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
