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whiteadelphiUnlike much of the fandom, I had more interest in BTTS at its start and the first few episodes. My interest has been steadily going down into disgust ever since. There are still scenes that are great. There are lines that are so in keeping with earlier seasons I smile in relief, and there are plots that are reminiscent of those seasons which just aren't pulled off well, but still make me smile. But in general? I'm downgrading this series to worse than the others, despite having some far better moments than the last two seasons.
In attempting to explain why ... I can't, fully. I'd be here for days and I'd still forget something. To dotpoint it:
1) Lack of internal consistency;
2) Lack of continuity with the previous seasons;
3) Lack of consistent characterisation;
4) Cheap artwork is one thing, but shoddily cutting corners is another;
5) Shredder and Khan are behaving like maniacal villains from the 1970s;
6) And that means their plots are only diabolical in their sheer stupidity and WTF;
7) Lack of forethought in plots;
8) The turtles currently bear more resemblance to their OT selves than their NT selves;
9) Lack of actual explicable science as opposed to making-shit-up science; and possibly as a result of these nine points:
10) Lack of any kind of depth to the episodes that makes me care about the outcome.
Examples? The first four probably speak for themselves.
5) Let's not get into Khan and his Gong Of Hypnotism And Eyeliner +5. Or Cyber-Shredder setting loose masses of animals on the streets and highly resembling a Digimon player, or his cunning plan to hack into the turtles and make them foot soldiers. You know, on that last point:
6)
Episode #3: "Aha! Those miserable turtles have a cyber portal, do they? I WANT AND CRAVE D:"
Episode #7 - how the conversation could have gone and made me laugh:
Shredder: I have brainwashed the turtles into believing they are part of my superior Foot army. Woohoo!
Khan: What now, master? Shall I kill them? That'd like ...make sense.
Shredder: Hmm, no.
Khan: You know what would totally make complete and villainous clever sense, master? You've been drooling after their cyber portal since episode #3, and you totally need one to rule the world just as you keep whining you will. What say we use our newly brainwashed turtles to fetch you said portal so you can come through into the real world seven episodes ahead of time and get a head start on your reign of terror?
Shredder: Silence your logical ways, Khan! No! They're MY enemies and I'll be stupid if I want to! Send them off to, I dunno, piss Hun off. I hate that guy. For some reason I haven't told anyone, given I'm based off early notes of myself by myself in which Hun was a loyal henchman, WTF. Oh wait, that comes under points 1), 2) and 3), doesn't it.
Khan: ...
Shredder: Look, don't upset the writers. If I come out of cyberspace now the series will be much shorter. I doubt they're much good at writing on the fly. Probably planned whole months for this stuff.
Khan: Yes, almighty Shredder. Stupidhead.
Shredder: What was that?
Khan: >_>
Number (7)
Where to begin? Look, I'll just ignore the last few and concentrate on Episode #10. The turtles think they come out of cyberspace but are really in a virtual reality created by Cyber Shredder So they come out in an exact replica of their lair. With the exact layout to their lair so that they can reach the surface world.
See, I'm gonna excuse all the crack that happened outside the lair - that made no sense, that was apparently designed to tip the turtles off that something was wrong because things kept going screwy - under either a) There's a bunch of Foot programmers who were really, really bored that day, or b) Cyber Shredder did it himself and proved that apparently programs can't design programs; either that, or he just successfully proved point (5) again.
Putting aside that, that is an exactly replica of their lair. With the exact layout yada yada. Where did that come from? Easily explained. Hypnotised Casey told Khan everything, according to episode #2. It's possible or even probable that he might have given anything from detailed descriptions of the lair to tours of the lair in question. Hey, it's not like the turtles were around at that point.
So I could accept that plot point. But you know what that means?
It means the Foot clan knows exactly where the lair is and how to get there.
Yeah, what's up with that? It was foreshadowed in episode #2, but ... writers, did you think that one through? Because why are there not Foot soldiers already pouring down through all the tunnel systems to Wipe Them Out (All of Them!)?
And a secondary point; if Casey is where they got their information from - hell, even it it isn't - why the hell is Serling in that virtual reality? Shredder knows nothing about him. Ding! We have a point (1) here.
Yeah. I had real problems with that. (But the spooky April by the burning truck was kinda neat, as was the cyberfight. See, there are good things about this series, but just like the third season of Ruroken, not enough to stop me cringing in pain.)
Point (8). Closely aligned to point (2) and (3). This could be just my imagination, because I've watched the entirety of OT, but ...
Leo is a wallflower, leading as a figurehead if anything, and he sounds more ditzy/mommy like in each episode. FLAKE.
Don has a copy of the script. I swear. A couple of minor clues and suddenly he has the whole evil plot figured out.
Raph ...has lost that edge that makes him Raph. Though to be fair, he lost that in Fast Forward. But he's got that sarcasm and rudeness and whatnot, and I keep expecting him to take a hammer to the fourth wall.
Mikey? He hasn't reverted to being stupid, slow, surfer lingual or a pizza devourer, so kudos for him. Mikey's the closest to being well characterised in this series. Good for him. SAVE YOUR BROTHERS FROM THEIR OT SELVES, MIKEY. YOU CAN DO IT.
...they got reprogrammed in cyberspace, right? >_>
Point (9)
THE INTERNET DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY. DON, WHY THE HELL ARE YOU JUST NOT HACKING PROGRAMS FROM THE OUTSIDE AND RETRIEVING YOUR DATA BITS? THAT WORKS, YOU KNOW. WE DIDN'T NEED THIS CYBER-SHIT ANGLE AT ALL.
Closely aligned with points (1), (7), and (8).
(10).... is hard to explain, and is obviously only a personal opinion. But really, I realised I didn't give a damn about any of these characters. They're too caricatured. The cartoon is too light and choppy and inconsistent for me to care more than watching the pretty fights and grasping at the ghostly straws of echoes of earlier seasons. Even in Fast Forward I cared about the characters. In BTTS, I do not. The turtles have lost their individual nature (3) and the plots are ridiculous (7), and I suspect the writers are caught in that hard place between "Make it darker like the earlier seasons and the movie!" and "But make sure it's still for kids!" and are hence just ...all over the place trying to find that happy medium. And it shows.
The Engagement Ring episode? Best one. By far. Nothing about it made me cringe in the slightest. Most other episodes? Do have scenes that I like, and that's what keeps me watching. But ... I cringe and flinch at least three or four times an episode at the things that are just plain ...wrong.
The scary thing is that these are just examples, and I could think of a whole bunch more things. But as I said, I'd be here all day. All I'd like to say is: 4Kids? That complaint you had about how TMNT started losing money? That happened around Fast Forward, you know. And I'm sorry to say that every trick you try to cheapen the episode budget is just making more and more people twitch and turn away. It's called, "self-fulfilling money pit." You fools.
(See, I wonder about (4). If the series was still animated as well as the first five seasons, would I be more inclined to look past all the bullshit? ::scratches head::)
In attempting to explain why ... I can't, fully. I'd be here for days and I'd still forget something. To dotpoint it:
1) Lack of internal consistency;
2) Lack of continuity with the previous seasons;
3) Lack of consistent characterisation;
4) Cheap artwork is one thing, but shoddily cutting corners is another;
5) Shredder and Khan are behaving like maniacal villains from the 1970s;
6) And that means their plots are only diabolical in their sheer stupidity and WTF;
7) Lack of forethought in plots;
8) The turtles currently bear more resemblance to their OT selves than their NT selves;
9) Lack of actual explicable science as opposed to making-shit-up science; and possibly as a result of these nine points:
10) Lack of any kind of depth to the episodes that makes me care about the outcome.
Examples? The first four probably speak for themselves.
5) Let's not get into Khan and his Gong Of Hypnotism And Eyeliner +5. Or Cyber-Shredder setting loose masses of animals on the streets and highly resembling a Digimon player, or his cunning plan to hack into the turtles and make them foot soldiers. You know, on that last point:
6)
Episode #3: "Aha! Those miserable turtles have a cyber portal, do they? I WANT AND CRAVE D:"
Episode #7 - how the conversation could have gone and made me laugh:
Shredder: I have brainwashed the turtles into believing they are part of my superior Foot army. Woohoo!
Khan: What now, master? Shall I kill them? That'd like ...make sense.
Shredder: Hmm, no.
Khan: You know what would totally make complete and villainous clever sense, master? You've been drooling after their cyber portal since episode #3, and you totally need one to rule the world just as you keep whining you will. What say we use our newly brainwashed turtles to fetch you said portal so you can come through into the real world seven episodes ahead of time and get a head start on your reign of terror?
Shredder: Silence your logical ways, Khan! No! They're MY enemies and I'll be stupid if I want to! Send them off to, I dunno, piss Hun off. I hate that guy. For some reason I haven't told anyone, given I'm based off early notes of myself by myself in which Hun was a loyal henchman, WTF. Oh wait, that comes under points 1), 2) and 3), doesn't it.
Khan: ...
Shredder: Look, don't upset the writers. If I come out of cyberspace now the series will be much shorter. I doubt they're much good at writing on the fly. Probably planned whole months for this stuff.
Khan: Yes, almighty Shredder. Stupidhead.
Shredder: What was that?
Khan: >_>
Number (7)
Where to begin? Look, I'll just ignore the last few and concentrate on Episode #10. The turtles think they come out of cyberspace but are really in a virtual reality created by Cyber Shredder So they come out in an exact replica of their lair. With the exact layout to their lair so that they can reach the surface world.
See, I'm gonna excuse all the crack that happened outside the lair - that made no sense, that was apparently designed to tip the turtles off that something was wrong because things kept going screwy - under either a) There's a bunch of Foot programmers who were really, really bored that day, or b) Cyber Shredder did it himself and proved that apparently programs can't design programs; either that, or he just successfully proved point (5) again.
Putting aside that, that is an exactly replica of their lair. With the exact layout yada yada. Where did that come from? Easily explained. Hypnotised Casey told Khan everything, according to episode #2. It's possible or even probable that he might have given anything from detailed descriptions of the lair to tours of the lair in question. Hey, it's not like the turtles were around at that point.
So I could accept that plot point. But you know what that means?
It means the Foot clan knows exactly where the lair is and how to get there.
Yeah, what's up with that? It was foreshadowed in episode #2, but ... writers, did you think that one through? Because why are there not Foot soldiers already pouring down through all the tunnel systems to Wipe Them Out (All of Them!)?
And a secondary point; if Casey is where they got their information from - hell, even it it isn't - why the hell is Serling in that virtual reality? Shredder knows nothing about him. Ding! We have a point (1) here.
Yeah. I had real problems with that. (But the spooky April by the burning truck was kinda neat, as was the cyberfight. See, there are good things about this series, but just like the third season of Ruroken, not enough to stop me cringing in pain.)
Point (8). Closely aligned to point (2) and (3). This could be just my imagination, because I've watched the entirety of OT, but ...
Leo is a wallflower, leading as a figurehead if anything, and he sounds more ditzy/mommy like in each episode. FLAKE.
Don has a copy of the script. I swear. A couple of minor clues and suddenly he has the whole evil plot figured out.
Raph ...has lost that edge that makes him Raph. Though to be fair, he lost that in Fast Forward. But he's got that sarcasm and rudeness and whatnot, and I keep expecting him to take a hammer to the fourth wall.
Mikey? He hasn't reverted to being stupid, slow, surfer lingual or a pizza devourer, so kudos for him. Mikey's the closest to being well characterised in this series. Good for him. SAVE YOUR BROTHERS FROM THEIR OT SELVES, MIKEY. YOU CAN DO IT.
...they got reprogrammed in cyberspace, right? >_>
Point (9)
THE INTERNET DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY. DON, WHY THE HELL ARE YOU JUST NOT HACKING PROGRAMS FROM THE OUTSIDE AND RETRIEVING YOUR DATA BITS? THAT WORKS, YOU KNOW. WE DIDN'T NEED THIS CYBER-SHIT ANGLE AT ALL.
Closely aligned with points (1), (7), and (8).
(10).... is hard to explain, and is obviously only a personal opinion. But really, I realised I didn't give a damn about any of these characters. They're too caricatured. The cartoon is too light and choppy and inconsistent for me to care more than watching the pretty fights and grasping at the ghostly straws of echoes of earlier seasons. Even in Fast Forward I cared about the characters. In BTTS, I do not. The turtles have lost their individual nature (3) and the plots are ridiculous (7), and I suspect the writers are caught in that hard place between "Make it darker like the earlier seasons and the movie!" and "But make sure it's still for kids!" and are hence just ...all over the place trying to find that happy medium. And it shows.
The Engagement Ring episode? Best one. By far. Nothing about it made me cringe in the slightest. Most other episodes? Do have scenes that I like, and that's what keeps me watching. But ... I cringe and flinch at least three or four times an episode at the things that are just plain ...wrong.
The scary thing is that these are just examples, and I could think of a whole bunch more things. But as I said, I'd be here all day. All I'd like to say is: 4Kids? That complaint you had about how TMNT started losing money? That happened around Fast Forward, you know. And I'm sorry to say that every trick you try to cheapen the episode budget is just making more and more people twitch and turn away. It's called, "self-fulfilling money pit." You fools.
(See, I wonder about (4). If the series was still animated as well as the first five seasons, would I be more inclined to look past all the bullshit? ::scratches head::)
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Date: 2008-11-24 09:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-24 12:53 pm (UTC)