Conclusion - "We Fought Well"
The original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film was not a business model. It began as an artistic statement that cared about what it was saying. The movie respects its audience, both kids and adults, and is immensely entertaining as it creatively and skillfully weaves through its tones and ideas. It is self-aware and relevant, a statement on the world in which we live. But Platinum Dunes doesnt have a track record of creating such work. They may have changed the Turtles title back to normal and possibly tossed the whole alien turtle angle, so thats something, but it doesnt mean everything. Platinum Dunes makes decisions based on what they think people want, from focus groups and surveys to toys and Nielsen ratings. Whether comedy, drama, science fiction, martial arts, or horror, Platinum Dunes doesnt go from the heart. So its good that the Internet is standing its ground because, whether or not that ground turns out to be justified in the end, it forces the executives to acknowledge what is important in storytelling, that condescending business practices will no longer be tolerated by each successive generation of misfitsmisfits who know what the Turtles are all about, and that with or without further good movies, it is not the meaning at the core of the legend that will fade away, quietly into the night. The heroes and villains of the 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film and other treasured Turtles iterations may subsist mainly on pizza, but they have three-dimensional substance in their half-shells. And that kind of substance always comes back.