ORIGINALLY POSTED ON COMICZONEAZ.com (website no longer active)
This was advertised as a meeting of the original 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon, and the 2003 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles relaunch, as well as the final chapter of the 2003 animated series. Since I’ve been such a huge TMNT fan since 1987 (without knowing what I was getting myself into, I watched the five-episode pilot series that aired in prime time the week between Christmas and New Years in ‘87…and within the following year, had a good number of the toys and merchandise), and I’m one of the few twenty-somethings who gave the 2003 reboot a fair chance, I knew I had to check this out.
A few things you need to know going in:
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was started by two guys (Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird) in Northampton, Massachusetts in 1984. They drew a single black-and-white issue, and used their tax return money to pay for printing. Within one day of its release, all 5,000 copies sold out. In 1984, in the independent comics world, this was pretty much unheard of. Based on the success of that first issue and its subsequent re-printings, Eastman and Laird continued on with the series. Within a couple of years, they wanted to make action figures of the Turtles and related characters. Playmates toys stepped up and agreed to make the toys, but only if a cartoon could be secured. In 1987, Fred Wolf Films met with the duo to discuss making an animated series, but a few changes had to be made; the Turtles had to wear differently-colored masks (they originally all wore red…not that you can tell, in B&W comics), and the tone of the series had to appeal to a younger audience.
The early episodes of the ‘87 cartoon were pretty decent. New characters were created specifically for the series, such as Krang the evil brain from Dimension X, Bebop the mutant warthog, and Rocksteady the mutant rhinocerous. For some reason, the turtles were obsessed with pizza (a fact that every pizza chain in the world fell in love with), and the show quickly degenerated into a bunch of terrible puns and slapstick humor. It lasted for nine seasons, ending in 1996, with a total of 193 episodes. Not too bad, really.
In 2003, the TMNT cartoon was resurrected by 4Kids! Entertainment (who had previously translated Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh! for US broadcast TV to much success). The first episode was entitled “Things Change,” and immediately we knew that things would be different. There were no pizza jokes. The turtles would often exclaim, “What the shell?” in moments of distress, as a thinly-veiled censorship. Bebop and Rocksteady, the two bumbling buffoon henchmen of The Shredder were nowhere to be seen. Krang was nonexistant. And Shredder himself… was not only a total badass, he was also part of an alien race known as the Utroms (from the original comics) hell-bent on universal conquest. The plots of the episodes were often taken directly from the original Eastman & Laird comics. These weren’t the Turtles that I grew up with… These were the Turtles that grew up with me.
The first four seasons of the 2003 TMNT cartoon, in my opinion, were absolutely fantastic. Even if it weren’t the TMNT, I would rank this among the best US animated series of all time. Season 5, despite being completely finished, did not air, putting a halt to all ongoing stories. Instead, we were treated to a soft reboot of the series called “TMNT: Fast Forward,” where the turtles were sent 100 years into the future. Fast Forward lasted for 26 episodes over two years (though it was officially only one season).
After the end of Fast Forward, season 5 was finally aired in early 2008. After the summer hiatus, Season 7 was subtitled “Back to the Sewers,” where the turtles returned from 2105 to present-day. Admittedly, I didn’t catch too much of this season. It was better than Fast Forward, but the dark, serious tone of the first four seasons was still significantly lightened up.
Still breathing? Okay. So here’s a very very brief synopsis of the movie:
Turtles Forever opens after the events of Back to the Sewers. The 2003 turtles run into the 1987 turtles, and the eight (!) Ninja Turtles realize that the ‘87 turtles, along with Shredder, Krang, Bebop, Rocksteady, and their ultimate battle station, the Technodrome were transported to the 2003 Turtles’ world. The 1987 Shredder realizes that if they’re in a new dimension that has more turtles, there must be another Shredder. And he finds Ch’Rell, the Utrom Shredder from the 2003 series… who quickly takes command of the entire operation, and enhances every single bit of Dimension X technology with his extensive knowledge of Utrom tech, and then hops dimensions to… the original Eastman & Laird comics universe. The ‘87 and ‘03 turtles follow suit, and quickly run into the original, black & white Ninja Turtles… who mess everybody up. Hardcore.
This is definitely a movie that’s worth checking out if you’re a TMNT fan. If you’re not, it probably won’t win you over, as it requires at least a basic knowledge of the TMNT from all three universes (although, hopefully, my primer above is enough!). But I’ll definitely be checking this out on DVD.
Also, word on the ‘net is that 4Kids will have it up on their website sometime in December, with an additional 12 minutes of footage that wasn’t shown on the broadcast premiere. So if you’re itching to see it, keep an eye on www.4kids.tv