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Cowabunga dudes! Gyt here, and this time with my most anticipated (in my opinion anyway) review yet. That’s right, this time I’m here to talk about the much talked about by myself film, Turtles Forever.
For those that don’t know, Turtles Forever is a direct-to-DVD (or rather, direct-to-TV, as a DVD deal is still in negotiations apparently) film put together by 4Kids Entertainment, in honor of the 25th anniversary of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It utilizes not only the universe of the 2003 cartoon series put together by 4Kids themselves (which, if you haven’t seen it yet, you really should), but also features the 1980s and 90s universe that a lot of us grew up with and loved. It even features a bit in the original Mirage comics universe drawn by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, without which none of the other TMNT universes we all know and love wouldn’t exist.
To start from the beginning, here’s a short synopsis of the film, spoiling as little as possible while still giving you a good chunk of what’s going on. Hun and his Purple Dragons (of the 2003 series) are busy carrying out a heist for some technology. They are interrupted suddenly by four mysterious figures however, which is captured by the news crew there. Splinter (2003) is at home watching TV when the report about four blurry green figures trying to stop the heist is broadcast. Sending the Turtles out to figure out what’s going on since they haven’t been out all night, they arrive just in time to find four other Turtles - none other than the TMNT themselves from the 1980s series - held captive by Hun. A fight ensues, and in the end the Turtles (both sets) escape, and after some cajoling by Splinter and the 2003 Turtles, they get the story out of their counterparts.
While battling their Shredder in his Technodrome, a portal was opened that was intended to send the bad guys back to Dimension X again, but damage to the computer caused it to send Shredder and his croneys, as well as the Turtles, into the 2003 series universe. The mission is clear: Stop that Shredder and send everyone back into their dimension. But fighting him causes Shredder (1980s) to realize that if this new world has it’s own Turtles, than surely it has it’s own Shredder as well. Now with Ch’rell, the Utrom Shredder that was the most ruthless foe the 2003-verse Turtles ever faced among them once again, can either set of Turtles possibly prevail?
And that’s the first morsel of the story. It’s harder to talk about and explain than it is to understand, what with the multiple same names to throw around, but it’s clear as day in the film itself. There’s a lot of ground to cover in this review even after that, so I’ll limit myself to a few choice categories - How the 1980s-verse is represented, how the story utilizes the mixture of the mythos, how the Mirage comics characters are represented, the overall animation, and the overall voice-over. Again, I could go on for hours about this film, so I’ll try to stop myself from injecting more than I have too.
We’ll start from the beginning and cover the way they show the 1980s universe characters. This is where one of my few complaints for the film come into play. Those who never grew up on the 80s Turtles and will never see them are sorely misinformed as to it’s quality in Forever. In this, the Turtles themselves are shown as nothing but goofballs with very limited fighting abilities, and the Shredder and his men are shown as chump change villains who pose no real threat. Now, don’t get me wrong - the old show was pretty corny at times, they did use their surroundings more often than their weapons (something that I DID like seeing well represented here), and the Shredder was pretty goofy for an evil guy (how else would he put up with Rocksteady and Bebop?). But not realizing that they were in danger and needed to fight? Running in fear and crying when saved in some battles? What happened to ‘Turtles fight with honor’, one of their creed’s from the original toon? It’s clear that 4Kids was a tad bit biased toward their own show while making this, which was to be expected. But when most of the excitement of this stemmed from seeing the classic versions of the characters again, that’s a bad thing to do.
The two universe’s merge quite well though, showcasing just how similar and different the various Turtles themselves, as well as their allies and enemies, are. We don’t get a whole lot of the two Leos together on the field, which is disappointing, but the rest of the 2K3 Turtles are shown together with their counterparts enough to showcase it nicely. 2K3 Mikey loves 80s Mikey (the entire 80s TMNT for that matter), as he finds their humor refreshing. 2K3 Donny finds his 80s counterpart’s science to be baffling, as well as his technique in that field, but in the end has to respect it. And 2K3 Raph of course is appalled by the 80s crew, calling them ‘four more Mikeys’, but is especially annoyed by his dimensional brother who, rather than angry like him, is rude and sarcastic.
The story further utilizes the combining of the mythos using how much more prominent the ooze or mutagen that mutated the Turtles was in the classic show, as well as how frequently it was used. To avoid spoiling as much as possible, lets just say that a mutant army is involved at one point, which is where we get 2003-verse cameos of movie villains Tokka and Rahzar. It also has great use of both the insane technology that 80s Donny is capable of, as well as the massive technology of Dimension X that is at Krang’s disposal. In fact, we even see the strength of Dimension X and Utrom technology combined (does a suped-up Technodrome sound intriguing?).
Though they are shown only for a little bit, the Mirage comics universe is pretty well represented as well. To be honest this is the canon with which I’m least familiar, having only read the first three comic books via the official Turtles site myself. But it seems like while Forever takes place at the end of the 2003 cartoon series and sometime near the end of the 1980s one, it takes place during the first issue of the comic series somehow, so no knowledge of the comics is necessary to enjoy this film - though it certainly makes a lot of the jokes in this part of the film funnier. The Mirage Turtles themselves don’t get a lot of screen time, but they get enough to not be dues ex machina characters at least, which is what I was worried about initially. They, and their world, are animated in very nice black and white, to mirror the original comics once again, which were B&W themselves. You even get to see Mirage Shredder, albeit briefly, again an in-joke to the original comics. Believe it or not, Shredder was never meant to be the recurring, ultimate villain for the Turtles. He is pretty much dealt with by the end of issue 1 of the comics, though he does serve purposes later on I believe.
Coming now to the animation itself, we reach another area where I actually have a few complaints, and one of the few areas where I can touch upon the 2003 universe itself, which I’ve avoided because while cool, it’s honestly just there to tie all this together, thematically at least. In other words, all the excitement of this movie is for seeing the classic toon characters again, as well as the comic universe. The 2003 universe characters look pretty nice in this film, except for one glaring problem with the designs. When the 2003 series started, it had extremely detailed designs and beautiful animation, but by the last season entitled ‘Back to the Sewers’, the entire show had been re-hauled to more closely resemble the CGI film that had come out. The designs of April, Casey, Karai, and even Splinter were almost completely redone to look like the CG designs. For Splinter this was jarring but not outright awful, and Casey just looks stockier really, but Karai and April especially look almost nothing like their previous designs, in fact they look downright horrid in my books. The Turtles themselves became blockier and less smooth, had their pupils shown rather than the glowing white eyes we’d grown to love, and their masks now seem to shine as if they weren’t made of fabric. Fortunately the eyes were returned to the white glow for this film, but other than that the ugly BttS designs are in full swing.
The animation of the classic series and the comics are much more satisfactory. Other than a few off-design moments, the classic characters look EXACTLY like we all love and remember them, and considering how long it’s been since they’ve been drawn as well as this being an entirely different studio, that’s nothing to glaze over. The comics universe look a bit awkward in motion to be honest, but that’s only because they were kept so close to their original art style which doesn’t lend itself well to actual animation. Even the animation of the classic toon’s world and the comic’s world looks different than the 2003’s world, so as to keep the feel closer to how they were in their original mediums, so overall it was animated quite beautifully.
This review has gone on really long, so as to not kill everyone, I’ll finish up with Part 2 tomorrow. Until then - Turtle Power!