Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Will Now Be Lovable Aliens, Says Michael Bay
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series is at last rising to the apex all great franchises inevitably reach: the point where they sort of become Alf with ninjas.
As we already know, part of jealous sibling Michael Bay's plan to ruin all our favorite toys involves his producing a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie before directing yet another Transformers. Bay's exact methods of getting more sandbox grit clogged in the joints of our action figure nostalgia still remain largely a mystery, but at a recent Nickelodeon event in New York, Bay did reveal one pretty huge change he's planning for the Turtles: Now the heroes in a half-shell are edgy, lovable aliens in an alien half-shell.
Said Bay (from ScreenRant):
"These turtles [in the reboot] are from an alien race, and they're going to be tough, edgy, funny, and completely lovable."
Admittedly, teenage ninja turtle coming from space is really no less feasible an origin than being covered in green ooze and somehow gaining adolescent sentience, but does that change not make the whole "mutant" part a bit of a misnomer? And also, isn't this a completely arbitrary change that will needlessly provoke the ire/sadness of a generation just barely staving off utter nihilism through the comfort of at least knowing the TMNT cartoon opening to be true? Is the idea of radioactive mutation just too radically liberal a concept for an age in which the Lorax's message to not cut down every single tree is somehow considered "insidious"? Is it just that Michael Bay really wants to see a spaceship crash and go kaboom? Will alien Donatello even still "do machines"? Only one thing is certain: THEY WILL BE COMPLETELY LOVABLE.
