If you are like me and think this day
got slightly better thanks to the teaser trailer from the Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles, then you might want to read what screenwriter André Nemec has to say
about Dimension X, Krang and more.
In a recent interview to CS, Nemec
talked about how this version of the TMNT compares to the previous incarnations
of the franchise.
"I was a fan, but I wouldn’t say
I was a lunatic fan. I did have the old Eastman and Laird black and whites in
the office. I knew very well the cartoons and the movies. I didn’t have the
bedsheets. I didn’t have the lunch pails. I had a neighbor who had the Turtle
Van. That was as close as I got, but I was a fan enough to know the differences
between the original comics, the cartoon and the various iterations of the
movies. … You know, the canon of the turtles, in all their iterations,
always seems to harken back to a being a story about family, a story of
friendship and a story about brothers. I think that, ultimately, when you look
at all the different stories, whether it’s the Laird comic or the cartoon now
or the cartoon from the late ’80s, or the movies where they’re in the suits, it
really always boils back down to being a story about brothers. That really was
the most driving principle for us, making sure that that element was always a
central component of the movie."
However, since this a reboot will their personalities
change from what we remember?
"They’ve all been pretty
consistent over the years. Amazingly, they’re all pretty well represented by
the weapons they use. Michelangelo has always been the freewheeling nun-chucks
guy. Donatello has the bo staff, which is a simple but complicated weapon. He’s
the tech guy. Leonardo has the swords of a leader and Raphael carries these
big, brutish sais, which are really about doing the maximum destruction in the
shortest amount of time. They have always, in the canon, lived by those
principles. They’re four individuals who are individuals all alone, but,
combined, really make one person, which makes them really interesting to watch.
They sort of make their decisions, not to get too heady about it, but when
those brothers are interacting, it’s almost like watching one person come to
terms with the direction they’re going to move in, whether it’s left or right.
… I think that the April you’re going to see is largely the April you
know. … I can tell you that Splinter is in the movie. You will get to enjoy
Master Splinter. He’s an important component in the dynamic of the Turtles
themselves. It’s still very much a story of teenagers and that really is the
sort of land that the Turtles — in all the versions of the story — find
themselves in trapped in. The land of teenager problems. For us, that was a fun
world to get in and play with. Without Master Splinter, it’s “Lord of the
Flies.” Yeah, he’s in there."
Like all other comic book based movies a potential
franchise is always just around the corner, so will we see Krang and Dimension
X?
"Dimension X is a lot to cover.
But yeah, we had to create our own versions of what these turtles are to not
just be recreating stuff that was already out there. … You’ve got to own
your own version of what these stories are. Looking through the different
iterations of Turtles to date, many of them have different origin stories.
T.C.R.I. was a collection container that was used for a company that came from
alien ooze at one point. There was another version of the ooze where it was
created in a laboratory. There’s the “Daredevil” component that mixes in with
the Turtle canon. There’s the sewers. There’s the laboratories. For us, it was
important to find our own version of how these particular Turtles came to be so
that they can stand alone as their own characters. There’s also the version
where, if you touch something after you touch the ooze, that’s what you become.
There have been a million versions. In this version we just thought it was
important to create our own origin that lives within the balance of it. We
didn’t do anything overtly kooky."
Opening on August 8th, 2014, Jonathan
Liebesman’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot stars Alan Ritchson as Raphael,
Jeremy Howard as Donatello, Pete Ploszek as Leonardo, Noel Fisher as
Michelangelo, Megan Fox as April O’Neil, Will Arnett as Vernon Fenwick, Danny
Woodburn as Master Splinter and William Fichtner as Shredder.
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