Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014) / YMMV

Alternative Character Interpretation: Was the Turtles joining Mikey in on his beat-boxing before the final battle with Shredder just a silly moment? Or did they realize that Shredder could kill any one of them, so they decided to have one last moment together as brothers in case one (or all) of them dies?
Angst? What Angst?: During the mountain fight scene, when Mikey thinks April, Vern and Leo, his own brother are dead, this is his reaction:
Mikey: NO! Leo! April! And that other guy! They were so young... So beautiful...
Raph: They ain't dead, numbnuts!
Mikey: Oh. Right on!
Awesome Music: Many of the instrumental tracks including the ending theme "Shell Shocked "KNOCK! KNOCK! YOU ABOUT TO GET SHELL SHOCKED!".
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The turtles get into an elevator after fighting for a while. On their way up to continue the fight, they beatbox out of nowhere.
Bile Fascination: With multiple instances of Tainted by the Preview and Michael Bay's involvement given his track record with adaptations of franchises in mind, various TMNT fans only watched the film to see if it actually ruined the franchise. Though most felt that this wasn't the case, others considered the movie to be "pure murdered childhood" and spread the word as such.
Broken Base:
- Was the use of performance capture and CGI over animatronics, like the earlier live-action films, a good thing or not?
- The faces of the Turtles, with a mix of human and reptilian features. Some think they look strange and bizarre, whilst others think they look perfectly suitable for the Turtles.
- The individual designs of the Turtles. Either they're cool and appropriate or way too cluttered.
- The Turtles and Splinter are revealed to have been lab animals who were April's "pets" back when her father studied the mutagen with Sacks, before the lab was destroyed and they were exposed to the mutagen by accident. This is similar to the IDW comics where April was an intern, but without the reincarnation aspect that still retained Hamato Yoshi's feud with the Shredder (who is immortal in that universe). Regardless, some think it's too contrived, while others like that Splinter and the turtles now have a more intimate connection to April, with them viewing her as a savior.
- The decision in post-production to make Eric Sacks and The Shredder separate characters. Some fans believe this was a good call that prevented Shredder from receiving a Race Lift and allowed the main villain to maintain a stronger connection to Ninjitsu. Other fans, however, feel that this decision did nothing to help the film, with some even saying it hurt the film overall. This camp cites that divorcing Shredder from Eric Sacks resulted in a messier film that causes Shredder to have no personal connection to Splinter (and by extension the Turtles), something that virtually every other incarnation of the character in the franchise is defined by.
- Michelangelo's attraction towards April. Some like it, others can not stand it at all, especially his "shell tightening" comment.
Character Rerailment: Vernon's portrayal which sees him as friends with April who helps her and Raph rescue the others has him closer to how he originally was portrayed in the first season of the '87 cartoon before he Took a Level in Jerkass and became April's cowardly rival.
Complete Monster:
- Oroku Saki, aka the Shredder, is a powerful leader of the mysterious organization called the Foot Clan, who terrorized the streets of New York City for many years. Having killed at least 32 people, Shredder, along with his adopted son/subordinate Eric Sacks, comes up with a scheme of developing a mutagen, which is capable of curing all toxins, solely so Shredder could infect the whole New York City with a flesh-eating toxin and kill countless people, while Eric Sacks would cure New York for a price. When the Turtles started meddling with his schemes, Shredder ordered Karai to take the entire subway tunnel worth of people as hostages and put bombs in it, solely to draw the Turtles out of the shadows. As the Turtles managed to stop the mechanism from releasing the toxin, Shredder tries to throw the toxins in the streets manually, on the heads of hundreds of people below the tower. After escaping from prison and making an alliance with Krang, Shredder helped him build the giant teleportation device, willing to sell out all Earth and humanity in exchange for power.
- Eric Sacks is a successful businessman in public and a high-ranking member of the Foot Clan in secret. Helping Shredder to develop a mutagen for their plan, Eric killed the father of April O'Neil, which Eric gloated about to April herself several years later, when he set the lab on fire. Discovering the existence of the Turtles and their lair, Eric notified Shredder, and after getting his hands on the Turtles, he tries to drain all the mutagen from the Turtles, slowly killing them. Revealing to the Turtles their Poison and Cure Gambit, which would kill thousands, Eric gloats about becoming "stupid rich" selling a cure and then has one of the Foot Soldiers infected with these toxins, solely to show their effect to the Turtles.
Director Displacement: Did you know that the director is Jonathan Liebesman? The teaser sure doesn't.
Fandom Rivalry: Had one with Guardians of the Galaxy (2014). They were released a week apart from each other, and they're both based on comic books with an anthropomorphic animal as one of the main characters. Didn't help that the film managed to steal the number 1 spot from them at the box office (although Guardians had a higher opening and much better reviews). Even more, Guardians actually took back the number 1 spot sometime afterward, with its sequel managing to outperform it while the next film to star this iteration of the Turtles proved to be a Franchise Killer.
Fan Nickname: "Woman in Yellow Jacket: The Movie", given how much the movie focuses on an In Name Only version of April O'Neil.
Hilarious in Hindsight:
- In hindsight, the backdraft for the whole "the Turtles is aliens" twist after the 2012 cartoon (also produced by Nickelodeon) revealed that April is essentially an alien in that series.
- To a lesser and more meta extent is the fact that the turtles look very similar to popular "realistic fanart". Another meta example is that the trailers have somehow caused people to ship Raph and April again.
- A meta example comes in the supposed 99-Cheese Pizza Splinter temps Mikey with. Despite Donny's insistence that such a pizza is a 'Culinary Impossibility', a famous pizza maker pulled it off.
- "Ooh, look, he's doing his Batman voice." becomes funny when it was announced that the Ninja Turtles will have a crossover with Batman in the Fall of 2015. Adding to this is that Vernon's actor, Will Arnett, voiced Batman in The LEGO Movie and The LEGO Batman Movie.
- When the trailers revealed the Turtles updated "more realistic" designs, many fans reacted negatively, while others continued to defend the movie and while some of the movie was reshot (to remove the Eric Sacks is the Shredder scenes), the movie was released with no changes made to the Turtles' designs. Then several years later, another movie adaptation similarly changed the established design of the main character, in favor of a similarly "more realistic" design, the fans reacted so negatively, that the release of the movie was delayed and the character's design was updated making it Truer to the Text and the movie was released, which received positive reaction and reviews.
I Knew It!: Many have predicted that Eric Sacks was just a Red Herring for the real Shredder. Though this detail was only due to reshoots, so it's quite likely intentional on the filmmakers' part.
Memetic Mutation:
- After the first trailer was released, many people noted the similarities in designs between the Turtles and Shrek.
- The scene where Michelangelo tries to assure April that his bandanna is just a mask and frightens her by showing his real face has spawned a lot of parody videos where Michelangelo unmasks himself as either another fictional character or as a different incarnation of the Ninja Turtles.
- TANT.^note
- "Michael Bay's Racist Alien Big Boobied Explosion".
- Thanks to the Ninja Turtles Cheesy Bites are back!
- The April/Raphael ship for those who don't... you know ship them together. While it had some basis in the 2012 cartoon (they were originally going to be love interests in the cartoon) it so far has no basis here except a few implications in the trailers that Raph might have been hanging out with April more than his brothers. Fans who haven't been following the Nick!2012 cartoon are especially confused by the support the pairing is getting.
- The lyrics to the "Shell Shocked" turtle's theme, "KNOCK! KNOCK! YOU ABOUT TO GET SHELL SHOCKED!".
Money-Making Shot: Shredder's introduction in full armor, fanning out his excessive number of blades. There is also Raphael crashing shell first into a humvee, flipping it over.
Moral Event Horizon: Eric Sacks is revealed to have crossed it years ago when he killed April's father, who had set fire to the Project Renaissance lab to prevent the Shredder from using it towards his own means.
Narm:
- The excessive amount of blades on Shredder's armor can seem goofy and ridiculous, even for a TMNT movie.
- The movie's European Spanish title, which was simply Ninja Turtles in Gratuitous English. While it can be understood as an attempt to differentiate the film from the 1990-1993 film trilogy, to many Spaniard viewers it sounded like a massive case of Xtreme Kool Letterz, given that it was just the English version of the franchise's lifelng name in Spain, Tortugas Ninja, probably following the Spanish pop culture stereotype that everything sounds cooler in English.
- Eric Sacks saying with a completely serious face that his scheme will make him not only rich, but "stupid rich".
Older Than They Think:
- Shredder's armor has received some nasty scrutiny from certain portions of the fanbase, with such comments that they turned him into "a Transformer", no doubt inspired by Michael Bay's involvement as producer — even though it's plainly obvious the character is simply wearing full-body Powered Armor, the design of which recalls the Shredder of the 2003 animated series. Some shots of the rooftop battle even show that his arms are exposed, just like nearly every older version.
- There were also complaints over Shredder not being Japanese. Considering that the Shredder has been an alien, a demonic abomination and a woman, this is hardly the most drastic change to his character. And it turns out, he is Japanese.
- Having the Turtles and Splinter be lab animals who April already knew back then is similar to the IDW Comics continuity, though with its own twists.
- Foot Soldiers relying heavily on firearms as opposed to martial arts training and stealth like what is typically expected of ninja also recalls the incarnations depicted in the original animated series, who on the basis of being robots were used repeatedly as Cannon Fodder.
Questionable Casting: Many were up in arms about the casting of Megan Fox as April O'Neil, due to her perceived lack of acting ability and looking the complete opposite of most April designs.
Retroactive Recognition: Both Malina Weissmann and K. Todd Freeman, who play Young April and Baxter Stockman here, would go on to play Violet Baudelaire and Mr. Poe in A Series of Unfortunate Events (2017).
The Scrappy: Eric Sacks is an unneeded new character who steals the spotlight not only from Shredder, who he was originally supposed to be, and to all intents and purposes, still is, but from Karai and Baxter Stockman as well. The tepid reaction to him is likely why he was never brought up in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows.
Shipping:
- People are once again shipping Raph and April due to minor implications presented in the trailers about the movie's plot.
- Mikey and April has a big set of followers, since all of their scenes together manages to be very funny, and surprisingly cute. It also helps when Megan Fox is a Shipper on Deck for the pair also.
Signature Scene: Even people who hated the movie remember the elevator scene fondly, a scene where the turtles do an impromptu beat in an elevator on their way to their epic battle against the Shredder in a brief moment of levity. The 2012 show even made a reference to it in one of its episodes.
So Bad, It's Good: The general consensus about the new theme song for the movie "Shell Shocked". While the song has been generally criticized for having nonsensical lyrics, many people have appreciated the song for its catchy beat and its general cheesy tone. Which is something previous rap songs about the live actions TMNT movies provided and were famed and appreciated in hindsight for as it fit in with the tone with the movies.
So Okay, It's Average: Many fans think the movie is not as terrible as its "rotten" Rotten Tomatoes score says^note, but not as iconic as the first one in 1990 which most consider the best of the lot. Note that all of the other films before Mutant Mayhem have been marked as "rotten". Many agree that the story isn't that good but the action sequences are memorable and it captures the personality of the turtles extremely well.
Squick: Anyone who is aware of what a turtle's "private area" looks like can tell you how disgusting that "I can feel my shell tightening" quote is.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Many of the choices have triggered this reaction.
- While the Turtles' more "realistic" appearances has its fair share of detractors and defenders, very few people are actually willing to defend their Hulking and massive size, most sighting it as an unnecessary change, as the Turtles have always been portrayed as short characters. Even the original movie portrayed them as being shorter than 5'7". The fact that they are massive and bulletproof makes them near invincible against everyone except the Powered Armor wearing Shredder and it also means they do not actually need their martial arts weapons anymore, as they are shown to be able to lift shipment containers and use them as improvised weapons. Them being stealthy despite being close to 7 feet tall and extremely massive also makes less sense.
- Eric Sacks being a white man version of Shredder also received similar reaction. While the final movie shows that him and the Shredder are two separate characters, it is very clearly a result of reshoots. Whenever any character mentions the Shredder as a separate person, it is very clearly redubbed while the character speaking is offscreen, Oroku Saki only appears in a handful of scenes and only interacts with Karai and Sacks and there is no scene of anyone putting on the Shredder armor at all. Sacks also is seen wearing an undershirt in the climax that looks suspiciously similar to Tony Stark's undershirts from Iron Man and The Avengers (2012), indicating he was supposed to wear the Shredder armor. Although, changing him back to a Japanese ninja also ended up a poor decision (see They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character).
- The Foot clan being turned into generic terrorists with guns from a clan of Ninja criminals was also not well received. As pointed out in this video, even Batman Begins, the movie that started the trend of dark and grounded reboots had a clan of evil Ninja as the main antagonists, so the arguments that Ninjas are too silly and unrealistic doesn't really hold water.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
- Both Splinter and Shredder, considering that neither of them is given much focus. Most fans agree that the movie would've been much better if it had just made sure to establish the classical feud between them, as usual.
- Conversely changing Sacks role because of complaints from the fanbase actually ended up hurting things in the long run as he was meant to be the Shredder in this rendition. Considering he had a hand in with the creation of the Turtles and Splinter, this would've allowed the above connection, even if it wasn't one to one from the comics. But because of the changes, this ended up giving Sacks nothing much to do but just be another greedy businessman toward the end of the movie.
- Karai. After years of only appearing in animation, one of the most interesting and morally ambiguous villains in TMNT finally gets an appearance in a live-action movie... and she ends up being merely used as an archetypical enforcer with no character development or actual traits to speak of, who can't even give a good fight against the Turtles.
Trailer Joke Decay: "It's just a mask" was shaping up to be this since it appeared in all of the early trailers, though its Memetic Mutation status didn't help. Luckily, later trailers and TV spots laid off on it.
Ugly Cute: As a result of the below trope. Many fans find the turtles cute in the most grotesque of ways.
Unexpected Character: Vernon, who hasn't been seen or mentioned since the 80's version (and wasn't even included in the 1990 movie in which April was likewise a reporter), was thought to be long forgotten. So it was a surprise to longtime fans when he suddenly showed up in a supporting role in this movie.
Unintentional Uncanny Valley: The turtles' faces have invoked a surprisingly more human appearance than one might expect, leading for some to have had this reaction to them.

YMMV / Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)

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