About that Leaked TMNT Script…

When I got a Google+ notification the other day from Rob saying the troubled script for Michael Bay’s upcoming TMNT reboot had leaked, I knew I had to read it out of sheer morbid curiosity. Bay is just producing the movie, but his presence within a mile of my beloved Turtles is enough to turn me into a big, green, nostalgic rage monster.

For some reason, I had been staying optimistic about the movie, even when details leaked about the Turtles being aliens. In my head, I was willing to let their origin story change (slightly) if it meant getting a movie that had Krang, Bebop and Rocksteady, and the Technodrome in it. I kind of want that to happen really bad.

So, I sat down with my wife’s iPad and a 119-page PDF of the script not knowing what to expect, and within two minutes I knew that if this script gets made it would be cinematic suicide for the Turtles franchise. It is literally the worst thing ever, you guys. Literally.

To save you some time, I’ll fill you in on the plot. For starters, Casey Jones is the main character. He’s 18, a former hockey player, and a security guard at a furniture factory. April is his ex-girlfriend, also 18, and interning at CBS in New York, and has about as much characterization as an action figure. It’s immediately obvious that the Michael Bay Touch™ was forced on this script. I think the shaky camera shots, young actors and obnoxious jokes that made me vow to never watch the Transformers movies would all be here, but I don’t know if I have the willpower to avoid a new TMNT movie.

The Schrader?

Get this: Shredder is now Colonel Schrader. He’s a military guy working with a SWAT-esque group called the Foot (for some reason) and has ZERO ties to Japan, ninjutsu, or anything remotely resembling the original comics or cartoons. He’s barely described in the script and seems like a character that could be played by just about anybody. Not the Shredder we know and love.

Basically his group is some kind of secret organization that is working with Dimension X, and they have the Turtles held captive in their facility. Oh yeah, and their facility is the “furniture factory” where Casey Jones works. How convenient.

One thing that struck me about this script is how moronic and hyperbolic the freaking directions are. I’ve read lots of scripts, and from what I’ve learned the directions are meant to be just that, directions. In this script, they’re full of lame observations and faux-edgy descriptions that make it seem like it was typed out during a frat party at Bay’s place. “Dude, mention that if you’re a fan of the Fearsome Four, you’ll recognize them as our boys! Oh, and throw in the term eyefucking a couple times, brah!”

So, are they Turtles?

The Turtles themselves actually don’t read as obnoxious as I would have thought. Their characters are pretty close to other movie versions, albeit they’re described as being six and a half feet tall. I think the Turtles would come across as monsters if they were that big, but what do I know?

Oh, and the reason the Turtles have different colored headbands in this script is because Casey couldn’t tell them apart (with their black bands, what?) and made them headbands out of a mexican blanket. Seriously.

There is a massive chase scene involving the Turtles, Casey Jones, and April being attacked by Schrader and the Foot that reads just like a scene from a Transformers trailer. In that battle it’s revealed that Schrader isn’t human and is basically made of blades. Yeah. Mikey says “Schrader? More like a Shredder!” and I puked in my mouth a little bit.

Surprisingly, Krang, Bebop, and Rocksteady sound almost exactly like their cartoon counterparts, except Krang’s Android Body has four arms instead of two. I’m one of those guys who really wishes Tokka and Rahzar had been Bebop and Rocksteady like they had originally planned, so I’m all for including these guys in a movie, just preferably not one produced by Michael Bay.

Krang is trying to merge Dimension X with Earth to do something for some reason, and our heroes end up in a Jungle by accident and meet another Turtle. Surprise, they actually are aliens. Then a whole cliche layer of prophecy shit gets added in about the four Turtles fulfilling their destinies by defeating Krang, and I completely lost interest.

I couldn’t even tell you what happens to Schrader, I don’t even remember. The battle with Krang reads just like a boss battle in a TMNT Nintendo game, and I don’t know if that’s good or bad. It’s never explained what Splinter is, he was just an alien Rat that was trusted with watching the Turtles grow up on Earth.

At the end of the movie, the four Turtles are tasked splitting up and watching some lame orbs that control the separation of Dimension X and Earth, and it’s teased that some huge battle is coming.

The Verdict

You know when you go to the movies during the daytime and you come outside after it’s over and get blinded by the sun? I would be looking forward to that moment while I was watching this movie.

Either Kevin Eastman has awful judgement or he’s covering for the screenwriters while the studio scrambles to find a script that makes any sense at all. There’s no way that the delay in production has to do with anything but how horrible this script is.

There’s one really big thing that confuses me. How on Earth could Viacom justify having a brand new (and heavily promoted) animated series going on at the same time as a “more adult” movie with a completely different backstory? Wouldn’t that confuse the hell out of kids across the country? Imagine loving the TMNT cartoon as a kid for the first two seasons, then going to see a movie where everything seemed like it was pulled from some random plot generator. You’d literally go crazy.

My guess is that Paramount told Bay’s production company that they could alter the story a little bit if they needed to, and then realized that the writers went batshit crazy and halted production. Let’s hope they either ditch Bay’s company altogether or at least force them to stay closer to home with the story.

You know what I would do? I’d hire Guillermo Del Toro. He’d write an awesome story and keep the Turtles as practical effects instead of CG. But again, what do I know?