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Wide ScreenMichael Bay’s ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ reboot will be nothing like the ’80s cartoon we loved
After three "Transformers" movies and nearly $2.7 billion in box office receipts, action director Michael Bay is set to continue his conquest of the 1980s by producing a new live-action film based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
However, the term "loosely based" is probably more apt, because the explosion maestro apparently has some very different ideas about the origins of everyone's favourite heroes in a half shell, and they don't include toxic ooze. Bummer, dudes.
Created in 1984, "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" began as a comic book intended to parody the hard-edged Marvel Comics of the time, like "Daredevil" and Frank Miller's "Ronin." However, the parody soon grew in popularity and spawned a hugely successful animated series, toy line, and three live-action feature films.
The turtles were pop culture icons in the late '80s and early '90s and have remained a mainstay of kids entertainment ever since. The turtles returned in 2007 for the computer-animated fourth installment titled "TMNT." It was a modest box-office success, but for whatever reason the future of the teenage mutants was unclear.
Enter Michael Bay. Handpicked by Nickelodeon to manage the project, Bay is either the perfect or the worst choice for the project, depending on your reaction to the recent announcement. Stuff We Like has posted a clip of Bay speaking about the upcoming "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" reboot, titled simply "Ninja Turtles," at Nickelodeon's Upfront event last week.
The short clip shows Bay discussing his plans for the film and the titular mutated reptiles. But the characters may not be mutants or turtles at all. In what sounds like a total rehash of the basic premise of "Transformers," Bay revealed that the turtles are actually going to be aliens of some kind, describing the characters as "tough, edgy, funny, and completely loveable." Everyone loves aliens, right? Right?!
No doubt Bay and company will try to find some reason to explain the alien turtles' inexplicable surfer vernacular, space martial arts styling, Renaissance namesakes, and strong resemblance to Earth's own green reptiles. Or maybe he'll just blow something up and not bother with all that exposition. Either way, fans of the original turtles lose. Knowing Bay's previous work, one thing is certain though: intrepid reporter and turtle sidekick April O'Neil is bound to be a buxom supermodel-type who will get way more screen time than the Ninja Turtles themselves.
If all this sounds like a joke (or a terrible childhood-destroying nightmare), you can see the clip of Bay talking about the "Ninja Turtles" film for yourself:
"Ninja Turtles" is slated for a holiday 2013 release.
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