Turtles Forever

[Christopher]

So was that a first for the Mirage Turtles in animation?

In such a literal form, yes. But the '03 series was fairly faithful to the comics' continuity and concepts and adapted a number of the comics' storylines pretty closely. At least until the last couple of seasons that took it in a sillier, younger-skewing direction.

Some say it was trying to put down the 80's Turtles, I don't know if I agree with that but I think they came off well regardless.

It was definitely meant as an affectionate ribbing, not a meanspirited putdown. It was definitely caricatured, but not out of malice.

Maybe it was just nostalgia but I loved their good-natured goofiness and thought they had a lot more personality than the new ones.

I didn't think their personalities were all that well-represented, really. They all seemed pretty uniformly portrayed as childish cutups, laughing their shells off at anything remotely amusing, and that doesn't seem accurate to me. Leonardo was fairly serious, at least in the early seasons, and Donatello was more the quiet, inventive type. Really, the only character whose personality was profoundly different in the '80s cartoon from other adaptations was Raphael, whose tough-guy personality was replaced with a sarcastic wise-guy persona.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

Still, I saw a few episodes from the final season. (They were included as bonus features on the Season 1 DVD set.) I confess I was a little lost at that point. When did they finally get rid of the Shredder? What happened?

It was at the end of one of the seasons. Eight, I think? The Technodrome got blasted into Dimension X, and Shredder, Krang, Bebop, and Rocksteady were stranded on Earth. They escaped in a pickup truck, thoroughly humiliated.

They showed up once or twice during the Dregg arc, but their story was pretty much over by this point.

Ahh. And the parallels to Power Rangers continue. (Once Power Rangers Zeo began, Lord Zedd & Rita Repulsa lived in exile, driving around the moon in a crappy RV. However, they still occasionally appeared to secretly undermine the plans of the Machine Empire.)

 

[Jetfire]

The guys who created TMNT are geniuses...

I saw it this morning...finally or the second half. I wish they would make a cartoon from the old TMNT comics...they won't though coz kids ould never see it...until they grew up ofcourse.

 

[Christopher]

^As I said, the 2003 animated series adapted many of the comics' arcs very faithfully, and also had a pretty dark and intense tone, with a fair amount of violence for a daytime cartoon. Though from its sixth season onward, it was retooled into something more kid-friendly.

 

[Corran Horn]

The guys who created TMNT are geniuses...

I saw it this morning...finally or the second half. I wish they would make a cartoon from the old TMNT comics...they won't though coz kids ould never see it...until they grew up ofcourse.

The plot of the first live action movie was something of a lift from the Mirage comic. (even beyond the origin)

A Turtle getting caught out alone and getting beaten by the Foot and then tossed through a window into an apartment where the other turtles were (in the comics it was Leo), the fight in the antique shop, escaping to an old farm, etc, that was all in the Mirage comic, originally.

 

[FordSVT]

I didn't think their personalities were all that well-represented, really. They all seemed pretty uniformly portrayed as childish cutups, laughing their shells off at anything remotely amusing, and that doesn't seem accurate to me. Leonardo was fairly serious, at least in the early seasons, and Donatello was more the quiet, inventive type. Really, the only character whose personality was profoundly different in the '80s cartoon from other adaptations was Raphael, whose tough-guy personality was replaced with a sarcastic wise-guy persona.

I agree. As was also said earlier in this thread, I think the writers did it on purpose to delineate them entirely from the 2K3 turtles. It was like they took each of them from moments of the show when they might have been kinda goofy (like the slapstick moments that ended many episodes) and stamped that on them as their permanent personalities.

Leonardo was often subdued and took his swordsmanship and his leadership responsibilities seriously, Raphael was always up for a fight. I don't remember Donatello relying on "wishes" to make things work, but again I think that was just the writers trying to contrast the newer series' relatively more realistic (if you can call it that) approach to design. The old stuff they'd throw together was kinda hokey.

Michaelangelo was probably closest to being himself, but it's like all of them were just like him. But they did eat a hell of a lot of wierd pizza, and yes, I do remember Mikey stopping for a slice on the way to take out baddies, that wasn't exaggeration.

 

[Jetfire]

^^^

I don't remember the old show too much, never saw the begining of the new turtles...the old live action movies I pushed out of memory...I really liked TMNT the CGI film alot...hope for a sequel if one is not in the works.