Cowabunga

Dear Blog Diary,

There I was watching the 2023 Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles movie on Netflix.

I was obsessed with TMNT when I was a kid. Bedsheets, toys, video games, bowls shaped like the turtles, a football and soccer ball shaped like the turtles. Sweaters, lunch box, Halloween costumes.

Bloody hell my parents must have found that shit exhausting.

My favorite was Michelangelo. As an adult now, I am really trying to increase the use of the word “cowabunga” in my vocabulary.

I was fascinated by the modern TMNT movie. It completely butchered the characters that I watched as a boy.

Easy one for starters, the new turtles are all kinda the same.

My generation, there was Raphael who spoke like a New Yorker, Michelangelo the surfer, and then Donnie and Leonardo the Midwest lack of accent.

This generation, the turtles are all kind of the same.

Secondly, the new movie ruins the turtle’s character.

The first scene of the original movie is Michelangelo and Donatello waiting for pizza delivery in the sewer. It’s a whole scene. Mike goes on about how the pizza joint’s policy is if it’s not delivered in whatever time, it’s free. They do end up paying for it and it’s a funny scene.

The first scene of the modern TMNT is them sneaking around at night and stealing food, and it’s all kinda nostalgic junk food. Doritos. And of course, pizza.

So right out the gate you’re destroying their character.

Master splinter in the new movie learned the art of ninja by 80s VHS tapes. Master Splinter was shown as a single father, a rat in New York City who people have not been kind.

My generation Splinter was stoic and the times he lightened up were used as comic relief. He learned Ninja from a super stoic Japanese dude. Kung Fu David Carradine type shit.

In the new one Splinter is always being chased by humans and they try to kill him, as we do with rats, so he teaches the turtles to avoid humans completely.

In my generation’s version, Splinter punishes them when the turtles don’t have ironclad integrity.

My generation’s turtles cared about discipline and holding each other accountable.

New one’s turtles like social media.

The thing that surprised the hell outta me was how much I enjoyed the new one. In a strange round about way, it felt like it was a movie written by a millennial but for young people.

Here’s the big revelation:

It’s teenaged mutant ninja turtles, emphasis on the teenaged.

My generation apparently thought the foot clan hung out at that graffiti covered arcade and they smoked cigarettes and drank cheap beer. The turtles had honor and did their best.

This generation, good bad indifferent…they’re just not what mine was, and that’s ok. This movie shouldn’t be what mine was, because now is not then.

Cowabunga.

Much love,

E

#ARTiculate