FUCK MICHAEL BAY!

[Dogbert]

There's also the 2003's Texas Chainsaw Massacre reboot, which I happen to like even if it takes gore out of a -gore film-.

[Whipstitch]

I never really liked the Bad Boys films. There's a joke or two that I didn't hate, but that's probably to be expected from a movie which Will Smith and Martin Lawrence were allowed to improvise whenever they wanted. If there's one thing Michael Bay has demonstrated over his career it's that he doesn't give a shit about getting a half-decent script before going to work.

As far as Chainsaw Massacre goes, Bay was just one of several producers on those projects. I'm also not really sure if I'd characterize the original as a gore film, either. It's definitely a prototype in the gory slasher genre but virtually every wound is off camera and almost all of the blood is dried on Leatherface. If anything the film's a good example of how much mileage you can get out of foreboding, a bucket of bones and a willingness to play things straight.

[John Magnum]

Bad Boys was pretty fun when it was Smith and Lawrence bouncing off each other or stuff exploding, but the actual plot with the mistaken-identity impersonation stuff dragged it down. A bunch of complexity to little effect.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Can someone explain to me why the Bay Turtles cause so much baw? I mean, they don't look as good as the original turtle costumes but they still look pretty good. Shredder genuinely looks stupid with his Final Fantasy-sized wolverine claws and the fact that he's way overdesigned, but it's pathetically acceptable if that's supposed to be Super Shredder than his everyday wear.

Also, I don't understand the nostalgia for the original TMNT movie. The turtle and Splinter costumes were amazing, the stuntwork was surprisingly good, and the idea of an evil ninja clan tempting kids to become evil ninjas through videogames and skateboards is amusingly 80s. Unfortunately, the script is really lacking. There are way too many dead spots and Raphael hogs too much of the limelight. That's understandable because Raphael is by far the most developed turtle, but it's disappointing all the same. I have a fondness for the film's Casey but the rest of the supporting cast isn't too good. I'm normally against kid characters being an audience surrogate working alongside adult characters, but in this situation I think that it would've really helped.

As for the the second TMNT movie I like it much better than the first one. More action, more silliness, a tighter (if less relevant) plot, and better pacing. Only problems really is the lame Super Shredder anticlimax and Tokka and Rahzor's lack of charisma or hilarity. If they only put a bit more effort into those things then it'd be the gold standard for kids' movies.

The third TMNT movie we will not talk about. I haven't seen that movie in forever, I hated it even as a kid, and as far as I'm concerned the AVGN's review on it is the final word.

I haven't seen any of the movies past that.

[Stahlseele]

Mainly because it looks like shit.
They were able to make this stuff look good back then, why the fuck not today with advances in technologies and materials available since then? <.<
That and he of course went and shit all over the canon/source material by taking . . cops? . . and using them in a marvel super soldier program kind of thing to transform them into . . turtles . .
Mutagen does not work like that.
Mutagen changes any creature it touches into a hybrid of it's original make up and whatever other creature it had been touching last before being exposed to the mutagen!
Turtles NEVER STARTED AS HUMANS!
They always started AS SMALL LITTLE TURTLES!
That then got uplifted to something more intelligent.
And like this he took some of the more dumber specimens of the species human available(cops in general) and changed them into something less than even that.

[radthemad4]

Wait, what? They're ex humans now? Wow, them being aliens doesn't sound that bad anymore.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Why the fuck should that matter? Hell, depending on where he goes with this this could be a positive change. The Turtles being some random pet shop turtles flushed down the drain who turn into humanoids doesn't have anywhere the number of potential story arcs as some unlucky humans getting transformed into turtles and rendered into the outcasts of society.

That said, it's Michael fucking Bay and I doubt that he does anything more with this than using it as an excuse for the Turtles to raid the police armory and frig their cloacas while resting in their cloacas over Megan Fox. But in the hands of a director that didn't suck monkey balls I could support this change.

[radthemad4]

Okay, yeah it could lead somewhere positive (e.g. I actually liked the whole Splinter is an ex human ninja instead of a human ninja's pet rat who learned from watching him BEFORE getting hit by mutagen thing that the comic had).

However, them being cops makes the 'teenage' part of the title kinda weird.

I kinda liked the 2012 cartoon's use of them being turtles. The pilot has them eating Algae and worms using chopsticks. Donatello sometimes complains about some tasks being difficult with three huge fingers. There was also a slight fish out water aspect when the turtles leave the sewers for the first time and go to the surface for the first time. Also:

Make sure you go before you leave. The bathrooms up there are filthy.

All fans are kinda hostile to changes but, I guess we should wait and see what they do with it.

[Stahlseele]

Why it should matter?
WHY ACQUIRE AN IP AND THEN CHANGE BASICALLY ANYTHING PEOPLE LIKE ABOUT IT?

Making it more realistic? (see new batman movies) FUCK THAT SHIT!
Making it more relateable? (turning humans into turtles instead of the other way around?) FUCK THAT SHIT!

If you want to do something like that, be a BIT creative and think something up yourself!

[Lago PARANOIA]

First of all, anyone who uses the Ninja Turtles or fucking Batman as examples of the inherent and natural evil of adaptations that change major portions of the original work deserve no response other than a withering glare. Batman in particular is a folk hero; he has no canon. He has recurring details and tropes and themes that help people go 'oh yeah, he's telling a Batman story' that nonetheless get changed all of the fucking time. The Teenage Mutant Ninja turtles are one more celebrated adaptation away from being folk heroes, too. Hell, they might already be folk heroes; they have the Image comic, the 80s cartoon, the 00s cartoons, and a bunch of spinoff properties that don't really fit anywhere except in the recent video game.

Second of all:

WHY ACQUIRE AN IP AND THEN CHANGE BASICALLY ANYTHING PEOPLE LIKE ABOUT IT?

What? Are the Ninja Turtles not going to fight American Ninja-style anymore? Are they no longer going to face martial arts supervillains and instead face hordes of interchangeable mooks? Are they not going to be outcasts of society who nonetheless defend it? Are they not going to be haunted by the ghosts of their mentor? Are they going to stop being a brotherhood who, despite their differences and disagreements, are largely on the same page and band together to became a gestalt fighting force? Are they going to be completely alienated by the few sympathetic humans who appreciate them beyond the whole vigilantism thing? Are they suddenly taken out of the urban asphalt jungle of which, while they have good reasons to despise it, is still their natural fighting environment? Hell, is there no possibility for them to oppose or team up with other hybrid mutants with fighting ability?

I mean, to me that's what the core of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is. Yeah, if the TMNT movie does shit like have the Turtles killing surrendering foes or piloting a giant robot for all of their fights or abusing the love interest then sure, I'd go as far as to say that it's a shit adaptation. But other stuff, like the character design or what they were doing before they became turtles or their weapons or what kind of superpowers they got is just flotsam.

[codeGlaze]

As Lago points out, adaptations creating new stories out of some common tropes is totally okay.

....as long as the retelling is still fun/good/funny/etc.

Basically as long as it is recognizable to existing fans, doesn't end up like Avatar:TLA and can bring in new fans... it's probably okay.

[Chamomile]

An adaptation not only can change things, it should. We already have the Image comic, the 80s cartoon, the 80s90s movies, and the 00s cartoon. If new Turtles media comes out and it's recognizably a retelling of one of those specific incarnations and not a distinct entity, it has already failed because we already have that stuff.

[nockermensch]

Lago, since you mentioned the folk hero thing, I'd like to point that starting motivations / origin story are one of the few things you don't usually touch when you're writing a new story about them. You can tell thousands of batman stories, but if you don't start with "rich boy orphaned during a robbery" people will rightfully complain. Superman has to be an super powerful alien baby found and raised by simple folk. Aladdin has to be a thief who finds a lamp with a genie inside.

The TMNT have to be turtles who got contaminated by radioactive goo and become humans. If you make them humans at first you change everything and manage to alienate everybody who ever knew the original version. And anyway, why did they have to change it?

[Lago PARANOIA]

Lago, since you mentioned the folk hero thing, I'd like to point that starting motivations / origin story are one of the few things you don't usually touch when you're writing a new story about them. You can tell thousands of batman stories, but if you don't start with "rich boy orphaned during a robbery" people will rightfully complain. Superman has to be an super powerful alien baby found and raised by simple folk. Aladdin has to be a thief who finds a lamp with a genie inside.

I disagree with this. The backstory is important only insofar that it influences how the character later behaves.

If Superman was retconned to be the child of two humanistic diplomats, how much would that change the character, really? If Spider-Man lived with his bohemian bourgeois parents instead of his working class aunt and uncle, what famous storylines would become irreconcilable with his new origin?

Now, the turtles going from non-sapient animals previously to human cops is a potentially pretty big change... if it wasn't for the fact that the turtles literally had no character, motivations, or backstory before becoming mutated and they end up acting largely unchanged from human beings anyway. If a big part of the Ninja Turtles mythos was them acclimating to the basics of human society like language and basic etiquette and media, I'd agree that it's a borderline unacceptable change. If a big part of the Ninja Turtles mythos was them, Rescue Rangers-style, interacting with a hidden world of animal communication and civilization that they were rudely thrust out of, I'd agree that it's a potential story-destroying change. But in every adaptation of the Turtles I'm aware of they throw out modern slang and scarf down pizza and enjoy X-treme sports in addition to whatever McNinja stereotypes Splinter taught them. It's like getting worked up whether Batman's parents were taken out by a robber or a car bomb.

I can understand why the other adaptations had them transition from non-sapient pet shop turtles to fully actualized teenagers instead of starting out as humans. It's less backstory to deal with, as you can see with Splinter. However, if you don't mind putting in the extra work in your story to explain just WTF were the turtles doing before their transformation then it's not an advantage.

[shadzar]

WHY ACQUIRE AN IP AND THEN CHANGE BASICALLY ANYTHING PEOPLE LIKE ABOUT IT?

Ask HASBRO and WotC that same question, ask Disney, Ask anyone in Hollywood.

the answer is simple, you buy the name to advertise the name and then you can put any garbage you want under that attractive wrapping.

these people think that the name of something is what is important and think they can make better stories than the people who created it and brought it to the public and get it to a point where it had a following.

as long as Turtles are Turtles in the end, they think people will be ok. as long as Spiderman still has the outfit and Mary Jane people will jsut buy anything because they are lemmings.

this is corporation think, quantity to suck al the consumer money away and to hell with quality or cohesion.

(see Incredible Hulk portrayals after Ferigno)

Thus why you have the Kirby Estate going after the Marvel rights to his creation.

copyright was created to protect the cretors of art like patents the inventors of things/processes. copyright has come to be a way of protecting a revenue stream and brand name and who gives a shit about the creator.

thus why TMNT and other brands are bought because nobody can create their own shit they have to mock or otherwise play in someone else's playground. didnt Bay do Battleship also?

when was the last new thing you saw come out of Hollywood that wasnt based on an existing property? Avatar? everything else in the last 10 years was based on a book or toy, or true story.

[PhoneLobster]

I'm not a turtles fan really. But if you think for one second that in a Bay[/i] movie changing the turtles to former human cops will create a deeper better back story with more complex hooks and potential for advancement...

...in a Bay movie...

...then there is something wrong with you.

I'd perhaps accept your argument otherwise. Though I wouldn't because uplifted animals is actually a richer more interesting story with better potential to cover ground we haven't seen worn into a rut a million times over with a million different former human mutants. But this is Michael Bay so your "it's deeper better story potential!" fails as an argument before it even gets to be considered.

edit: Indeed, as a Michael Bay movie the precedent is that making them former humans opens the door to what feels like 1/3rd of the movie screen time being spent on their "comical" parents "humorously" humiliating the turtles, themselves, all the actors involved, and the entire audience as they travel the country in an RV.

[Whipstitch]

The change hits me as kinda stupid. If the turtles remain goofy man-children, then that seems to undercut the idea of making them adults with real jobs. And if they are not treated as goofy man-children, then why the fuck are you making a ninja turtles movie anyway?

[Lago PARANOIA]

As someone who has had to deal with literal teenagers fresh out of boot camp who styled themselves Military Police despite just barely being put on the qualification path and whom hogged all of the base PCs/consoles playing Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Halo Multiplayer, I don't find it much of a stretch.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Aladdin has to be a thief who finds a lamp with a genie inside.

This is actually a perfect counter-example to your point. In the Arabian Nights version of the story, Aladdin isn't a thief; he's just a lazy kid. You are insisting on the Disney adaptation's version of him as if it were unshakable canon.

[Rawbeard]

WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU MAKE A MOVIE IN A GIVEN IP AND THEN DISCARD 90% OF THE IPs LORE WHEN MAKING THE MOVIE?

It's the two hour movie and still has too much going on. It's fucktarded to expect anything else. Also Tranformers 4 is with all it's product placements the most canonical movie so far. "Lore" is the LEAST of Bay movie "problems".

I have to agree with Bay on this one, it's a bunch of stupid toys and stupid cartoons made to sell those stupid toys.

[Kaelik]

WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU MAKE A MOVIE IN A GIVEN IP AND THEN DISCARD 90% OF THE IPs LORE WHEN MAKING THE MOVIE?

It's the two hour movie and still has too much going on. It's fucktarded to expect anything else. Also Tranformers 4 is with all it's product placements the most canonical movie so far. "Lore" is the LEAST of Bay movie "problems".

I have to agree with Bay on this one, it's a bunch of stupid toys and stupid cartoons made to sell those stupid toys.

It's a bunch of not stupid cartoons made to sell stupid toys. And the movies manage to be worse than the cartoons while costing millions of dollars more. That is pretty unimpressive.

[Maj]

This is actually a perfect counter-example to your point. In the Arabian Nights version of the story, Aladdin isn't a thief; he's just a lazy kid. You are insisting on the Disney adaptation's version of him as if it were unshakable canon.

Your point stands, but you are understating that quite a bit. Aladdin refused to help his family at all and essentially was part of a gang. His father died of heartbreak, and his mother was forced to sell the remains of his father's business in order to continue existing. And when his mom expressed disapproval, Aladdin abused her.

The fact that Aladdin was turned into a homeless thief was an act of mercy on Disney's part.

[Rawbeard]

It's a bunch of not stupid cartoons made to sell stupid toys. And the movies manage to be worse than the cartoons while costing millions of dollars more. That is pretty unimpressive.

You need to rewatch that, nostalgia does not a not stupid cartoon make.

[Kaelik]

It's a bunch of not stupid cartoons made to sell stupid toys. And the movies manage to be worse than the cartoons while costing millions of dollars more. That is pretty unimpressive.

You need to rewatch that, nostalgia does not a not stupid cartoon make.

I don't have any nostalgia, because I didn't watch them when I was a kid. I only watched them much later.

Look dummy. By any possible fucking metric whatsoever, the transformer's cartoons are higher fucking quality then the movies and higher quality than most fucking cartoons. They often tackled actual real lessons and stories in them. The entire show is actually like a metaphor and shit. They are not "stupid cartoons." Get over yourself. You were wrong. It's okay.

But still, they are not stupid cartoons, and so any defense of the Michael Bay movies that begins "If you spend millions more dollars you end up with something of inferior quality" is a bad fucking defense.

[darkmaster]

For anyone who's been bandying about the words "stupid cartoons" you do realize most of the best movies coming out this year are going to be animated kids movies right? You do realize that everyone loves Avatar:TLA because that show is the fucking shit right? Fuck you, it's idiots like you who insist that entertainment for "kids" has to be inferior by its nature keep our culture from moving forward because the future belongs to kid's entertainment.