Michael Bay wants to take "Mutant" out of the Ninja Turtles.

[Fifthfiend]

Originally Posted by BitVyper

And a few who unironically enjoy Bleach.

God Help Me, I Enjoyed Frank Miller's The Spirit.

[BitVyper]

Originally Posted by Fifthfiend

God Help Me, I Enjoyed Frank Miller's The Spirit.

Frank Miller's The Spirit was a work of art. Just perfectly horrible.

[RobinStarwing]

Originally Posted by Fifthfiend

We already have a Seil.

EDIT: and a Robin

EDIT: And like three Smartybarrels.

Why am I lumped in with Seil and Smarty?

And how are there three Smartybarrels? O_o One is bad enough.

EDIT: To keep on topic...nothing Hollywood does surprises me anymore.

[Ecks]

I would claim credit as one of those Smartybarrels but then everyone in the thread is just gonna go "who is this guy again?" in that boring and predictable fashion.

It's positively delicious.

[Osterbaum]

Smarty has been secretly teaching me his ways so I can one day take his place.

e: one of the three barrelbants is obviously fifth himself

[Fifthfiend]

Dear NPF

Never stop shinin'

<3,

Me

[rpgdemon]

Originally Posted by ZARAK

Made Gold by Michael Bay's reply: "God, I love being me."

No, really.

Gonna go ahead and say, like 70% sure that has to be fake.

[Osterbaum]

Dear NPF

Never stop shinin'

<3,

FifthMcBarrelpants

.

[Magus]

My favorite part of Transformers was the Mountain Dew vending machine transformer who shot cans of Mountain Dew at people.

No, wait, it was that Jazz, the black robot, literal first line was "What's up, little bitches?" Because that is how black people robots talk!

No wait, my favorite part was when Jazz the black robot was the first robot to get killed!

NO WAIT WAIT CAN I SAY SOMETHING ABOUT NOKIA CELLPHONES WAIT A MINUTE WHERE ARE YOU GOING

...

Anyway, Peter Laird, the other cocreator of TMNT who unfortunately has no control over the franchise anymore, having sold all rights to Eastman (who is the one that Michael Bay identified as one of the original creators helping him), had this to say on the subject:

Originally Posted by Peter Laird

I have had several requests from TMNT fans during this past week to comment on the idea of the Turtles being "reimagined" as aliens for the upcoming TMNT movie to be produced by Michael Bay. A few people -- who don't seem to understand that I am no longer in control of the property -- want me to stop this, somehow. Obviously, I can't do that, even if I wanted to.

But I would actually encourage TMNT fans to swallow the "chill pill" Mr. Bay recently suggested they take, and wait and see what might come out of this seemingly ill-conceived plan. It's possible that with enough truly creative brainpower applied to this idea, it might actually work. I'm not saying it's probable, or even somewhat likely… but it IS possible.

However, as I have pondered this further, I have realized that in one way it IS truly a genius notion. Let me explain…

Over the years, I have made no secret of my distaste for what I consider to be the weak, facile, creatively bankrupt idea which can be summed up like this:

"If FOUR Ninja Turtles are good, then FIVE (or more) Ninja Turtles MUST be better!"

It was in large part this brain-dead notion that led to the creation of the execrable "Venus de Milo" character in the blessedly short-lived live action TV series "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation". And I can't tell you how many times we got mail in the early years of the Turtles from people who thought it was simply an amazing idea to do a "fifth Turtle", and how many times those same people suggested that this fifth Turtle be named "Picasso". And many times, the brilliant idea to explain this extra Turtle was that, instead of there being just four pet shop turtles in that glass bowl in the origin story, there were really FIVE.

Sigh.

I'll admit -- I have played with the idea of more Turtles myself, a few times. There was the character of "Kirby", the "fifth Turtle" that Kevin Eastman and I came up with for one of the several movie ideas which never came to fruition. And I created the "Super Turtles" in Volume 4 of the TMNT comics published by Mirage… and they eventually appeared in one episode of the 4Kids animated TMNT TV series.

But…

… in both those instances, I was careful to make these Turtles not just MORE of the same, i.e. just extra TMNT. In both of the above cases, the extra Turtles were from other dimensions… and the Super Turtles, especially, were VERY different from the Ninja Turtles. I don't remember all the details of the work we did on that "Kirby the Fifth Turtle" thing, but I DO remember being adamant that if we were going to agree to the idea of a "fifth Turtle", it would have to be something other than the harebrained "there was an extra Turtle in the bowl, etc." idea.

Is that too fine a line? Yeah, maybe… but to my way of thinking, anyway, it is a CLEAR line.

Anyway, to get back to the "TMNT are aliens" thing -- the reason I say it could be a "genius" idea is that -- for the first time -- someone has come up with a way to have as many freakin' Turtles as they want. I mean, if the TMNT are actually members of an alien race, there could be a whole PLANET of them!

Joy. -- PL

Remember how Michael Bay inexplicably created all kinds of new, wacky, racist-stereotype Transformers, like the twin vans from the second movie?! NOW WE CAN HAVE A BUNCH OF NEW, WACKY, RACIST-STEREOTYPE NINJA TURTLES!

BTW about dropping mutant from the title, I can totally see Michael Bay just calling this film "Ninja Turtles", OR even just "Turtles", because that is the most supremely Michael Bay-thing for him to do.

EDIT:

Oh my God.

Someone just made me ask the question--how is Michael Bay going to justify his undoubted inclusion of his military fetish in this TMNT movie? I am absolutely horrified at the avenues.

Also there is some comedy gold going on over at the A.V. Club:

Originally Posted by Girard

Possible bullshit workarounds [for the turtles having the names of Renaissance artists]:

-They have phonetically identical "alien" names like "Li'yo NARR-doh"

-They have names that can't be pronounced by the human tongue, but April first meets them in an American art museum that has works by all four of those guys in one room (that I'm pretty sure doesn't exist) and she gives them monikers based on the works in the gallery

-The Renaissance artists were disguised emissaries FROM the turtle planet!

[Osterbaum]

I can totally see Michael Bay just calling this film "Ninja Turtles", OR even just "Turtles"

Turtles: Dark of the Ninja of the Moon