Stop the press! The first trailer for Paramount Pictures’ and Nickelodeon Movies’ reboot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is here as reported by Variety. Yes, in case you hadn’t heard, those over-sized humanoid talking turtles that know Karate are back on the big screen this Summer.
It’s been over 20 years since the last live-action TMNT movie hit the silver screen with Teenage Muntant Ninja Turtles III on March 17th, 1993. What began as an award-winning TV Cartoon Series of the same name back in 1987 quickly became a huge phenomenon nation-wide and internationally that spawned a profitable live-action movie franchise, several hit video games and more cartoon TV Series that are still in production to this day.
As can be expected from a reboot of this live-action franchise 20+ years after the last film released, evidence of today’s much improved visual effects, motion capture and producer Michael Bay’s signature stylized epic-scale chaos and destruction are on clear display.
Bay caused an uproar when he first described the turtles as an alien race originating from another world. As early as April 2013, however, he confused albeit relieved fans when he told Moviefone that, in fact, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were never considered to be from an alien race for the movie, and that they would indeed be drawing from the original source material that had these normal-sized turtles mutating as a result of contact with ‘the ooze.’ The trailer appears to confirm this plot point (see at 0:41 seconds). What’s not quite clear is the exact manner in which these four turtles come into contact with this ‘ooze.’ Perhaps we’ll get a better understanding of this detail in a future preview. For now, fans can breathe a sigh of relief that the green ‘ooze’ is, in fact, the reason for the turtles’ mutation.
Also of note, Megan Fox’s April O’Neil appears to be more deeply involved in this reboot of the franchise, and the turtles’ arch enemy, The Shredder, played by William Fichtner is not Japanese. Fichtner’s voice-over suggests he and April O’Neil’s father were directly involved in the creation of the mutant turtles. ‘That’s what your father and I were trying to do….create heroes, ” says William Fichtner’s voice-over in the trailer. Unlike the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles live-action movie from 1990, April O’Neil and The Shredder have a direct connection to the origination of the mutant turtles.
It all sounds and looks a lot like the web of secrets, lies, truth, science and lust for power that is the backdrop of The Amazing Spiderman franchise, which could be a recipe for success that works this time as well. We’ll have to wait and watch to see how fans respond to the updated reboot of this action adventure comedy. Wrath of the Titans’ Jonathan Liebesman is directing the picture from a script by Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol‘s Josh Applebaum and André Nemec.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles bows in theaters August 8.
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