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 with heavy skepticism since the very first thing said about the film from 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 is the tone and look different than 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 that the turtles origin has been told many different ways between the comics, cartoons, and movies. As long as they involve 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 now in superhero films. While it is a stark contrast from the current Nickelodeon cartoon, once again a good fan knows that the original TMNT comic series was very dark, and very violent.
As much as I’m tempted to give into the negative, you have to keep some perspective. From that original dark comic series, they launched into the goofy, kid-friendly cartoon in the 80s. It was like if the Walking Dead made its TV debut in a kid-friendly Phineas and Ferb style cartoon. Still, it was a wild success, and it is what launched the franchise to a massive scale.
Maybe it will be really fun, or maybe it will be just awful. For now, I’ll just sit back and be happy that nearly 30 years later, we still have the ninja turtles.