|
|
 |
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Collection: 25th Anniversary Collectors Edition
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - America - Warner Home Video Review written by and copyright: Jeremiah Chin (25th September 2009). |
|
The Film
 The “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” franchise (1990-2007) may be one of the greatest demonstrations of pure marketing ever seen. Starting out as an independent/self published comic book and moving into pop cultural legend, my involvement with the turtles mostly revolves around the video games and the action figures. I remember the cartoon, but it didn’t have the big impact that playing with the toys and the games actually did, while the films are something of huge nostalgia value. I can remember quoting them growing up and specifically remember watching them on VHS countless times. But something with this kind of nostalgia stockpile can’t be revisited easily, the danger of something not holding up can leave a bleak opinion, especially considering the high reguard the nostalgia is usually held. In the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: 25th Anniversary Collector’s Edition” set, you get the chance to revisit all the movies in Blu-ray, but with that comes the danger of loosing the memory and having it replaced with an inferior product. And in some respects it happens, but not as badly as I expected, though I was able to discover some things that I remembered, but were even funnier the second time around. Plus it gave me a chance to visit the fourth movie, that I never saw in theatres. “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie” (1990) was the breakout movie that set up the Turtle’s back stories in transformation through the Ooze, to become ninja vigilante crimefighters. After saving TV reporter April O’Neil (Judith Hoag) from the foot clan, and she soon becomes friends with the four brothers. While they’re off playing with April, Splinter (Kevin Clash), is kidnapped by his old enemy Shredder (David McCharen/James Saito), pulling the Turtles into battle with the foot. After defeating Shredder, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze” (1991) sees the Turtles continue their carefree lives fighting crime, eating pizza and living underground until Shredder (David McCharen/François Chau) starts rebuilding the foot clan, with the intent of capturing the ooze that turned the Turtles into what they are. With a little help from pizza delivery guy Keno (Ernie Reyes Jr.), Raphael (Kenn Troum/Laurie Faso) tries to investigate the resurgence of the foot further, discovering Shredder’s plan to create his own evil beasties Tokka and Rahzar (Mark Ginther, Kurt Bryant/Frank Welker). And then in “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: Turtles in Time” the series gets really bad. Really really bad. After thrift store shopping April (Paige Turco) discovers a mystical staff that makes her switch places with a feudal Japanese prince, sending the turtles back in time to rescue her while Casey Jones (Elias Koteas) babysits the temporally misplaced Japanese people with Splinter (James Murray). Meanwhile back in time… you know what? It’s not worth it. Even as a kid, this movie wasn’t worth watching. Finally is the only non live action one on the set, “TMNT” (2007), seems to take place possibly after these earlier movies (though rightfully doesn’t acknowledge the journey through time) and follows sees the turtles reuniting after growing distant in order to fight a new nemesis in Max Winters (Patrick Stewart) who seems to have a dastardly plan involving monsters up his sleeve. I’ll deal with the first trilogy first, just because that’s the nostalgia danger zone and seems to be the key point for me. First off, Corey Feldman as Donatello’s voice is pretty comical looking back, and helps to bring the movies into a new light. Everything that I loved about the movies growing up, the fights and the slapstick, doesn’t really hold up, it’s all pretty cheesy but still good in a nostalgia way. What I did discover was some amazing comedy that I had never noticed before. The intentional or unintentional pauses in the movie along with some of the looks at camera and slapstick humor in the first two are absolutely hilarious. When they pop out of the sewer in the original and Donatello’s look at camera in the opening fight has me laughing just thinking about it. Plus Super Shredder is awesome, as is him yelling ‘Baaabieees?’ All of these things have been brought into a new, more comical light. Oh yeah the third one is there too, and when they find yoshi, that scene is funny, but other than that, this movie is just bad. It could be comically bad if it didn’t feel like forever to watch. Performances are varied across the movies, Paige Turco is the best April, while the differences between the Turtle actors in the first two films is fairly negligible. I’ve always liked Ernie Reyes Jr., he was a pretty influential kids movie martial artist for me growing up, I wish I knew what happened to him. Plus François Chau (aka Dr. Candle/Wickmund/Halliwax from “Lost” (2004-2010)) as shredder in “Secret of the Ooze” is much more fun to watch for. Before going on to the new movie I need to point out: The first two films don’t do anything to paint the foot clan as bad guys. Looking back, joining the foot clan is awesome. You get free burger king, learn ninja skills, have a sweet skate park and get to play videogames all day. Sure you steal things, but that’s ninja training to build your sweet fort, you never physically hurt anyone. My approach to “TMNT” was probably kinder than other fans, considering I was raised on the merchandise of the early series, films and comics rather than revering the actual products themselves. The biggest problem with the movie is that it wants to do what the earlier movies didn’t, present cool action sequences, which it does really well. Where it becomes a problem is that it completely misses the great goofiness and offbeat humor of the earlier ones that held up so well. Taking the turtles seriously but then throwing in lots of overused and more generics’ kids show jokes. Writer/Director Kevin Munroe is a good visual animation director, but a bad writer. Bring someone new in to write the next movie. Beyond the bad writing being a problem to just listen to, it nearly squanders the great voice acting cast brought together for the movie. I’m always disappointed when animated movies just go for huge names rather than casting on voice talent, but “TMNT” seems to do a great job of getting great names with some serious voice acting chops. You have your celebrities in Patrick Stewart, Laurence Fishburne, Zhang Ziyi, Chris Evans and Sarah Michelle Gellar, who are all well cast to their roles and their names aren’t plastered all over the promotional material to be annoying. Thankfully though you get some great voice acting names too like Frank Welker, Billy West, Kevin Michael Richardson and John Di Maggio to help bolster the rest of the cast. The movie tries to do the darkness of the comic along with the goofiness of the animated series and live action movies. It just winds up with mixed emotions of a good visual style with bad writing. It does get a lot of the toys and what made them cool to put into the look of the movie, like Raphael’s Nightwatcher suit reminds me of the toys. But it doesn’t quite get the goofy/serious writing. It’s not a terrible product, but the styling of the human and turtle characters takes a little getting used to, though the environments of the animation look great. Some more time and redesigns on the characters could have catapulted the movie to another level. Though not far enough without writing. Overall it’s great to see all the Turtle movies together. Sure the third movie is a disgrace and the first two don’t hold up as well as I had hoped, but are funny and entertaining in whole new ways. My final review at the bottom is an average between the movies, but I’ll rate them individually below. The set itself is nice to put the series together, but the fourth movie being thrown in there seems like a shameless attempt to make people like me, who didn’t care enough to see the new movie, see it (or at least buy it by bundling it with the movies I actually did like and wanted to see). “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie”: B “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze”: B- “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: Turtles in Time”: D “TMNT”: C+
Video
The first three films are presented with a 1080p 24/fps 1.78:1 VC-1 encoded transfer that doesn’t look too bad. The lower light tones of the first film, and low light sequences in the later films provide a display of the fierce grain left on the film. I partially blame this on possibly low quality source material that doesn’t meet the high standards of Blu-ray format, considering the brighter sequences of the first film and the relative brightness of the latter two films make the harsh grain far less apparent or distracting, though in some sequences it can muddy the colors. By no means a bad transfer, it’s the best that exists for the films, but hopefully a 30th anniversary or future release will have a bit more love and care thrown into the transfer. B- “TMNT” is presented in 1080p 24/fps 2.35:1 aspect ratio with VC-1 encoding and like every other CG animated movie I’ve seen looks crystal clear and super sharp on Blu-ray. The imperfections are non-existant and it’s an overall high quality transfer considering the source material, though it does help to emphasize the cheaper looking style of some of the character models and designs. Still, the transfer itself is fantastic and I can’t really harsh on the style to detract form the superb visual quality expected from the digital transfer. A
Audio
The first three films all feature an English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 soundtrack which mixed at 48kHz/24-bit, like the audio, shows a higher technological standard than was present at the time the films were made. The sound doesn’t move as well as you would expect from a TrueHD track, but it still sound scrisp and clear. It fares better than the video transfer, as the synth tracks and the odd background noises and cowabungas all come through crisply despite a slight flatness across the three films. The first three also include French and English Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks along with English for the Hearing Impaired, French and Spanish subtitle tracks. B+ “TMNT” has an English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 surround track mixed at 48kHz/24-bit and sounds crisp and clear, simlar to the visual digital aspect of the film. All of the effects move well and the different sound effects added into the film only seem out of place a few times, there are some moments that some burps or little jokey sound effects seem added in (and the commentary reveals that some of them were actually just added in afterwards, but still the sound works really well in the film, its just too bad the script didn’t match up. There are also English, French and Spanish 5.1 tracks with English, English (for the hearing impaired), French and Spanish Subtitles. A-
Extras
For a "Collector’s Edition", the special features are basically nonexistent, except on “TMNT” and none of the films even has a start-up main menu, settings are only accessible through a pop-up menu, and pressing menu during the films will only bring you to a special features menu. DISC ONE: “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie” There is the theatrical trailer which runs for 1 minute and 28 seconds. The only other features are bonus trailers for: - “Sneak Peek! ‘TMNT: Smash-Up’ Game for Wii” which runs for 1 minute and 4 seconds. - “Warner Brothers on Blu-ray" which runs for 1 minute and 9 seconds. DISC TWO:: “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Secret of the Ooze” The theatrical trailer runs for 2 minutes and 16 seconds. DISC THREE: “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: Turtles in Time” The theatrical trailer runs for 2 minutes and 2 seconds. DISC FOUR: “TMNT” This is the first disc with any real meat to the special features, including an audio commentary, several featurettes and deleted/alternate/additional scenes. The audio commentary with co-writer/director Kevin Munroe does a good job of owning up to some of the mistakes, such as overwriting dialogue in certain scenes, but is too happy with some of the dialogue. What he should be proud of though is the weird technical specifications of the different animation sequences. It’s good to hear that he really enjoys the craft because he spends most of the Leonardo/Raphael fight scene oogling the way the rain trickles off of the different textures present in the scene as well as the minor gusts patterned into it’s movement. This is the kind of thing people obsessed with the craft would talk about and it’s nice to hear he enjoys the little things in it. Plus he gives props to the voice actors who deserve it. An overall good commentary that can get a little boring if you aren’t into his technical speak, but is good enough to listen to. “TMNT: Voice Talent First Look” runs for 5 minutes and 4 seconds. This first featurette deals with the major actors involved in doing the voiceover work for the film, along with some of the major players in the film. There’s talk of the turtle’s charm and it’s good seeing Patrick Stewart and Sarah Michelle Gellar love the turtles, but I would have loved to hear from the traditional voice actors involved in the film. “Mikey’s Birthday Party: full sequence” runs for 3 minutes and 16 seconds. This extended scene runs with director’s audio commentary with co-writer/director Kevin Munroe and is simply an extended version of the birthday party sequence. Not much added in here but Donatello’s contact with Michelangelo during the birthday party sequence while Munroe talks about why he thinks the scene was so good, though cut. “Raphael’s Rough House Fight Test” footage runs for 1 minute and 41 seconds. It’s fun seeing this early rendered version of the film, also with audio commentary by co-writer/director Kevin Munroe, using older models for the film. A nice little clip to see the early renderings of the film, Munroe just talks about how it was a test of their limits and how it was used to screen for studios. “Monsters Come Alive” runs for 2 minutes and 50 seconds. This featurette again runs with audio commentary by co-writer/director Kevin Munroe and is a split scene comparison between the storyboards and the final redered version of the film. Munroe offers his opinion and it’s nice to see how involved he is, as well as how the film changed from storyboards to final rendered product. “Donny’s Digital Data Files” runs for 1 minute and 57 seconds. In this featurette there are some pre-rendered models and seeing the animators looking at how to create the different characters and environments for the film while speaking with the animation studio. A cool look at the behind-the-scenes of the animation, though very very brief. “Roof Top Workout” featurette runs for 5 minutes and 35 seconds. audio commentary with co-writer/director Kevin Munroe again on this clip dealing with the roof top training sequence in storyboard form while Munroe explains why it was cut from the film, moving into the polygon models of he sequence that are almost a second storyboard for the next sequence of events. “Still Wanna Fight? Temp/Scratch Test” runs for 3 minutes and 11 seconds. This sequence is another deleted scene with audio commentary by co-writer/director Kevin Munroe where he talks about their relationship being cut out of the film as well as talking about the actual sequence that wound up in the film. Alternate opening scene runs for 3 minutes and 3 seconds. This is alternate opening to the film, told through storyboards and gives more background to the turtles themselves rather than the backing of the movie. In the audio commentary with co-writer/director Kevin Munroe, he explains why the opening was changed and why it was cut, but it is a cool sequence with really well fleshed out storyboards and some fully rendered sequences. “Alternate Ending Temp/Scratch Test” runs for 1 minute and 17 seconds. This alternate ending talks features the brothers talking after the movie, in a previsulaization sequence, while in the audio commentary with co-writer/director Kevin Munroe he talks about the scenes and why they cut the scene, while Munroe talks about how much he likes the sequence. “Splinter Gets Cake” additional scene runs for 2 minutes and 9 seconds. This sequence looks at the original greyscale wireframe sequence on the skateboarding scene, Munroe talks some technical details in the audio commentary, also talking about the cut section where Splinter comes in for cake and Donatello takes the money. “TMNT: Internet Reel” runs for 3 minutes and 52 seconds. This is basically a giant featurette length trailer for the film that includes different scenes from the film.
Packaging
Like other collectors edition, this one comes with a gimmicky packaging that I find entertaining, if a little questionable. The entire set is packaged in a cardboard pizzabox styled box with plastic trays holding in the four discs. I’m a little concerned that they may fall out with over use, but otherwise it’s fine. Additionally the set comes packaged with the following collectibles: - A Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles logo beanie (awesome) - A full version of the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie” comic book - 8 character cards - A reproduction of a signed sketch
Overall
Individual discs/films are reviewed in the sections while the overall represents the average between the films.
|
|||||
|