Ninja Turtles - Cowabunga!

Caldwin

Caldwin

Woobie Destroyer of Worlds
Citizen
I got the 2003 TMNT complete series set a while ago. But I had just finished marathoning the 2012 and Rise series. So for one thing I was a bit marathoned out. But then I started getting a backlog of games to get through and blah blah blah.

Anyways, I'm at the point now where I'm kinda waiting for a few things to come in and I guess I can go ahead and start marathoning 2003. There are several issues with doing this however.

1. First and foremost...18 disks...156 episodes....3462 minutes (57.7 hours give or take). It's very likely I will burn out long before I finish this. So, yeah...just saying ahead of time.

2. I've already watched at least a vast majority of these before. It's been a very long time since I've seen them, but I've seen them. So this isn't exactly going to be a fresh look where my reactions are raw and the jaw hits the floor...at least I highly doubt it.

3. These are on DVD. That's all well and good. But I haven't checked them out yet. If they're that center of the screen postage stamp type aspect ratio where I have to stretch it out to fill the screen, I may just call it quits right there.

So yeah, I will finally continue what I had been doing before and start marathoning another series of TMNT. But I reserve the right to stop at any time. Now if I remember right, the first episode is a multi-parter. If so, I'll give initial reactions after I'm done watching it. Until then...TTFN.
 
Caldwin

Caldwin

Woobie Destroyer of Worlds
Citizen
Things Change

Okay, aspect ratio is good...4:3 like I expected. But it's not that annoying middle of the screen thing. And the picture quality is actually pretty good. Thank goodness it lets you skip the opening credits without skipping into the actual episode. This may be interesting to watch.

Hmm, that sweet, sweet Splinter voice. It's been so long I'd forgotten. And this kinda sets the stage for 2003 in a nutshell. The pre-credits opener was a beat for beat remake of the first few pages of issue 1 of the Mirage comic, but then the plot follows the Mousers, Stockman and April which was issue 2. Basically, it's like the cartoon, at least to start out with, followed the comics, but mostly in a broad-strokes way. I'm not judging good or bad here. Just critically noting something that may tend to come into play many times as the series progresses.

Hmm, so I definitely won't be doing a play by play, episode by episode review here. There'd just be too much. But watching the first episode for the first time in years, it was over all pretty good. It definitely draws inspiration the Mirage comics without being beholden to keeping too close as to be a simple remake in cartoon form. And while the personalities were really drawn out the best in the first live-action movies, it feels like this series really solidified it. Mirage Comics had some differences in personalities. But they were all pretty much grim and dark. Fred Wolf had some differences in personalities. But they were all pretty much goofballs. The first movie and then this series really brought out each turtles distinctive traits and solidified them.

The action is...decent. It feels like there's a lot of attacking the camera and then you see the bodies fly across the screen in lieu of actually seeing the contact. And the choreography is pretty basic compared to later iterations. But coming off the Fred Wolf cartoon, it's hard to complain. It's actually pretty good.

Over all, I guess I was afraid I'd come back to this show years later and find out it wasn't as good as I remembered. But first episode, it's still pretty good. I guess now I get to find out if it continues to hold up.
 
Fero McPigletron

Fero McPigletron

Feel the fear!
Citizen
Caldwin said:
There were whole conversations about 2012 and Rise. They somewhere in this thread. I'm not really up to searching at the moment though. I thought you were in on some of those conversations though, no?
Click to expand...
Must have. Guess I'm forgetting.

(If there were negative comments, it would get a Rise out of me, haha, kidding, hot soup cowabunga ninja time)
 
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