2. Sequels, glorious sequels
If there is one thing the original movie series never capitalised on, it was exploiting the bad guys from the already established Universe. Shredder was one of the main adversaries of the Heroes in a Half Shell, but using him all the time would be like having The Joker be the baddie in every Batman movie.
A classic example of this is in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze in which the filmmakers had the opportunity to introduce cartoon favourites Beebop and Rocksteady and instead created new bad guys in Tokka and Rahzar. When it came to the third movie, did we get villain we recognised? No, we got some new samurai who on one cared about. The same can be said for the 2007 animated movie, which again featured a bad guy created solely for the movie.
It’s not like the Turtles are low on bad guys to choose from. You could have had Leatherhead, Slash, Rat King, Baxter Stockman or – at a big push – Krang.
This new movie is bound to have sequels – it’s the way the industry works – and this means we could finally see big screen versions of characters we love. It’s already introducing Baxter Stockman, so there is a chance that he could be the main villain in the next movie – maybe even in his fly form. And if they go all the way, what’s to say the post-credits sequence doesn’t tease the possibility of Dimension X and the introduction of Krang?
Pretty exciting eh?
Originally published June 26, 2014. Updated December 13, 2019.
