#transdimensional turtles

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The Trans-dimensional Turtles - TMNT 2012

While well received by the fans, “Turtles Forever” was met with a decent amount of criticism for not bringing back the original cast and music. So, how did the 2012 fared with those two elements back?

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A Look Back At "Turtles Forever" and "Transdimensional Turtles"

As many of you know, the current season of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on Nickelodeon is also known as the final one before a new series, with a new animation format, is premiered later. Now while I have enjoyed a lot of this 2012 incarnation, I would be doing it a huge disservice by not mentioning that it owes a lot of it’s success to it’s ties, both spiritual and literal, to the original 1987 series. No doubt you may have noticed that many of the characters that inhabit this show have in some way or another been derived from the first cartoon, some of them with very radical changes (points at Robot Irma)

But my focus for this little piece will actually be on another issue. That being the 25th Anniversary movie “Turtles Forever” and the Season 4 episode “Trans-Dimensional Turtles”. Why you may ask? Well, sit down and let me explain.

First a little backstory: To celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the TMNT, 4kids, the company responsible for so many anime fans’ outrage (a discussion for another time) made a TV movie featuring not only the current TMNT (known here as TMNT2K3) but the original 1987 cartoon TMNT…well, SORTA. The original voice actors from the cartoon could not take part in this special (because apparently 4Kids had this rule concerning union workers) so alternate voices had to be cast. The movie even threw in the original comic book TMNT just for the fans. And while the movie did get many favorable reviews, it was not without some controversy. And that controversy: the 1987 TMNT. Or, at the least how they were portrayed.

TMNT2K3 was, in essence, much closer to the original Mirage Comic series than it’s predecessor.  There were some darker stories, bigger story arcs, episodes that were directly lifted or borrowed from the Eastman and Laird run, even characters that only appeared in the comics (Such as Renett and Karai) were put in this series. And there were a lot of action as well, along with starling revelations and adaptions/changes to TMNT lore. (Such as the reveal that the Shredder in fact was Che’rell, an Utron war criminal…and despite whatever he may have claimed he was NOT the One True Shredder, as it was a title he stole from the Demon Shredder. Yeah, there was more than one Shredder in this one, don’t try to make sense of it.) In contrast, the 1987 TMNT was a beast of a different nature. There was a good deal of action, yes, but there was a more comedic approach to the portrayal of the team, and the series was tailored for a young audience. But it was well beloved enough to spawn at least 3 movies, several video games and God Knows What Else. So, the meeting of the characters from these 2 universes would be cool right?

Well…that depends.

No doubt, if you are a 1987 TMNT fan, when you look at the way that the first team are portrayed compared to the TMNT2K3, you note that if anything, their comedic aspects are a LOT more prominent. Moreover, their methods of fighting seem to be more ineffectual unless they work in tandem with the TMNT2k3 Turtles. I think though for me, what made me feel more than a little, well, shell shocked, was one point in the move’s climax, where the 1987 Team was sent crying into the arms of TMNT2K3’s Raphael.

Like little children.

…No, I am not making this up. Go on, go find a copy of this movie or look on Youtube. I’ll wait..

…

Oh you’re back. Yes, that happened. And to be honest, certain aspects of the cartoon are met with some derision, like Karai’s comments on the Foot Soldier tech. (Based on tech that, I should add, brought Che’Rell to them in the first place.) and Raph’s joke about the Turtle Blimp and Turtle Van. Even  1987 Shredder and Krang were not immune from some character decay; while no doubt Che’rell as the Shredder is a far bigger menace to the universe as a whole, The Shredder and Krang were not incompetent villians as this movie seems to have them pegged. The 1987 Shredder was no slouch in the hand to hand-ruthless tactics department (who, believe it or not, got even more ruthless in the later seasons) and the only other person who could actually stand toe to toe with him was Master Splinter. (Who was actually treated with much more respect in this movie). Krang, while overbearing, was also somewhat of a viable threat as well. He was exiled from Dimension X for a VERY GOOD REASON.

But against the Mirage TMNT? Yeah, both teams have good reason to be afraid of them…

Now, lets fast forward to the episode “Transdimensional Turtles” . I consider it a better more compact version of Turtles Forever myself and it’s honestly more of an homage to the show than anything. For starters, the original voice actors are back. (Minus James Avery, the voice of the Shredder, who sadly passed away a few years ago) And unfortunately we don’t have Rocksteady and Bebop here. But we also got back the original voice of Krang. This episode manages to easily shift between both the 3D and 2D styles well and, to many, keeps the personalities of the original 1987 TMNT intact. There are some jokes about the original show (like Leo’s awkward kicking at Krang) but they do not seem mean spirited and it goes along with some jokes about the current show (like Rob Paulsen voicing both Raph and Donnie) and the francise as a whole. Plus the 1987 TMNT fight WAY more effectively than how they were shown in Turtles Forever. And even the Mirage TMNT show up. (Rather briefly, and with no lines). The overall plot even seems to be a shout out to the plot of “Turtles Forever” (bad guy tries to destroy all of the TMNT) but subverted (The Kraang of the TMNT2012 universe points out that destroying all of the universe just to get rid of one is incredibly stupid.)

So where was I going with this? Uh yeah, good question…I guess what I wanted to say is that we all enjoy different versions of this franchise for different reasons. And while the 1987 series may not be as dark as brooding as some of the later incarnations. (And believe me, TMNT012 got away with a LOT of dark themes when you look back at it later) it does not mean it’s no less enjoyable than the others. So yes, Turtles Forever is good but I enjoyed Transdimensional Turtles a bit more.

That’s just me though.

[tmntyyhfreak87]

Turtles Forever vs. Transdimensional Turtles  Comparision Review

This is a comparison of both in a way in two categories: Story/Plot, TMNT character usage and what what I like and dislike about both. This is not a comparison of which one is better because I like both overall. Both have their flaws which will talked about in the what I dislike section. Let’s get started 

Spoilers ahead 

Story/Plot: 

Turtles Forever-

Turtles Forever story plot begins with the ‘87 TMNT coming to the ‘03 TMNT world by stopping the purple dragons. The people on the news think their their are monsters in NYC. Splinter yells to the ‘03 TMNT to come and ask them have they been out. All four answer no and they begin to investigate what’s going on. ‘03 TMNT find out when they go to purple dragons hide to see that they have dimensional clones the “87 TMNT. The 87′ TMNT tell how they got to ‘03 TMNT universe. Both sets of TMNT go find to get ‘87 TMNT back home. Forward to meat of the plot ‘87 Shredder brings back the ‘03 Shredder who is nasty. The ‘03 Shredder takes over the Technodrome and turns it into his own machine. Of course the ‘03 Shredder finds out there more TMNT Universes and he plans on destroying on the main turtle verse Turtle Prime: The Original TMNT comic verse. The ‘87 and ‘03 TMNT meet their comic counterparts who doesn’t like them and thinks they’re “sell outs.” in the end of all three sets of Turtles stop the ‘03 Shredder with some major help from Bebop and Rockstedy. They all go back to their respective worlds after all.

Transdimensional Turtles-

‘12 TMNT are still in space at this point find the pieces to the Triceratons machine when the ‘87 TMNT using a portal gun beams the ‘12 TMNT.to their world to tell them that ‘87 Krang is trying to destroy their world. Foward to the meat of the story. The ‘87 and ‘12 TMNT find out that ‘87 Krang is Kraang Sub Prime’s cousin and that ‘87 Krang planted three bombs in three different dimensions: ‘87 TMNT world, ‘12 TMNT world and the original comic world. Long story short they get all three bombs and save the universal and does a callback to at the end of Wormquake when ‘87 TMNT fought Tiger Claw. 

Overall Both plots get an A- 

Character Usage

 Turtle Forever- The character usage they made a lot of references to older TMNT universe and even showed us their is a big universe of TMNT every where. The usage was great.

Transdimensional Turtles- The character usage is more limited because is mostly seen ‘12 TMNT characters and ‘87 TMNT characters only. The usage is good. 

Overall Both character usage gets a B

What I like about: 

Turtles Forever- What I liked Turtles Forever is that the characters interact when ‘03 TMNT aren’t annoyed with ‘87 TMNT (reviewed further in the dislike). To me their was nothing wrong with the voice acting in Turtles Forever. I would have liked to hear the original voice actors in their roles of ‘87 TMNT but something things happen. The pacing of Turtles Forever is great. I like how they used ‘03 Shredder as the crazy I want to destroy the whole universe person which made the plot awesome.

Transdimensional Turtles- What I like about Transdimensional Turtles is the characters interactions with ‘12 TMNT and ‘87 TMNT. Hearing the original voice actors of ‘87 TMNT is a plus. The pacing was ok. It could have been better for a 30 min episode. I like how they used ‘87 Krang for the plot of this as well. It was also awesome. 

What I dislike about:

Turtles Forever: The treatment of ‘87 TMNT cast by the ‘03 TMNT cast excluding April and Casey (They weren’t in it much.) ‘03 TMNT acted like the ‘87 TMNT are so idiotic and childish. The ‘03 Shredder did the same with ‘87 Shredder and  that’s  sad. I know Peter Laird doesn’t like ‘87 TMNT too much and I think he had a hand in that. I don’t like it. Another thing that bothered me is the how ‘03 Don was little skeptically about ‘87 Donatello and his making something work. ‘03 Don has seen teleportation work so what was so bad about a flashlight transporting them out? Now on to Transdimensional Turtles

Transdimensional Turtles- To me it is a short version of Turtles Forever. What was wrong with making different plot on how the ‘12 TMNT and ‘87 TMNT meet. I would have like to seen more of ‘87 TMNT hanging out in ‘12 TMNT world and vice versa. If you going to use original TMNT comic turtles, don’t make them appear in a short time. Another problem I had is the shortness of this. To me this should have been a special not a filler episode for Season 4 that way it could have been an hour instead of 30 mins of a rushed plot.   

That is the comparison review

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