Teenage Alien Ninja Turtles — The Weirdness in Bay’s Head

So on Sunday, my wife happened see on Twitter that Michael Bay was changing the origins of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for his big-screen movie.

“How so?” I asked.

“He’s making them aliens.”

“… say what?”

So, I do some searching and I find this quote on io9:

When you see this movie, kids will believe one day that these turtles do exist, when we’re done with this movie. These turtles are from an alien race, and they are going to be tough, edgy, funny and completely loveable.

Okay, I admit. The premise of the Turtles isn’t believable. Turtles wander into some ooze, mutate into large versions of themselves and are able to talk and perform ninja fighting moves — it’s not based in reality.

But it kept true to their name: Teenage MUTANT Ninja Turtles.

I knew the backlash against Michael Bay would be loud, and I would have to agree with the dissenters — making them aliens goes against any of the origin stories out there.

Well, this morning, Action Figure Insider tweeted a link to ComingSoon.net in which they reported that Bay responded to the critics:

Fans need to take a breath, and chill. They have not read the script. Our team is working closely with one of the original creators of Ninja Turtles to help expand and give a more complex back story. Relax, we are including everything that made you become fans in the first place. We are just building a richer world.

Normally, I would agree that this is the proper thing to do. Fans can overreact when someone comes in and changes the One True Story about their beloved franchise. But this is not normal. This is changing the very essence of the Turtles. They aren’t misfits trying to fit into society. Now they’re from another world? Please.

Now, I do disagree with people who say that Bay ruins everything that he gets his hands on. I think he did a great thing with the Transformers movie franchise. The first movie was a fun action flick, filled with robot fights and Optimus Prime and humor and lots of good stuff. The second movie was bad (I completely renounce my review of it and beg your forgiveness for being caught up in the dizzying spectacle), and the third, while not as good at the first, did redeem itself for having, you know, a story. Still, they took the Transformers franchise to new heights, making sure that kids and adults will have their Robots in Disguise for years to come. I can still remember the dark period of the early 90’s where there was nothing for us, and the line almost died. Bay’s movies helped push Transformers to some of the highest heights us fans have ever known.

So, Bay doesn’t kill everything, in my view. But his words don’t fill me with hope, that’s for sure. The Transformers movies, while misguided at times, still were about robots that transform, Autobots vs. Decepticons, good vs. evil. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles looks like it’ll be about turtles who can fight, but nothing mutant about them.

And that’s completely not understanding the Turtles at all.