Small Screen Surfin'
Created | Updated Nov 6, 2003
I don't want to contradict the last Small Screen Surfin' about my opinion of remakes, but when somebody decides to remake a programme you used to love, you're either going to celebrate or expect a nasty, smelly pile of script, music and characterisation.
This week I want to compare Teenage Mutant Hero1 Turtles with the aptly named remake: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. For those that don't know, TMNT was a cartoon that starred four turtles that had been mutated by some chemicals making them able to reason, walk and talk etc. These four - Michelangelo, Donatello, Raphael and Leonardo2 - learnt ninjitsu from a mutated rat called Splinter. They lived in the sewers of New York, eat pizzas, and said 'cowabunga' a lot. Occasionally stopping to fight the evil Shredder intent on taking the world with their individual weapons: L- Swords, M- nunchuka, D- staff, R- sai.
I can't be unbiased in this as I love the original series, but the remake is quite good, give or take a few nitpicks :
Nitpick 1: The Turtles...
It was simple. Leonardo was the leader, Michelangelo was the party animal, Raphael was the rebel, and Donatello was the science/smart one. But in the new creation, Raphael3 is foremost where they were once equal. Leonardo, still the leader, barely speaks at all. As for Donatello, who had a great brain and could fight to boot, has been camped up... It's probably the purple bandana but there was no reason to attempt to be politically correct. It was correct in the '80s! He even does that limp-wristed 'get-away' movement!
Nitpick 2: April
She WAS an independent reporter with attitude and whenever she was kidnapped, would try her own escape instead of waiting rescue. Now she's a scientist and I've only seen her once!
Nitpick 3: Splinter
The sensei. The 80s had us believe that he learnt his skills in a cage at a dojo with his master before mutation. The new series avoids it as some kind of joke. He's also grey now. There was something quite nice about the fact that he could fight as well as being a brown rat: feared for disease spreading.
Nitpick 4: Bebop and Rocksteady
Two punks off the street that Shredder mutated turning them into a boar and a rhino respectively... Where are they?
Other than that the show is quite good. I miss the 'turtle power!' theme tune but it's accepted that times change and what's popular needs to be predominant but I miss it! >Oh, and the cowabunga references have been given to Michelangelo who usually makes Marvel comic jokes... but that's probably because of the city. There are more fights as well but almost all enemies bar Shredder (now The Shredder) are robots... Boo! Horrible PC world! It'll be interesting to see if Kang is put in the show seeing as he was a mutated (a theme methinks) brain that sat in the stomach of a robot...
Next week (hopefully): Star Wars Clone War
