The Fandom Portals Podcast
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The Fandom Portals Podcast
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) - Part Two: Raphael's Rage and Donatello's Development. Splinter the Master of Mentoring, Family and Ninjitsu!
Episode Overview:
What makes a person gravitate toward Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, or Michelangelo? According to Aaron, a classroom teacher by day and podcast host by night, your favourite Ninja Turtle reveals more about your personality than you might think. We unpack this fascinating psychology while diving deep into the groundbreaking 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film.
Raphael's Emotional Journey and Donatello's Lack of Development:
The film's attempt to balance the darker comic book origins with the lighter animated series created something uniquely special, though not without its contradictions. We explore Raphael's emotional journey as he learns to channel his anger constructively, while lamenting Donatello's underdevelopment despite being a fan favourite. The practical action sequences—with their Power Rangers-esque fighting style—remind us of an era before CGI dominated action filmmaking.
Mentors and Family in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:
Perhaps most compelling is our discussion of Master Splinter as the ideal mentor figure, offering wisdom and warmth in contrast to Shredder's predatory exploitation of vulnerable youth. This lens reveals surprising depth in what could have been dismissed as just another children's film. The turtles' unconventional family unit—with all its dysfunction, conflict, and ultimate loyalty—continues to resonate across generations because it reflects our own complex family dynamics.
Key Takeaways:
• Discussing how each turtle's personality connects to different types of people – Leonardo (leadership), Donatello (tech-savvy), Raphael (emotional), Michelangelo (fun-loving)
• Examining the underdevelopment of Donatello in the film despite his importance in other TMNT adaptations
• Analyzing Raphael's emotional journey as he learns to channel his anger and trust his family
• Critiquing the film's uneven dialogue, which ranges from teen slang to overly expository
• Evaluating the practical action sequences, considering the limitations of the turtle suits
• Discussing the tonal balance between the darker comic book source material and the lighter animated series
• Highlighting Master Splinter as the ideal mentor figure in contrast to the predatory Shredder
• Exploring how the turtles represent a non-traditional but loving family unit that continues to resonate with audiences
Apple Podcast Tags:
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, TMNT 1990, Jim Henson, Raphael TMNT, Leonardo TMNT, Donatello TMNT, Michelangelo TMNT, Shredder TMNT, Splinter TMNT, TMNT Movie Review, TMNT Nostalgia, 90s Movies, Comic Book Movies, Geek Freaks Network, Fandom Portals Podcast
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Hello everybody. It's Aaron here from the Phantom Portals podcast, joined as always by my co-host Brash. What's going on? Cowabunga dude, oh Cowabunga we're back again.
Speaker 2:I prefer Cowabunga.
Speaker 1:We're back again for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from 1990. This one was directed by Steve Barron, by writers Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. They were actually the creators of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It's starring Judith Hogue and Elias Cochez as April O'Neill and Casey Jones respectively. This one was our portalist pick, which means our community picked for us to do this one, more specifically by Oriole Seth. Thank you from our threads community. You suggested this one and our community voted it as the one they wanted us to do.
Speaker 1:So the teenage mutant Ninja turtles is a movie that features four teenage mutant Ninja turtles, believe it or not, that emerged from the shadows to protect New York city from a gang of criminal ninjas. Now, in this episode, we're going to be talking about the characters of Raphael and Donatello. More specifically, in our Popcorn Perspectives segment. We're going to be doing a real deal segment and we're going to be talking about our most valuable takeaways. So let's get into it right now. Our Popcorn Perspectives segment is where the hosts take one character from the media each and analyze the development and growth throughout the movie. We express to our co-host how this character should have been viewed in your opinion and the meaningful connections the character arc has to the themes or the plot of the movie Brash. Before we get started on our specific turtles, let's have a little bit of a talk about the turtles in general. So all four of them put together. They're very different, aren't they?
Speaker 2:Yes, but I have opinions, yes, or thoughts which will lead into my topic.
Speaker 1:Very good. Okay, so my favorite thing about the turtles is so everybody knows, I'm a classroom teacher. A lot of people might ask you know, to get to know somebody, you know what's your star sign, or they might ask you what's your favorite color. But one thing I always ask who's your favorite turtle Students, exactly what's your favorite turtle? And the reason I ask that is because I can get a really good read on what that kid is like based on the turtle that they enjoy. So if they're a kid that really likes Donatello, for example, they might be into gaming. They might be into you know, and they might be very, very kind as well, because Donatello's very very kind.
Speaker 1:If they like Michelangelo, they're obviously into a little bit of fun, like there's just some psychological, skateboarding, surfing, that sort of sporty sort of stuff.
Speaker 2:If they're Leonardo, more serious probably Leadership orientation.
Speaker 1:Likes taking charge or captain a football team or something like that, and then Raphael, football team or something like that. Uh, and then rafael, obviously you've got all your violence. Yeah, you're just just just, yeah, bad apples, yeah, all those kids that need a little bit of a bit of support and uh, yeah, or you know, conversely as well, sometimes rafael is the, the character that sensitive kids like as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as I say like, like is like the ones that um like have that out of, like tough out of shell, but uh, stuff in the middle, yeah, exactly so, yeah, they all have their different kind of, and that's the appeal of the turtles, is that they're so different.
Speaker 1:They all have their different skills and strengths and kids are drawn on, people are drawn to a different one. So it's very good to get to know somebody if you want to talk to them about their favorite turtle. So, brash, who's your favorite turtle? Mine's actually Donatello. Oh man, my little brother, dylan, shout out Dylan, how you going buddy and my son, river loved Donatello. Yep, and you know what, growing up I thought he was the least popular turtle.
Speaker 2:Yeah, really Well. I mean, in a way, I can sort of also see that who's your favourite.
Speaker 1:My favourite turtle growing up always was Leonardo. The way that I liked Leonardo was because he had the best weapon, he was obviously in charge of the turtles and he was very morally correct. I have a very strong sense of justice. Whether that's good or bad, that's just where I align. But since I've become a man, and. I'm watching the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Speaker 2:I actually like Raphael a lot better yeah, he has that sort of and they do show it in a lot of the shows where he goes from, like he's at the heart at Shelby's probably the most sensitive of the lot. Like out of all of them he's probably the most prone to cry yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Well, that's that's why I like him too, because looking at him, I can see that you know, I have a pretty sensitive temperament and he also has a pretty sensitive temperament, and the reason that he seems so aggressive outwardly is because he has a lot of emotions and he's trying to deal with them in the best way that he can. So that's my transition with. My favorite sort of turtle was Leonardo, now Raphael, and I know psychologically why I was drawn to them too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, leonardo has to be like. He was always my second favorite. And then Raph. I hated Mikey Really. I thought he was just annoying. He's never been my favorite, but I never hated him.
Speaker 1:I hated Mikey really. I thought he was just annoying. He's never been my favourite but I never hated him.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't say I hated him. He was just my least favourite because I thought he was like I thought he was more annoying than anything else yeah, he was a a liability. He was loud, he was a liability to the team and that as because we've both been watching Black Clover lately. Yeah, aster's the same.
Speaker 1:I can.
Speaker 2:I'm struggling through it. I've already watched it all before, but I'm struggling through it again. But I'm like, oh my God, it's just how annoying and loud after it is always yeah, exactly, and I think it's just gotten even more for me since I've gotten older and gotten grumpier.
Speaker 1:That like loud noises just piss me off. Yeah, in terms of Michelangelo, when they're representing him in a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie or TV show, there is definitely a fine line, and I've watched some representations of Mikey where he is just absolutely annoying. Can't stand him, yeah. But then there are some times where he is just enough to break the serious tone of whatever they're trying to do.
Speaker 2:And I find that in the 2003, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles show that one there. That's when I actually was like, oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:He was a spot on. I reckon he was really good. Yeah, yeah, if you're going to watch any Turtles, guys go out and watch that TMNT from 2023. And this one, in my opinion, the 1990 version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. But we have digressed. We must have digressed. We have digressed. This is our Popcorn Perspective segment, and Brash has picked Donatello to talk about in terms of his character arc, and I have picked Raphael. So, brash, would you like to take us away with Donatello?
Speaker 2:So Donatello, he's the well, I would say, the most more intelligent tech savvy, the turtle, hence why? As you said in our last episode how he's got the stick? Because Splinter Woman seems to be more simplistic, because his fancy gadgets and everything like that. They don't do that in this movie.
Speaker 1:They don't. I actually don't see him with a gadget or inventing or on a computer at all. The closest we get to it is the middle scene on the farm where he is helping Casey Jones fix the vehicle.
Speaker 2:And he has no idea what he's doing. Like to be fair enough, they're like teenagers, but realistically, if you were to take Donatello out of that movie, I don't think anything would change.
Speaker 1:I kind of agree with you there. He's definitely the most underdeveloped turtle. I think he and Mikey sort of sit together a lot because they're almost the lighter tone yeah and that's my second thing.
Speaker 2:I love the fact that in this they seem very teenage. All of them seem very teenage and I love that because they're meant to be teenage ninja turtles, not 30-something year old men playing teenagers, and I I love that fact and it comes off like in some of the childish antics that they get up to and everything like that and the way they speak and everything like that and their cockiness and everything. It's just all perfect. But I feel like Donatello is left because there's no specific and I think I think it might be. Tello is left because there's no specific and I think it might be because of the sort of the time that it was made, the movie was made and probably constraints on length and budget and budget. They couldn't really do any sort of thing. Like techie, Realistically, when he's helping Casey fix that car. Donatello, realistically, he built their turn on the bill Like he should be able to fix that in a second. He should go get some paper clips and some chewing gum and turn that thing into a rocket ship.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's um, that's his special talent, yeah.
Speaker 2:He's, he's the MacGyver of the group. He like he can turn. He lived in a sewer scrap and makes a supercomputer and they don't do any of that in um like yes, they're. All they really had to work off was the comics and the um, the cartoon which had some techie aspects, I think even in the cartoon he was quite, he was quite tech savvy, but they probably didn't.
Speaker 2:There wasn't really like in the later ones where they had their big turtle computer, supercomputer and all the hoverboards and everything like that, and the shell phones and the shell phones yeah, the goggles Like.
Speaker 1:He was always the one in the later cartoons that carried the sports bag full of gear. Full of gear. Yeah, all the others were obviously travel light because they were obviously offensive or defensive in mind for the Ninja Turtles mission, but he always carried a bag of stuff.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I understand that, but I just felt like he just didn't get to do Donnie things. Yeah, he didn't get to be him, he was just like a secondary.
Speaker 1:Michelangelo? Yeah, I think so too. He was the one that Michelangelo reacted to Michelangelo's jokes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and Michelangelo and.
Speaker 1:Donnie were there to offset the tension that was there between Leonardo and Raphael. I think, like they always portrayed Donatello as the smarter, more nerdy turtle, and they did kind of have a tiny little moment of that at the very start, when they're trying to riff off their new catchphrase and they're saying, like you know, to make fun of him, use some like flashy word and they're like what?
Speaker 1:he's like bossa nova, and then it's like bossa nova, and then they turn around and make fun of him, and then it's like chevy nova, chevy nova. It's almost like you know. He's just like excellent, yeah, it's like how the you know, the nerd of the group doesn't really get the social context and doesn't really get the like the in words at the time, so they turn around. The only really thing that you see, that develops his character a little bit in this movie it's more making fun of him because he's a nerd, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:The only thing that shows him as a nerd is him being made fun of. Yeah, so that was my take on Donnie in the movie, which was a little bit disappointing Because when I was re-watching it again, I was like it's Donatello, sorry, not Donate's Leonardo, raphael, michelangelo and Michelangelo too, yeah, yeah, yeah, because, like him and Mikey were always together, buddied up and they like, like, when they had the dancing scene with the tequila, they were the ones dancing together doing the tequila, while, um, this is one of the things that freaked me out the most was Leonardo, which is just sitting there. I'm like, guy, stop, that's weird. And then Ralph went off to see the movie.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, it was just always Michelangelo doing Michelangelo things and then Donatello sort of being like that nerdy younger brother that has to try and follow behind the cool and agree with all the cool things that the cool brother's doing, because you know he doesn't want to seem like the nerd and yeah. So that was a little disappointing for me personally. But, um, because, yeah, donatello's my favorite, I love Donatello, but yeah, that was my take on that, which was, yeah, disappointing. I loved the fact that Donatello for me in that movie he wasn't Donatello.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I can see that and I think that you know it might have something to do with the budget constraints this being only made on a $13 million budget and most of it being geared towards the suits and the animatronics and hiring all the actors to actually bring those turtles to life, all the actors to actually bring those turtles to life. Maybe they didn't have enough time to develop his character because it's only a 94-minute movie or something like that, and you know we have spoken before about how movies that have multiple characters find it hard to develop a lot of them significantly. It'd be interesting to see the, because I actually have never seen Secret of the Ooze, but I have obviously seen Teenage Mutant Ninja.
Speaker 2:Turtles 3. I've seen more, but honestly, honestly, I couldn't tell you what happens in the Secret of the Earth yeah, I think I have seen it, but I don't remember it yeah, maybe, maybe he gets more development in that space there.
Speaker 1:but I agree with everything that you said, brash, I think he is. He's not the Donatello that I know and love, and you might say that the things we love about Donatello developed in the later cartoons and movies and stuff, but he's definitely that way inclined in the comic books too. He's the tech savvy turtle. He's the one. That's the thing, and you know, all of the action figures that came out in the eighties and the nineties always had Donatello with various different tech gear, so it was definitely part of his character that was missing from this movie. Absolutely agree In terms of his arc, usually in this part we talk about his arc.
Speaker 2:He didn't really have an arc. No, he didn't, he was just always. He was just always the turtle. That was just there. That if someone needed someone to reply off, like have a reply from, or just someone there's, like if someone's to acknowledge what's being said into further progression of the story, he was there. Yeah, but other than that he didn't really have any sort of plot points.
Speaker 2:And mikey's almost the same. But Mikey has that comic relief sort of role, purpose, yeah and purpose in the whole movie, because I feel like, out of all of them, it's more about Leonardo and Raphael, which usually is always the case. I find, when it comes to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, it's always Raph and Leo as the mains. Well, they sold the most toys, true, well, because they get all the. They get all the like, all the screen time, um, but like, like, I'm saying like and they're always the ones that are fighting over who gets to be the leader. And then Mikey's always the one trying to cool the heads between Leo and Raph and they're always like Donatello's, just like even in some of the later ones, like they're all fighting and Mikey's trying to break them up and he's off on his computer doing computer-y shit.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And not even involved in that sort of thing at all.
Speaker 1:I think it's funny that if we you know how we were talking about Donatello being the sort of nerdy outsider of this crew of turtles Makes sense. Well, in the latest one, mutant Mayhem, you see Raph, donnie and also Mikey banding together a lot more and poking more fun at Leo, because he's the one that's always saying we need to follow what Splinter's telling us.
Speaker 1:So it's funny how that cultural shift has happened over the last 35 years, where the turtles represent the teenagers, where you know being being a nerd or being tech savvy like that it is kind of ostracizing, but now it's like following the rules, I guess you could say, and what the adults tell you, and not wanting to sneak out at night and using your phone past curfew is is the thing that is yeah, so like the more straight laced, serious one now is one that gets made fun of.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like sort of like in the Marvel movies how they all make fun of Captain America for like, not like, swearing and swearing and not swearing and the like, and being the stiff straight-laced person.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's an interesting cultural change.
Speaker 1:But in terms of Donatello in this movie, I absolutely agree no arc no-transcript the scene with the with the car, because you only see his, his left arm and his head, yeah, so maybe that was actually just those parts of the the turtle there. All right, let's go into, uh, my, my turtle, which is Raphael. So, as we spoke about, raphael is definitely the most hot-headed, he's the most emotionally impulsive, he's the most aggressive. Anger is something that isn't second nature to him. He kind of revolves around that space of feeling, a feeling reacting to a feeling, and he's always really presented as the turtle that is cruel, but cool, but crude, is what they say in the 1987 cartoon.
Speaker 1:He's exemplified by a struggle with internal conflict and that's how we meet Raphael and he's always the one that's kind of alone from the other three brothers and Splinter actually says this in the movie where he says you know, anger clouds the mind turned inwards. It is an unconquerable enemy. You are unique among your brothers but you choose to face this enemy alone. But as you face it, do not forget them. So he's always pitted as the one that's by himself. We see him putting the trench coat and hat on at the start of the movie where he's going out to see various different movies when he is angry at something.
Speaker 2:on fact, though, the movie that when he comes out and it's the creatures movie that was actually going to be a bad suit, cause at the time Batman was just coming out the 89.
Speaker 1:Batman.
Speaker 2:So there was going to be a reference to him watching, of going and seeing a Batman movie, the Batman movie coming out and saying cool car shit costume yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, a lot of those scenes were actually shot in New York, but with with that, it actually exemplifies one of the times, one of the many times in the movie where Raph actually goes out on his own because he's feeling a big feeling, Like he's feeling angry or he's feeling upset or he's lost his sigh. He's angry with himself. He's angry with himself, very self-critical. He's the one that has a lot of the dialogue scenes with Splinter and he's also the one that probably has the most growth through the movie.
Speaker 1:In the second act of the movie it's culminating to the point where he goes and does angry gymnastics out on the roof and is spotted by Casey Jones and that's what instigates his spectacular beatdown. That actually causes him to be indisposed for the middle part of the movie. It's where the Turtles really learn okay, we need to actually gather around Raphael, we need to help support him in his internal conflicts that he's having. And it's also where Raphael learns that anger isn't a strength when it's left unchecked or when it is outwardly expressed in an uncontrolled way. Strength comes from lessons of emotional intelligence and being able to, you know, be vulnerable, show that raw emotion, but also realize that his isolation and refusal to listen to his brothers is a danger for himself and his family as well. So when he learns that, he's then able to come up with different sort of outlets for his anger.
Speaker 2:Speaking on wrath, how they just threw him in that absolutely hilarious. He's got like one arm hanging out oh yeah, in the recovery position all one arm hanging out, he's like legs all twisted up and shit. And then they come in and like gets a cup of water and just like sprinkle it on his arm it's like the dude's, like like he'd wake up with like every part of him being sore from the way he is positioned. It is horrid.
Speaker 1:And you know, there's also the scene where he falls from the roof through the glass onto the antiques shop floor and you actually see him bounce a little bit and they come over and comfort him and they push down on him and you can tell that that's like a rubber mannequin and not really the actor. But think that through that it's definitely like a bit a bit comical and 90s aged, you might say as well but no, don't put him in a better thing.
Speaker 2:Like I know he's a turtle and needs water for some reason, but like the thing is, like none of the guys you don't see any other guys speaking water themselves but um, yeah, oh, that made me. That made me giggle a bit when I saw that again.
Speaker 1:But in that scene and know, when he wakes up and then ends up reconciling with Leonardo, who he's constantly at odds with, that's when he starts to, you know, accept his family. He learns not to suppress his emotions but he learns to channel them constructively and at the end of the movie he's not really an emotion like. He hasn't lost those emotions. He's still definitely a sensitive sort of person, but he is. He is leaning on those that are around him and he's also, uh, learnt some skills and some trust in his family to be able to be himself, show those vulnerable aspects of him and channel them into strength that way, instead of isolating himself, being angry and then lashing out and being thrown into a bathtub in a very unceremonious way. But, yeah, I think that that biggest thing for him is by the end of the movie he learns that element of trust which is his growth through the film as well. So he definitely goes through the most and that's similar through a lot of Teenage Mutant, ninja Turtles stories, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Raph's usually the one. It's always Raph and Leo fighting and it's always Raph coming to terms with his anger issues.
Speaker 1:Yep His issues and in the 2007 animated movie they actually physically fight on the rooftop, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because Raph is dressed up in his Nightwalker. Yeah, Nightwalker.
Speaker 1:Something like that, yeah.
Speaker 2:And get up, which is really cool.
Speaker 1:It's really good, Like that movie's actually not too bad. That movie. That's one of my favourite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, yeah, and also I'm pretty sure Leonardo is voiced by Yuri Lowenthal in that movie as well, yeah. Great voice actor, amazing. But yeah, his arc in this in the 1990 version is probably my favorite part of the movie and I also love his friendship with Casey Jones and how that develops as well.
Speaker 2:Because they've always been the closest friends.
Speaker 1:those two Because Jones and how that developed as well, because they've always been the closest friends, those two, because they're very, very similar, yeah, and yeah.
Speaker 2:They're both children that use aggression yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that's why he's popular to a lot of like young boys, because not only do they see a little bit of themselves in him, but they also can see like the way that he presents strength. Yeah, I guess you could say and you might like, looking back now, because he was the toughest turtle and he was the one that was outwardly angry a lot of the time you might liken it like to the incredible hulk, where, where the hulk uses his anger as an outlet and then goes and smashes stuff which, if we're looking at a psychological perspective and the way we're sort of trying to parent kids and teach kids, like that's not very constructive. You can't really do that like if you get angry, you have rage rooms and I was gonna say you have rooms for that, yeah yeah, but you know, in general, generally speaking, it's not really the way that you deal with anger.
Speaker 1:However, the way that rafael deals with anger in a lot of these stories, where he he does have those outbursts and he does make mistakes, but he always comes back to his family and always tries to, you know, internally work on it through his, uh, emotional understanding of himself and others, that's sort of more like a healthy sort of push. It's funny, though, because, like when you, when you're emotionally heightened, you you have two, two options, like when you're feeling emotionally stressed, you know what those two options are let out, but let up. Well, yeah, you can do that, like fight or flight, basically, so he can fight verbally, outburst with his brothers, and then flight, which is run away, which is what he does all the time. Yeah, so he will go and avoid, and you know, you can take some time to reflect and time to take it in and process what you're feeling. But there's also that reconciliation that has to happen afterwards and that understanding which he never gets, because he always gets beaten the crap out of by puttin' inches of Casey Jones which is kind of like a consequence I guess a natural consequence to his inappropriate outbursts of anger. He always gets beaten up. Consequence to his inappropriate outbursts of anger, he always gets beaten up. So that's the lesson for rafael and why he ended up going through the arc that he did.
Speaker 1:All right, let's get to our real deal segment. All right, this is our real deal segment, where we randomly select a criteria or lens to the view the movie through. We discuss its elements with the intention of finding out whether it can be rated positively or negatively. Each week we name these criteria as positive or negative, with a fun element of the focus. Movie topics can range from cinematography, character development, all the way to villains and themes. Good rating this week brash, cowabunga, cowabunga man. And then bad rating is late pizza, never pay for late pizza. Let's generate our first real deal segment, remembering that good rating is cowabunga, then bad rating is late pizza, never pay for late pizza. Let's generate our first real deal segment, remembering that good rating is cowabunga and bad rating is late pizza. All right. So our first one is the dialogue. I might start with the dialogue here. Brash, this is probably my least favorite aspect of the film. Same yeah, and the. You know the dialogue, I know, but do you think that's because we're out of time in this.
Speaker 2:Well not really because I sort of grew up on this. Realistically it is a little bit before us because we were born in 1990 when it came out. But I grew up on an old 87 cartoon.
Speaker 1:And I found some of the lines. Just one one is, yeah, quite fit. Yeah, they're overly over exaggerated and obviously trying to pay on that, that teenage sort of surfer vibe that's made famous by the ninja turtles cartoon in 87. And you know, I don't think it's. It doesn't feel organic, which is funny to say about teenage mutant ninja turtles. But you want the dialogue to flow and tell a story and feel organic. But a lot of the one-liners were put in there for either comedic effect or to show that like radical sort of language that these people use.
Speaker 2:I remember because I got most of it. But I remember there was like one scene at the farmhouse and I think it's either Mikey, I think it was Mikey said a joke and so everyone was sort of like smoking and giving it a night. I'm like I get it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's my fear about a lot of the movies that are coming out now that are having pop culture references that are relevant to the audience today. When you're talking about the way that they hold up in 35 years' time, obviously there's jokes that they make about. I think it's Chaney was one of the impressions that Mikey did. That's probably absolutely hilarious in the 90s. That's lost on me. And then some of the you can tell it's sort of geared towards adult, because when they're talking about April and Casey's romance he says you know, see, it's exactly like Moonlighting, which is a TV show that was around during the 90s starring Bruce Willis. It was like a romantic TV show. That's the line. I didn't get the Moonlighting one.
Speaker 2:The Moonlighting one, I was like a, like a romantic TV show, that's the line. I didn't get the moonlighting one. The moonlighting one, I was like, sorry, moonlighting, I'm like I don't know. I didn't know about TV show until just now, but like moonlighting, I'm like moonlighting. It's just like working a separate job at night time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah yeah, it's a TV show, that's the thing. That's what I mean. Like there's a lot of 90s references in it, but I'm sure it was good at the time.
Speaker 2:What I heard was moonlighting as in. Moonlighting as in. You do a second job after your job at nighttime.
Speaker 1:But then you know, on the flip side of that they had some of that like one liners and now out of date 90s pop culture references, but then, through the middle act, dove into these elements of exposition Like she was writing a journal in her 12th grade formal, you know, the turtles are feeling so remorse. They are four again, but not full and all that kind of stuff. Like you know, it goes from that like tubular and excellent and all this teenage sort of stuff, and then it gets to To like old English Overly expository from April.
Speaker 1:Old English ink and quill writing and it's almost like you know they are specifically doing that so we can get the exposition that we need, which doesn't feel natural in a story like this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so when they had Splinter talking to the young kid, that was great because it was.
Speaker 1:Master Splinter sharing wisdom, all fathers love their children, or something like that.
Speaker 2:And he's talking to me and when he comes back there the second time and he actually starts talking about the turtles and everything like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the beauty of Master Splinter in this one Splinter, Master Splinter, even though he looks oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Like we talked about the turtles being kind of uncanny, he looks like he's been through it.
Speaker 1:I do like that about this movie, though, that I do like that about this movie, though, that he looks a little bit different and he looks like he's been through it and he's got that wet appearance all the time like a sewer rat.
Speaker 1:I love that, um, but one thing about Splinter a Splinter character in a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles always has to be wise and warm. They're my two musts, for Splinter has to be wise and he has to be warm Not warm as in a warm hug and caring. And when he's going through that dialogue with Danny, I think, because he's that kind of mentor, he's warm and he's he's, you know, wise. It comes off as like a natural conversational teaching moment because it fits the character.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's the same when he's talking to April, yep, when April first wakes up and he's able to calm her down and and Raphael as well.
Speaker 1:After he comes back he's beat down with with Casey Jones. He sort of talks to him and then you know you go into the origin story with the he's like I lost my side and he's like let it go let it go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's fine, we'll get another one, yeah chill.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's always. He's always that way inclined. But I feel like the dialogue with Splinter was good, but yeah, for me this is a bad. This is.
Speaker 2:I have to agree, late pizza, like some of the lines were really cool, like the initial, like the first time where they're like, where Donnie's trying to fit in, excellent, excellent.
Speaker 1:I think that was a Bill and Ted reference. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and like that, like that whole, that whole sort of first part I thought was really good, them getting the pizza or anything, I thought that whole into the actual movie and then had to add context for the movie is where I think they slipped, because they're trying to add context to like the because it's such a dark movie, which I don't like, which is, I think, another reason why the dialogue failed is because it's such a dark, heavy movie, although I think the director sort of leaned it towards that way.
Speaker 1:But then you've got these lighthearted characters that are all like surfy and yeah, mikey never really pulled out of the, the um, he never pulled out of the like the, the campy, quippy comic relief dialogue you know like, and that's and and the whole movie turned dark and serious.
Speaker 2:And then you got these teenagers that are still trying to be teenagerish and they're trying to make, they're trying to explain all these serious events that are happening and about their father figure and mentor possibly being dead or murdered or taken and they're all losing hope and everything like that, and this just doesn't quite translate because they're still making jokes over April and you know la laing at her and yeah, and the only serious scenes you have is like the bomb fire, like the campfire scene, when they were like do you see the turtles?
Speaker 1:the tears, tears and you know, someone queued the dropper on that one. It's just like cue the dropper it's like tears.
Speaker 2:But then you look at their faces and they still look like horrifyingly fucking happy yeah, because there's must be a sad function on the animatronics the only reason why you can probably tell they're sad is because they're going and then there's like a teardrop and you're like, oh, they're sad. If they didn't have that tear, I would have noticed.
Speaker 1:Alright, so you're writing a bad pizza. Bad pizza, alright, sweet. Bad pizza for the dialogue. Let's get our next one for our real deal segment. All right, our next one that we have generated is the action sequences. So this is where we're talking about, like practical stunts and the the martial arts sections of the movie. I think I read somewhere that the martial arts sections were all performed by the stuntmen, in the suits, obviously, and they filmed it at a slower speed and filmed it up, so it looked like you can tell a movie faster?
Speaker 2:yeah, in a few a few of the scenes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in a few of the scenes you could definitely tell, especially one where Donatello was in the antique store and spitting on his shell and knocking people over, and another one when they were doing a lot of the roundhouse kicks. You could definitely tell that they were sped up as well. That being said, these suits I believe they made a secondary more fluidly and as a result of that, they were able to get some of the combat scenes off. One thing I did like about it is sometimes in a low budget movie you don't see a lot of people fighting on the screen at once, whereas in this one we got some pull away shots where we got to see a lot of the turtles fighting shell to shell. You got a different sort of view on various different settings and scenes where you could see different parts of the fights happening in different areas and times.
Speaker 1:I have a real soft spot for this kind of combat style because it reminds me of the early Power Rangers stuff, which I absolutely loved, and the early Power Rangers movie, which I loved as well. So I think for me they're slower, they're exaggerated. I'm probably going to give this a cowabunga with a smell of late pizza for me. I think there were some good elements and some bad elements. I think there were some good elements and some bad elements. I think that overcame a lot of the like.
Speaker 1:The fight choreography was good. I think they overcame a lot of the technical aspects of having to fight in these cumbersome objects that they were using to to make it look like you know. That were okay. My biggest pet peeve with it was I was waiting for the end scene where they're facing the shredder, for the end scene where they're facing the Shredder, where the Turtles all learn that they're stronger together, because that's Splinter's ultimate lesson they're stronger together when they fight as a team, and then you know they go at him one by one one at a time one in, one in, and then you know, eventually it's Splinter that comes and saves the day.
Speaker 1:I think it would have been better for me as a moral kind of lesson. If they all sort of, I'll say, jumped him, it's not very honorable, but there's four on one and they fight better as a family. So I would have loved to see that, but I didn't. So for me it's a cowabunga with a hint of late pizza. What about you?
Speaker 2:So I agree with everything you said, and especially the Power Rangers thing. Like I sort of like, oh, this kicks, they miss punches, and then the bad guys like their punches going past and then they're like a split second later they're like, oh, I got hit. And then they do the whole twisted move and jump out of the way thing which is hit. Like watching it I was like, yeah, but for me I have to actually give you a bad pizza, you mean a late pizza there's no bad pizza just late pizza that chubbies for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have to agree with what a lot of the critics said about it, that there was too much violence in it. Instead of them taking on 20 people in this crowded room with those four turtles in those suits, just have I don't know five, six and actually have a combat instead of just a mishmash of just random making a swing and then someone's like just someone being there and having to jump out of the way saying thinking they got hit, like instead of that, like if they were more focused and because like you got tatsu, like tatsu is like one of their big henchmen, having like a one-on-one with him or like a one having like, even even having like, say, tatsu and two others that are similar strength to Tatsu in a way, and having those three fight the Turtles in more of a personal fight, I think would have been more beneficial.
Speaker 1:Or even just a Raph and Tatsu showdown, which then led to him being thrown through the roof. Even that would have been good, instead of him being jumped by 10 to 12 foot ninjas.
Speaker 2:But that fight I didn't really mind that much because there was the one turtle against a lot of guys, and that, not for me, is fine. But when they had all four trying to maneuver, though, especially when they're inside the building trying to maneuver all those guys around in that one space, it just become cluttered and claustrophobic. You could, you could see more, the more prominently you could see the power rangers fighting, where you could tell that he kicked and was nowhere near the bad guy and the bad guy went flying. It was just so prominent, I think from back back though. Back then, though, that was probably more, I think that was normalized.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was the way it was. And you know, the foot, the foot, ninjas seemed to be ineffective and almost like laughable in the fact that we're calling these things ninjas and they're literally running towards turtles and getting kicked away. It was more for the effect of it, I'd say.
Speaker 2:And they're meant to be all like trains by Shredder and Tatsu, and for them to actually wear the mask, they have to pass a certain sort of like, sort of like your belt grade Initiation yeah. So they've gone from like being the white belt all the way to black belt, to the white with yellow tips.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're like meant to have gone to like from being just kids on the street white belts to black belt ninjas and they're pretty much just all useless. Like the putty men from ninjas from, like the putty men from from uh, perringers. But, um, yeah, no, for me. I I didn't like, I think for the combat scenes. I sort of fast forwarded through the well, the combat because I was like eh, boring the combat scenes in a movie.
Speaker 1:You really want to build tension yeah so you want them to sort of right ebb and flow in in tension until it gets to a sort of critical mass point, and I don't think these fights were really choreographed in that way to do that story wise. I think they were choreographed to show flips and kicks and awesome stuff which is very reminiscent of hong kong cinema, martial arts movies, which is what this was funded and backed by as well, and they're always trying to like.
Speaker 2:They're always saying quips and one-liners throughout the fights. That's a comic comic book.
Speaker 1:Thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but the thing is it was so drowned out from the actual amount of shit going on on the screen that I couldn't even tell you one clip that they came up with when they're fighting, because all it was it was just an overload of just people on the screen randomly getting flung around everywhere. And then one of the guys would say something like what did you say? And like it just drowned out with all like the other, like all the music, the fighting effects and the fighting noises, yeah, it all sort of just drowns out like a mishmash of various different elements which really left the combat feeling ineffective is what you're saying, pretty much.
Speaker 1:Or in other words, late pizza, late pizza, yeah, okay, all right, so for the next one let's get it up. And the next one that we have up is the tone of the movie. So the word unique comes to mind for me. So they obviously had two different IPs to draw from when they were making this movie. They had the 1987 cartoon and they had the comic books and they're completely different tonally to each other.
Speaker 1:And I think Steve Barron, when he was directing this, obviously wanted to do a darker element to this movie in terms of the dark themes in this movie where there is elements of torture, there's kids smoking, it's basically showing a predatory kind of figure creating a gang out of wayward teens, which is also not so nice tonally uh, not not so nice tonally. There is street crime and all that kind of thing. That really points to this sort of darker, darker vibe which is very reminiscent of the comics. But then there are those adult comic book readers that would want to go and see this movie. But then the most successful thing about the teenage mutant ninja turtles was obviously the cartoon in the toy line which was making lots, of, lots of money. So the kids were also a bit of a pull and an audience to come to this Ninja Turtles movie. So totally, if you're trying to make this, you're going to disappoint either one or the other, and I think Steve Barron tried to get the best of both worlds in this. He tried to mesh both of them together.
Speaker 2:And that doesn't usually work out too well.
Speaker 1:It doesn't usually work out too well, so you usually get the people who love the darker, grittier elements of it and then the people who love the comedic sort of slapstick moments of it. I think this one, I think it does it okay in terms of meshing those two things together.
Speaker 2:What are your thoughts? I don't mind the kids smoking paying billions. It's a very Pinocchio themed sort of thing and I thought that was fine. I thought that was the whole thing of like come, children come children, you can do all this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, enticing Adults stuff, drink, beer, smoke do whatever you want.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're free to do whatever you want. Your parents hate you. We love you. Like. That sort of exploitation is something I liked. There was parts like when they're robbing April O'Neil's van and then they're like, ah, I'm gonna kill her.
Speaker 2:I'm like, ooh yeah, like it jumps to a thousand, yeah it goes from quick she's seen her, gotta get her, or something like that, or we need to tie her up or something like that or keep her quiet and stuff like that it's just like I'm gonna kill her. It's a bit radical, going from like yeah, one to a thousand. But um, in those moments there and even like down the subway when april gets slapped the shit out, yeah, it's like damn. I can sort of see why the actress for april was like didn't want to come back and was like no, this is probably a bit too violent and dark for me and like I can, I can see that and it would work for I don't know like a different kind of movie. But you're, you're talking about teenage mutant ninja, turtle yep, teenage is in the name. Having all these extremely adult, violent, uh, aspects to it, I think sort of just ruins that teenage part and I think is why, like, a lot of the dialogue sort of doesn't mesh up, as we said earlier, tonally.
Speaker 1:Like the story is good well, that's a lot of the. The actual story beats were taken straight from a comic book, yeah, so I think the story was really good.
Speaker 2:It's well written but I think, yeah, I think they were right in the in when they find the director.
Speaker 1:The direction of it, I think, was a bit off in terms of the ip and in terms of his steve barron's vision. Uh, they fired him obviously because there was a tonal imbalance between the audience's expectations and his production that he made. I read somewhere as well that they released this movie to a film festival audience in las vegas and the crowd was filled with, like adults and, obviously, a large smattering of children. That were their hype trailers. They got a little snippet here and there. Everybody was wondering what these turtles would look like on the screen, and then they'd watch the movie and there were parts that they obviously loved and then there were parts that they didn't like. So it didn't really get a full cowabunga from any of the audience members, old or young, and because of that it got middling and conflicting reviews.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I or young and because of that it got middling and conflicting reviews. Yeah, and I reckon some of the darker like themes to the movie and then seeing the turtle, I reckon some of these younger kids probably got scarred from yeah yeah, well, there was actually a darker scene as well, like when tatsu was beating the crap out of those foot ninja children to teach them discipline.
Speaker 1:Yeah, apparently in the original script it was scripted that that young foot ninja was supposed to die like, and then in post-production they added the vocals afterwards to say, oh, is he breathing? Yeah, he's breathing. Oh, he'll be okay. Like. That was added in after because everybody was like in screenings they're like that is way too dark. Yeah, for this adult person to to kill a small teenage kid. Yeah, uh, in a ninja turtles movie.
Speaker 2:Yeah so I understand he wanted to go a darker route, but I don't think ninja turtles is the way to do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, at least not when the fan base and the ip sits from the 1987 cartoon and you've obviously added elements of that cartoon in the movie which feeds into the children that are fans of teenage mutant ninja turtles wanting to go and see it I mean if at the, at the point, the storyline of the ronin around hell, yeah, he'd be jumping over that because that's very dark tones.
Speaker 2:Yep Danish Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Speaker 1:And then one thing that they kept in that was very surprising to me was after Splinter knocked Shredder off of the roof, he gets into the garbage truck and then Elias coaches casually as Casey Jones just presses on the compactor, crushes the man just committed murder. Everybody cheers, it's like, yeah, and you know, you can see how parents of the 90s who, let's say, they might have been a little bit less liberal than they might be today, probably had a bit of a problem with some of the things that are in the movie. So I think for me, tonally, I respect what they tried to do and I do like the tonally dark cartoon. However, it's like red and green in the washing machine Neither the two should they mix. So for me, for this it's going to be a late pizza.
Speaker 2:Ah yeah, I'm the same. Late pizza I'm the same. The story as a whole is good. I just think they should have picked the lane.
Speaker 1:That's a good comment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, keep it light or go dark.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:Well, you're always going to disappoint someone thinking that you're not.
Speaker 1:I think the confusion of this one and the tonal confusion of this one led to the poor audience reception of number two and number three, because you'd have those people that were expecting the darker tone going in and getting a very child-centric slapstick comedy version of the Turtles reminiscent of the cartoon.
Speaker 2:I love three. Yeah, I love three. It's probablystick comedy version of the Turtles, reminiscent of the cartoon I love three. Yeah, I love three. It's probably my favorite out of the three movies.
Speaker 1:Yep, and I think that they definitely have their audience and their space too. But I think the confusion of number one and the tonal difference is what set those two up to not be as successful as the first. Yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I still love the movie and love the Ninja Turtles.
Speaker 1:but yeah, I think pick a lane yeah pick a lane alright, let's get to our MVTs. Our most valuable takeaway segment is where we discuss the most important thing we learn from the media that we have watched. It could be something that extends our knowledge or something that we can apply to our life. It can be as simple as a piece of dialogue that stuck with us, or a thematic or moral lesson, or a technical piece of seminar of cinnamon that we want to discuss. Uh, most valuable takeaways. Brash, do you want to go first, or me?
Speaker 2:uh, you can go all right.
Speaker 1:So with me, the thing that struck me the most in this movie was the importance of positive role models for shaping the youth. So, most notably, we have two like gender doesn't really matter when it comes to role models for shaping the youth. So, most notably, we have two like gender doesn't really matter when it comes to role models. But in this particular movie we have two male role models in the form of Splinter, who represents wisdom, discipline and genuine care like we said before, wisdom and warmth. And then we have Shredder, who is very much about exploiting vulnerabilities and fuels misguided loyalties to very different kind of mentors. So if we're talking about splinter, he's patient, he's compassionate, he's unwavering. He's got this moral foundation. His approach to teaching the turtles is all about respect and honor. He always wants them to apply their strengths unique and individual strengths but he also tells them that their greatest strength comes from each other through brotherhood. He honors their self-discovery, allowing them to explore various different strengths of their own and also weaknesses. He encourages them to face their fears. He nurtures them in a fatherly sort of way and he teaches them self-control and responsibility, which is all of the hallmarks of a really good role model for youth children Like. He's stable as well and he's consistent, and that's the best part about Splinter. And then if we flip that coin and look at Shredder and the Foot Clan, a lot of his clientele will say lost youths or children. He presents a very predatory.
Speaker 1:Look at mentorship and you can see that Danny is the perfect example of the kind of clientele that he has in this movie. So if we're looking at the character of Danny, he's lost. He's searching for belonging, purpose and power and control, and that's something that a lot of young men, a lot of young teenage men, are looking for, even in today's society. It's not something that's culturally lost in the nineties, it's something that they're definitely looking for. And the shredder sort of gives them that illusion, that seductive illusion of freedom, like we said before, giving them exactly what they want, giving them a place where they can be themselves.
Speaker 1:In quote marks, however, there's a hierarchy here. It's got undertones of obedience that needs to be controlled through servitude. The roots of that leadership is like a facade, basically, and it's most poignant in the scene where Shredder says you are here because the outside world rejects you and this is your family now. So he's already trying to prey on that sense of isolation amongst these teenagers and obviously that is when Danny sort of starts to question his choices about joining the foot, and I think that it's a really, really, really good takeaway in terms of what positive mentorship looks like, and a lot of people should be warm and wise like master splinter, instead of predatory and power hungry, I guess you could say like the shredder yeah so that was kind of my takeaway and especially looking at a lot of society these days in terms of, like, where people fall into youth crime or where people fall into gang culture or different kind of ideologies like that, that kind of mentorship is really needed and I kind of I kind of have had a little bit of experience in this in terms of, like, my teaching profession.
Speaker 1:There was a little little fella obviously we'll keep it confidential, but um little fella who throughout his whole schooling time was very mistrusting towards a lot of teachers and authority figures, just because of how he was, and I think that he was outwardly aggressive, a lot like a lot of these foot ninjas were, and rafael as well, and he would like curse and use poor language and things like that, and he'd always abscond from classrooms, never feeling like he belonged, and then he was put into to my class.
Speaker 1:So it was really and I knew about all of this of thing with him.
Speaker 1:So I knew that the biggest thing that I had to do with him was value connection over correction, which is the approach I kind of took with him.
Speaker 1:So I wanted to know who he was to start with. I valued the fact that he was a person who had strengths of his own and he definitely had some weaknesses, and I didn't look to correct any of those weaknesses or help him along his learning journey, because there was already a mistrust. So the thing that, like one of the first things that I did with him was I'd talk to him about some of the things that he was doing wrong, away from everybody else, like I gave him the respect of a conversation between two instead of correcting him in front of a whole class of his peers, and just that little shift alone of looking at that respectful relationship is what kind of started to show him a little bit of success in that space. So I think that, like the Splinter as a mentor, if nothing else, from this 1990s movie and all of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, is something that can be looked at in university degrees for teaching.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But that's my takeaway. I think that Splinter is a really good mentor.
Speaker 2:Oh, 100%, and like in every, every adaptation of seems to be in your drills, but there's always that like when you have, like whenever he's making speeches to the guys, you're always, like always yourself, zoned in to what he's saying and sort of hyper focused on what he's saying because he's always spouting it.
Speaker 1:Yeah life advice that you could put on like a bumper sticker or something.
Speaker 2:They've got that eat live love sort of thing, or eat love, pray, whatever it is. Yeah, they need to have like splinter quotes. Yeah, yeah, I definitely agree.
Speaker 1:I think I've got two least favorite versions of Splinter and it's obviously the Michael Bay version where he just doesn't seem warm. He's wise but he's not warm towards his sons. He's very actually disciplinarian towards his sons there. And then also it's probably my least favorite part of the Mutant Mayhem. The most recent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie is the depiction of Splinter in that one, because he's a little bit goofy for one but he's also very neglectful.
Speaker 1:He's neglectful. He just watches TV. He doesn't notice his sons are gone. He does still try to teach them family, but he's less of an influence on them than he had been previously. So, yeah, I think Splinter in this.
Speaker 2:He has to watch his stories.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, he has to watch his stories, has to Splinter in this movie is probably my favorite, yeah.
Speaker 2:Prime example Splinter TMNT one as well.
Speaker 1:Yep, yeah, and he was the primary crappy mentor and he went and was captured. There'd be no reason for the turtles to want to try and find him, but you can see that connection and that fostering that he built so Flinter legend. That's me, mvp.
Speaker 2:That is a very good MVP.
Speaker 1:Thanks, man, I love that.
Speaker 2:No, no but.
Speaker 1:And Fast and the Furious.
Speaker 2:They've ruined family.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:They've ruined family for me. Anything like to do with family, I'm like all I can hear in my head is Dom.
Speaker 2:Trudeau. Well, no, it's not even that, it's like the Family Guy version of him. Family, anyway, family anyway. Yes, no, I saw a lot of my own family actually in in their sort of dysfunctional family. Yeah, so my family, we've had our ups and downs with each other and that, but we've always if any of us always hit our low point, we'd always be there to help each other.
Speaker 2:Yep, I'm not going to go too into it for their sakes, more so for mine. But like for me, I always well, cause I always lived away from my family pretty much, cause I moved up sort of North with my mom when I was young and my oldest and older brother stayed in Victoria and it's always been like that. When my mom moved back down to Victoria, I stayed up here and I've pretty much been up here for the rest of time and I might see my family once, maybe a year if I'm lucky, but like it's always good to go down and see him. But in the similarities is like we fight and like we we can say some nasty things to each other, but we'll always come back to each other and help each other.
Speaker 1:If anyone said anything nasty about you guys, 100%.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and that's the other thing. We've always got each other's backs, no matter what we've done, how much we've pissed each other off. When one of us is down, we'll help the other up.
Speaker 1:Which is very foregrounded in this Turtles movie as well, because they do have their differences, positive and negative. Raph is sort of like that black sheep yep. Raph is that black sheep falls in the bath in a very like falls into the the roof that's exactly what my family would do to me too.
Speaker 2:They'd just throw me in the bathtub. All fucking mangled up yeah, he'll be fine.
Speaker 1:He'll be right in the shower he just needs a cold shower.
Speaker 1:Yeah, give him 24 hours. But yeah, I think that the way that the turtles rallied around him afterwards and you can see how lost they were without him as well, yeah, they. They would then, like Donatello, for example, latched onto another we'll say masculine sort of figure in the form of Casey Jones, cause he didn't have Raphael. Yeah, um, leonardo really dove into his, his, his training and, and disciplined himself and really kind of focused on the next thing that he could do, like really trying to correct the mistake.
Speaker 2:And sort of like again not going to go too much into it Donatello sort of blaming himself for what had happened to Raph With my own family. There was a point there because I was up here. No, I was in Victoria at the time but I couldn't help a family member out at the time and my other family members went and helped instead of me and I sort of felt useless at the time. And so how Donnie sort of felt, how Leo felt when he was sitting in a chair, basically just staring at Raph, not knowing what he can do to help and feeling sort of useless and lost not knowing what to do, until he finally goes out and meditates and contacts Splinter.
Speaker 2:He finally goes out and meditates and contacts Splinter. Yeah, and so it's sort of parts and like you got Donnie, as you said, last year, onto Casey trying to sort of take his mind off of, I guess, what's going on or feel something similar to how he feels when he's with Raph.
Speaker 1:It's like that comfort yeah and then Mikey.
Speaker 2:He's just pretty much making jokes about everything because that's his deflecting actual pain and trying to, I guess, in a way, try and keep everyone's spirits up when everyone's spirits are broken and like, especially in large, like large families, like everyone sort of has a role like that in the family. Yep, it's like I know, like my, my oldest sister, she's probably like the Leo of our family, like she's like she's always one we go to when we need advice. Yeah, she's always one like she organized, like all's always one we go to when we need advice. Yeah, um, she's always one like she organized. Like all the christmases, all the presents. She doesn't really do that anymore for us because we're all adults, we should be able to do it ourselves, but we still like it. Every like when it comes to mom's birthday, I'm like, oh so what are you doing mom's birthday? Yeah, yeah, what are we doing? What are we doing? Can I give you a few bucks and just chip in?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah yeah, like, yeah, stuff like that. She's definitely like the Leo and I think like my brother is probably more Raph, I would say, yeah, raph. And then my younger sister is probably a little more called Michelangelo. He's sort of the. Instead of being like funny, he's more of the, but she's more of like the has done a lot of silly things. Okay, but we all have, we've all done silly things, yeah, so we've all sort of got our own sort of parts. I'm the sort of Donnie the nerdy outsider who lives away from family, like he's always away from family. So, and yeah, cause there's four of us and I've got my stepbrothers and everything like that, but I have four main family members like siblings.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can see sort of each of us in in the ninja turtles, so yeah, and you know, the good thing about the turtles is that, like they're, they're obviously flawed individuals, but together they're kind of strong, which is splinter's lesson as well, you know, and that's that's very common in a lot of sort of families.
Speaker 1:Everybody and we're all very self-critical of ourselves, more than anybody else in the whole entire world too, and I think that you know that formula of family that comes in through the Turtles is why it's generational as well. So if you're talking about this being in the 1990s, being originally created in the mid-80s, there is almost a new iteration of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles every two to three years because it's such a popular thing through so many different generations. And it's because of that central theme of them being a mismatched family, where everybody just sort of comes together in times of need but also has their weaknesses that they're working on. That is then strengthened by the others that are around them as well and also accepted for the good and the bad of them, which is and the place to belong, which is important too.
Speaker 2:And there's not too many solid media out there that has done that over the expansion of time. Yep, like you do see it in like a like long running series is like being many adaptations of like, say, street fighter, and there'd be many. Like there's been movies and cartoons and all kinds of things same with Tekken, but nothing as probably as prominent as like TNT. Like they've had five different or four different cartoon series. They've had multiple movies, four different kinds of movies. Now you've got the Michael Bay one, 1990s one, you've got the michael bay one, 1990s one, you got the tmnt one and then you've got the um newest one. Yep, yeah, you can't, you can't really say that to too many other types of media. Yep, the only thing they haven't really had is a decent video game yeah, that's true they've had the old arcade video game, which is pretty sick.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I play that with my son actually he's, that's the first video game he ever played, yeah, and he was like three when he started and yeah, that's how he started to love donnie, because no foot ninja could get to him, because he's always got a massive one stick. So, yeah, um, but yeah I I, like you, said that this wasn't a very in-depth one, but I think it's actually central, I think it's core and it's a reason why the turtles have survived for this long in pop culture yeah, the values that they actually portray and the different, the different um emotions and different start like lifestyles that they each have appeal to pretty much everyone, a lot of different people, a lot of different kids a lot of demographics.
Speaker 1:Like any person, they're probably then you sort of tell before they're missing is an emo foot turtle um, my thing as well, before we, we, we sign off is, uh, shout out to single parents because, like, splinter's been doing it raising four boys, yeah, for 35 years.
Speaker 1:I have, along the time, he's been around and he's raised four incredibly awesome young men, uh, so, yeah, I think that that that even that blended family kind of approach it shows that a family can look different to your family, but it's still a family that's just as loving, just as awesome, has just as much potential to be successful, even though it's not cookie cutter. I think that's really beautiful about the turtles too. It's because they're all considered freaks, but they're together there and you know they start to and Casey Jones in this movie actually starts to question that as well. You know this a family and you know for a fact that he is feeling part of the family amongst a rat and his four boys and april, who they've adopted as well. Yeah, like you don't get more rag tag than that you're like call this a family.
Speaker 2:No, this is a family yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I love that. Let's put this on our fandom portals on a board. Hosts rate the media and place it on the letterbox on a board. This board can be followed, tracked and found on our letterboxals on a board. Hosts rate the media and place it on the letterbox on a board. This board can be followed, tracked and found on our letterbox, which is at fandom portals, if you wanted to take this one 2.5. Okay, yeah, 2.5.
Speaker 2:And that 2.5 goes to pretty much the story that could have been and all the values from the actual movie.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:Everything else was a bit average, okay, and all the values from the actual movie Yep. Everything else was a bit average, okay. Dialogue.
Speaker 1:Yep, all right. So for me I'm going to give it a 3.5. And I'm giving it that because of the relationship between the turtles, like that whole family vibe I really, really like. I think the story was solid. I respect the ingenuity of Jim Henson's Creature Shop to create the animatronic turtles. I think the actors overcame a lot of adversity as well and it's a story like.
Speaker 1:I watched it this week and it holds up as a movie. They did it on a shoestring budget as well, for the time, $13 million. They worked really hard to get it done. But then also they have the elements of the dialogue, the action sequences hit and miss. For some. The villain of the shredder is sort of like is is this a totally bad movie or is this a totally good movie, like? Uh, anyway, I reckon 3.5 out of 5. So let's put it on that board. This movie collectively between Brash and I, gets a 3, which means it places. So the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, made in 1990, directed by Steve Barron, is going to be our eighth placed movie on the fandom portals on a board. It's going to sit below Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and above the Nice Guys, which sounds about right to me. Yeah, yeah, very cool, all right, so that is where it sits on our fandom portals, on a board.
Speaker 1:Let's do our sign-offs, all right, everybody, we do have a brand new website, which is wwwfandomportalspodcastcom. Make sure you go and check that out. We have all our episodes on there, as well as some blog posts associated with the episode. You can get all your geeky information from there and everything fandom portals related. You can contact us for a movie recommendation or you can give us some feedback on the show, which we always love. If you are feeling kind, you can also go over to Apple Podcasts or Spotify and give us an honest review.
Speaker 1:Five stars would be good, wouldn't it, brash? Five stars would be awesome. That would be great, but only if you really feel like it. Longer form question you can email us, which is fandomportals, at gmailcom. We love getting feedback, guys and also join our social medias, which is Threads, instagram and Reddit. You guys can be a part of our daily posts. We can chat you out on the show as well. Next month, brash, next month, we have some exciting stuff happening. Next month, in April this being our last episode for March the Avengers Doomsday cast was released. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Lots of names, lots of names, yeah.
Speaker 2:Five hours of just chairs.
Speaker 1:What a way to release and keep people in capture.
Speaker 1:Five hours of chairs I know, but you know the funny thing about it though that broadcast got more viewers than the Avengers Infinity War trailer did. So people that say that Marvel is dead are pretty well mistaken, because I think there is definitely still a fan base for it and people are excited for the new Avengers movie. So as a celebration of that, brash and I have decided to make April our Marvel month. So for the month of April, we're going to be doing exclusively Marvel content. The movies that we'll be featuring, we haven't decided yet. One of them will be picked by you and look forward to that. So how the duck we're not doing. How the Duck? I don't think we could talk about it and maintain a listenership, honestly, not because you know it probably has its plus points.
Speaker 1:We'd probably write something positive about it, but there's some things on there that I just don't want to touch on. I can't believe. Did you know it was George Lucas? Yeah, before we mentioned that in the last episode, crazy times. I don't know man, what was he thinking? He needed a palate cleanse after Star Wars. This is Aaron signing off. Have fun, be safe.
Speaker 2:This is Brash signing off. Cowabunga dude bleh.
