The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Group Watch Thread

[Daikaiju]

Casey was originally introduced as part of a series of character oneshots by Mirage, in Raph's issue naturally. This intro is fairly line with that including how it starts, something a lot of adaptations tend to ignore. Showrunners like Raph as rude but not borderline fratricidal.

 

[Dracula]

Yeah I like that Casey's intro here is in line with the comic story but the crucial addition is the childhood grudge against the Purple Dragons. Comics Casey is just a deadbeat in sweatpants who gets angry at the TV news and decides to go clean up the streets himself (still in sweatpants). Adding a bit more personal motivation goes a long way to make the character feel more relatable.

That Akira slide and the whole motorcycle chase/fight has been one of my favorite action moments in season 1 so far. Really good action direction and beautiful animation. I also only noticed after this fight that the slide is actually shown in every episode during the intro.

 

[Daikaiju]

I also only noticed after this fight that the slide is actually shown in every episode during the intro.

It's a shell of a town.

 

[Torzelbaum]

Akita slide

Akita?

 

[Octopus Prime]

Yeah, one of them.

The 2k3 series probably Has my favorite Mikey; light hearted, but not an actual doofus. 90s Mikey was a stoner idiot, Nick Mikey is a standard idiot… can’t speak as to Mirage or Rise, this is a Mikey I could actually willing spend some time with.

Big props to the Purple Dragon designs too; they’re all definitely associated with each other but their designs all vary so wildly that if you ever see the same group from episode to episode, I didn’t notice.

 

[Dracula]

It's a shell of a town.

Always thought they were saying "a shell of a time" until recently!

 

[Johnny Unusual]

can’t speak as to Mirage

I remember him being more lighthearted but less developed and not as so extremely extroverted as every other version. I feel like he's the least developed in the OG comics.

 

[Daikaiju]

I remember him being more lighthearted but less developed and not as so extremely extroverted as every other version. I feel like he's the least developed in the OG comics.

Ironically they were starting a Mike - centric plot when Mirage had that severe water damage that shut down their publishing.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Okay, back to Nick for the next two;
I Think His Name is Baxter Stockman
Metalhead

I am… very excited

 

[Octopus Prime]

I Think His Name is Baxter Stockman is another Monster of the Week episode, though I’ll go ahead and predict that it’s form a recurring villain this time, since Baxter has a long and storied history.

Donny steals a highly advanced military AI from an army base and decides to use it for an MP3 player, which he then gives to Mikey (Donny is the stupid kind of genius), and that goes well until, when on patrol, the Turtles encounter and defeat the aspiring mad scientist and general Sad Sack, Baxter Stockman, but accidentally drop the military grade MP3 player while doing so, and it bonds to him and it rebuilds his pathetic Iron Man knockoff armor into a much better mecha suit, which he then uses to avenge himself on everyone who ridiculed him (which is everyone because this version of Baxter is a dingus).

the Turtles can’t beat the mecha suit, it’s too strong, but they exploit the fact that Baxter is quick to frustration to distract him and then throw a beehive into his cockpit which forces him to abandon it, and they break the AI pod that was powering the suit, and chuck Baxter into a garbage can.

The credits stopped before it could reach the cast list, and Baxter was really familiar to me, but I couldn’t quite place it. I want to say Phil Lamar, but that’s mainly because there’s about a 50/50 split for VAs for black characters in the early 2010s

 

[Johnny Unusual]

The credits stopped before it could reach the cast list, and Baxter was really familiar to me, but I couldn’t quite place it. I want to say Phil Lamar, but that’s mainly because there’s about a 50/50 split for VAs for black characters in the early 2010s

Wikipedia confirms your theory.

 

[Daikaiju]

Yeah this version of Baxter is a mash of of 90's cartoon Stockman and '03 Stockman. An unwilling pawn who rather be king.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Another MotW episode with Metal Head, Donny decides that a stick is an inadequate weapon when it comes to fighting alien robots, and uses a wrecked Krang robot to build a surrogate fighter; the robotic turtle Metalhead.

this goes badly since, while it’s incredibly strong, Metalhead is absurdly slow and clumsy, and while it does a great job fighting Krang, it’s quickly commandeered by the aliens since it’s one of their machines anyway and Donny has to figure out how to destroy a super powerful robot with just his stick.

And full credit, the solution for doing that winds up being pretty clever and leads to a fun action sequence.

Weve also got more of Donny crushing in a creepy way on April, played for laughs, but also more of Splinter being the best Rat Dad; he’s definitely my favourite character in this incarnation.

 

[Daikaiju]

It's good times.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Back to Fox for

Nano
Darkness on the Edge of Town

Sounds like Nicks not the only one with a Monster of the Week thing!

 

[FelixSH]

Nearly caught up, except for the new, two episodes.

I like the '03 Baxter. He is delightfully arrogant, but also seems competent. Casey is a weird one for me, because when I think Turtles, I still think mainly of the '86 one, where I don't remember him having a presence. Interesting how raw the episode got, with him and Raph going so over the top. My source unfortunately only has the German dub, which isn't great, but serviceable.

I'm not sure if I like '12s Baxter, at least compared to the '03 one. He is just too pathetic. I forgot how he was done in the '86 version, I vaguely remember him being similarly pathetic there. I mean, not liking is wrong, I do enjoy his presence.
The Krang are delightful here. The way the robots talk is great, and the brains are adorable.
The plot about Donnie being frustrated with his stick is a bit frustrating - him wanting a more potent weapon, that can actually damage their robotic enemies, makes sense. And I did enjoy him going completely overboard. But maybe the lesson could be "sure, change your weapon, just don't go overboard", instead of "nope, change can only be way too much, so let's not change anything at all". Sorry, I know I'm thinking more about this kid show than I should, it's just such a weird standard plot, where moderate change would be the answer.
Anyway, I like the solution of this show, to use robots as the bad guys (for a big part, at least). That way, the Turtles can use the blades of their weapons, without actually hurting anyone.
Hmm, really not a fan of the Donnie crushes on April plotline. This might be just me, but I find that part painful to watch - not because he is a turtle and she a human, just because him being obsessed with her and the resulting behaviour is hard to watch.
To end on something positive, I love how Mikey is the guy who names stuff. And often being really good at it. I love "T-Pod". And I love how Splinter used the name Baxter-Pod.
Worth mentionening again, that Splinter is excellent here. I love his characterization, and his sense of humor (plus his great design). That the show goes so strongly into the dad with four teenagers vibe is great, they have a really fun dynamic. This also explains why we get one of them crushing on someone, just too much of a teen thing to ignore, I guess.

Oh, right, I do like how Shredders henchmen are just too tough for the Turtles, at this point, and that they have to come up with clever ways of defeating them. Which fits the idea of the ninja, at least how the show portrays them, very well.

 

[Octopus Prime]

As expected, Nano is a MotW episode, and one with… basically the same plot as Chappie, and it was also better than I was really expecting.

A nanomachine swarm with a childlike personality escapes a government lab where it was being built (Science Lady was weirdly irritated to have created artificial life) and it winds up getting adopted by a conman who abuses its naïveté to help him rob businesses. This gets the turtles involved when they target Aprils new job as owner and proprietor of an antique shop (it was her fathers, but Never mentioned either it, or her father prior to this), and after a couple of fights against Nano, it keeps building itself into new and stronger forms, eventually settling on a trash-Kaiju after the turtles chase it into a junkyard, until Donny, realizing that its Nanomachines are vulnerable to extreme heat and they lure it into an incinerator.

Then the police converge on the junkyard to arrest the conman for all the burglaries he was doing while he sobs over the death of his ersatz son, who was screaming for his daddy to save him while our heroes burned him to death.

Meanwhile, Casey and April meet for the first time and are torn between the fact that they’re both clearly Horny for each other and also hate each others personalities.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Then the police converge on the junkyard to arrest the conman for all the burglaries he was doing while he sobs over the death of his ersatz son, who was screaming for his daddy to save him while our heroes burned him to death.

That's pretty dark.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Wait till we get to the death of Baxter Stockman

 

[Egarwaen]

I'm finally joining in on this and after trying a few episodes of both, I think I'm just going to be watching the 2012 series. I've got fond memories of watching the 2003 series with friends in college, but the first couple episodes are unfocused, rambling, and messy. The 2012 series at least aspires to a distinct visual style, even if the Kraang and human characters look awful, and the Kraang are hilarious.

 

[Daikaiju]

The Second Time Around Shop! Also comics canon! Also shows up in the original Movie.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Darkness on the Edge of Town is another Plot! episode and maybe the first For Real one for the shows main story arc, as well as possibly alluding to the much more bonkers Lost Season arc.

The turtles are out investigating a sudden power failure in Manhattan (no idea why it’s their business) and discover it to have been a cover for the Foot Clan to rob the museum of a Japanese sword; the Blade of the Tengu. Which, besides being priceless is also magical, as proven when it creates an energy blast that knocks the turtles flat on their ass (Donny says magic is impossible and it was much more likely to be an ancient Samurai laser weapon shaped like a sword).

Splinter sees the torn off Foot Clan insignia and has a private little freak out and demands the turtles leave these ninjas alone, and is unsurprised but clearly concerned when this has the opposite intended effect.

Meanwhile, after beating his henchmen nearly/fully to death as part of his personal training regimen, Shredder is delighted to have the Tengu Sword and proceeds on to the next phase of his plan; which is to strap the sword to a giant shockwave cannon and displace all the water in the Easy River to help excavate a mysterious suit of armor buried in the silt of the river.

The Turtles are too busy fighting the attendant Foot Ninjas and also disabling the shockwave cannon when it goes haywire and threatens the city, and eventually succeed and claim the sword for themselves, but lose the armor to the Foot.

Shredder doesn’t like partial victories, and even if he’s been looking for that armor for a *very* long time, getting it wasn’t worth losing the Sword, so he has his Henchmen killed for failing him and deciding that these nuclear turtle men have just gone higher on his priority list.

This is also the first episode (outside of the OP) to show the Shredders armor (he doesn’t wear it, it’s in a display case, he puts on a gauntlet in the closing show however), it implies that Shredder isn’t quite what he appears to be, Splinter is shown to be hiding the truth of his origins from his sons. Also, while it’s busted up all the heck, the armor dug out of the river was an Utrom droid

This is a good show!

 

[Daikaiju]

So good

 

[Octopus Prime]

Back to Nick for

Monkey Brains
Never Say Xever

 

[Egarwaen]

Okay, back to Nick for the next two;
I Think His Name is Baxter Stockman
Metalhead

I am… very excited

Okay I’m caught up to here with 2012 Turtles

The human characters mostly look awful. When your character design improves after being hideously mutated that’s not great. Notable exception: Baxter Stockman.

The Turtles’ designs all look pretty good and Splinter looks incredible. Overall the visual style is very distinctive. The action sequences are fun too. The initial two parter was solid. Turtle Temper tries to get a little too much mileage out of an antagonist who’s… pretty dull, and the Raph bits don’t land. New Friend and Metalhead are great character pieces for Mike and Donny. Baxter Stockman doesn’t have much going on, but the giant robot is cool.

 

[Egarwaen]

Back to Nick for

Monkey Brains
Never Say Xever

Monkey Brains - pretty good monster of the week episode though weird we get two Donny focus episodes back to back. I wish they’d cut it out with the bo gags already, but it was funny that Donny’s relationship flowchart was actually effective.

Xever say Beaver - really good episode maybe the best so far. Leo focus episodes are a tough game, since there’s not much you can do with “stoic leader”, but this finds an angle that works. Both big fight sequences are great, and even the Foot Soldiers manage to be pretty cool here.

Both episodes have some really solid April material; she’s able to do stuff and help out effectively, and doesn’t get kidnapped even once.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Monkey Brain is another MotW episode, but with the important distinction that it cast Jeffrey Combs as a mad scientist and expected me to to be surprised that he was secretly the bad guy. Of course he’s the bad guy; he’s Jeffrey Combs. The depiction of a fight against a psychic was really cool, and Donny learns an important lesson about not overthinking things. He does not learn to ease it the hell off with his obsession with April.

Never Say Xever is another Shredder focused episode, this time focusing on Leo dealing with the repercussions of letting a Purple Dragon henchman run away which lead to Xever and Bradford learning the turtles have a new friend in a blind chef, and decide to kidnap him to lure the Turtles out. Leo decides to kidnap Bradford in order to do a hostage exchange but it doesn’t work because Xever and Bradford do not like each other. I like this version of Leo, “trying very hard to be a leader” is more compelling than Already Is The Leader

 

[Octopus Prime]

On to Fox for

The Way of Invisibility
Fallen Angel

 

[Octopus Prime]

From the episode Summary, I assumed The Way of Invisibility was going to be a filler episode, but nope!

Shredder is completely out of chill regarding the nuclear turtle men who keep thwarting his various crimes (Baxter doesn’t believe they exist, despite them personally beating him up and blowing up his lab a few weeks ago) and forces Hun and Baxter to work together to investigate them further; Hun opts to have the Purple Dragons cover the city with Turtle-centric highly aggressive graffiti lure them out, and Baxter by upgrading the Foot Ninjas with advanced cybernetic armor (reverse engineered from the armor Shredder pulled out of the river last episode)To beat them up.

Meanwhile, Casey Jones invites himself to the Lair, and is a really obnoxious houseguest and the Turtles urge he and Raph to get the hell out because its easier to do that then deal with the two of them. Naturally, this leads to first a fight against the Dragons (Which they win) and then the Tech Ninjas (which they lose). Casey gets away while a Raph is captured and lets everyone know that the cities growing Ninja population is also now made up of Predators and the rest of the turtles mount a rescue, eventually succeeding because of Mikey thinking quickly and creatively to get past their technology superiority.

then we get two epilogues that put things in a pretty different direction; Hun reveals that, even under torture, Raph didn’t have the *slightest* clue what Hun was talking about with regard to Shredders “True Enemies”, which leads Shredder to think that maybe he could recruit the Turtles to his side.

and then we get Some Guy Who Looks Like Blade meeting with some creepy monotone talking guys who finish each others sentences having basically the same conversation.

 

[jpfriction]

I think I like 2012’s crazy purple brain aliens that talk like robots better than the matrix dudes in this one but both are fine.

I hate Casey in both, as is intended.