[Crazy Jetty]

I just personally think the TF movies have absolutely no substance what so ever. It's all flash and bang, and nothing of substance.
Even worse, no substance with a design preference that I do not find the least bit enjoyable. So I don't even find the films visually appealing. I don't care how many billions of dollars they made. That means absolutely nothing to me, and does not make a movie I find to be very bad, good.
So "They made billions of dollars" as an argument is moot.

Worse yet, it's left us stuck with this godaweful asthetic everywhere. IDW made all their comics change to something simular. TF Prime is movie asthetic (Worse than movie, actually. Because the prime asthetic is a very dulled down movie. They just look boring.)

And the movies did not save this franchise. The franchise had to be doing really well in the first place to GET to be turned into a movie with a $200m diollar budget. So if the movies did not exist, the state of the franchise would be different, but it would exist.

As for TMNT, at this stage everyone is overreacting, in either direction. People are either too freaked out, or too defencive.
For good or bad, Bay is a proven liar. He also at any given time has a very little understanding over the subject matter he talks about, and ends up bullshitting and talking out his ass.
He's also just a producer, and as has been pointed out is only attached because it's his production house.
It's way too early to freak out, or defend anything.
Rule #1: Michael Bay lies. He likes to get fans into a tizzy by spreading misinformation. Even after RotF was released, he still claimed Megatron was not in the movie.
Rule #2: Michael Bay usually doesn't know what he's talking about. There's lots of stuff he's said about TFs that he never really seemed to get.
The turtles may or may not be aliens. The draft he saw they may have been, but they may already have been revised three times since.