Great review, albeit I was surprised it wasn’t anything “scary”. There was a great amount of passion in this review, and I could tell this special really pissed you off. ESPECIALLY how SCARY the depiction of the 1987 Turtles was. Eh? Eh? Tasteless, I know.
Welcome to how I felt about the Unicron Trilogy. Phelous should you ever decide to do review it you’ll know my hatred for Gary chalk and David Kaye. Although to be fair David Kaye’s performanceas Optimus in Animated was amazing. So he redeemed himself there. Also I’d just like to note that had they hired the original voice actors do you think they would have been able to convince the writers to alter the og Turtles in the slightest?
Love me some Torgo references Laughed my anus inside out.
I tried to watch this special about a year ago and I couldn’t make it past the first ten minutes, so I thank you for braving the trek when I was too weak to dare destroy my child-hood fondness of the turtles.
Phelous, I respect your opinion and all but I think you are a bit too overprotective of the original 80s series. First of all, the writers didn’t hate the 80s series, the reason for the 80s turtles “stupidity” (as you say) is due to 4Kids Entertainment’s intererence. After the completion of the “Lost Season” (Season 5) of the 2003 tv series (the darkest season of the show), 4Kids were quite unhappy about how dark the tone was and refused to air the season for at least 2-3 years. In the “Lost Season”‘s replacement was Fast Foward, a much lighter and dumbed down incarnation of the much much darker previous seasons. In other words, 4Kids wouldn’t allow the writers of the 2003 series to make any further storylines that (in their opinion) would deem too dark for the target age group (7-11 years of age). The 2K3 turtles are absolutely NOT the “cooler” incarnations who always say “What the shell” for no reason. In the first 5 seasons of the 2003 TMNT series, they had personality and made mistakes of their own, the writers in no way intended them to be perfect. You complaining about how the 80s TMNT characters are nothing but “goofy” and “idiotic” comes across as “YOU RAPED MY CHILDHOOD! HOW DARE THEY NOT BE 100% LIKE THE CARTOON!”. I sorry Phelous but you don’t have the right idea about this. Turtles Forever may have been a way of bringing back nostalgia to the fans of the 80s series (no matter if they liked it or not), it is also 4Kids’ way of introducing a younger audience to the original series. You see, 4Kids thinks that if you have comic relief characters then the kids would be invested in them. While I understand that this is not what the 80s TMNT fans were wanting in a crossover with the old and new turtles, Turtles Forever, in my opinion, is an excellent film. Also, the writers did as much as they could to add in little easter eggs to show that they were trying, but it’s not something to get pissed over. Epecially the littlest things like, “human Bebop and Rocksteady are walking through town despite them already being mutants”, it’s just a easter egg for the fans ok Phelous? Another thing I want to point out is how you view the 2003 Shredder as being a “perfect badass” who growls and treats your childhood Shredder like shit. The 2003 Shredder in the 2K3 show was a LARGE threat and NEVER growled at all before this. Turtles Forever, being the finale of the 2003 series, was the perfect opportunity for the 2003 TMNT fans to see Shredder as his full power and being a true threat to the entire TMNT multiverse. If you would have seen the 2003 series Phelous, you would understand why 2003 Shredder is portrayed like this in the movie. With all that said, I just to say a few words to everyone. Calm down, don’t get all butthurt about how it “ruined your childhood”, it’s only a cartoon.
If 4Kids believed that the best way to introduce kids to the 1987 series was to turn the original turtles into moronic comic relief, then they’ve had their head up their asses so long that their brains have turned to shit.
The 1987 TMNT had comic relief characters– Bebop, Rocksteady, Vernon, etc.– and guess what? Even as a kid you knew they were hapless dumbasses and had no respect for them. All you wanted was to see them get their comeuppance or to demonstrate just one iota of competetence. It didn’t make you say, “Hey, I wish there was a spin-off where Bebop, Rocksteady, and Vernon team up to act like morons and blunder into HILARIOUS situations that only get resolved when somebody with a brain comes along to save their asses. That would be great!” Not even kids are dumb enough to think like that.
Also, Shredder was a goofball, but he was at least a viable threat to the Turtles. They’d always beat him, like heroes do with villains, but at least he could give them some trouble along the way.
The Turtles would crack jokes, break the 4th wall, and occasionally act silly, but they were also competetent characters. They might joke around to ease the tension and make light of the situation they were in, but ultimately they took it seriously and could kick some ass or outsmart their adversaries. They weren’t blathering simpletons who only won the day when one of them accidentally tripped over the power-cord to the Doomsday device. They were more like Spiderman than fucking Meatwad. Even Michaelangelo, the de facto comic relief of the group, wasn’t a complete imbecile at all times.
Turning them into pure comic relief characters takes away any respect you might have had for them and changes them from lovable goofballs who you’re rooting for into annoying dumbasses who you’re just praying get killed so you don’t have to deal with their shenanigans ever again. It’s the worst thing you could have possibly done to introduce kids to the 1987 TMNT and it’s flipping the double bird to fans and people who grew up with the show.
It was a silly show, yes, but it wasn’t as mindnumbingly stupid as Turtles Forever seems to want to portray it as. Even kids would have found their interpretation of the series juvenile.
All you have said is opinion-based, from the prospective of your childhood love for the 80s turtles, that’s fine but it’s not anything to judge the whole movie over. Put aside the fact that the 80s turtles are “morons” and think of the movie as a whole. Turtles Forever is a enjoyable, action-packed movie with it’s minor flaws, like Iron Man 2. Most people fail to look past the protrayal of the 80s TMNT characters and judge the movie depending on that. Don’t focus on how the characters in this ruined your long-gone childhood and think of the movie as it should be, a treat for the long-time TMNT fans. Also, I never said I was supporting the fact about 4Kids decision to dumb down the turtles, I thought it was a pretty stupid idea too.
Here’s a few of the fan’s opinions in defense of TT
“Sometimes I think that people who keep telling fans of the show to stop
looking at the old show through nostalgic glasses actually are looking
through reverse-rose colored glasses or something. Of course the old
turtles were goofy, but almost not being able to even really grasp that
they were in danger like they did in this film crosses a big line.
…….
“They weren’t brainless idiots, just fish out of water. They saved the day at the end and proved to be heroes.”
And the best one imo..
“I have to say, even though they did poke a lot of fun at the original
’87 series… it was enjoyable to watch them interact with the 2k3
characters, if only to have a laugh at how much ‘cool’ has changed for
me since I was a toddler (I was pretty little in 87 but I did watch it).
I definitely prefer the newer turtles (though I hate that they
screwed with the animation after a while on the 2k3 series). It’s
definitely true that 2k3’s Shredder and ninja would obliterate the
incompetant 80’s villains (let’s face it, they were pretty soft as
villains go, and not nearly as sinister).
I get that the 80’s show’s focus was more on the comedy. Fine.
But…if you look at the origin of all of it, the 80’s show was kind of a
butchery of that to begin with, and the 2k3 series is closer to the
original comics. They kidified the 80’s version, there’s no denying
that. It worked for me then, but it’s good to see it get the jabbing it
deserves now that I’m grown.
All of us who grew up in the 80’s and early 90’s have a soft spot
for the original turtles, and I think we’ve grown enough that we can
handle a little fun at the expense of what we once considered cool. We
were lame then. Let’s face it. We were. I once went out for halloween
with a plastic ninja turtle mask and a cardboard shell on my back. Lame.
But man, was it fun!
I mean…the 87 show WAS silly. Back then, it was cool. To those of
us who were there. But in retrospect…yeah. I’m glad we had it,
wouldn’t change anything about it, but I’m also glad the property has
matured as well.”
This wasn’t a “jabbing”, it was a sucker punch to the testicles.
Yes, the 1987 TMNT was goofy and deviated greatly from the comic it was based on. If not for the popularity of the show, however, very few people would have even heard of the comic and it’s likely none of the later incarnations would have come into being. A little more respect could have been paid to the cartoon that paved the way for everything else to come. I mean, couldn’t you have them be a bit goofy without making them almost completely incompetent? Couldn’t you keep their character traits the same and contrast them against the more modern turtles instead of making them look like Michelangelo and his clone army? You know, actually, this movie would have worked for me if Michelangelo was the only turtle to survive going through the dimensional portal and was somehow split into four clones with each turtle having 1/4th of his intelligence. Then I’d get why the hell they all act like morons.
It’s fine having the 1987 Turtles crack jokes and goof around more than their 2003 counterparts. I wouldn’t expect anything else. But for the love of God, stay consistent with their characters. They do have distinct characteristics. That’s why kids had a favorite turtle. (Except Leonardo, nobody liked him.) Why take the characters from the 1987 show and make them nearly pointless? Just take the turtles and their villains from 1987 and let them have their moments too. Don’t just put the “new and improved” Turtles and their villains against the old characters and make the old characters look like incompetent assholes.
I don’t mind a more serious take on mutated turtles who know ninjitsu and fight crime under their mutated rat sensei. Trust me I don’t. It just seems mean-spirited when a show with an already silly premise takes characters from the show that paved the way for them, dumbs them down, and takes potshots at how dumb and useless the dumbed down versions are compared to them. Have some respect. Just a little.
Well you could say it’s just a movie to ANYTHING I’ve done lol.
Also you REALLY can’t “Put aside the fact that the 80s turtles are “morons””. That’s one of the main draws of this cartoon. It’s about the 2 TMNT teams meeting. It’s not a background issue in this special it’s a constant problem and occurs within every scene of it. If you like it, that’s cool but I didn’t. I wanted to see the 87 Turtles and only found an awful parody done by people who were extremely unfamiliar or flat out disliked the show.
You can’t tell me I’m only viewing it with nostalgia goggles or whatever sense I watched a few episodes of it again before making this. Like I said in the vid, there’s a big different between a sillier tone and moronic unaware protagonists.
This is like if you had a character in anything you enjoyed then suddenly they were written by someone completely unfamiliar with them as a character and turned into a blithering idiot.
I have not seen all that much of the old turtles show, but i’ve seen enough to know that this was a tragedy. I would just like to say that the first few seasons of the 2003 turles is acutally pretty good. It hardly portrays it well in this special. I’m just saying that you shouldn’t entirely write off the 2003 turtles. In the first few seasons they actually do quite well with it, I definatly don’t remember April being as retarded as she is in this abomination.
a vernon, bebop, and rocksteady team up show? that’d be so cool, it would be an even odder couple (er trio?) than the odd couple. throw in a little rat king, leather head and erma and you’ve struck lightning! 3 hapless “heros” trying to make it through ordinary life but have to deal with “issues” (no video games for you bebop and rocksteady, not until you get jobs!) there could even be shredder and turtle cameos (what the shell? how are we no longer the stars?) but this will only work if james avery is shredder… nothing but the best for my mutant comedy of “friends”
I grew up with the 1987 cartoon, and adored it. Still do. And I actually really enjoyed the first three or four seasons of the 2003 series, so it`s all the more disappointing that something as badass as a universe crossover would be handled so mean-spiritedly.
I was delighted a couple months ago when I stumbled across a DVD of season 5 of the 1987 cartoon. That joy curdled when, grinning like a maniac in expectation of irradiated pepperoni alien monsters in elevators and sewers, I got Shredder’s good-hearted brother in a business suit teaming up with the turtles to scold him. I filed that away with Venus de Milo to be never spoken of again. It was like finding pennicilin on my pizza.
Still, I hope you gave the first couple seasons of the 2003 series a try. I intend to revisit them just as soon as I find my VHS copies of the 1987 series and reconnect my VCR.
Not as of yet. I MAY try to see a bit of it at some point. Also I have nothing against it, just in this special it was annoying that they were depicted as the only competent ones. Seriously, WHAT THE SHELL!?
The first season was really good, they stuck closer to the comics/movie, it started to fall apart as it went along though. They DO say “what the shell” often though.
You know, i also remember an episode in which Shredder’s mom was in the technodrome, always calling him Saki which pist him off and (if someone wants to correct me go ahead) she kept going on about how he wasnt evil enough.
The ’03 series was pretty good. I suspect that a lot grown men latched onto the new show because they felt too good for the ’87 series of their childhood. It certainly didn’t fulfill some deep-seated desire for new, and better, TMNT shows. I eventually outgrew the original cartoon and that’s why I stopped watching it; it also got really bad in those last few seasons when it was on CBS. The new TMNT cartoon is certainly overrated.
I never read the original TMNT comic books, I was too young when they were new and I didn’t set foot inside a comic book store until 1990. I had no knowledge of the dark comics, or the preconceptions that were had by the comic’s fans. My only contact with the comic book Turtles was the box art for the first TMNT game on the NES.
As for Turtles Forever, it was
really unfair to the ’87 TMNT. The movie partially made up for it by
parodying the comic book Turtles, who in turn made fun of the ’03
Turtles. Overall, no matter what behind the scenes info there is, the final product comes across as being mean spirited toward the ’87 Turtles.
Good review, especily compared to doug’s review which was clearly written with nostalgia goggles.
And it’s kind of funny that you kept stressing that the 1980’s characters were being treated as parodies of themselves… even though that’s how you’ve been treating The Shredder on your review show, EVEN IN THE REVIEW ITSELF.
It’s a shame the TMNT cross over didn’t come across like it should have. Having seen both shows this just seems sad. There is like, none of what made the 87 turtles great.
Although I do just want to add that the 2003 shredder comes across as a WAY better villian then the 87 shredder all throughout the series. So in turtles forever they did get the ammount of menace right that both shredders brought.
……the giggle gun was stupid but I still remember the line 87 shredder gave where he moaned to Krang about wanting to conquer earth….and shredders pizza delievery. The 2003 shredder was never given moments like that and came across as a much bigger threat.
So I think they wanted to convey how anyone who dared grow up in the 80s was a moron for not watching the 2003 version.. maybe. I don’t know, the subtle approach to their message kinda flew over my head. They needed an army of Mousers to think a fire hydrant was their “mother”. THAT would have taught me a thing or two!!!1
I guess it seems to be thing nowadays for writers of new cartoons to be smug and snooty to things of the past. Like “Oh we’re so clever and smart and we are willing to do extreme action and drama, and we don’t rely on silliness,” yeah because god forbid there be silly moments…..In a kids show….Yes god forbid….: /
And I’ll admit that alot of cartoon shows today have better writing, The Avengers cartoon being a good example. However, that doesn’t mean that old cartoons were terrible. Because remember writers of 2003 Turtles without the original comic book and tv show, your show wouldn’t have existed, in other words be a bit respectful, because you know thats polite which is nice. Just saying.
I think you may be a bit harsh on this one. When I showed this to my (much younger) cousin he thought that the 1987 (or at least the version of the 1987 turtles portrayed in the special) were way cooler than the 2003 turtles and in all honestly, as much as it may pain us to admit, this special is really aimed at the younger generation of turtles fans, not us. Plus it’s one of the few things I’ve seen where I sometimes had to stop and ask myself ‘how the fuck did they pull that animation off’ (eg. the bit where the world starts being erased). In saying that, pretty much every point you raise about the special is totally valid.
I wasn’t a fan of the 1980’s turtles and I still feel offended by the idiocy. Kasey and April did alot more on the 2003 series that exposition so I wanted to see them a little more. The “Shell” pun was annoying but they didn’t say it as often as they did here. And don’t be hating on the Utrom Shredder. He’s one of my all time favorite Animated Villains. Sure he was a badass in the show but I think they liked him a little TOO much.
Don’t let this special ruin either the 2003 tv show for you. If you liked the 80’s show, then I recommend the 2003 show also. And that is how world peace happened! The End!
Oh Goodness. I could talk about this for eons. First off, thank you Phelous for reviewing this. I remember enjoying it while being dissapointed at the same time. Allow me a chance to toss in my 2 cents.
First off. For a long time the 2k3 series really was the darkest show 4kids had. And I mean “dark” by 4kids’ awful standards. They were allowed to do things other cartoons were not allowed to do. Though still cut back in some ways, its an intelligent show and a pretty good albeit watered down adaption of the original Eastman/Laird comic book. I actually encourage you to view all of the series since you seemed to not really know a lot about it (You didn’t recognize Karai? Shame on you!) Though it doesn’t matter much in the context of this review. The 2k3 turtles were more or less in character but the 80’s turtles were terrible.
Some fans think it is because the Mirage writing staff hated the 80’s turtles. Or to be more specific (I might be wrong about which one) Peter Laird didn’t like the 80’s cartoon because it was a bastardization of his and Eastman’s original creation. Notice how this is kinda going in a circle? I do believe Eastman was okay with the old show. Heck I think he even liked Venus de Milo. But someone can fact check that. Laird was apparently the anal one and Eastman was the more cool accepting one. So yeah this might have been a mean spirited raspberry at the old cartoon. And I will admit that while surfing the web during 2k3’s initial run, even I got tired of the constant bitchery from the fans of the old cartoon!
But STILL I don’t know why the writers chose to disguard all respect for 80’s Turtles. Without it the Turtles Phenomenon never would have happened.
But the 2k3 series got me interested in the original comics. And I’ve actually started reading them albiet slowly. Anyway, 4kids finally decided after roughly 5 seasons of a great cartoon that the 2k3 series was too dark and violent. I think Season 6 brought us Fast Forward. Bright colors, slap stick, the turtles can walk around in the open without fear because its set far in the future and everyone is an alien. A tad boring but not offensive. But 4kids had to further their rape of the show by creating Back to the Sewers. Which was just….stupid. Boring. And did I mention stupid? A very gaudy and blindingly bright color pallet also came in along with an utter lack of mood lighting which the first 5 seaons of the show did have. Rare for an American cartoon. Basically Back to the Sewers shit on everything that came before it and the 2k3 show wasn’t good at the time Turtles Forever aired.
In the end I can’t really disown this crossover. It was a romp. A frustrating romp but a romp none the less. I was grinding my teeth at how badly they treated the 80’s turtles. It was really insulting! I think Turtles Forever was the last thing Mirage produced before the Franchise was bought by Nickelodeon. Hmm.
Oh well. I’m sure by now you’ve heard about the Nickelodeon cartoon coming out soon, rite? Rite??
That’s to be expected, given it’s a poorly veiled ‘screw you’ to the 87 series. The tiniest bit of effort towards their characters could have made it awesome, rather than “80s Turtle (pick one at random, they were all stupid?) acts stupid, Cool 03 Awesome Turtle/s react with groan” for 90 minutes. If they had switched up the approach, and joked about parts of the old show instead of just bashing the whole, it might have worked. After all, the bit where Hun freaks out at 80s Raphael for making a joke to the camera (“Who are you talking to? There’s nobody there!!”) was actually funny.
To be honest think the 80’s fans had a reason to be butthurt. I was certainly not pleased. Nobody I know who watched this crossover was UNLESS they hated the 80’s cartoon themselves.
The reason they weren’t butthurt is most likely because they understand that there is no use in complaining over a freaking cartoon, it has nothing to do with hate. So what, the 80s turtles are goofballs, does that mean everybody hates them for acting that way? No. In the eyes of the people who grew up with the 80s show (I was born around the time of the “Red Sky” seasons so I only saw the downfall of the 80s series at the time), they think that just because they are portrayed is “morons” unlike their original personalities that they are annoying to every living person on Earth. I’ve read the Technodrome forums (a message board for TMNT fans) and they had no problem with how they were portrayed and they in fact loved Turtles Forever. The only way I could understand people getting pissed off at this is if they KILLED OFF the 80s turtles. But they didn’t, because the writers didn’t hate them as you all think they did. They may be annoying to you, but not to everybody.
Also, so what if they did hate the 80s series? What’s wrong with hating a cartoon? If Phelous can hate Turtles Forever then people can hate the 80s series. Hell, a lot of people like that stupid-ass My Little Pony show while I just want it to die a painful death.
Lol many people on the Technodrome forum are hard core Eastman/Laird comic fans and detest the old cartoon. So yeah they’d see nothing wrong with it. Your opinion can’t possibly be that of everyone on there. Talk about picking and choosing hard core. I’m a member of the Technodrome.
And now you’re just being a troll. This newest incarnation of My Little Pony is a very decent show. It has good character development, a good storyline, is funny, touching, and epic sometimes all at once. Also, why care so much if people didn’t like this TMNT special? I grew up on the show too and I can see how someone would be pissed off by the way the 87 turtles were depicted. As for 4Kids, they are a moronic company who think kids are stupid and can’t handle dark things so everything gets dumbed down. It’s not that something is too dark for a kid, it’s too dark for the adults. Kids handle dark stuff constantly and usually learn about death when they’re 3 or 4, it’s just a natural part of life. Sounds like you’re going with it because so many people aren’t and make yourself different from the crowd.
A change in a character’s personality won’t affect anyone who never watched the original show, and it seems that its only purpose is to aggrevate fans. At least half of the turtles could have been competant. There’s no reason why the old turtles had to be written as morons.
Mass Effect fans’ reaction to the recently released book Deception. A different author takes previously established and beloved characters, and proceeds to turn them into a parody. Not to mention the NUMEROUS lore mistakes. Hell, it was so bad that the Mass Effect wiki guys wrote Bioware themselves and said they have NO IDEA how to incorporate it into their site.
At least the fans got Bioware to admit to it. Well…somewhat, anyway (a revised edition is all they said might happen). Don’t think that’s gonna happen with this turtle travesty.
And I was just about to say, “Oh, Fuck Off!” myself, but you beat me to it, Phelous.
I guess how much you enjoy this special depends on which series you are a fan of, if you like the 87 show you probably won’t like it(Doug likes it though), if you like the 03 series you’ll probably like it because their far more faithful to that show.
As a kid I was so proud of my TMNT bubblegum tattoo. Seeing the 2003 characters , I wonder if I also would’ve want these on my arm. To me they look way less appealing, even dull. The blocky design makes them so mean looking instead of sympathetic. And why do they have dead eyes, why ? That makes them even more emotionless. You can’t even see what direction they’re looking at. Nope, this special is not for me. I will keep my 80’s Turtles nostalgia. Heroes in a half-shell. Turtle power!
This is one of the most mean-spirited Things I’ve seen in a while. How Dare they do that to the old Ninja Turtles? They clearly hated the show and loved their own so much that they went out of their way to be as cruel as they possibly could outside of having the 1987 Ninja Turtles get impaled ala revengefic! I’m right with you on this one, man. This shit is horrible and should not be tolerated on bit.
You know, I loved the movies…. except 3. I love the movies because they brought back the goofiness from the cartoon, but also had a nice bit of seriousness to it that wasn’t so overly serious that I was turned off of it. The 2003 and the new Ninja Turtles are so ridiculously serious that I lose all care for the show and this nasty special is just driving that spike further between me and them. *sigh* I need to pop in the first movie. I need something fun after this shitfest.
Also… I’m greatly amused by the fact that Raphael looks like he’s about five seconds from popping someone’s head off like he’s playing T-ball in the cover picture. Right with you, man. Right with you there.
The 2k3 series was an adaption of the original Comic. Oh and Phelous thats why the black and white super grimy comic book Shredder was defeated with garbage. It was a jokey joke nobody who hasn’t read the comic will understand. Shredder is killed in the very first issue.
But anyway the 2k3 series is a kid friendly adaptation of the story. Oddly enough the first movie is also an adapation. Probably why it’s the most serious of the 3 live action movies. Though the first movie managed to add in some of the 80’s cartoon humor. Everyone is acting like the 2k3 series is just totally devoid of jokes. It isn’t. And anyone who says it does has probably not actually watched it.
I think fans need to understand that the 80’s cartoon was more of a creation of Fred Wolf than it was Eastman and Lairds.
When I first saw this movie, I enjoyed it, but the more I watched it the more I found wrong with it. Not only with how they portrayed the 87 turtles, but ALSO how they portrayed the 2003 turtles. Or rather how the 03 turtles were ORIGINALLY portrayed. Right off the bat the animation is just not as good as how the 03 show started out, it instead has the animation style of the spin of series that I never watched because they looked redundant and not as well produced as the 03 series.
Taking from that, this film doesn’t even really seem to give the 03 show the respect it deserves, shoving in the ‘what the Shell?!’ line in everywhere, now I know they said it quite a bit in the 03 show…but defiantly not to this degree. Next they took away some of the serious edge they had and the writing seems weaker. Not only that the other characters from the 03 world, Hun, April and Kasey especially were acting as shadows of their former selves. Hun was actually pretty scary as a villain in the first season and a bit of the turtles show. Next Shredder…they really messed up with him. Sure he was a freaky alien in the 03 show, but he seemed to have a well thought out and logical plan, to make money in his illegal operations and to kill anybody who got in his way. Simple enough.
Honestly it felt like they didn’t have any idea how to write either side of the turtles, and just did this because it was a cool idea on paper. And really it is, and it would have been far more enjoyable if it had some of the writing that they had at the beginning of the 03 series, and defiantly would have looked better if they had that animation budget. As is it does both sides a disservice. For a better representation of the 03 turtles the first 2 or 3 season are really good stuff. If I recall correctly it gets needlessly dark in season 4 and goes off the deep end into wacky territory in season 5 with demons being involved or something…I never did watch that final season. Don’t quote me on those season numbers though, just know it does start out strong and degrades into mediocrity and weirdness.
I also grew up on the 80s turtles (i was born in 83 and they started showing them in my country AFTER the first movie came out) and when the 2003 series came up, i gave it a shot. Honestly? turtles forever doenst represent either well really, on one hand you get the 80s turtles beign overly silly and the 03 turtles taking themselves too seriously, like a teen age groaning about things his little brother liked when he himself liked em just an year ago but now is too “grown up” for it.
Does that make me hate the special? not really, ill take it for what it is and give credit where credit is due. The 80s turtles acted silly for most of it, but also provided solutions for different problems as they understood the logic of their world while the 03 turtles tried (albeit eyerolling at times) to work with them and push for solutions that would fit the representation they are given.
The one thing that bothered me about the review is that when the comic book turtles appeared, you said very little about them other than slapping a “all shredders are idiots but 03 in this special”. the comic book turtles thought ANY animated turtles were childish, and its a nice touch really, because its not really an insult, its a different take on the idea of the tmnt: some like them a bit sillier, some like them a bit more serious and some like them beheading shredder and having gang wars. They are all different takes.
I really didn’t like how they treated the 87 Turtles. They didn’t even try to make them equal with the new series. It just feel like someone punch me in the gut. But I don’t blame the creators of this movie, I blame 4kids. After seeing what they did to One Piece, there might be a good version of this movie somewhere. Great review Phelous
I’m not terribly familiar with your work — a friend of mine forwarded this review to me — but you may have won a new fan today. THANK YOU. I thought I was the only other person who despised this awful, awful crossover. I felt like throwing a shoe at my tv when the three ’87 turtles ran crying to the ’03 Raphael. And excellent point about ’87 Shredder’s fighting abilities! I kept thinking that myself! Seriously, just fuck that useless, shitty, obnoxious, insulting, preposterous, one-dimensional, nepotistic, unfunny, predictable, alienating, teeth-grinding sack of degraded 5-week-old vomit-stuffed horse shit of a special. I couldn’t have hated it more if it were my full time job.
I’m glad that Phelous went back to his usual 20 min reveiws. More details and what not, plus this is something that I agree with. I may have been born in 93, but my local video store had a ton of the original turtles on vhs, and that’s what I watched and got interested in. I didn’t really like Turtles Forever, but I did enjoy the 2003 version. All in all, it could’ve been done much better.
Seriously,what is so wrong with the media world recently?!
They’re all raping people’s childhoods or teenhoods!
Micheal Bay with Transformers and the horror franchises remakes,Georges Lucas with the Star Wars prequel and Indiana Jones 4(even though I liked them,also put the blame on Spielberg too for Indy 4),Touchstone with Fright Night,Telltale games and IDW with Jurassic Park,Capcom and Paul W.S. Anderson with Resident Evil and now Mirage with TMNT!
Oh,and let’s not forget that TMNT will be raped again by Jonathan Liebesman soon.
I’m sure I forgot dozens of other cases of child-teenhoods rape.
I really liked this movie alot sure they screwed up the Classic turtles a bit… well alot! But hey this movie made me forget about Turtles III aw crap there it goes….
I especially loved the ending when they were working on TMNT #1 1984 and they decided to get some pizza for lunch and then zoom in on the first comic book ever.
But hey everyone is entitled to they’re own opinion.
Oh and krang was in the ’03 turtles show for only a brief cameo he said “I don’t like to walk with my tentacles…”
It is interesting to compare this review to the one done by the Nostalgia Critic who liked the special. I have to admit, I like this special too. This is partly due to the fact that I never really watched the original show and when I finally did see some of it I had already watched the new show so it just came across as silly to me. I guess it all depends on whcih you see first and get attatched to. I think the different tones of the two shows is actually handled fairly well and is nicely highlighted during the Turtle Prime sequence. It shows how a darker show will always make a lighter rendition look less serious by comparison. And there were some moments with the old turtles that I really liked in this special, such as the “save April” scene, the fourth wall jokes and the scene with the old Splinter. I especially loved the old Shredder interacting with the new Shredder as he was the best thing about the original series in my humble opinion. And the throwaway bit with the original comics Shredder was brilliant. I was a bit dissapointed that they couldn’t get the original voice actors for whatever reason but I thought the replacements did well enough.
I have to say, considering how upset this made Phelous, I can’t wait to see his reaction to the Michael Bay version.
All in all, while I didn’t agree with the review in the most, I understood where Phelous was coming from as a fan of the original series and thought that he explained his points quite well given how emotional he was.
I used to watch the 2003 series till 2006. I then watched the future turtles thing but I couldn’t get past the stupid future main character. His appearance just irratated me. Other than that, it was pretty cool and weird to watch on Sat. Mornings.
The turtles are suppose to have a comic relief side. Their puns are exactly what make them the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles but what this movie has done to them is beyond forgivable. Donatello was much more intelligent than he was portrayed to be in this movie. Ralph was much more… well tough. I highly doubt that he would have ran from the comic turtles. Leonardo had his own strengths and intellect which made him a capable leader. And Michalengo… well even though he was goofy, he knew when to take things seriously. To all those who actually like the 2003 version better and actually like the movie that portrayed the 80’s turtles as idiotis I just have one thing to say. Go to shell and rot.
After watching this I’m curious what he thinks about the new Nickelodeon Turtles, has a darker tone for sure and a lot of call backs to the 1980’s Turtles too.
i kinda agree with phelous you can see some resentment from the 2003 show twords the 87 show. and do like tmnt 2003 but there is a bit of malice behind this movie for the old show. but hey what the heck do i know? it’s just my opinon
They could have handled this universe meet-up a million times better. They had this amazing oppurtunity to do something really great. Sure, they could have made the 87 turtles a little silly, but equal it out by picking on the 03′ turtles and their seriousness.
Actually an even better idea would be to make the turtles just like they were in the 87 cartoon and see what interesting situations could arise from just that scenario alone.
It has NOTHING to do with seeing things through nostalgia goggles, it has EVERYTHING to do with being respectful to the creators of the original show, and paying homage to them They were obviously very talented. I mean the 87 turtles practically ruled the world at the time. How can you be mean spirited towards something that so many children loved so much.
This special had zero creativity, and even less respect.
That ’87 April wearing a jumpsuit joke would have worked better had the ’03 show not remodeled their April to look almost like the ’87 one. And I gotta say, I’m not a fan of this new model. It looks like if the Kim Possible crew had vandalized the artwork and the studio just couldn’t be arsed to rectify it.
In earlier ’03 April looked like this:
From what I’ve heard, they apparently remodeled her somewhere along the lines of the “Timetraveling Turtles” storyline, but it was at the the ending of the season prior that I stopped watching the show so I don’t know when exactly they did this abominable remodeling.
By the way, you might wanna include an “Add Media” button, as in most WordPress websites because there are no visible ones for me here. Also, an “Edit comment” button would be nice for these kinds of occasions.
I love this review. I feel like you should just go on the IMDB, Amazon, etc. pages for Turtles Forever and post reviews with a link to this video. Not many negative reviews of it on any of those places.
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Great review, albeit I was surprised it wasn’t anything “scary”. There was a great amount of passion in this review, and I could tell this special really pissed you off. ESPECIALLY how SCARY the depiction of the 1987 Turtles was. Eh? Eh? Tasteless, I know.
this is exactly how i remember the turtles from 87.
Oh hai troll.
Welcome to how I felt about the Unicron Trilogy. Phelous should you ever decide to do review it you’ll know my hatred for Gary chalk and David Kaye. Although to be fair David Kaye’s performanceas Optimus in Animated was amazing. So he redeemed himself there. Also I’d just like to note that had they hired the original voice actors do you think they would have been able to convince the writers to alter the og Turtles in the slightest?
Love me some Torgo references
Laughed my anus inside out.
I tried to watch this special about a year ago and I couldn’t make it past the first ten minutes, so I thank you for braving the trek when I was too weak to dare destroy my child-hood fondness of the turtles.
I think you were less upset at A Serbian Film.
Well to be fair, A Serbian Film raped only one baby, this crossover raped EVERY childhood.
It’s a horrible-horrible cartoon. I so happy that I hadn’t seen it before. Poor Shredder. He doesn’t deserve it.
Phelous, I respect your opinion and all but I think you are a bit too overprotective of the original 80s series. First of all, the writers didn’t hate the 80s series, the reason for the 80s turtles “stupidity” (as you say) is due to 4Kids Entertainment’s intererence. After the completion of the “Lost Season” (Season 5) of the 2003 tv series (the darkest season of the show), 4Kids were quite unhappy about how dark the tone was and refused to air the season for at least 2-3 years. In the “Lost Season”‘s replacement was Fast Foward, a much lighter and dumbed down incarnation of the much much darker previous seasons. In other words, 4Kids wouldn’t allow the writers of the 2003 series to make any further storylines that (in their opinion) would deem too dark for the target age group (7-11 years of age). The 2K3 turtles are absolutely NOT the “cooler” incarnations who always say “What the shell” for no reason. In the first 5 seasons of the 2003 TMNT series, they had personality and made mistakes of their own, the writers in no way intended them to be perfect. You complaining about how the 80s TMNT characters are nothing but “goofy” and “idiotic” comes across as “YOU RAPED MY CHILDHOOD! HOW DARE THEY NOT BE 100% LIKE THE CARTOON!”. I sorry Phelous but you don’t have the right idea about this. Turtles Forever may have been a way of bringing back nostalgia to the fans of the 80s series (no matter if they liked it or not), it is also 4Kids’ way of introducing a younger audience to the original series. You see, 4Kids thinks that if you have comic relief characters then the kids would be invested in them. While I understand that this is not what the 80s TMNT fans were wanting in a crossover with the old and new turtles, Turtles Forever, in my opinion, is an excellent film. Also, the writers did as much as they could to add in little easter eggs to show that they were trying, but it’s not something to get pissed over. Epecially the littlest things like, “human Bebop and Rocksteady are walking through town despite them already being mutants”, it’s just a easter egg for the fans ok Phelous? Another thing I want to point out is how you view the 2003 Shredder as being a “perfect badass” who growls and treats your childhood Shredder like shit. The 2003 Shredder in the 2K3 show was a LARGE threat and NEVER growled at all before this. Turtles Forever, being the finale of the 2003 series, was the perfect opportunity for the 2003 TMNT fans to see Shredder as his full power and being a true threat to the entire TMNT multiverse. If you would have seen the 2003 series Phelous, you would understand why 2003 Shredder is portrayed like this in the movie. With all that said, I just to say a few words to everyone. Calm down, don’t get all butthurt about how it “ruined your childhood”, it’s only a cartoon.
If 4Kids believed that the best way to introduce kids to the 1987 series was to turn the original turtles into moronic comic relief, then they’ve had their head up their asses so long that their brains have turned to shit.
The 1987 TMNT had comic relief characters– Bebop, Rocksteady, Vernon, etc.– and guess what? Even as a kid you knew they were hapless dumbasses and had no respect for them. All you wanted was to see them get their comeuppance or to demonstrate just one iota of competetence. It didn’t make you say, “Hey, I wish there was a spin-off where Bebop, Rocksteady, and Vernon team up to act like morons and blunder into HILARIOUS situations that only get resolved when somebody with a brain comes along to save their asses. That would be great!” Not even kids are dumb enough to think like that.
Also, Shredder was a goofball, but he was at least a viable threat to the Turtles. They’d always beat him, like heroes do with villains, but at least he could give them some trouble along the way.
The Turtles would crack jokes, break the 4th wall, and occasionally act silly, but they were also competetent characters. They might joke around to ease the tension and make light of the situation they were in, but ultimately they took it seriously and could kick some ass or outsmart their adversaries. They weren’t blathering simpletons who only won the day when one of them accidentally tripped over the power-cord to the Doomsday device. They were more like Spiderman than fucking Meatwad. Even Michaelangelo, the de facto comic relief of the group, wasn’t a complete imbecile at all times.
Turning them into pure comic relief characters takes away any respect you might have had for them and changes them from lovable goofballs who you’re rooting for into annoying dumbasses who you’re just praying get killed so you don’t have to deal with their shenanigans ever again. It’s the worst thing you could have possibly done to introduce kids to the 1987 TMNT and it’s flipping the double bird to fans and people who grew up with the show.
It was a silly show, yes, but it wasn’t as mindnumbingly stupid as Turtles Forever seems to want to portray it as. Even kids would have found their interpretation of the series juvenile.
All you have said is opinion-based, from the prospective of your childhood love for the 80s turtles, that’s fine but it’s not anything to judge the whole movie over. Put aside the fact that the 80s turtles are “morons” and think of the movie as a whole. Turtles Forever is a enjoyable, action-packed movie with it’s minor flaws, like Iron Man 2. Most people fail to look past the protrayal of the 80s TMNT characters and judge the movie depending on that. Don’t focus on how the characters in this ruined your long-gone childhood and think of the movie as it should be, a treat for the long-time TMNT fans. Also, I never said I was supporting the fact about 4Kids decision to dumb down the turtles, I thought it was a pretty stupid idea too.
Here’s a few of the fan’s opinions in defense of TT
“Sometimes I think that people who keep telling fans of the show to stop
looking at the old show through nostalgic glasses actually are looking
through reverse-rose colored glasses or something. Of course the old
turtles were goofy, but almost not being able to even really grasp that
they were in danger like they did in this film crosses a big line.
…….
“They weren’t brainless idiots, just fish out of water. They saved the day at the end and proved to be heroes.”
And the best one imo..
“I have to say, even though they did poke a lot of fun at the original
’87 series… it was enjoyable to watch them interact with the 2k3
characters, if only to have a laugh at how much ‘cool’ has changed for
me since I was a toddler (I was pretty little in 87 but I did watch it).
I definitely prefer the newer turtles (though I hate that they
screwed with the animation after a while on the 2k3 series). It’s
definitely true that 2k3’s Shredder and ninja would obliterate the
incompetant 80’s villains (let’s face it, they were pretty soft as
villains go, and not nearly as sinister).
I get that the 80’s show’s focus was more on the comedy. Fine.
But…if you look at the origin of all of it, the 80’s show was kind of a
butchery of that to begin with, and the 2k3 series is closer to the
original comics. They kidified the 80’s version, there’s no denying
that. It worked for me then, but it’s good to see it get the jabbing it
deserves now that I’m grown.
All of us who grew up in the 80’s and early 90’s have a soft spot
for the original turtles, and I think we’ve grown enough that we can
handle a little fun at the expense of what we once considered cool. We
were lame then. Let’s face it. We were. I once went out for halloween
with a plastic ninja turtle mask and a cardboard shell on my back. Lame.
But man, was it fun!
I mean…the 87 show WAS silly. Back then, it was cool. To those of
us who were there. But in retrospect…yeah. I’m glad we had it,
wouldn’t change anything about it, but I’m also glad the property has
matured as well.”
This wasn’t a “jabbing”, it was a sucker punch to the testicles.
Yes, the 1987 TMNT was goofy and deviated greatly from the comic it was based on. If not for the popularity of the show, however, very few people would have even heard of the comic and it’s likely none of the later incarnations would have come into being. A little more respect could have been paid to the cartoon that paved the way for everything else to come. I mean, couldn’t you have them be a bit goofy without making them almost completely incompetent? Couldn’t you keep their character traits the same and contrast them against the more modern turtles instead of making them look like Michelangelo and his clone army? You know, actually, this movie would have worked for me if Michelangelo was the only turtle to survive going through the dimensional portal and was somehow split into four clones with each turtle having 1/4th of his intelligence. Then I’d get why the hell they all act like morons.
It’s fine having the 1987 Turtles crack jokes and goof around more than their 2003 counterparts. I wouldn’t expect anything else. But for the love of God, stay consistent with their characters. They do have distinct characteristics. That’s why kids had a favorite turtle. (Except Leonardo, nobody liked him.) Why take the characters from the 1987 show and make them nearly pointless? Just take the turtles and their villains from 1987 and let them have their moments too. Don’t just put the “new and improved” Turtles and their villains against the old characters and make the old characters look like incompetent assholes.
I don’t mind a more serious take on mutated turtles who know ninjitsu and fight crime under their mutated rat sensei. Trust me I don’t. It just seems mean-spirited when a show with an already silly premise takes characters from the show that paved the way for them, dumbs them down, and takes potshots at how dumb and useless the dumbed down versions are compared to them. Have some respect. Just a little.
Well you could say it’s just a movie to ANYTHING I’ve done lol.
Also you REALLY can’t “Put aside the fact that the 80s turtles are “morons””. That’s one of the main draws of this cartoon. It’s about the 2 TMNT teams meeting. It’s not a background issue in this special it’s a constant problem and occurs within every scene of it. If you like it, that’s cool but I didn’t. I wanted to see the 87 Turtles and only found an awful parody done by people who were extremely unfamiliar or flat out disliked the show.
You can’t tell me I’m only viewing it with nostalgia goggles or whatever sense I watched a few episodes of it again before making this. Like I said in the vid, there’s a big different between a sillier tone and moronic unaware protagonists.
This is like if you had a character in anything you enjoyed then suddenly they were written by someone completely unfamiliar with them as a character and turned into a blithering idiot.
I have not seen all that much of the old turtles show, but i’ve seen enough to know that this was a tragedy. I would just like to say that the first few seasons of the 2003 turles is acutally pretty good. It hardly portrays it well in this special. I’m just saying that you shouldn’t entirely write off the 2003 turtles. In the first few seasons they actually do quite well with it, I definatly don’t remember April being as retarded as she is in this abomination.
a vernon, bebop, and rocksteady team up show? that’d be so cool, it would be an even odder couple (er trio?) than the odd couple. throw in a little rat king, leather head and erma and you’ve struck lightning! 3 hapless “heros” trying to make it through ordinary life but have to deal with “issues” (no video games for you bebop and rocksteady, not until you get jobs!) there could even be shredder and turtle cameos (what the shell? how are we no longer the stars?) but this will only work if james avery is shredder… nothing but the best for my mutant comedy of “friends”
I did not think it was anything great or bad, perhaps I would feel different if I had watched the old cartoon as kid.
Great reveiw
I grew up with the 1987 cartoon, and adored it. Still do. And I actually really enjoyed the first three or four seasons of the 2003 series, so it`s all the more disappointing that something as badass as a universe crossover would be handled so mean-spiritedly.
I was delighted a couple months ago when I stumbled across a DVD of season 5 of the 1987 cartoon. That joy curdled when, grinning like a maniac in expectation of irradiated pepperoni alien monsters in elevators and sewers, I got Shredder’s good-hearted brother in a business suit teaming up with the turtles to scold him. I filed that away with Venus de Milo to be never spoken of again. It was like finding pennicilin on my pizza.
Still, I hope you gave the first couple seasons of the 2003 series a try. I intend to revisit them just as soon as I find my VHS copies of the 1987 series and reconnect my VCR.
Also, ChaosD1, hilarious.
Not as of yet. I MAY try to see a bit of it at some point. Also I have nothing against it, just in this special it was annoying that they were depicted as the only competent ones. Seriously, WHAT THE SHELL!?
The first season was really good, they stuck closer to the comics/movie, it started to fall apart as it went along though. They DO say “what the shell” often though.
You know, i also remember an episode in which Shredder’s mom was in the technodrome, always calling him Saki which pist him off and (if someone wants to correct me go ahead) she kept going on about how he wasnt evil enough.
Cool, a non-horror review. Me likey. 🙂
A really satisfying review! Detailed, funny, and different! In the words of Tommy Wiseau: “Good theenkeen!”
Oh my God!!!
I was never a huge Turtles fan (I was an RBG kid myself) But good lord this is so insulting.
The ’03 series was pretty good. I suspect that a lot grown men latched onto the new show because they felt too good for the ’87 series of their childhood. It certainly didn’t fulfill some deep-seated desire for new, and better, TMNT shows. I eventually outgrew the original cartoon and that’s why I stopped watching it; it also got really bad in those last few seasons when it was on CBS. The new TMNT cartoon is certainly overrated.
I never read the original TMNT comic books, I was too young when they were new and I didn’t set foot inside a comic book store until 1990. I had no knowledge of the dark comics, or the preconceptions that were had by the comic’s fans. My only contact with the comic book Turtles was the box art for the first TMNT game on the NES.
As for Turtles Forever, it was
really unfair to the ’87 TMNT. The movie partially made up for it by
parodying the comic book Turtles, who in turn made fun of the ’03
Turtles. Overall, no matter what behind the scenes info there is, the final product comes across as being mean spirited toward the ’87 Turtles.
Good review, especily compared to doug’s review which was clearly written with nostalgia goggles.
And it’s kind of funny that you kept stressing that the 1980’s characters were being treated as parodies of themselves… even though that’s how you’ve been treating The Shredder on your review show, EVEN IN THE REVIEW ITSELF.
And speaking of stupid crossovers, I ended up writing a ThatGuyWithTheGlasses/SCP Foundation crossover and I want to tell everyone about it for some reason!
great review as always man.
It’s a shame the TMNT cross over didn’t come across like it should have. Having seen both shows this just seems sad. There is like, none of what made the 87 turtles great.
Although I do just want to add that the 2003 shredder comes across as a WAY better villian then the 87 shredder all throughout the series. So in turtles forever they did get the ammount of menace right that both shredders brought.
……the giggle gun was stupid but I still remember the line 87 shredder gave where he moaned to Krang about wanting to conquer earth….and shredders pizza delievery. The 2003 shredder was never given moments like that and came across as a much bigger threat.
So I think they wanted to convey how anyone who dared grow up in the 80s was a moron for not watching the 2003 version.. maybe. I don’t know, the subtle approach to their message kinda flew over my head. They needed an army of Mousers to think a fire hydrant was their “mother”. THAT would have taught me a thing or two!!!1
I guess it seems to be thing nowadays for writers of new cartoons to be smug and snooty to things of the past. Like “Oh we’re so clever and smart and we are willing to do extreme action and drama, and we don’t rely on silliness,” yeah because god forbid there be silly moments…..In a kids show….Yes god forbid….: /
And I’ll admit that alot of cartoon shows today have better writing, The Avengers cartoon being a good example. However, that doesn’t mean that old cartoons were terrible. Because remember writers of 2003 Turtles without the original comic book and tv show, your show wouldn’t have existed, in other words be a bit respectful, because you know thats polite which is nice. Just saying.
I think you may be a bit harsh on this one. When I showed this to my (much younger) cousin he thought that the 1987 (or at least the version of the 1987 turtles portrayed in the special) were way cooler than the 2003 turtles and in all honestly, as much as it may pain us to admit, this special is really aimed at the younger generation of turtles fans, not us. Plus it’s one of the few things I’ve seen where I sometimes had to stop and ask myself ‘how the fuck did they pull that animation off’ (eg. the bit where the world starts being erased). In saying that, pretty much every point you raise about the special is totally valid.
I’m sorry. I kind of believe in reincarnation but even if I did come back as a Turtle loving child I would still hate this movie.
I wasn’t a fan of the 1980’s turtles and I still feel offended by the idiocy. Kasey and April did alot more on the 2003 series that exposition so I wanted to see them a little more. The “Shell” pun was annoying but they didn’t say it as often as they did here. And don’t be hating on the Utrom Shredder. He’s one of my all time favorite Animated Villains. Sure he was a badass in the show but I think they liked him a little TOO much.
Don’t let this special ruin either the 2003 tv show for you. If you liked the 80’s show, then I recommend the 2003 show also. And that is how world peace happened! The End!
Oh Goodness. I could talk about this for eons. First off, thank you Phelous for reviewing this. I remember enjoying it while being dissapointed at the same time. Allow me a chance to toss in my 2 cents.
First off. For a long time the 2k3 series really was the darkest show 4kids had. And I mean “dark” by 4kids’ awful standards. They were allowed to do things other cartoons were not allowed to do. Though still cut back in some ways, its an intelligent show and a pretty good albeit watered down adaption of the original Eastman/Laird comic book. I actually encourage you to view all of the series since you seemed to not really know a lot about it (You didn’t recognize Karai? Shame on you!) Though it doesn’t matter much in the context of this review. The 2k3 turtles were more or less in character but the 80’s turtles were terrible.
Some fans think it is because the Mirage writing staff hated the 80’s turtles. Or to be more specific (I might be wrong about which one) Peter Laird didn’t like the 80’s cartoon because it was a bastardization of his and Eastman’s original creation. Notice how this is kinda going in a circle? I do believe Eastman was okay with the old show. Heck I think he even liked Venus de Milo. But someone can fact check that. Laird was apparently the anal one and Eastman was the more cool accepting one. So yeah this might have been a mean spirited raspberry at the old cartoon. And I will admit that while surfing the web during 2k3’s initial run, even I got tired of the constant bitchery from the fans of the old cartoon!
But STILL I don’t know why the writers chose to disguard all respect for 80’s Turtles. Without it the Turtles Phenomenon never would have happened.
But the 2k3 series got me interested in the original comics. And I’ve actually started reading them albiet slowly. Anyway, 4kids finally decided after roughly 5 seasons of a great cartoon that the 2k3 series was too dark and violent. I think Season 6 brought us Fast Forward. Bright colors, slap stick, the turtles can walk around in the open without fear because its set far in the future and everyone is an alien. A tad boring but not offensive. But 4kids had to further their rape of the show by creating Back to the Sewers. Which was just….stupid. Boring. And did I mention stupid? A very gaudy and blindingly bright color pallet also came in along with an utter lack of mood lighting which the first 5 seaons of the show did have. Rare for an American cartoon. Basically Back to the Sewers shit on everything that came before it and the 2k3 show wasn’t good at the time Turtles Forever aired.
In the end I can’t really disown this crossover. It was a romp. A frustrating romp but a romp none the less. I was grinding my teeth at how badly they treated the 80’s turtles. It was really insulting! I think Turtles Forever was the last thing Mirage produced before the Franchise was bought by Nickelodeon. Hmm.
Oh well. I’m sure by now you’ve heard about the Nickelodeon cartoon coming out soon, rite? Rite??
There sure is a lot of butthurt in here. How about we just forget that Turtles Forever ever existed and erase it from our minds…..forever.
That’s to be expected, given it’s a poorly veiled ‘screw you’ to the 87 series. The tiniest bit of effort towards their characters could have made it awesome, rather than “80s Turtle (pick one at random, they were all stupid?) acts stupid, Cool 03 Awesome Turtle/s react with groan” for 90 minutes. If they had switched up the approach, and joked about parts of the old show instead of just bashing the whole, it might have worked. After all, the bit where Hun freaks out at 80s Raphael for making a joke to the camera (“Who are you talking to? There’s nobody there!!”) was actually funny.
Yeah, liking the old turtles is totally butthurt. All the cool kids like the new show, cause it’s new, and old things are dumb.
To be honest think the 80’s fans had a reason to be butthurt. I was certainly not pleased. Nobody I know who watched this crossover was UNLESS they hated the 80’s cartoon themselves.
The reason they weren’t butthurt is most likely because they understand that there is no use in complaining over a freaking cartoon, it has nothing to do with hate. So what, the 80s turtles are goofballs, does that mean everybody hates them for acting that way? No. In the eyes of the people who grew up with the 80s show (I was born around the time of the “Red Sky” seasons so I only saw the downfall of the 80s series at the time), they think that just because they are portrayed is “morons” unlike their original personalities that they are annoying to every living person on Earth. I’ve read the Technodrome forums (a message board for TMNT fans) and they had no problem with how they were portrayed and they in fact loved Turtles Forever. The only way I could understand people getting pissed off at this is if they KILLED OFF the 80s turtles. But they didn’t, because the writers didn’t hate them as you all think they did. They may be annoying to you, but not to everybody.
Also, so what if they did hate the 80s series? What’s wrong with hating a cartoon? If Phelous can hate Turtles Forever then people can hate the 80s series. Hell, a lot of people like that stupid-ass My Little Pony show while I just want it to die a painful death.
Lol many people on the Technodrome forum are hard core Eastman/Laird comic fans and detest the old cartoon. So yeah they’d see nothing wrong with it. Your opinion can’t possibly be that of everyone on there. Talk about picking and choosing hard core. I’m a member of the Technodrome.
And now you’re just being a troll. This newest incarnation of My Little Pony is a very decent show. It has good character development, a good storyline, is funny, touching, and epic sometimes all at once. Also, why care so much if people didn’t like this TMNT special? I grew up on the show too and I can see how someone would be pissed off by the way the 87 turtles were depicted. As for 4Kids, they are a moronic company who think kids are stupid and can’t handle dark things so everything gets dumbed down. It’s not that something is too dark for a kid, it’s too dark for the adults. Kids handle dark stuff constantly and usually learn about death when they’re 3 or 4, it’s just a natural part of life. Sounds like you’re going with it because so many people aren’t and make yourself different from the crowd.
A change in a character’s personality won’t affect anyone who never watched the original show, and it seems that its only purpose is to aggrevate fans. At least half of the turtles could have been competant. There’s no reason why the old turtles had to be written as morons.
Mass Effect fans’ reaction to the recently released book Deception. A different author takes previously established and beloved characters, and proceeds to turn them into a parody. Not to mention the NUMEROUS lore mistakes. Hell, it was so bad that the Mass Effect wiki guys wrote Bioware themselves and said they have NO IDEA how to incorporate it into their site.
At least the fans got Bioware to admit to it. Well…somewhat, anyway (a revised edition is all they said might happen). Don’t think that’s gonna happen with this turtle travesty.
And I was just about to say, “Oh, Fuck Off!” myself, but you beat me to it, Phelous.
I guess how much you enjoy this special depends on which series you are a fan of, if you like the 87 show you probably won’t like it(Doug likes it though), if you like the 03 series you’ll probably like it because their far more faithful to that show.
Great review !
As a kid I was so proud of my TMNT bubblegum tattoo.
Seeing the 2003 characters , I wonder if I also would’ve want these on my arm.
To me they look way less appealing, even dull. The blocky design makes them so mean looking instead of sympathetic. And why do they have dead eyes, why ? That makes them even more emotionless. You can’t even see what direction they’re looking at.
Nope, this special is not for me.
I will keep my 80’s Turtles nostalgia.
Heroes in a half-shell. Turtle power!
This is one of the most mean-spirited Things I’ve seen in a while. How Dare they do that to the old Ninja Turtles? They clearly hated the show and loved their own so much that they went out of their way to be as cruel as they possibly could outside of having the 1987 Ninja Turtles get impaled ala revengefic! I’m right with you on this one, man. This shit is horrible and should not be tolerated on bit.
You know, I loved the movies…. except 3. I love the movies because they brought back the goofiness from the cartoon, but also had a nice bit of seriousness to it that wasn’t so overly serious that I was turned off of it. The 2003 and the new Ninja Turtles are so ridiculously serious that I lose all care for the show and this nasty special is just driving that spike further between me and them. *sigh* I need to pop in the first movie. I need something fun after this shitfest.
Also… I’m greatly amused by the fact that Raphael looks like he’s about five seconds from popping someone’s head off like he’s playing T-ball in the cover picture. Right with you, man. Right with you there.
The 2k3 series was an adaption of the original Comic. Oh and Phelous thats why the black and white super grimy comic book Shredder was defeated with garbage. It was a jokey joke nobody who hasn’t read the comic will understand. Shredder is killed in the very first issue.
But anyway the 2k3 series is a kid friendly adaptation of the story. Oddly enough the first movie is also an adapation. Probably why it’s the most serious of the 3 live action movies. Though the first movie managed to add in some of the 80’s cartoon humor. Everyone is acting like the 2k3 series is just totally devoid of jokes. It isn’t. And anyone who says it does has probably not actually watched it.
I think fans need to understand that the 80’s cartoon was more of a creation of Fred Wolf than it was Eastman and Lairds.
When I first saw this movie, I enjoyed it, but the more I watched it the more I found wrong with it. Not only with how they portrayed the 87 turtles, but ALSO how they portrayed the 2003 turtles. Or rather how the 03 turtles were ORIGINALLY portrayed. Right off the bat the animation is just not as good as how the 03 show started out, it instead has the animation style of the spin of series that I never watched because they looked redundant and not as well produced as the 03 series.
Taking from that, this film doesn’t even really seem to give the 03 show the respect it deserves, shoving in the ‘what the Shell?!’ line in everywhere, now I know they said it quite a bit in the 03 show…but defiantly not to this degree. Next they took away some of the serious edge they had and the writing seems weaker. Not only that the other characters from the 03 world, Hun, April and Kasey especially were acting as shadows of their former selves. Hun was actually pretty scary as a villain in the first season and a bit of the turtles show. Next Shredder…they really messed up with him. Sure he was a freaky alien in the 03 show, but he seemed to have a well thought out and logical plan, to make money in his illegal operations and to kill anybody who got in his way. Simple enough.
Honestly it felt like they didn’t have any idea how to write either side of the turtles, and just did this because it was a cool idea on paper. And really it is, and it would have been far more enjoyable if it had some of the writing that they had at the beginning of the 03 series, and defiantly would have looked better if they had that animation budget. As is it does both sides a disservice. For a better representation of the 03 turtles the first 2 or 3 season are really good stuff. If I recall correctly it gets needlessly dark in season 4 and goes off the deep end into wacky territory in season 5 with demons being involved or something…I never did watch that final season. Don’t quote me on those season numbers though, just know it does start out strong and degrades into mediocrity and weirdness.
I also grew up on the 80s turtles (i was born in 83 and they started showing them in my country AFTER the first movie came out) and when the 2003 series came up, i gave it a shot. Honestly? turtles forever doenst represent either well really, on one hand you get the 80s turtles beign overly silly and the 03 turtles taking themselves too seriously, like a teen age groaning about things his little brother liked when he himself liked em just an year ago but now is too “grown up” for it.
Does that make me hate the special? not really, ill take it for what it is and give credit where credit is due. The 80s turtles acted silly for most of it, but also provided solutions for different problems as they understood the logic of their world while the 03 turtles tried (albeit eyerolling at times) to work with them and push for solutions that would fit the representation they are given.
The one thing that bothered me about the review is that when the comic book turtles appeared, you said very little about them other than slapping a “all shredders are idiots but 03 in this special”. the comic book turtles thought ANY animated turtles were childish, and its a nice touch really, because its not really an insult, its a different take on the idea of the tmnt: some like them a bit sillier, some like them a bit more serious and some like them beheading shredder and having gang wars. They are all different takes.
I really didn’t like how they treated the 87 Turtles. They didn’t even try to make them equal with the new series. It just feel like someone punch me in the gut. But I don’t blame the creators of this movie, I blame 4kids. After seeing what they did to One Piece, there might be a good version of this movie somewhere. Great review Phelous
On a completely different note, Phelous, I think you need to change shampoos, your hair looked really drab and lifeless in this review.
I’m serious. I really think it did.
..and if we get erased – it’d be like we’re erased! lol
Phelous,
I’m not terribly familiar with your work — a friend of mine forwarded this review to me — but you may have won a new fan today. THANK YOU. I thought I was the only other person who despised this awful, awful crossover. I felt like throwing a shoe at my tv when the three ’87 turtles ran crying to the ’03 Raphael. And excellent point about ’87 Shredder’s fighting abilities! I kept thinking that myself! Seriously, just fuck that useless, shitty, obnoxious, insulting, preposterous, one-dimensional, nepotistic, unfunny, predictable, alienating, teeth-grinding sack of degraded 5-week-old vomit-stuffed horse shit of a special. I couldn’t have hated it more if it were my full time job.
As I see it, this is how the turtles are presented in this movie:
80s = Moronic Stoners.
00s = Humorless Butthurts.
B&W = Antisocial Douchebags.
Old Shreadder = Comic Relief.
New Shreadder = Tries too hard to look badass, probably tastes good with soy sauce.
New Raphael = Douchey MacNitpick.
Go ahead & strut aroun Turtles, you just look like furry cosplayers.
2003 Ninja turtles seems pretty culturally insulting.
I don’t understand how its culturally insulting? What culture?
Turtle culture. You know, turtlure.
I’m glad that Phelous went back to his usual 20 min reveiws. More details and what not, plus this is something that I agree with. I may have been born in 93, but my local video store had a ton of the original turtles on vhs, and that’s what I watched and got interested in. I didn’t really like Turtles Forever, but I did enjoy the 2003 version. All in all, it could’ve been done much better.
Seriously,what is so wrong with the media world recently?!
They’re all raping people’s childhoods or teenhoods!
Micheal Bay with Transformers and the horror franchises remakes,Georges Lucas with the Star Wars prequel and Indiana Jones 4(even though I liked them,also put the blame on Spielberg too for Indy 4),Touchstone with Fright Night,Telltale games and IDW with Jurassic Park,Capcom and Paul W.S. Anderson with Resident Evil and now Mirage with TMNT!
Oh,and let’s not forget that TMNT will be raped again by Jonathan Liebesman soon.
I’m sure I forgot dozens of other cases of child-teenhoods rape.
I really liked this movie alot sure they screwed up the Classic turtles a bit… well alot! But hey this movie made me forget about Turtles III aw crap there it goes….
I especially loved the ending when they were working on TMNT #1 1984 and they decided to get some pizza for lunch and then zoom in on the first comic book ever.
But hey everyone is entitled to they’re own opinion.
Oh and krang was in the ’03 turtles show for only a brief cameo he said “I don’t like to walk with my tentacles…”
It is interesting to compare this review to the one done by the Nostalgia Critic who liked the special. I have to admit, I like this special too. This is partly due to the fact that I never really watched the original show and when I finally did see some of it I had already watched the new show so it just came across as silly to me. I guess it all depends on whcih you see first and get attatched to. I think the different tones of the two shows is actually handled fairly well and is nicely highlighted during the Turtle Prime sequence. It shows how a darker show will always make a lighter rendition look less serious by comparison. And there were some moments with the old turtles that I really liked in this special, such as the “save April” scene, the fourth wall jokes and the scene with the old Splinter. I especially loved the old Shredder interacting with the new Shredder as he was the best thing about the original series in my humble opinion. And the throwaway bit with the original comics Shredder was brilliant. I was a bit dissapointed that they couldn’t get the original voice actors for whatever reason but I thought the replacements did well enough.
I have to say, considering how upset this made Phelous, I can’t wait to see his reaction to the Michael Bay version.
All in all, while I didn’t agree with the review in the most, I understood where Phelous was coming from as a fan of the original series and thought that he explained his points quite well given how emotional he was.
I used to watch the 2003 series till 2006. I then watched the future turtles thing but I couldn’t get past the stupid future main character. His appearance just irratated me. Other than that, it was pretty cool and weird to watch on Sat. Mornings.
The turtles are suppose to have a comic relief side. Their puns are exactly what make them the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles but what this movie has done to them is beyond forgivable. Donatello was much more intelligent than he was portrayed to be in this movie. Ralph was much more… well tough. I highly doubt that he would have ran from the comic turtles. Leonardo had his own strengths and intellect which made him a capable leader. And Michalengo… well even though he was goofy, he knew when to take things seriously. To all those who actually like the 2003 version better and actually like the movie that portrayed the 80’s turtles as idiotis I just have one thing to say. Go to shell and rot.
Michelangelo’s number one job, man, is to party and party hard, at the party.
After watching this I’m curious what he thinks about the new Nickelodeon Turtles, has a darker tone for sure and a lot of call backs to the 1980’s Turtles too.
i kinda agree with phelous you can see some resentment from the 2003 show twords the 87 show. and do like tmnt 2003 but there is a bit of malice behind this movie for the old show. but hey what the heck do i know? it’s just my opinon
They could have handled this universe meet-up a million times better. They had this amazing oppurtunity to do something really great. Sure, they could have made the 87 turtles a little silly, but equal it out by picking on the 03′ turtles and their seriousness.
Actually an even better idea would be to make the turtles just like they were in the 87 cartoon and see what interesting situations could arise from just that scenario alone.
It has NOTHING to do with seeing things through nostalgia goggles, it has EVERYTHING to do with being respectful to the creators of the original show, and paying homage to them They were obviously very talented. I mean the 87 turtles practically ruled the world at the time. How can you be mean spirited towards something that so many children loved so much.
This special had zero creativity, and even less respect.
That ’87 April wearing a jumpsuit joke would have worked better had the ’03 show not remodeled their April to look almost like the ’87 one. And I gotta say, I’m not a fan of this new model. It looks like if the Kim Possible crew had vandalized the artwork and the studio just couldn’t be arsed to rectify it.
In earlier ’03 April looked like this:
From what I’ve heard, they apparently remodeled her somewhere along the lines of the “Timetraveling Turtles” storyline, but it was at the the ending of the season prior that I stopped watching the show so I don’t know when exactly they did this abominable remodeling.
Shit, I left the April image out of the comment, here she is (I hope this lets me link HTML images or this will come out embarrassing)
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body>
<h2></h2>
<img src=”http://41.media.tumblr.com/f0f0992c2766b6a093619fd33f2d6214/tumblr_n5s5davf1P1rf28rho1_1280.png” alt=”April O’Neil Char Model” style=”width:400px;height:300px;”>
</body>
</html>
Haha, well that went surprisingly well… I got the html right.
I’ve done enough goofing around, so I’ll just link a fucking image
http://41.media.tumblr.com/f0f0992c2766b6a093619fd33f2d6214/tumblr_n5s5davf1P1rf28rho1_1280.png
By the way, you might wanna include an “Add Media” button, as in most WordPress websites because there are no visible ones for me here. Also, an “Edit comment” button would be nice for these kinds of occasions.
Didn’t you use to have one of those…?
I love this review. I feel like you should just go on the IMDB, Amazon, etc. pages for Turtles Forever and post reviews with a link to this video. Not many negative reviews of it on any of those places.