Watching this again tonight and all I can safely say even nearly 30 years after it's original release, this is still by far the best Turtles film ever made, no other big screen adaptation comes remotely close.
The Jim Henson studios made turtle suits are incredible, while some overall slight changes were made to Shredder's origins, the story is overall faithful to the original, I particularly like this depiction of Shredder as a Fagin like figure taking in disillusioned kids and training them as members of the foot. Also unlike the cartoon where Shredder is portrayed as somewhat incompetent and comical , this version of Shredder is not to be taken lightly at all, in the final battle he curb stomps all four turtles singlehandedly and was ready to kill Leonardo before Splinter intervened.
I refuse to watch the Michael Bay produced abominations as early drafts of the script of the first film had them whitewash Shredder into a white guy named Schraeder, although thankfully this idea did get dropped.
Unfortunately as stellar as the first film is things went downhill hard after this. Parents were shocked by the first film being dark and violent so much, that the studio responded by going completely in the opposite direction for the following films. In the second film, the Turtles barely ever use their weapons, Shredder has gone from a fearsome fighter able to take on the turtles to a joke character who loses easily every time. Tokka and Rezar as stand ins for Rocksteady and Bebop are little more than slapstick characters, they lumber about the place in such a way that means any fight scenes featuring them are severely limited.
Also the excellent vigilante Casey Jones is now replaced by a perky teenager sidekick Keno whose arc is far less dark than Danny in the first film, this time he willingly joins the Foot to infiltrate them with some help on the side from the Turtles. Plus who can forget the infamously cringy night club scene featuring Vanilla Ice which just screams early 90's. By comparison the first film is far superior overall.
As for the third film, I have seen it precisely once, mercifully I can hardly remember it and I have no wish to ever see it again. From what I do remember it was a very low quality effort.
The Jim Henson studios made turtle suits are incredible, while some overall slight changes were made to Shredder's origins, the story is overall faithful to the original, I particularly like this depiction of Shredder as a Fagin like figure taking in disillusioned kids and training them as members of the foot. Also unlike the cartoon where Shredder is portrayed as somewhat incompetent and comical , this version of Shredder is not to be taken lightly at all, in the final battle he curb stomps all four turtles singlehandedly and was ready to kill Leonardo before Splinter intervened.
I refuse to watch the Michael Bay produced abominations as early drafts of the script of the first film had them whitewash Shredder into a white guy named Schraeder, although thankfully this idea did get dropped.
Unfortunately as stellar as the first film is things went downhill hard after this. Parents were shocked by the first film being dark and violent so much, that the studio responded by going completely in the opposite direction for the following films. In the second film, the Turtles barely ever use their weapons, Shredder has gone from a fearsome fighter able to take on the turtles to a joke character who loses easily every time. Tokka and Rezar as stand ins for Rocksteady and Bebop are little more than slapstick characters, they lumber about the place in such a way that means any fight scenes featuring them are severely limited.
Also the excellent vigilante Casey Jones is now replaced by a perky teenager sidekick Keno whose arc is far less dark than Danny in the first film, this time he willingly joins the Foot to infiltrate them with some help on the side from the Turtles. Plus who can forget the infamously cringy night club scene featuring Vanilla Ice which just screams early 90's. By comparison the first film is far superior overall.
As for the third film, I have seen it precisely once, mercifully I can hardly remember it and I have no wish to ever see it again. From what I do remember it was a very low quality effort.
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