A Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) Retrospective

A Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) Retrospective

 

Nostalgia is a wonderful thing. Nothing beats going back to that happy place from long ago where unlike the present which is tainted and despicable everything was perfect. There is a catch of course to the great nostalgic love we have for things. It is just that, nostalgia and thus our views are often tainted and thus it’s perfectly possible to go back to it years later and find something that does not even come close to being that great thing we remember. Being the genius I am I decided to revisit one of my favourite childhood shows, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, specifically the 2003 series. How was it? Were my childhood memories punched in the gut like they were with the recent movie? The short answer is at the end of the post, the long answer starts now.

 

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is funnily enough about the four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. They become mutated by a strange ooze that somehow mutates them into giant walking turtles. A similar thing happens to a rat name Splinter who takes them in as his sons and trains them in the art of ninjitsu which he learned from mirroring the moves of his owner while he was a simple pet rat. They fight crime such as street gangs and the evil foot clan along with their master, the infamous Shredder.

 

That was obviously a very basic outline to the show and many more allies and villains were introduced and many story arcs happened along the way.  The most important aspect of the show were the turtles themselves and naturally if they were bad the show would be bad. Fortunately this was not the case. What was so well done about them is that they each had a very distinguishable personality but it was never forced down your throat with out of place lines or just one character trait. Generally we think of Leonardo as the leader, Donatello the brains, Michelangelo the joker and Raphael the one with some serious need of anger management. While each of these traits does exist they are not all that exhibit personality, you’re very aware that they are still teenagers. Leonardo isn’t immune to having a light hearted moment and Raphael could have a logical and well thought out moment every now and again. Not so often to break their character but often enough to make them feel like they really exist and are not just bland stereotypes.

 

Having good main characters is well backed up by some excellent side characters. Master Splinter stands out as the significant side character and for good reason. Interestingly this was the first Splinter to be called Father by the turtles and this shows in their interactions. They’re a family, a dysfunctional one but a family none the less. We had human characters too and unlike Megan Fox they’re not annoying! April O’Neil isn’t a reporter in this version, she starts out working for Baxter Stockman and is a tech savvy scientist but ends up running an antique shop. She acts as sort of an older sister character to the turtles. The other important human character, Casey Jones is introduced and I think we all thought he was there to be a token love interest for April. To start with the only turtle he really interacts with is Raphael and then the obvious getting on each other’s nerves happens with him and April. What we get however are two likeable characters who are not only likeable for separate reasons but likeable for being individuals. They have their own storylines and episodes to develop them as characters who aren’t there solely for the reason of benefitting the other.

 

Villains are important and the Shredder is a very well-known villain. If I told you the Shredder in this series, at least at first was a small alien squid thing inside a robot suit would you be confident of a good villain? I certainly wouldn’t but I really like this version of the Shredder. In the armour he looked badass and while slightly cartoonishly evil at times his motivations for wanting to get back home and take revenge are at least understandable and not simply to destroy the world for no apparent reason. He also had an interesting backstory and overall made a cool villain and not to mention had one of the biggest plot twists ever when he picked us his disembodied head. I won’t discuss all the villains as I’d be here for hours but I do want to mention Baxter Stockman and Kurai who were both interesting for their inner turmoil and struggles.

 

This host of characters made for some really great plots and episodes and the icing on the cake was how dark and gritty it could be at times. There were plenty of cheesy and silly moments, it’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, it’s impossible to bot have them but this show showed us that this was a series that could be taken seriously in terms of its plots and themes. I’m surprised 4Kids got this dark in a show they were involved in. However while it as gritty and serious when it wanted to be it was never to a point where it was no longer fun. However the dark moments were certainly there such as Baxter Stockman’s ‘punishments’ by the Shredder or the episode where an alien creature messes with our heroes heads in a horrific way or how they were perfectly willing to kill themselves in order to stop the Shredder to name a few. There was a perfect balance of dark and serious with some humour and silly moments splashed in to keep it serious and gritty enough while still being fun. Above all else this is what I think the show does so incredibly well, the tone and character.

 

The animation still looks great too, it’s sharper and more anime like than the original series and I think it works well. The fighting and action is great and while it is kind of noticeable how characters with blade weapons rarely hit enemies with them it still works well as a spectacle. The voice acting is good (An interesting thing I found that was funny is April has the same voice actor as Ash Ketchum from Pokémon) and while not the greatest in the world the opening theme song is catchy and it did have a very cool video playing in the background. So what was wrong with the show?

One thing. It didn’t know when to stop. You could argue it should have been after series 3 but I personally think series 5 should have been the final series. At the end they had just taken down the ultimate evil and most characters had their closure.  Sure not all of them did but the next series was set far in the future anyway so it hardly matters. While we don’t lose out on anything by having a couple subpar extra series I think it would have been a great send off to finish on series 5.

 

When I was younger I liked Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles because it had cool action, a bunch of awesome moments which were funny and action packed as well as thinking the turtles were really great. Now I still think those things but I also enjoy the plots, character’s development and evolution as well as the darker moments and personality to the show. In other words I think that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is better now than I did back then. So the short answer to my earlier question is yes, it holds up and then some.