Nickelodeon TMNT Episode 1- How Was It?
 

Did any of you watch TMNT episode 1 yesterday? I have heard it was good, and ...was surprised. I only liked 1 trailer(Raph and Leo sparring), and I thought the other trailers looked lame. Anyways, discuss!

I thought it was decent. However, and I saw this coming, I can't get over Kevin Michael Richardson as Shredder and how he sounds like Killowog, and Panthro, and Roadblock, and Bulkhead.

I think it was great.

I really liked it. All 4 brothers have been fully fleshed out in the space of the 2-parter, with (for me) Mikey being the breakout star. The animation is decent and there's good action. April still looks weird, but it's not ruining the show

Interesting. If I like more of what I see later on, and if it makes it to Blu Ray, I might just wait for that.

I enjoyed it. I'm not expecting great things from it, but it's a fun watch. And there's nothing wrong with a toon that's just fun to watch.

I liked all the voices, Greg Cipes as Mikey indeed being the best. Perfect choice for that character. Sean Astin did a good job as a younger variation of Raphael. And I think Rob Paulsen makes a perfacetly fine Donatello.
The only one that felt a little flat at times was Jason Biggs as Leo. He wasn't bad by any means, but some of his line delivery felt oddly deadpan. Especially going off of the other three who all have very lively personalities.

I liked the animation, it was very nicely done for what they're going for with the visual style. The characters were lively in their movements and had a lot of personality.
I also thought the 4th wall, western-anime-wannabe gags were well used. They actually had a comedic timing, which is more then can be said for most western toons that try and pull this type of style off. The recent Ultimate Spiderman being the worst case.

All n all, I'll be turning in next week.

I really enjoyed it, and feel that this series has a lot of potential!
It certainly isn't the absolute ruination of all things TMNT as "someone" around here was loudly proclaiming back in the spring.

The good:
The characterizations I thought were really strong. They were true to the characters, and managed to be unique to all other interpritations as well.
The writing, I feel may make this a series to watch out for. It has the potential to become really smartly written.

The Bad:
The voices. While most are really good (Leo, Raph, Mike, Splinter, the Kraang were fun), I, too am really tired of Kevin Michael Richardson. He's a brilliant VA, but he's so unique, and so over exposed that hearing him in anything is one of the bigger letdowns.
Donnatello... while Rob Paulson isn't the worst thing to happen, he's not a voice actor I would ever choose for a strong action series. He's better for more traditional cartoons, like Animaniacs. Hearing him as Donatello (Especially after his previous stint as Raph, and sounding exactly the same) just takes me right out of it.

The CG almost kills it. At least for me. Just so much wrong, and felt very cheap (Though I'll conceed that like Beast wars, it may get better as the series progresses and they get a better budget). April got picked up one handed by the shoulder, and she had no sense of mass, weight, or gravity.

The ugly:
The anime gag takes were god aweful, in conjunction with the CGI. It is not a combination that works at all. Had it been traditionally animated, it wouldn't have bothered me at all.

I don't know if I agree on the whole KMR thing. I don't think there was enough of him in the episode to judge him as the shredder just yet. Or at least for me.
But I also don't agree generally with the whole mentality of because I know it's Michael Richardson, it's gonna take me out of it.
Mikey sounds just like -and in some ways acts just like- Beast Boy. But that shouldn't take anything away from the show. It's about the performance of the character. Not whether or not you recognize the voice actor.

I also don't agree with Jetty on the animation. But then that's Jetty and their general opinion on tv CGI toons.

Gotta love Mikey's guy-crush on Chuck Norr- err, Chris Bradford

Well I'm glad they're going about it differently mixing bits and pieces from this and that while adding their own spin on the series.

Otherwise a fun series overall.

Was a fun episode. Really liked the visuals of them flashing to a more Eastman & Laird take.

And they really toned down the anime style gag takes, which helped the episode a *lot.*

I liked the episode well enough, but it seemed like the overall message was never trust anyone and always fight dirty.

Splinters advice seemed kinda out of character to me. I might have felt better about it if he'd maybe said something more along the lines of: "You can't expect your enemy to fight fair. Sometimes you must meet them on their level."

When I was at the 2011 SDCC panel, one of the creators mentioned that he was a ninjutsu student in real life and wanted to bring elements of that martial art including it's philosophy to this cartoon in ways that were appropriate. I have trained in Ninjutsu for almost 10 yrs now and can appreciate some of the terms that have been thrown into this cartoon which are actually accurate. However, one thing the creator put in this cartoon that is accurate about ninjutsu is that ninja fight dirty. The idea of a fair fight was a samurai thing. The samurai were a privileged class back in feudal Japan who oppressed most of the country under orders from the Daimyos.

The Ninja were farmer class peasants who weren't allowed to carry weapons or practice martial arts and so had to develop themselves secretly often hiring ronin or warrior refugees to teach them and developed what they taught into something more like guerilla tactics from there. Heck the word "Ninja" is a term that has only been used to describe them as recently as the 20th century according to Masaaki Hatsumi (Soke of Bujinkan) and Shoto Tenumura (soke of the Genbukan). Their first rule was escape. Then win by any means necessary so they couldn't be traced back to their village and endanger their loved ones.

So in a way, that's exactly what may have been intended....but I'd have to agree with you I don't think that translates well as a message to today's generation of kids. Hopefully those kids are busy being caught up in this awesome new show to notice that though :p

I'm so far enjoying this show and really want my nephew to start watching it. So far he only wants to play Left for dead 2 all day on X-Box.

I think Splinter was trying to teach Leo, not to dwell in circumstances you have no control over. If they bad guys pull something, react to it. Like their counter trap. They knew they would be followed back to the sewer, so they used the home turf advantage.
The moral of the episode is, be careful meeting facebook friends in real life.

What Splinter said does ring true for true ninja. I also think it rings true for a father who would rather have his kids come home alive, than not come home at all because they were "fighting fair," against enemies who absolutely would not.

Yeah, I get that that's what they were going for, but the way Splinter put it still didn't feel quite right. Like I said, maybe if it had been worded better it'd have felt less petty then it came accross.

I still dig that show, though. It's not like I'm going to write the whole thing off just cause because of this.

lol true enough.

Agreed.

On another note, I actually like that these turtles actually behave more like teenagers than the original cartoon I grew up with. Mikey even more so than his over the top Cowabunga dudes 80's counterpart. He's such a little brother in this show that its humorous to me because my little brother acted almost exactly like he does...and it was infuriating, lol.

Also, so The Krang is apparently plural in this series so far?

From what we've seen so far, it seems "Krang" is both the name of their race as well the Krang themselves, as they all seem to refer to each other individually as "Krang."

I know this probably wont be the case, but it'd be cool if somewhere down the line they reveal that the Krang aren't a race of aliens but rather all clones of the "real" Krang who made them all as a personal army to conquer planets...Probably not ever gonna happen. But it'd be cool if it did.

I could dig that! I could really get behind that, bigtime! Me Likey!
With the "real" Kraang actually being Utron?

Yes, and it's actually spelled with two As now. The Kraang.

And I agree, definately like that they act like teenagers. And not just teenagers, but younger ones. The original cartoon, the turtles were almost extreme caricatures of teenagers.
Here, Leonardo understands the weight on his shoulders, and tries to be responcible. Raph is headstrong and confrontational, but not truely "angry." Mike as you pointed out is like the goofy kid brother (In fact, he reminds me of Aang, if Aang didn't have the weight and future of the entire world on his shoulders, and feeling like the whole war is his fault, and his fault alone). And Don, is... well... the AV geek.

And the feeling of family is strong, too. They feel like they all grew up together, and that they are actually brothers. They don't always get along, they're perfectly willing to turn on one another as soon as the right prank comes along. But you also feel like they love each other as a family does. Other versions I've watched or read never captured that. Not the original cartoon, the previous cartoon, or the Archie TMNT Adventures comics. Movies came close, but never quite hit it.
Splinter isn't just their teacher, he raised them. He loves them as his own children. And that feels true here, too.
Oh! There was one exception! The TMNT animated movie, I think hit that feeling of them being a true family pretty well.

^ that pretty much sums it up right there. Well stated.

To remain balanced and unbiased I will point out that the snake weed monster/villain felt more like a villain out of Darkwing Duck than anything truly menacing, and would prefer to agree with Mikey; he should have just turned into a snake creature, lol.

And before I forget, its awesome to me that mikey also has a kusarigama this time that his nunchuku seemingly turn into. I think Donny also has a naginata at some point. I have a feeling they're going to train April to be a Kunoichi too. That should be a hit for the female fans and pack some martial arts schools with more kids, lol.

I like where they're going with April, but I sorta feel they aren't taking it far enough.
My only real gripe with the writing of the premier two parter, is that april was dropped off with an unnamed, unseen aunt at the end.
I had hoped, that with her father kidnapped and MIA, that she was going to live with Splinter and the Turtles.
End up becoming a true part of the team, trained by Splinter (as it appears she will), and becoming their "face" so to say. The one who can go out into public.

Pretty much. They could even take a page out of IDW and call him General Krang.

Well, it has only been 4 episodes so far.
I'd actually find it more odd for April to just suddenly live with the Turtles after her father gets kidnapped. It makes sense that she would have other family to go to.
As for becoming a "face" for the team, they may still go in that direction. Like I said, it's only been like 4 episodes. 2 of which made up the premiere, so really it's more like 3.

So does anyone else find it weird that Raph has a pet turtle?

No more weird than David Shwimmer's Friends character having a pet monkey.
Or people raising Chimpanzees and Bonobos.

lol That's pretty much how I justified it to myself, as well. Though I dont blame robo for thinking its weird.

Something else that crossed my mind about Raph's pet turtle, who thinks he'll get mutated at some point in the series?