I’m not sure what to think of the DVD release of Turtles Forever. As tOkKa mentioned in his post on said DVD release…the “uncut” version was on the internet for a while, and what do we get for a DVD? A bare bones, TV cut of the movie with not one “special feature” or even decent looking menus. I probably could have made an equally good looking DVD…I’m just saying.
That said, it’s nice to see Viacom and Nickelodeon finally doing something with the franchise they bought from Peter so long ago. (When was it again? Wow…really…October 2009…that’s almost a year ago. Man) And to be fair the DVD transfer looks great. I even took the time while I was watching it to check out the pictures of the TMNT Multiverse. It was quite a nice little representation of Turtles stuff from all over, Mirage, Archie, the movies, even the cube craft (didn’t know that was it’s own universe…but ok.) But as I come back to it, and having watched an episode of the 90’s series to do my guide, it just didn’t work for me. Let me tell you why.
The Original Series was lighthearted, sure. It was goofy, sure. It never took itself too seriously, sure, but I don’t remember the Turtles ever facing off against giant slices of pizza (and, yes I know there was an episode called The Case of the Killer Pizzas, but it’s not, as April says, the pizza, but “the creature that came with the pizza.”)
In Turtles Forever the 88 Turtles as they are called are useless, incompetent boobs. And yes maybe compared to the 2003 Turtles, they are, but that may just be it. This movie follows the 2k3 Turtles, they are the stars, the heroes. They are written correctly, because this is their show. But, to many the Old Toon Turtles are what brought us to the franchise. And the writing for them didn’t come off as an homage, it came off as a joke. “These Turtles are squishy and round and only crack jokes and eat pizza.” True that seems true of the OT Turtles, but there’s more there. Maybe it’s just nostalgia, but the OT Turtles despite all of that were competent. Here though they are painted as goofs who can’t step up when the situation calls for it…well maybe at the end, but by then they have been played for jokes for too long.
I know what you’re thinking, “Jester, this movie is over a year old. It’s not Viacom’s fault that it paint the OT Turtles with too broad a brush and makes them caricatures of themselves.” and you’re right. But now I have this on DVD. When it was a TV one off, I could forget about it, look at it warmly. Now I own it…I could watch it very day if I was so inclined…and it’s not as good as I remembered. Mainly because the only thing that works with the old Turtles is Raph’s 4th wall breaking…and it’s not even Rob Paulsen.
