RetroDaze - Thread | Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Well, my imagination has run wild picturing Will Arnett as Shredder, which would be kind of hilarious. But Shredder will be played by William Fichtner. (who?)(imdb tells me he was in Blackhawk Down, The Dark Knight, Armageddon, and Contact)

Much has been made of the notion of the turtles being aliens instead of coming from Earth. On top of that, it's now been revealed that Shredder's identity will be "Eric Sachs", instead of Oroku Saki. I simply can't wrap my head around this mythos change.

As much as people have pointed out that it's not nonsense for Ben Affleck to play Batman (considering Michael Keaton held purely comedic roles before Batman 1989); as much as I take zero issue with Nick Fury being black in the new Marvel movies; I just can't get with Shredder being a white guy from the States. I'm sure there will be some story line that explains this as there will be with the aliens thing, but it just sounds stupid.

Some info on the upcoming toy line (based on the new film) has provided some clues on certain aspects of the upcoming film... (info from Idle Hands - idlehands1.blogspot.ru)

New Movie Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Figures Surface

Welcome to January 2014. Every January, Toy Fairs across the planet give
retailers a chance to see all the wonderful new plastics they'll be
able to sling to you all year long. That said, along with these glimpses
at the entire year at one go, there are bound to be MOUNTAINS OF
SPOILERS for your most anticipated movies! Hasbro has already drawn
first blood with detailed looks at their Captain America: Winter Soldier toy line and a hefty lump of their Amazing Spider-Man 2 merch,
without spoiling the complete look of the robotic Rhino or what is sure
to be The Goblin...or Green Goblin..or whatever they are running with
in the new film...and supplemental Cap villains as well.

Today, some lucky individuals got into a room with the full range of
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie toys and one reported back on what he
saw. Here's the meat of that conversation...

THE TURTLES

- Each turtle has the weapons they should have. (YAY!) 2 swords for
Leo, a staff for Don, 2 sais for Raph, a pair of nunchucks and a three
sectioned staff for Mikey.

- Each turtle looks LIKE A TURTLE and not alien...at all. (BIGGER YAY!)
In fact the designs are quite traditional and unremarkable, and feature
far less texture than the 90's movie turtles. Eyes are fairly normal
and not cartoonishly large. No beak along the nose area like some
speculated. Three fingers and two toes.

- The sort of hunched over posture present in the actors in those leaked set pictures is present here.

- Amazingly, each character appeared to have a different physique with
some (like Raphael and Leonardo) having super heroey muscle tone (though
Raph appears more pumped up than Leo) and Donatello appearing
slimmer..leaner. Michelangelo could possibly be slightly shorter than
the rest.

- Each turtle's mask matches the color from the cartoons.

- Styles of dress are different as well with Leonardo in a sort of
pseudo samurai gear get up including shoulder armor, some leg bits, arm
bracer and foot wear up to the calf with bindings showing. He might have
some armor (non metal) along his chest as well. Donatello's gear is a
mix of techy, modern and a dash of samurai with more normal footwear
(for a 2 toed giant turtle), some gadget on his head and gadgetry coming
off of his shell. The ends of his mask are far longer than the rest,
draping down to his waist. Raphael has adopted an urban warrior look
with white, bandage-like wrappings on his feet, right leg, and right
arm. He wears this very conan-esque loin cloth..thing..with leather
straps draping down as if he were more suited for gladiatorial battle.
Michelangelo's outfit seems the simplest with a hoodie wrapped around
his waist, pants and sneakers with the toes cut out, wrappings on his
hands and forearms, a necklace (could be puka shell beads?) and his mask
ends drape down to his chest. He looks frighteningly ready to spit out
some modern catch phrases.

SPLINTER

- Again, a very traditional design.

- Hair pulled up in a samurai..nub? Fu Manchu facial hair going on.

- His eyes seemed a little odd but I couldn't make out what was going on there.

- Slightly tattered samurai outfit with a blue upper half with gold accents, tan lower belted robes and blocky sandals.

- Comes with a samurai sword.

APRIL O'NEIL

- Nothing out of the ordinary here, especially since we saw her on set
in her yellow jacket. Blue jeans, black boots up to her knees and a
satchel across her chest.

- Worth noting the figure doesn't much look like her.

- Comes with a camera and 2 sai knives.

- Also might be worth noting she doesn't look very articulated and her heels may present a standing issue.

THE SHREDDER

- This guy looks like he owns stock in the Ronco knife company! Pointy
edges coming off of absolutely anything. He'll be the stuff of ridicule
for some time. Very overcomplicated outfit.

- Helmet is pseudo-traditional, adopting elements of the classic look
(mostly the shape and key elements) with the top coming down over the
eyes to the nose. Mouth area is recessed.

- Describing the rest of this armor is a nightmare. Suffice to say,
even though he's covered head to toe in metal armor or blades, his arms
are still mostly bare. It's a bit comical. He's got the shoulder pieces
with the blades coming off them, the shin armor with the blades coming
off them, black armor areas to offset the steel parts and a cape that
looks metal with blades coming down the side. I'd expect we'll see him
whip that around in battle.

- His only weapons (beyond his whole body) seem to be the bladey
thingies coming off his forearm armor. The one on his right arm seems
incredibly complicated..maybe a spinning blade?

FOOT SOLDIER

- No surprises here at all..just as drab as the goons in masks we saw on set.

- The figure designs are a bit more colorful with a brownish scarf,
blue vest, black arms, tan pants, grey knee pads and black boots. They
also seem to have made the mask more of a grey than the copper look we
saw on set.

- The changes in colors and such lead me to wonder if they did that for
the toy line just to bring something out for kids beyond a boring black
outfit or has there been changes to the Foot Soldier's look? Our bet is
the former. Makes little sense to put out figures that don't match the
movie look, though....but it's not like it hasn't happened before.

- Figure comes with a small hand gun, a larger rifle and a knife. You
may be able to strap the smaller gun to his leg in a holster sculpted
on.

Accompanying materials contained the following text:

New York City. Crime rates are on the rise and innocent civilians
tremble in fear. But there's a force fighting back, vigilantes among us
ready to protect the city. Are they the heroes we expect them to be? And
are they powerful enough to take down the masked warrior everyone
fears...the Shredder?

Clearly these will be the turtles the city NEEDS...but not the ones they deserve.

I keed i keed ......I'm Batman.

NOTE: We have no idea if this is the CORE line of 8 figures, or even the
first series of them. We fully expect these to be figures released to
retail, but they may not be the key look of each character in the movie.
After all, these are for the kiddies! We'll also note that these
absolutely are the Playmates toys, so while they may stray off movie
model slightly, they are aware adult collectors want them too...so...we
don't expect too much deviation. ARE YOU READY FOR GLADIATOR RAPHAEL??!!
Sound off in the comments on your expectations (high or dismally low)
for the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie!

UPDATE: Some people emailing in were asking if there was a vehicle for
the line. While we didn't get a report of one present alongside the
action figures, one was spotted on the set and it looked like this...

Playmates loves to make a new turtle van toy with every new redesign of
the TMNT crew, so we are going to put the likelihood we get one for the
new film at 90%.

Pics courtesy of Superherohype, JustJared