had them deal with their issues as being teenage outcasts (which is a reason I like the first film). The whole aspects of them traveling to the Battle Nexus and time hopping really didn't appeal to me as much as the possible character ideas that the franchise started with. Like that they tried to attempt to bring back the weapon use, but the suits were terrible and really pulled you out even more of the attempt to recognize with the characters.
Now with Nickelodeon having full rights to the franchise, and the rumors of a new live action movie (with some CG assistance), where does the 4 Turtles go from here? There was some modest success at the new cartoon bringing them back to their roots, which lead to a new CG movie, but the show eventually ran out of material to pull from and started to say into borderline uber fantasy. I hope the new suits at Nick treat the material with respect, and try to place the character traits first. The first movie was pretty good at respecting all the source materials at the time, and as much as I like April as a smart scientist, I think the reporter vision of her seems to work better. That Shredder was a legitimate threat, and could kick all the Turtle's asses. Still there are other villains out there, and the Rat King, Baxter Stockman, the Purple Dragons, and Leatherhead were all missed opportunities.
Wow that was long. Guess I'll go grab some pizza.
Sadly the Turtles may be more known for the 80s cartoon where they battled Shredder and Krang ALL THE TIME. The problem here is that to most people outside of the comics, they only know associate the villain of the franchise with Shredder, which ended up hurting the live action franchise when it came to its sequel.
As a kid, I had no problems at the time, because only with age you can only learn to appreciate studio politics and over protective parents. The Secret of the Ooze seems like a valid attempt at recreating the cartoon experience. I really never understood the title of the movie other than being what transformed the Turtles into what they are now. Of course its mentioned in the first film to April, so I kinda found it redundant. Then I started to read the comics.
While I'm not a fan of later storylines, the story behind the ooze gets a little clear with its ties to the uptroms. Exploring IMDB and wikipedia (yeah not the most credible of sources), the sequel was supposed to follow the more mature vein of the first movie. Thanks to parents and the almighty dollar, we got a weaponless plot hole of a sequel. Now a supposed cliffhanger for the sequel was to reveal Professor Jordon Perry as a shell for an uptrom! It would of gave a lot more credit to the title of the sequel and would of opened up the world for the very harshly maligned part III.
Part III is an interesting failure since I liked most of the Turtle's stories that was as much set in reality and had them deal with their issues as being teenage outcasts (which is a reason I like the first film). The whole aspects of them traveling to the Battle Nexus and time hopping really didn't appeal to me as much as the possible character ideas that the franchise started with. Like that they tried to attempt to bring back the weapon use, but the suits were terrible and really pulled you out even more of the attempt to recognize with the characters.
Now with Nickelodeon having full rights to the franchise, and the rumors of a new live action movie (with some CG assistance), where does the 4 Turtles go from here? There was some modest success at the new cartoon bringing them back to their roots, which lead to a new CG movie, but the show eventually ran out of material to pull from and started to say into borderline uber fantasy. I hope the new suits at Nick treat the material with respect, and try to place the character traits first. The first movie was pretty good at respecting all the source materials at the time, and as much as I like April as a smart scientist, I think the reporter vision of her seems to work better. That Shredder was a legitimate threat, and could kick all the Turtle's asses. Still there are other villains out there, and the Rat King, Baxter Stockman, the Purple Dragons, and Leatherhead were all missed opportunities.
Wow that was long. Guess I'll go grab some pizza.
