Mutant Turtles are Dead, Long Live the Aliens!

I’ve started to write this blog entry before, when the original announcement was made that a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie was going to be made.  At that time, a deafening roar of scorn was thrown up from every male age 25-35, so loud and indignant it reverberated off every mountain top and every grassy hillock from the Appalachians to the Cascades. 

“No, not the Turtles!  No not Michael Bay!  No, not aliens from another planet!  This must be stopped!”

As the rumors floated in, I gathered up all the contempt and vitriol I could muster, focused it not unlike Daniel Rand focusing his Chi to his hand, and with one, all-powerful, infinitely relatable gesture, I shrugged my mighty shoulders.

“Meh.  Who cares?”

Really?  Who cares?  What “serious” director wants to helm a NINJA TURTLES film?  Aronofsky?  Spielberg?  Nolan?  Maybe that’s how Scorsese would like to wrap up his career.  The reason the keys to the car have been handed over to Bay is because he has made three Transformers film and despite the pervasive bellyaching that none of them are worth watching, somebody is sure in the hell going to see them, as they have made a TON of money.  Hard though it may be to believe, the movie biz is usually about making money.

I’m not going to say some folks don’t do it for the art, they obviously do.  Another conversation for another time.  But, if somewhere in the deep reaches of your mind, you think for ONE SECOND any film based on a toy was made for any reason besides cashing in…well…you’re addled.

I always have trouble writing blogs like this, and the reason why is because I have problems compartmentalizing my ideas.  I need to get in to the original Turtles, the (bastardized?) cartoons, the movies, the actors, Sam Rockwell, the lucre; the filthy, filthy lucre.  Although this was a rant I wanted to save until the end of the piece, I think it’s crying out to be mentioned now.  Megan Fox as April O’Neil.

When this casting choice was made, the voices, lulled in to complacency by a notable lack of activity on the subject, swiftly rose up to voice their disdain yet again.  I saw no less than a half dozen Facebook posts, no less than a hundred disgruntled fanboys making their discontents known on comment sections of various entertainment websites.  And, once again, with all the vigor I could manage, I gave an indifferent, “Who cares?”

Why NOT Megan Fox?  Is there really some female actress everybody is so intoxicated with that, had they hired her to play the part, everybody would have given a collective sigh of relief?  Like, “Oh, well, they cast Amanda Seyfried as April O’Neil, NOW I’m going to see it.”  What, you’ve sat down and watched so many Megan Fox films you just can’t stand her anymore?

“Oh, man, I just sat through Friends with Kids, Megan Fox is soooo terrible, so miscast.”

You were predisposed to hating the film.  It doesn’t matter WHO they would have cast, you would have attacked every social media outlet with the “bad” news.  On top of all that, if there’s one thing I’ve learned since Al Gore invented it, DON’T BELIEVE ANYTHING YOU READ ON THE INTERNET.

Hey, you remember just six months ago when all the online media reported this film wasn’t even going to happen?  Wait a second……..but………

In an age where all we do is read a snippet from a totally untrustworthy website who attributes an anonymous source “close to the project,” and then regurgitate it ad nauseum like it’s fact, I can’t help but be a little skeptical about everything I read.  What I’m saying is, don’t be surprised if Megan Fox “leaves” the project six months from now due to “creative differences.”  And by “leaves” I mean she was never really associated with the project and by “creative differences” I mean she was never really associated with the project.  Not saying it’s GOING to happen, just saying it COULD, and I would be nonplussed.

On a side note, I would TOTALLY cast Amber Tamblyn as April O’Neil.  Dear Hollywood, please contact me from now on when you need pure casting genius.  Thanks.

Assumedly, from what I can gather, Bay is getting ready to “destroy” the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  Here’s the problem.  As adults we are somehow unable to come to grips with a simple fact.  All the stuff we watched when we were kids?  It’s garbage.  It’s totally disposable.  It was marketed by capitalist giants to our younger, naive selves -- like Nino Brown waving crack rocks at Pookie. 

I was never really a HUGE Turtles fan growing up.  Well, the Turtles as most people know them anyway.  My next door neighbor when I was growing up, Evan Camp, was a few years older than me and he introduced me to the Turtles at a young age.  The original Turtles.  Black and white, violent, and foul-mouthed.  You could, really, if you wanted to be a purist about it, make the argument that Playmates ruined the Turtles in the first place, bastardizing Eastman and Laird’s dark, brooding mutants and creating colorful, kid-friendly, surfer dudes.  I’m not really here to do that, but it could be argued.

This isn’t to say I didn’t have a few action figures, or play the NES game, or the arcade game.  Yeah, I saw at least the first movie, and maybe the second, in the theatre.  But I wasn’t much in to the cartoon or the toys, really.  Looking back it feels like they were a little on the periphery of my childhood.  I was born in the late 70s.  I had a glut of He-man and GI Joe, and even though they didn’t quite have the same aggressive output volume-wise, I also loved the Thundercats.  And Ducktales.  But who didn’t?

Don’t worry, I’m getting to the point here.

You know what I have in my possession?  The Best of He-Man.  Volume 1.  You know what’s almost impossible to sit through?  A SINGLE episode of He-Man.  You know why?  Because it’s rubbish.  And because I’m not five anymore.

Eschewing a bunch of the points I have forgotten by now, this is the crux of the TMNT conundrum.  If anybody, ANYBODY, who is all up in arms about Michael Bay (who, by the way, according to “reports” isn’t even directing the film anyway) or Megan Fox being involved in this project  could name the actress who played April O’Nei l in the first film and ALSO who directed it, I would literally (read: figuratively) fall over dead.

Never happen.  You know why?  Because they were NOBODIES!  Hacks, paid to spend some screen time with MEN DRESSED IN FULL SIZED TURTLE SUITS in order to fleece children’s parents of their money.  Although to be fair the director, who I won’t name just in case it’s right on the tip of your tongue (slathered with sarcasm), did direct a slew of music videos.  Oh, and also one other really good movie.  “Coneheads.”  I’ll let you decide for yourself whether or not that’s sarcasm.

Herein lies the problem.  Nostalgia is such a weird thing.  When I think about how easy it was to make me happy when I was six it gives me a warm fuzzy, and we all want to be able to recapture the feeling.  In a futile attempt some months back, my friends and I attempted to watch 24 hours of movies based on comic books.  In general, it t urns out I’m too old for that shit.  But, more relevant, one of the films was the original TMNT film.  I had to leave the room.  Couldn’t sit through it.  Absolutely terrible.  Maybe some people can resurrect a warm, ebbing glow by watching the original TMNT movie, or some old cartoon.  I’m not one of those people and, in this case, I believe I’m probably in the majority.

This is a still from GI Joe.  No, really.

I watched the first Bay directed Transformers movie and I hated it.  I also hate the He-Man movie and the attempt to resurrect the cartoon a few years back.  I won’t even consider watching the GI Joe movie made in 2009.

It was a marketing ploy then, and it’s a marketing ploy now.  Michael Bay isn’t “ruining” the Turtles, he’s trying to take an old idea and reintroduce it to today’s youth in order to make money.  If you’re 35 years old and yelling you don’t want to see the Turtles as aliens from another planet, it’s all good.  Just means you’re not the target market.  And if today’s youth likes it, and the Turtles are resurrected, albeit somewhat differently, good on him!  And if not…who cares? 

Because, you know what?  All of those movies, all poorly made, in my opinion, have absolutely no bearing on how I remember my childhood.  As a matter of fact, my favorite recollections are opening up new action figures on Christmas and then sitting around and playing with them all day with my brother until it was time for bed.  When I reminisce, never once does Shia LeBouf jumping in to a Bumblebee Camaro ever sully my memories and I find it hard to believe I will forsake any memories I have of the Turtles based on a movie I’m too old to see anyway.

Go-Bots Vs. Star Wars

After a marked lull in activity on my blog for the last month during which time I was busy writing horror movie reviews at In the Queue, I revisited for the first time just a few weeks ago.  I was shocked to see, in the last month, the viewings of my site had doubled!  I’m not sure what I can attribute this spike in interest to except maybe people love tongue-in-cheek articles about meat products, since the majority of hits seemed to stem from my Goetta and Spam entries.

Or maybe, just maybe, it is time my self-depreciating, semi-acerbic wit, my tendency to carouse, my boundless knowledge of pop culture, and my ability to string together marginally related words to create partially coherent sentences to finally be truly appreciated.

Regardless, I best strike while the iron is hot, which is why I’m bringing out the big guns.  The GO-BOTS!

When I was a kid, I hated the Go-Bots.  To my recollection I had exactly two in my toy collection.  Screwhead (because he has a screw...for a head) and Pathfinder who, supposedly, is a female Go-Bot.  I was completely unaware of this until I went to look for a screen shot of her.  But now that I look at this pic of “her,” I totally see the feminine qualities.  Large, broad shoulders, some sort of bonnet, and a bow-tie.  Screams the fairer sex.  How did I ever overlook it? 

One thing was for sure, they sucked.  I wasn’t a kid who owned a bunch of Transformers growing up, so this wasn't the litmus test by which they were measured, although even with only a couple of each in my collection it was obvious Transformers were FAR superior toys.  Me?  I was a He-Man/GI Joe/Thundercats guy.  I'm telling you right now, the feminine wiles of Teela were much more enchanting than the blocky, cold, asexual feel of a robot.  That being said, who didn't have a little bit of a crush on Arcee?

The Go-Bots  were just so damned generic.  To transform Pathfinder you folded her in half and to transform Screwhead I’m pretty sure you just tipped him over.

I never knew the Go-Bots as popular toys.  I thought everybody felt the same way I did about them.  But they had cartoons, paint with water books, activity books, Nestle Quik tie-ins, cereals….oh, wait, no, they didn’t have a cereal at all.  They didn’t have Colorforms either, which is a PRETTY good measuring stick of popularity.  Maybe they weren’t so beloved after all.

But what they did have was MODELS.  Good thing, because I’m really tired of living vicariously through Dr. Wiley.  My deep seeded need to build a robot without any knowledge of how to actually build a robot can finally be fulfilled!

I bought the Buggyman model off EBAY.  I picked Buggyman because he was cheaper than the other models I found on EBAY.  He must be the scrub Go-Bot.  For those of you who only speak Transformer, Buggyman would be the equivalent of Sideswipe.  Remember him?  No?  Neither do I.

I was kind of surprised when I received the package.  Kind of small.  I was expecting something at least the size of, say, a puzzle box.  It was more the size of the palm of my hand.  I thought, being a giant robot, it might be a little more grandiose.  Of course, for all I know, the Go-Bots were actually very tiny.  Like Transformers meets The Littles

.    

 My good friend Buffalo is going to help me build this bad boy.  Doesn't have the same ring as Jim or Jack, but just as effective and twice as tasty.

Here are all the pieces spread on my card table.  Looks pretty meager, eh?  You betcha’ it does.  But let’s just wait to see it when it’s done.  Just break out ye old instructions here.  Hey, there’s a description right on here of Buggyman! 

“Buggyman is a ferocious robot from the planet GoBotron, located in a distant galaxy.  With a few simple movements he is transformed into a dune buggy.  He’s a real mean machine!”

Ah yes, dune buggies, the meanest of all machines.  I guess, based on my viewing of Mad Max 2, he’ll be pretty important after the apocalypse. But for now only important for those times when you have to traverse a desert.  Or joyride on a beach.  Even in the lame world of the Go-Bots, Buggyman is at the bottom of the totem.  Unless “GoBotron” is rife with dunes.  GoBotron.  Seriously.

Let’s get in to the actual directions.  Step 1.  Check.  Step 2.  Check.  Step 3……cement?  Step 6…..paint?  Step 9…mild detergent? What the hell?  I thought this thing would just snap together.  I don’t have this crap just sitting around the house.  Damn, Dr. Wiley had it easy.

It took me 50 times longer to write the last 700 words then it did to be foiled in my original attempt at building the Go-Bots model.  But with a Dale’s Pale Ale and a shot of Buffalo already in my gullet, with my Les McCann and Eddie Harris record playing, I was inspired to build SOMETHING.

How about THE MILLENIUM FALCON?!  This has been sitting in my closet for about a year or so now.  I picked it up for $4 at the Goodwill.  It's a 3-D puzzle.  Seemed like a steal.  I’ve hesitated to make it because it touts “super challenging” right there on the front of the box.  Welp, no time like the present!

 Ugh, look at it.  Intimidating.  Kind of oozing out of the box, like The Blob.  Better turn all the pieces over.

Holy shit.  It’s just gray.  So very gray.  Painfully gray.  It’s going to be like putting together a black and white picture of the sky.  And 3-D puzzles aren’t like other puzzles, all the pieces don’t just go together.  Oh, no.  I gotta make the top, the bottom, the sides, the back, the wings, all separately then fold it all together like some sort of malevolent origami!  Not to mention there are too many pieces to fit comfortably on my card table, so I have them spread everywhere…some on the lid of a tote, some still in the box.  God knows if they are even all there.  A bit more daunting then I had hoped.  This calls for some more Buffalo Trace and another beer.

A couple more shots and another Dale's Pale Ale later.  The Blob has consumed me.  I Got about 6 pieces put together, but two of them were together straight out of the box.  Han Solo is somewhere crying in to his beer as we speak.