I'm Such A Nerd!!

Ok, even though nobody but me will find this interesting, I feel the need to write some commentary on the current Ninja Turtles enterprises. As I'm sure some of you are aware, there's a new movie coming out. I may have even posted about it before now, but I can't remember. Anyway, it comes out on Friday! I'm going to see it on Saturday with two friends, dressed up as Michelangelo! Amy is dressing as Donatello, and Autumn is dressing as Leonardo. I've graciously taken a picture of the most exciting part of my costume, so you can have a preview:

More pictures of the entire ensemble will follow after this weekend. And yes, I crocheted that myself. I'm that cool. Anyway, I read a novelization of the new movie, and the plot seems decent. It's corny in places, but that's one of the things I love about TMNT--the occasional corn. Overall, it seems more in the line of the first movie, which is definitely the truest to the original comic. What that means is, slightly darker, more serious. And it seems to be focusing a lot on the Turtles as an actual family, which sometimes gets lost. There are some new characters being introduced, bad guys, and they seem okay. Nothing can quite beat the ridiculousness and yet amazingness of Shredder, but I think this movie will do all right. the one thing that concerns me is the animation. The Turtles themselves look great in the trailers, but the human beings look slightly ridiculous. April and the bad-girl Foot Clan ninja leader both seem to have wasp-like proportions, and Casey Jones is much larger and broader than I feel any human man could be. It's ok if they don't go for realism, it is animation, but I wish that the proportions weren't so terribly sexist. One interesting note is that April is being voiced by Sarah Michelle Gellar, which totally floats my boat. Splinter's voice is one I know, as well, with a totally perfect accent. The Turtles, what little I can hear of them in the clips, sound like I think they should, so that's good.

In my whole Turtle fervor, I've also discovered that the newest cartoon remake of the show, which I thought only aired for one season on Cartoon Network, has actually been going for the last six years without my knowing it. So I have a lot to catch up on! I taped the show when I discovered it on tv, so tonight I'm going through the tapes to see which episodes I actually have. Then I'm going to peruse the internet until I find a place to buy DVD's of the ones I don't have...meaning several seasons' worth! I'm going to glut myself on the green fab four while Becky is away! This new cartoon is interesting; it follows the plot of the original comic more closely, unlike the original cartoon, which had a slightly different origin story and spawned its own comic book. The animation is better, in my opinion, but they changed some things that seem odd to me; April is no longer a reporter, which throws me for a loop, and thankfully she no longer wears the ridiculous yellow jumper thing that she used to wear all the time. She still has red hair, of course, but now it's more of a dyed-red color than a natural redhead. I'm less fond of that. Casey Jones plays a bigger part, which is also a throwback to the original comic, and I like that. I wish I had kept up on that comic, I never read past the first few issues, because by the time I discovered it I could no longer get back issues without spending tons of money. Anyway, this cartoon is a pretty good mix of all the preceding incarnations of the Turtles, and I really like the mixed interpretation. It works very well for me.

That's the end of my current ramblings about TMNT! I'm sure I'll write more after the movie. :)