Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Take Up Arms In Four New Posters
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We recently got our first look at Joseph Liebesman’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot, much the chagrin of many longtime fans of the beloved Heroes in a Half-Shell. While many raised a ruckus about how the Turtles themselves look—they have a more human-shaped nose rather than the rounded faces we’re used to—a new series of posters assures us that at least one thing hasn’t changed. According to these images released by Paramount, their weapons of choice are still the same as in traditional Turtle lore.
Each of the four Turtles gets his own poster, which is little more than a green, three-fingered hand holding onto a particular weapon. Lucky for us, they’re color-coded. Blue-masked Leonardo, the ostensible leader of the pack, gets his two razor-sharp katanas. Fun-loving prankster Michelangelo, AKA Mikey, has his traditional orange accessories and a set of bone-crunching nunchukas. Donatello, traditionally the smartest and most clever of the group, gets purple highlights and his trusty wooden bo staff. And last, but not least, there’s Raphael. Usually known as the darkest, most brooding member of the quartet—perhaps that makes him the most teenage of the bunch—he is armed with his trademark sai.
There isn’t a ton to these posters, but they do look kind of badass. There’s something about the way they’re holding their weapons, loose but ready, that you can’t help but feel a little tingle at the prospect of watching the turtles do battle again. Let’s just hope it’s still with the Foot Clan, though I also wouldn’t mind seeing Rocksteady of Bebop.
While the first trailer didn’t exactly light me on fire with enthusiasm, it didn’t offend me quite as seriously as it did lots of other people. I definitely don’t like the way their faces look—one fan went so far as to fix that problem for us, thank god—and the fact that Shredder and April O’Neil’s (Megan Fox) father are now responsible for creating them is unfortunate. They’re supposed to be an accident, not a purposeful attempt to manufacture new heroes.
Beyond that, however, it seems like the got the feel and tone right. The Turtles still have that brash, youthful energy and sense of humor that makes them so much fun. When Michelangelo takes off his mask at the end, that’s a very TMNT thing to do—of course it’s the mask April finds unnerving, not the seven-foot-tall anthropomorphic reptile. Maybe I’m deluding myself, seeing things that I want to see, but while I don’t expect much, what we’ve seen so far makes me think that maybe, just maybe, things will turn out okay.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is currently scheduled to open everywhere on August 8, so on August 9 you’re all more than welcome to come back here and tell me what an idiot I was for being optimistic about this movie.
