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Movie Debate #68: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)


Reed Rothchild

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35 members have voted

  1. 1. Rate based on your own personal preferences, NOT historical significance

    • 10/10 - One of your very favorite movies of all time. Top 10.
    • 9/10 - Killer fucking movie. Everyone should watch it.
    • 8/10 - Great movie. Maybe one of the best released that year.
    • 7/10 - Very good movie, but not quite great.
    • 6/10 - Pretty good. You might enjoy the occasional watch, or tune in if you happen to catch it on cable.
    • 5/10 - It's okay, but maybe not something you'll go out of your way to watch.
      0
    • 4/10 - Meh. There's plenty of better alternatives to this.
    • 3/10 - Not very good.
    • 2/10 - Not your cup of tea at all. Some people might like this, but you are not one of them.
      0
    • 1/10 - Horrible in every way.
      0
    • 0/10 - The Citizen Kane of painful experiences. You'd rather shove an icepick in your retinas than watch this.
      0
    • Never seen it, but you're interested.
    • Never seen it, never will.


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3 hours ago, Strange said:

Sorry to hijack the thread further, and I don’t mean to sound condescending toward any religious folks, but this all sounds similar to how I used to be. When I was a religious teen I used to try (emphasis on try, didn’t always happen) to avoid games with magic systems/demons/etc. To this day I haven’t touched the Persona series though now I’d like to (time is the limiting factor these days).

I think I remember figuring out that I was raised in a similar or the same denomination of church. That denomination places very heavy emphasis on the spiritual realm and spiritual warfare. Like I said, I don’t want this to sound condescending or like I’m bashing so if anyone is actually curious about it, I can talk about it via PM.

Believe you me, I had no intent of hijacking the TMNT thread to bring up religion.  Yes, I recall you mentioning you had a similar background.  I'm responding publicly because we could start chatting privately but, if by chance, others want to discuss as well, they can PM me and/or we could make a multi-person PM... or we could make another religion thread.  Lol.

Regardless, if anyone would like to ask questions or are in general curious, I have nothing to hid. Public or private.  Regarding the spiritual warfare part of it, but yes that is a part of it.  I know that doesn't set well, and I don't feel condescended toward.  I am not offended by anyone's beliefs or disagreements with me, so feel free to say or discuss whatever you'd like to say or discuss.  We're cool. 🙂

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11 hours ago, DoctorEncore said:

8/10 based solely on my memories from childhood. Once my son is old enough to watch it, I'll try to remember to update with my disappointed review score.

 

I've rewatched it a couple of times with my kids (along with the other two live action releases) and the original holds up WAY better than I would have expected.

It is also neck-and-neck with Ghostbusters for a fantastic representation of 80's-gritty NYC. (yes, I know the movie was released in 1990 :P, but you know what I mean -- it leveraged the dirty-and-dangerous image of NYC before major cleanup happened in the mid-to-late 90's) 

Edited by arch_8ngel
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On 5/3/2021 at 1:00 AM, fox said:

For being that movie with giant muppets doing martial arts while cracking jokes, there is an underlying gritty quality to the pre-cleaned up NYC locations and general indie movie feel of the film that really helps ground the whole thing.  Just because it is for kids, doesn't mean they made it all squeaky clean, these turtles curse, they get angry, they get violent.  It helps the action feel real and not overly chesse or cartoony.

The turtles actually get their butts kicked a lot, their home gets trashed, and their father kidnapped and have to run off to the farm to lick their wounds.  The movie really takes its time and we get some good emotional and reflective character stuff. 

There is a nice message about gangs vs family, which wasn't needed but appreciated.  Film holds up really well, and might be a bit underrated in the comic book/super hero genre.

All of this is spot-on. For a bit of context, I grew up reading the earliest issues of TMNT and that consequently became my preferred rendition of the material. The early Turtles adventures were cast in a much grittier and more dour light than the image of them that would become popular with the animated series and I think the movie captured some of that essence while still managing to keep it reigned in enough for the kid-audience.

The early Turtles comics had foul language, blood and some pretty weighty stuff for a comic book of that era. The movie borrows the basic plotline of the first major story arc (being the "Return of Oroku Saki") and does it pretty well. Hell, in the comics, they murder Saki by dropping grenades on him. I think the "trash compactor" compromise was a good choice considering and I think it works.

Overall, I still think this is an excellent movie and the only TMNT movie that I consider worth watching. I just watched this again with my kids a couple weeks ago.

8/10

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On 5/4/2021 at 10:35 AM, Hammerfestus said:

9/10

Go ninja go Ninja go 

teenage mutant ninja turtles dancing GIF

Just goes to show Ice wasn't a "one hit wonder", he was a TWO hit wonder! 😄  And I do in fact remember seeing the first movie in the theater and noticing someone else's mom pointing out the first appearance of Shredder to her son.

I sure was lucky to have been born at the right time in this case!  And especially for video game history!  I can't believe it's already been 30 years.  And now we're fast approaching the 30th anniversary of the debut of Sonic the Hedgehog and later the SUPER Nintendo!! 🙂

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9/10

This movie is great. Idk why so many other comic & super hero (and even video game) movies were bad for so long after this movie essentially made a blue print everything else could've just copied. I'd be down to watch this right now lol

I also enjoyed TMNT 2 a lot though it is a very different movie in a lot of ways. I might like it even more. If that gets a thread it'll probably also be a 9/10 at the least.

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19 minutes ago, JamesRobot said:

9 for me personally.  I think we can all agree OG Turtles is a top tier flick.  But more importantly, who is the best turtle?  

Raphael, clearly. 

sAUUJQ8szZDEehIDE-0jcHhA-p12PvmgbYGG7FuK

100% percent. Fuck the rules!

 

Mikey is the Miss America answer

Leo is the try hard answer

Donnie is the neck beard answer

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8 hours ago, MrWunderful said:

Mikey is the Miss America answer

Leo is the try hard answer

Donnie is the neck beard answer

Or maybe your favorite isn't a Turtle at all? 😄 

For the movie my favorite is obviously Casey Jones 😄 

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By the time I started watching Ninja Turtles, Power Rangers was already popular, so the franchise didn't have that big of an effect on me.

Except for this movie. Had it on VHS, probably watched it a triple digit number of times, know exactly what most of the characters are about to say before they say it.

It's one of my favorites movies and while nostalgia aside I don't think it's one of the greatest of all time or anything, I do think it's at least "actually good" regardless.

Can definitely see why the post-90s film installments went with CGI turtles but I prefer the costumes and puppets.

 

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A fucking classic.  Timeless.  Unlikely?  Yes.  It came out 3 months into 1990 and all the dark, gritty realism had a lot to do with the late 80's. Shredder was a bad-ass, unlike his pussified cartoon equivalent.  When I think of cartoon Shredder I always remember him stomping his foot on the ground, having a hissy-fit while declaring "you turtles never let me have any fun!"  The difference between that first movie and the cartoon was like night and day.  And everything that Splinter said was true, at least on the surface...

...Major League Butt-Kicking Dudes And Dudettes...

 

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Economic Side-note: All those advanced animatronics and Corey Feldman's salary to pay, fight choreography, on location shooting in New York, lots and lots of extras etc, etc. and the budget was only a meager 13.5 million and grossed over 200 Million.  That's a gross of ~ 15X the budget.  Things seem to have gone downhill since...

 

Edited by PII
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Social Team · Posted

@PII You're not even taking into account all the extra merchandise they would sell too because of how big the movie was.  I tried to find the original YouTube video that discussed this movie and the following one but it was kinda nuts.  Like in the OG Ralph says "damn" like 6 times in the movie... A PG movie!  Also they used "real" weapons to fight.  In the second movie they don't curse at all and mostly used improvised weapons in a funny/goofy way.  The OG was the best one for sure.  I loved the 3rd movie as a kid but I rewatched it as an adult and it is a horrible movie.  Oh man was it bad.

 

7/10.....it's no Neverending Story but it's still good to watch.

you got it wink GIF

Edited by FireHazard51
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11 hours ago, FireHazard51 said:

@PII You're not even taking into account all the extra merchandise they would sell too because of how big the movie was.  I tried to find the original YouTube video that discussed this movie and the following one but it was kinda nuts.  Like in the OG Ralph says "damn" like 6 times in the movie... A PG movie!  Also they used "real" weapons to fight.  In the second movie they don't curse at all and mostly used improvised weapons in a funny/goofy way.  The OG was the best one for sure.  I loved the 3rd movie as a kid but I rewatched it as an adult and it is a horrible movie.  Oh man was it bad.

 

7/10.....it's no Neverending Story but it's still good to watch.

you got it wink GIF

Damn, I never really realized how the swearing was absent from the 2nd film.  Damn, that must be part of the reason it was not as good as the first.  Damn, it was a PG movie, wasn't it?  Damn, damn, damn.  That fucking chi-mo dragon from Never Ending Story was creepy as shit.

Yeah, I can only imagine what the merch prof. was like.  I picked up a tape of the 3rd move recently.  I remember being really excited to see it in the theater and liking it well enough, but DAMN, that shit was fucking horrible.  The following is not a joke: I cannot believe some assholes actually got paid to write that fucking shit.  I could do better after a six-pack and a whole bottle of whisky on an old-fashioned typewriter with my arms tied behind my back punching keys with my nose....

 

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