They’ve finally released a trailer for Ninja Turtles. I’ll admit that I had issues with this project before it even began filming. Once it was released that the titular characters wouldn’t actually be teenage, mutant, or even technically turtles, but would instead be aliens from a different dimension that resemble anthropomorphic turtles, I was pretty much done with this film.
Then I heard Michael Bay was attached to the project in someway and I groaned. He has already destroyed the Transformers franchise. I don’t think I can bare him destroying my beloved Turtles too.
Then they began casting the film and I was even more done with it. While I’m not thrilled with Megan Fox, who has predominantly served as eye-candy for most of her career, playing April O’Neil, she has improved as an actress as of late (see This Is 40) and is the least of the problems in the casting department. William Fitchner playing The Shredder is not only Michael Bay giving TMNT fans the finger, but is one of the most terrible displays of reverse race-crossing a character I’ve ever seen. Instead of having the number one big bad in the Turtles mythos played by an actual Japanese actor, they decide to have it played by a middle-aged white American. Race-crossing is typically done to create minority roles, but Michael Bay uses it to take them away. They also had an opportunity to bring some bigger talent in to voice the Turtles themselves, and failed to do so. Bay bagged Hugo Weaving and Leonard Nimoy to voice characters in Transformers, but couldn’t even get B- or C-list talent for the Turtles.
Now I’ve seen the trailer, and all my fears seem to be coming true. I hate the look of the Turtles, the Foot Clan look like rejects from the Immortals in 300, and it seems we’re going to get more of the slow motion garbage that turned the Transformers series into merely a visual spectacle, with no substance. I really hoped I was wrong, but it doesn’t look like I was. I feel sorry for this generation that will grow up thinking that THIS is what TMNT is all about. So parents out there, don’t let your kids see this mindless drivel and instead show your children the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. They’ll thank you for it.
Breaking Down the Walls of Dericho 