Growing up with the name Raphael, the idea of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles appealed to me right away. Named after famous Renaissance artists, the four humanoid turtles fight crime and live by the ancient code of the Ninja, while eating pizza and living teenage lives. What could be better?

Actually, the characters were originally intended as a parody of super heros, created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird after a night of brainstorming. Who would have thought the characters would go on to become the stars of several cartoon series, video games, movies, and popular culture in general?

As someone who was in on the creation of the Turtles from early on, it was kind of fun watching the rest of the world suddenly embrace something that had been around for a while. At the same time the franchise rapidly changed over the years. To create a more family-friendly image, a lot of the turtles more violent and anarchistic tendencies were pushed aside for more dude-speak. There was even a female Turtle character added for one of the show’s incarnations, although considered apocryphal by most fans and at least one of the original creators.

But just because something is changed doesn’t mean it’s completely different, or all bad. Out of the four movies that have featured the four ninjas, at least half of them have been decent enough to be guilty pleasures. So grab some pizza, stretch out on the couch, and get ready for some turtle power with this week’s double feature.



Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Although the live action costumes may appear a little dated, at the time this movie was a monumental accomplishment. Fans didn’t think there was any way the Ninja Turtles could appear in a live action movie and for one picture the film industry proved them wrong. The characterizations were a mix of the cartoonish feel and the original Eastman & Laird characters, but with more emphasis on the latter, particularly Raphael who shows some of his anarchistic tendencies and inability to fit in with his brothers. The fight between Raphael and Casey Jones still provides some great quotable lines today. Mainly it’s just great to see how the film managed to maintain a strong connection to the film’s roots, from the ferocity of Shredder to April O’Neil as a reporter and even Casey’s bombastic vigilante attitude. The later films would be watered down by a silly Super-Shredder, Vanilla Ice, and freckles on the turtles – which are this franchise’s equivalent of nipples on the Batsuit, but for one picture the Turtles are presented fairly accurately and put out a pretty fun little movie full of good fights and a poppin’ soundtrack. (Jericho Alert: Jake Green himself (Skeet Ulrich) appears in an uncredited role as one of the thugs the turtles take on. Can you spot him?)





TMNT

If you want to ignore The Secret of the Ooze and the Turtle’s little jaunt to feudal Japan, TMNT actually works well as a direct sequel to the first film in the live action franchise. Shredder is dead. The brotherhood of the Turtles has been broken up, with Leonardo trying to become a better leader and Raphael moving to vigilante justice. Casey and April are together – although she’s given up on the reporting thing and moved into archeology. About the only thing that doesn’t mesh with the first film is the appearance of Karai, the daughter of Shredder, who hadn’t been introduced at the time the first Turtles movie had been made. The movie also shows that the more things change, the more they stay the same, as all the primary characters have to cope with the advancement of time while still dealing with the same themes of brotherhood and maturity that have always been a part of these stories. Personally, I think the CG animation works better for the characters, allowing everything to be equally stylized and not having to deal with costumes in a live action environment. Although a little light on the fighting sequences, TMNT is just as fun as the first Turtles movie, with an equally fun, albeit updated, soundtrack.





The less successful Turtle films: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III



Enjoy our Double Feature suggestions? and maybe we’ll use them in a future column.