These are much more than just a series of random, isolated incidents. The original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film did a lot of things right. It remains legitimately funny and compelling, arguably more so the older a viewer gets. Is it nostalgia? No, nostalgia is not blindI for one feel nostalgic when I watch The NeverEnding Story, but that doesnt mean I think its a good movie or a good adaptation of the book. The fact is, the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film is good because it is crafted true to the mythologys characters and situations, adapting them with real heart. On the other end of the artistic spectrum, Platinum Dunes, Michael Bays production company, usually creates movies that are met with negative reactions, such as its remakes of Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street. Especially in terms of its remakes, Platinum Duness films are accused of being by-the-numbers, or visually faithful but lacking depth. The films Michael Bay directs frequently meet similar criticisms, although there have been more exceptions. This is where the upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot is being crafted, and Turtles fans have been rightly concerned about what kind of movie will be coming out on the other end of the pipeline, even before they started hearing the vague and conflicting statements from the filmmakers. Even if director Jonathan Liebesman has the best of intentions as he claims, he is working with Platinum Dunes. Since Liebesman does not have the industry pull of Steven Spielberg or Christopher Nolan, he is obligated to work within Platinum Duness parameters. Many film enthusiasts can therefore probably guess with a fair amount of certainty about the kind of movie that is going to end up on the screen. Will Arnett merging his essence with Vernon can only do so much. Every movie needs to try new things. With adaptations, staying true to source material does not necessarily mean rehashing the same things previous artists have done word-for-word, panel-for-panel. But when taking on a project, it needs to be cared about. Audiences and their wallets now live in a world with realistically high expectations of their superhero movies thanks to such comic book adaptations as The Dark Knight Trilogy and The Avengers. The game has changed. A company like Platinum Dunes, which frequently seems to get by on weekend box office trickery, cannot survive in the long term without credibility. Steve Barron, the director of the 1990 Turtles film, cared before Hollywood had a reason to. His first priority was to get to the heart of the Turtles and their story, as that would make everything else work, regardless of the effects, action, or actors. Character came first. He surrounded himself with the like-minded people at Jim Hensons Creature Shop, and Steve Barron succeeded in spades, revealing this affection most prominently in five aspects of the movie, taking this particular adaptation of the Turtles to radical heights. Granted, Barron was just a person pursuing the films production rather than a studio, and therefore had a passion project to play with and an enormous amount of creative freedom until some industry constraints held him back a little toward the end, but since in the case of the upcoming reboot the Turtles have already been sold to the Man by way of Viacom, I might as well try to help turn lemons into lemonade by pointing out 5 clear filmmaking opportunities that the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film should take from the originals example to show heart. Any kind of heart. Of course, heart does not equal a perfect movie, but even a little attention to these points could help. Think of this as a little reverse-engineered, Post-Emotional Conversion. Click "next" below to begin...