Fifth Time Is The Charm

Yesterday I was fascinated to watch as nerds all over the internet had their heads collectively explode following the news that Micheal Bay, the director of the "Transformers" trilogy and a man who has never seen an explosion he didn't enjoy, was being hired to direct a new "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" movie. [Sidebar: On the world wide interwebs the series is known by the abbreviation TMNT. I just want you to know that at no point in this post will I be writing that. This is a blog, where there is no such thing as a character limit, so saying or typing something with a short name on a blog (or anywhere without a character limit) just makes you sound like a dick, along the same lines as the people who refer to "Curb Your Enthusiasm" as just "Curb". Also, typing the series name all the way out takes 6 seconds versus the 2 seconds the abbreviation takes. So it's not like it saves you all that much time, especially when you compare that time to how much damage it does to my opinion of the people who use it.] Apparently the die-hard fans of the Turtles do not think Bay is the right man to re-boot the franchise and worry he will destroy their childhood memories. (Funny, I didn't see this kind of outrage when Tim Burton wrecked several classic movies with re-makes. I guess it really is all about having the most tech-savvy fans.) I have another question entirely: why the hell is anyone making another "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle" movie in the first place?

This isn't to say that I wasn't a "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" fan back in the day like everyone else. Not only did I see the first couple of movies in the theaters (I may have even acquired the Vanilla Ice single which went with the second film), but I had also owned several videos from the cartoon series, once spent an entire afternoon at Chuck E. Cheese defeating the video game and even dressed up as Michelangelo for Halloween a year or two, as he was clearly the coolest Turtle (seriously, don't come at me with that Donatello shit). Even with all that I never got the impression the comic or the cartoon had reached the cult-like status which people in Hollywood clearly think it has. I know the original run of cartoons was unparalleled in the amount of toys the company pumped out for kids to buy, but I have yet to see any of them take on the collectible status of the "Star Trek" or "Star Wars" market. You simply don't get the impression there is a guy out there who eventually plans to retire on the money he makes from selling all the toys he was too disciplined to play with back in 1992. 

I guess my point is that there are just so many new and unblemished memories of childhood shows Hollywood could try and crush instead. I mean, can you believe there hasn't been a single "M.A.S.K." movie? (Actually, I kind of think that could be awesome.) And after what happened with "Transformers" you know the creators of "Voltron" are just begging to have their character re-booted and pillaged for every last conceivable dime. So why are movie studios so insistent on going back and trying to re-boot a franchise no one was all that interested in the last time they tried in 2007? Seriously, it is not like I'm asking these people to come up with a new and fresh idea (I know not to waste my time), I just want them to stop going back to the same four franchises every time they want to make another movie based on a cartoon. (Oh, while we're on the subject, the world has seen enough "SpiderMan" movies for the time being.) Then again, I just saw commercials for two different "Snow White" movies coming out within a couple weeks of one another, so I guess I should just be happy there is only one new "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle" movie on the way. 

A couple weeks ago I mentioned that for all the conventions, merchandise, movies, spin-offs and movies about the spin-offs, "Star Trek" was only on TV for three years and never got great ratings when it was. Well, you could easily make the case that the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" franchise has done even more with less. Yes, the original cartoon was on TV for 9 years (a statistic which totally blew my mind when I learned it four seconds ago), but I don't even think the creators of the characters expected to get an additional three animated series, four volumes of comics, a live-action series and four movies out of it. Honestly, how many jokes about loving pizza can you make? I mean, is there really a new and exciting direction to take this franchise? I think it is pretty clear that I don't see it. After all, it is not like they can mess with the names or the characters, because that defeats the purpose. So, at the end of the day you've still just got giant turtles who know martial arts. Not only have we already seen that movie, we've seen it four times. I know the main reason the hardcore fans are made is because they think Bay is going to ramp-up the pyrotechnics, but frankly a few large and well-timed explosions may be just what this movie franchise needs.