Watching TMNT 2007 got me thinking that it could be more of a canon divergence AU of TMNT 2003.
Like if shredder is really killed by the turtles rathan then being imprison to a icy wasteland then, the event of TMNT 2007 is really what happened. Not to mention that, the prequel comics show that triceraton is somehow secretly invaded earth.
About our beloved turtle boys behaviour on the other hand, while we know things worked out among them(leo mainly) in the 03!verse, I hc the 07! boys having a bit of a jaded personality(forgive my wording in english it's not my mothertounge) in their normal routine of catching criminals at night, it's a norm for them by now, at the very least catching thieves is more of an excersise for them.
While Mikey and Don have adapted well and fast with their mundane routine, Raph and Leo are the restless ones as in their both in a way battle maniac, they both love the thrill of battles.
I mean the whole leo vs raph scene sort of said it all but once the helmet's off it's more of them venting.
After the canon event in the movie, I like to think that solo or duo patrol is part of their routine.
Leo can tolerate with the life of having a day job just maybe his body temperature needing to adapt(I don't know turtles anatomy).
At the same time he also may need to revise what he has learned during his trip.
Raph on the other hand, is need a lot more sleep than Mikey and Don due to his routine as nightwatcher. Man needs to fix his sleep routine period
Leo and Raph would switch or accompany Mikey on his cowabunga carl job in the daylight. Normally Leo at first for a couple of weeks then the switch begins.
When Leo or Raph switch with Mikey's role, it's the amusing part.
Leo, probably had kids afraid of hitting him, probably scolds the kids when the parents aren't looking
Raph, he can play along but sometimes he accidently hits a kid too hard or gives tip on how to actually hit something
Donnie in the distance *facepalm*
Mikey: How come their allowed to do that?
Donnie: I don't even know, Micheal. Raph and Leo are their own in their own shells and brains.
Leo would drive and remind Mikey about the grocery and putting their ads
Donnie has asian mom vibes and his proud of it. MAMATELLO SUPREMACY-Raph&Leo sarcastically frustrated
Anyway that's all the hc I got for now, I'll add more later when the brainrot kicks in but feel free to reblog and add your own. This TMNT needs more love
ok i wanna talk about tmnt 2007 and the way i think this is the best version of a leo and raph conflict, and also leo as a character
for context i've been talking about tmnt things kinda chronologically, so i'm gonna mention an unconditional understanding in 03 i bring that up in a previous post about that show and the family dynamics in it here if u want context for what i mean
i think this movie can really be appreciated for the place it has between adaptations, and the way character-wise everyone is more or less the same as they've always been but with a more interpersonal relationship as the focus. the main villain of this movie doesn't really matter, the conflict, the fights, that's not where the strength is (although, it is reflected in the conflict and ill get into that)
so tmnt 07 is one movie that kind of combines the 90s movies, 03, and mirage all in one place, and tonally is is similar to the show that will come after it, 12. if the 90s movies give us conflict between leo and raph, and 03 gives us the unconditional understanding between the two, 07 takes these two aspects and creates a story out of it. (debate in your own mind if this movie is a literal sequel to the 90s ones or not, its not that important)
the set up of this movie is we are in a post killing the shredder world. leo has been told by splinter to go get training elsewhere, there isn't much context for what happened to cause this, but i would bet its a similar cause to 03, where he had ptsd and lashed out at his father to which splinter sends him to his grandfather to get better advice than he thinks he can give him. the difference here is there is no grandfather hes sent to, he's sent on a journey of self discovery around the world to learn about it and himself.
the thing about leo as a character, and this goes for all leos, he's has a very black and white way of thinking. leo thinks he's been sent away because he's failing his family, that he's not a good enough leader. so he stays away for longer because he doesn't feel good enough. he finds a place where he can help and he does that. leo always needs a bad guy to fight, or else he's fighting his own demons. so he stays there for a long time. finding a place he can help quietly, never letting anyone see him, and becoming a legend to the locals because no one knows what's really going down.
april manages to track him down and tell him about whats going on with his brothers, how they're holding up without him and without being a team, and i think thats a good reminder for him that they miss him. he doesn't tell april but he finds a way home only after hearing about this. when he arrives and speaks to splinter, he says "i was so caught up in my own world i forgot about everyone else, i'm sorry i failed" he still doesn't feel like he's done anything of worth.
i'm gonna jump in here and say, you know how we all love rise raph? cuz hes the big brother and some traits that come from that are like being overprotective and taking on everyone else's problems and trying to handle emotions alone? well that's a trait thats usually leo's. but the difference with leo is sometimes that concept doesn't make you as likeable. sometimes it means you come off like a nagging mother hen who thinks they know best but in an arrogant way. sometimes it makes you mirror being a parent when no one asked you to be. leo's less of a passionate character than raph, hes more analytical and full of himself. he takes splinters lessons more seriously, and hes always trying to do whats best for everyone so they don't have to worry. this is something evident with 03 and 12, but its so specifically noticeable here because these traits make up the main conflict. i just want to bring that up so we start seeing leo as no different than some of our other favourite iterations.
splinter responds to his apology by saying "you owe me no apology, but perhaps you should talk to raphael, your absence has been particularly difficult for him, though he'll never admit it" but when leo greets him raph is brushing him off.
on raph's end, this is him being angry that leo left, and angry that hes back and everyone wants to pretend that he wasn't gone at all. as if the time he was gone didn't happen. hes lashing out because he too cant handle talking about these emotions. and hes lashing out by becoming a vigilante in his own right.
i see a lot of people misunderstand what raph is doing here, that "this is what the turtles always do" or "this is the same as what leo was doing how could he be mad" when that is not true. that's what casey does. its true that both leo and raph have been fighting bad guys on their own (as a way of dealing with their issues) but raphael has made himself a costume to disguise himself which means hes prepared to be seen. hes riding a motorcycle around, which is loud. this isn't stealthy, this is aggressive. his vigilante name is in the news. the turtles are ninjas, they silently help where they can and fade into the night and, very specifically, they work as a team. these turtles live in a dangerous world, what if something happened to him while no one else was around? they would never know because he never told anyone.
so raph is lashing out, and leo doesn't have a good way of dealing with it. he tries to slide back into being leader, doing what splinter says but he forgets how his brothers are, and with raph egging them on they get into fights they shouldn't. which leo specifically gets in trouble for, as the oldest brother, and as their leader. leo tries to be this better leader hes supposed to have learned to be, but it doesn't work and raph ends up back out there in his vigilante get up. leo tracks down said vigilante, and in his peak "leo knows best" moment, lectures him, not knowing its his brother. there's a scuffle, and the mask comes off. let me point out that casey knew this vigilante was raph but his own brother didn't, because leo has been gone that long.
so lets get into what this fight is really about. on the surface, its "wow you've been going out at night alone putting yourself in dangerous situations with no backup" and "so what you're just mad that i can do it without you" which leo would be right about. and this is the analytical leo, he really thinks that's all that's going on here. what hes missing is that raphael has missed him as a brother, and hes hurt that leonardo left and just came back no big deal. that he wants everything to be normal. raphael is always a character with big emotions and the only outlet he knows to express them is violence.
leo, who as we've established, went away to learn to be better for his family is angry that raph doesn't see that. he's mad raph doesn't appreciate the effort he went to, and he thinks he's just angry because he's not in charge. each brother sees the other as being arrogant.
this leads them to the big fight. no one can disagree that this is the best part of the movie (seriously watch the movie for this scene if you haven't seen it before) , but the real best part of it is that raphael wins. raph proves hes just as capable of a fighter as his brother, if not more-so. he uses those sais as they're supposed to be used, catching leo's swords and in a fit of rage he fucking breaks them, leaving leo defenceless and completely vulnerable to attack. you'd think he'd be smug that leo lost but he pauses, going through a lot of emotions in a moment, questioning what he's doing, why hes doing it. and leo finally looks his brother in the eye and sees raph going through something he didn't before, realizing raph hasn't been angry that he's back, but that he's angry that he ever left. they don't have a conversation, because raph cant handle all these emotions and he runs away, crying as he does. leo just watches him, taking it all in and realizing the error of his ways.
hearing leo scream turns raph around, but he's too late to help him, and this is where raph regrets his own actions because right then, leo is also proven right in his argument. because he gets kidnapped. if leo hadn't chased raph down, there is a very good chance that would have been raph being kidnapped. with no backup, with no one knowing what happened to him. that's why its important that the turtles are a team.
raph goes home full of guilt, and there's a good moment of showing how he cannot open up emotionally here, because he grunts, punches the wall, knocks over some weights and forces splinter to ask him what happened, because that's how raphael is. he laments to his father that he finally understands why leo is the better son, proving that to raph none of this was about their team, but about their family. conflating the two ideas in his head. splinter gives him a talk that mirrors what he said to leo when he returned earlier in the movie, encouraging him that he is a good son and brother. this shows that these brothers have very similar insecurities about their value to their family.
the rest of the movie plays out as you expect, they go save leo, they stop the bad guy, they reconcile and behave as the team they're supposed to be. but i just want to point out that the villains plot is mirrored in leo and raph's conflict. the 'villain' here is a brother who has been cursed to be immortal without his own siblings. for 3000 years he lived to regret his actions and decided to undo his curse, but he used the cursed stone versions of his siblings to do so. no communication, just thinking he knew better (which maybe he did) and lying about it. that caused them to lie to him right back, and try to overthrow him and destroy the world. this is just one family whose inner turmoil could have destroyed the world. you might say, oh that's not a very interesting turtles villain, but its not supposed to be. its not the focus.
this movie is all about the complicated relationship between a family, and i see so many people talk about it by trying to ask who's right and who's wrong. that's not how it works. life is more complicated than that, people are more complicated than that. its boring to look at this movie and just say "leo is wrong and raph is right" because that's not even how the characters see it. this movie is about leo and raph being mirrors of each other in their arrogance, in their insecurities, and in their stubborn pig-headed refusal to let the other know how they feel. splinter says as much at the start of the movie. this whole movie shows that without each other, they need to be fighting something so they don't get swept up by their own emotions, which they are both bad at processing. they are SUCH brothers. they are so similar emotionally, yet they have such a hard time understanding each other.
personally 07 leo is my favourite leo for his complexity, his flaws his strength, his growth. its sad we never got those sequel movies to get into the other brothers heads as much as we got into leo and raphs heads.
also nolan north and james arnold taylor gave the best vocal performances in this movie and they deserve all the credit for it.
when it's too much for jokes, leo's stress response tends towards total silence
like when they got stuck in the turtle tank in cloak and swaggart, leo's method of freaking out is Floor
no witty banter with shredder. after a final oneliner, barely reacts to anything in the prison dimension... only starts speaking again when he sees his brothers...
Yeah he was kinda an asshole in some parts of the movie to be honest. But I’m sure he has a reason to be acting like that (playing devil’s advocate here 👋🏻)
Was he an hypocrite?
Yes. Like why Is he mad when raph had this whole vigilante stuff going on (when he was kinda doing the same thing) also why he tried to stop the nightwatcher when he didn’t know it was raph, like? What’s your problem with having another vigilante rounding nyc? Why are you being territorial now? It’s like the turtles mating season or something? Doesn’t have any sense
It would have sense if he knew raph was the nightwatcher since the beginning, because he’s like the “big bro” so maybe he see this like something dangerous for his brother alone, and more keeping it as a secret I believe maybe Leo was in this “mom way of thinking” like:
“if something happens to you how would we know?”
“What if you get injured?”
“What if they’re so much for you to handle?”
I see that like the main reason to explain why Leonardo was mad at raph being the nightwatcher I don’t know what else could be.
But that’s my opinion, I wanna know what y’all think!
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