Today, the much-anticipated teaser trailer for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film was released. While there is a lot of buzz about the film, there isn’t much optimism. In fact, this film has been plagued by heavy skepticism since the very first thing said about it by Michael Bay threw shell-heads into a frenzy, even though he is a producer, not the director. First, it was a comment about aliens. Then it was the announcement of Megan Fox as April O’Neil. Look, anything with an existing fan base will get critiqued by the die-hards no matter how good it ends up being, but Megan Fox? Really?
Now, with the first glimpse of the film, we see that not only are the tone and look different from what we’ve seen before, but even the dialogue sets up what seems to be a much different origin story. Even as there is already backlash about the origin, any good fan knows the turtles’ origin has been told many different ways throughout the comics, cartoons and movies. As long as it involves mutagen and not, like, a dryer dropped in a bathtub or something, I’m good.
As for the tone, there is definitely that whole “we can be gritty like The Dark Knight, too” vibe, which is pervasive in superhero films right now. While it is a stark contrast from the current Nickelodeon cartoon, once again, a good fan knows the original TMNT comic series was very dark and very violent.
As much as I’m tempted to give in to the negativity, you have to keep some perspective. From that original dark comic series, the franchise launched into the goofy, kid-friendly cartoon of the ’80s. It was like if The Walking Dead made its TV debut as a kid-friendly, Phineas and Ferb-style cartoon. Still, it was a wild success, and it is what launched the franchise on a massive scale.
Maybe it will be really fun, or maybe it will be just awful. For now, I’ll sit back and be happy that nearly 30 years later, we still have the Ninja Turtles.