TMNT Season Finale

[Christopher]

^What's the reference in the second photo?

So was last week the season finale? That's it? The Earth actually gets blown up? Talk about your cliffhangers. I assume there will be some time travel coming up to fix it. (More Renet?) It was kind of tonally jarring to have Casey so jubilant about the upcoming space adventure just moments after everything he knew and loved was destroyed. I guess they didn't want to leave things on too depressing a note for the kids, but still, it was in poor taste.

 

[Tosk]

^What's the reference in the second photo?

The controller is almost the same as the one they used to pilot the Statue of Liberty. I'm assuming that's what Samurai means.

 

[Christopher]

More thoughts about the finale:

Why were the Turtles and their allies and enemies the only ones fighting off the Triceratons? Where the heck was the military? The absence of the authorities has been a problem in this show before, but at least it's been vaguely handwaved in the past. Here it was just ignored.

Which goes together with the rather interesting choice to reimagine Bishop as an Utrom rather than the head of the Earth Defense Force as he was in the '03 series -- basically combining him with the character of Mortu. Interesting that they're finally working the Utrom into the series mythology as a rebel movement within the Kraang -- basically the Tok'ra to the Kraang's Goa'uld, in Stargate terms. Although I suppose that the advantage of having Bishop be the original Kraang android is that it lets them reuse their existing CGI model. One more instance of how 3D animation on a TV budget is limiting compared to 2D. (Probably also a factor in the lack of authorities.)

 

[Mr Light]

Wow, I was NOT expecting that ending at all Obviously it will be undone, but Shredder murdering Splinter just before the Earth gets sucked into a black hole... that's pretty dark. I like it. Absolutely the best episode of this entire 26 episode season, which was mostly very disappointing.

I'd say I find Shredder's motivation incomprehensible here, but it's certainly consistent with the way he's reacted to the previous alien invasions. He just doesn't care at all, which I find to be a little ridiculous. I was happy to see him actually fighting to save the Earth but I guess I should have known better. But dude, at least let Splinter hit the off button before you gut him...

 

[Christopher]

Shredder is so completely blinded by revenge that it overrides all other goals. I thought it was actually a pretty bold choice by the writers. We've seen so many stories where the good guys and the bad guys realize that they have a common enemy and work together to defeat them. Often the bad guys still try to double-cross the good guys, but in a way that still allows them to defeat the greater threat. So it was rather bold to have the villain deliberately cause the plan to fail simply to get revenge.

And it shows what a hypocrite the Shredder is. Splinter and April appealed to his concern for Karai to get him to cooperate -- but ultimately he didn't care. For all his pretentions of caring about Karai, he was willing to let her die along with the rest of the Earth just so he could have his revenge on Splinter. Well, maybe he didn't believe them when they said Karai still lived, but even so, that means he chose the interpretation that fired his hate and vengeance rather than the interpretation that offered hope. And that shows how completely blackened his heart is.

I'm also pretty amazed that they got away with that stabbing. That was really pushing the envelope for a kids' show.

 

[Samurai8472]

The full NYCC panel is up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=3&v=OF621AINiT4



NYCC '15 panel just concluded. They showed the crowd the first episode of the new season

-A Salmandarian Commander is voiced by Keith David
-Dregg appears in the premier
-A new character will be voiced by Dwight 'Murdoch/Barclay' Schultz
-Pat Fraley will be reprising his role as 80s Krang for the Nick/OT crossover

 

[Christopher]

-Pat Fraley will be reprising his role as 80s Krang for the Nick/OT crossover

A shame James Avery is no longer with us. Although there was a period when Dorian Harewood took over the role of Shredder. (Which, oddly, was one of three separate times that Harewood took over an Avery character in animation, the others being James Rhodes on Iron Man and Sir Bryan on The Legend of Prince Valiant. Which was weird because they don't sound anything alike to me, and because they happened years apart so they couldn't have been for the same reason.)

 

[Samurai8472]

New details regarding the TMNT 80's and new series crossover

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[Christopher]

^Um. Okay... weird. Although it's interesting how easy it is to recognize the distinct character designs of the two incarnations of Turtles regardless of whether they're rendered in 2D or 3D. (For instance, in the still image, the Raphaels are still in their original forms while the other three are switched. Took me a moment to figure that out, though.)

Were those all the original '80s voice artists? Raphael was clearly Rob Paulsen, of course, and it sounded like Barry Gordon as Donatello, but if those were Cam Clarke as Leonardo and Townsend Coleman as Michaelangelo, then their voices have changed rather a lot with age.

 

[Myko]

Yeah it's all of them.

 

[Saga]

looking forward to it. tough i loved Turtles Forever the 80s Turtles came off as complete morons. hopefully they won't repeat that here.

 

[Christopher]

Yeah, it'd be nice if the crossover included the 2003-series Turtles as well. They could go, "Yeah, we've been through this sort of thing before."

 

[CorporalClegg]

Though it seems 2012 has ignored 2003 entirely. It's paid homage to the 80s cartoon plenty, as well as a few references to the 90s films, and the comics, of course. But I don't know if they've included anything that was unique to or inspired by the 2003 series.

 

[Christopher]

Though it seems 2012 has ignored 2003 entirely. It's paid homage to the 80s cartoon plenty, as well as a few references to the 90s films, and the comics, of course. But I don't know if they've included anything that was unique to or inspired by the 2003 series.

The Agent Bishop character originated in the '03 show, although the current show's version of Bishop is more like Mortu of the Utrom. But the '03 series was very faithful in adapting a lot of the comics' storylines, and the '03 and '12 series have a number of comics characters and concepts in common, including Karai, Hun and the Purple Dragons, the Utrom, Renet and Savanti Romero, the Fugitoid, the Triceratons, etc.

 

[Mr Light]

I've been swiftly losing interest in this show ever since they moved off to the farm, and the Turtles in Space season hasn't been capturing my attention, but I'm definitely excited to see this!

 

[Corran Horn]

Is 2012 Donnie going to talk to 80s Raph?

 

[CorporalClegg]

Spoiler: Don/Raph

At the last panel, Paulsen alluded to there being a joke about it.

 

[M.A.C.O.]

This looks really good. I'll have to catch up on the show now.

I think the 2012 Turtles combine a lot of elements from the previous two shows, but lean more toward '87 Turtles in their delivery and not being too serious. I'd like to see the '03 Turtles make a reprisal, since there last few seasons weren't that great and the series as a whole ended with lingering threads.

 

[Myko]

Hun was also an original character from the 2003 cartoon.

 

[Christopher]

I think the 2012 Turtles combine a lot of elements from the previous two shows, but lean more toward '87 Turtles in their delivery and not being too serious.

I'd say the current series is closer to the first cartoon in tone and humor, but closer to (and surpassing) the second in quality. The thing about the '87 show is that it went pretty consistently downhill. Its very first episode was the best it ever did. The rest of the initial 5-episode miniseries was also pretty good. After that, each successive season got dumber. I gather it rebounded a bit in its final season, tried to get more serious and darker, but I'd lost interest by then.

The '03 series was pretty good in its first five seasons, but it was clunky in some ways, both in writing and production values. The current series is sometimes pretty dumb, but it's wildly imaginative and bold in execution, it has terrific design and storyboarding, and it has a really good voice cast, probably the best of the three. (Although I wish just once we'd get a Shredder actor who actually knows how to pronounce Japanese words.)

Then there's The Next Mutation, which is a whole other conversation... (Honestly, I'd be curious to revisit that, but it's hard to find. There are some episodes on one of my On Demand cable channels, but I'm waiting for them to cycle around to the start of the series, and I only occasionally remember to check.)

I'd like to see the '03 Turtles make a reprisal, since there last few seasons weren't that great and the series as a whole ended with lingering threads.

I think you mean a reprise, unless you're saying you want to see them retaliate against or seek redress from the people responsible for the last two seasons...

Hun was also an original character from the 2003 cartoon.

Oh, I figured he was from the comics, given how faithful that show was in its early seasons. That's interesting. So that's at least two characters created for the '03 show and incorporated into the current show, although reinterpreted enormously in both cases. (The current Hun is basically a CGI Bruce Lee.)