Ninja Turtles Co-Creator Kevin Eastman Says New Film Inspired By The Avengers
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Few intelligent properties have seen the kind of quality devolution as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have, and all taken with a “can’t fuck me over” mentality from the multimedia franchise’s more die-hard fan base. Their last trip to cinemas was with 2007’s pretty-but-dumb-as-bricks computer-rendered TMNT. I can’t even tell you what’s happening in the cartoons now, though I hear this latest iteration is the best in years. The comics have also seen a resurgence in quality and ability to retain coherent storylines. Few people have much optimism that the next film will follow this uphill trend, thanks to Michael Bay’s name and an absolute shit script leaked after the film was postponed.
Fear not, fans, for co-creator Kevin Eastman is “excited,” which is the non-hyperbolic equivalent of him quoted as saying he’s “1000% on board!” He spoke with NBC Chicago about the film specifically, and Examiner.com about the film and his upcoming appearance at the New Orleans Wizard World Comic Convention. He dropped a couple of big named semi-comparisons in the process.
“We’re talking about being inspired by movies like The Avengers for scope and roots origin and The Raid: Redemption for fight scenes and Rise of the Planet of the Apes as far as computer-quality style.” Considering these films are the epitomes of the inspirations he mentions, it is of course exciting to consider, but it’s a fiction just a bit too lofty for the inevitability of what a Bay/Liebesman combination will likely produce.
Eastman is a creative consultant, which means he’s been “kicking tires on a few plot threads” and “banging out cool character doodles” with other members of the crew. He says the story will be “well-placed” in the characters’ lore. If anybody is going to get credit for judging a product on its faithfulness to the original concept, it’s Eastman, since Peter Laird hasn’t been silent about his distaste for the reboot. But Eastman has championed almost everything the Turtles have been a part of, and I don’t see how enough of that shoddy script could have been changed in the relatively short amount of time in this film’s years-long history.
But as with all the others, I’ll be waiting in line for my movie ticket, possibly grumbling that the CinemaBlend review killed my expectations. And during the film, I’ll sit there, probably not reminded of Avengers, Raid, or Rise.
