The new TMNT Cartoon.... My Thoughts...
So, the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon on Nickelodeon. I've spent the last few days catching up on the ten so far released episodes of it. I have to admit.. having been born in the late 70's I was pretty much a child of the 80's. So I was one of the people who was introduced to the turtles via the 80's cartoon. I didn't get to read the (more violent) comics before that. I did read some of those comics later on. This cartoon series is obviously a lot more like the 80's cartoon series mixed in with stuff from the movies but with stuff changed around. Stuff that depending on how attached one is to childhood memories of the original cartoon is either good or bad.
When I first started watching this series I was taken aback by some of these changes such as April being just a teen for whom Donatello develops a crush for and attempts to date. The different voices for the turtles.. pretty much only Leo and Donatello have voices similar to the original series (Donatello is now being voiced by the actor who used to do Rapheal's voice in the originals series) and Michelangelo no longer talks like a surfer dude. They didn't discover pizza until they where 15 years old and where allowed to leave the sewer and acquired a taste for it immediately. The look of the new turtles is OK although somewhat simplstic in the modeling and the bandannas don't look all that hot to me.
Also I had to get used to some changes such as Donatello having a gap in his teeth. But I have to admit that the personalities are growing on me and aren't too far off from the original. I'm greatly appreciating the comedy in the new series especially the geeky stuff from Donatello and the comedy Mikey brings to the table which is sort of like airhead random type comedy much like in the movies. It's funny to me how some of these new Turtles seem to be trekkies.. the have their show within a show that is pretty much Star Trek. It looks just like the original series cartoon and they even had a movie poster parody of one of the original crew Star Trek movies.
There was an episode where they save an asian restaurant owner and as a reward he said he would make them their favorite food and of course they ask for pizza. He of course didn't know how to make it traditionally so he made them "Pizza Gyoza" which was pretty much gyoza (japanese pan-fried dumplings) with pizza filling lined up on a sushi board and they ate it with chopsticks. This was intriguing to me.
It's interesting to me how one of the baddies resembled chuck norris although I checked the voice cast and I saw that it's not him that did the voice. Instead it was the guy who does the voice of Mr. Crabs in Sponge Bob (that actor was also the villian in the first Highlander movie).... when Rad Brad (as mikey calls him) mutates it seems like he does pretty much the same voice he did when he was the villian in highlander.
Something that amuses me about this new series is their new anime inspired emotional expressions... all the main teen cast does it including April. Speaking of which I'm starting to really like the new April and even though I didn't like how her action figure looked at first I'm quite liking how she looks in the show. Which brings me to another subject. The figures...
Something that I'm constantly noticing is some of the figures from this new series didn't turn out well. The reason is in the show they are purely CGI and sometimes something that works well as an animaged CGI character doesn't translate well to a physical object at leaset not cheaply. The Kraang and Shredder are perfect examples of this.
They look shiny and Shredder has all kinds of blades and such in his transforming shredder armor gauntlets... in the toy version however it just looks like bulky cheap matte finish snap on blades that look terrible. In the show the Kraang are cyborg that have shiny endoskeletons inside agent (like in the matrix) bodies that have luminescent translucent shells that turn X-ray when they are exposed and have electronics inside that illuminate like glow in the dark stuff. But in the figures they just look like cheap spindly robots with brains in their stomachs. I guess those figures where a casualty of them wanting to make those figures as cheap and mass market as they can.
The Turtle figures on the other hand actually look better than the ones in the show... and while I didn't like the April figure at first having had her grow on me from seeing her in the show will probably make me look upon her figure more kindly the next time I see it.
Despite some of the stuff I mentioned above as possible negatives or at least stuff I have to get used to I'm quite enjoying this new series especially the stories. Believe or not I actually think these new stories are superior to the stories in the original 80's cartoon.... There'll always be a place in my heart for the original episodes but to be honest they don't hold up so well these days and much of the episodes had pretty bad stories compared to this new one.
I'm on board for this new series.