If I had to rank my all-time favorite 80's cartoons/toys, it'd go something like this:
1. Transformers
2. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
3. M.A.S.K.
We've already seen the Transformers, and M.A.S.K. ain't happenin'. The Turtles had their shot already. The first film is one of my faves, featuring a bunch of dudes in big turtle costumes(one voice by Corey Feldman!!) but it was still tons of fun and full of action. It stuck to the origin pretty faithfully, as far as I was concerned. The next two Turtles films were awful, featuring Vanilla Ice and a trip back through time. The last film was a computer animated departure, but I felt still captured the feel of the original. Plus we finally got Raphael vs. Leonardo, which was pretty vicious.
So when the news dropped that they were looking to reboot the Turtles franchise, I was excited. However, I didn't know what it would entail. Would it be animated? Would it be dudes in suits again? Well, turns out it's a little bit of both. Producer Scott Mednick says that the Turtles will use the same technology featured in the amazing looking Where the Wild Things Are film. This involves a process known as face-replacement technology, which combines Jim Henson's Creature Shop and animated facial features for more emotive expression. Anyone who's seen the trailer for Where the Wild Things Are knows how awesome it looks. Well, apply that look to the Ninja Turtles and imagine the possibilities!
As for his ideas on how the story should go, Mednick had this to say...
"We are intent on re-telling the origin, as it was in Batman, as it was in Superman, frankly as it was in Spider-Man, to tell the origin story. We have an entire new generation of fans who really don't know the full back story,"
"You also have a much more sophisticated audience. Even the younger kids are more sophisticated by the information they receive. Thinks have become a little darker and a little edgier, just in general," Mednick told us. "Certainly as filmmakers the technology has come so far. It really gives us an opportunity to revisit the material and come at it, hopefully, in a new dramatic way, from a film making standpoint, and honor the old, and bring in the new."
He's certainly saying all the right things. I think it's long past time that the Turtles are brought back into the limelight with a dark, violent take reminiscent of the original graphic novel.
