Dina Reviews: Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Wow, the Ninja Turtles have a lot of incarnations out there, huh? I still hold that the IDW comics is the overall best incarnation, but the Rise of the TMNT series was also a really good one; it was a very different take on the Turtles, but one I absolutely adored. Sadly, that series didn’t get the runtime it deserved, though it did get an awesome finale with the Rise of the TMNT movie, the best TMNT movie ever made. 

The replacement incarnation started with the CGI-animated TMNT: Mutant Mayhem. Now, I would rather have had more Rise, but I did promise myself to give the new TMNT a chance. And… yeah, Mutant Mayhem was fine. Not a patch on Rise, and in no way a GREAT movie, or even a great TMNT movie, but it wasn’t a bad one either. It had some solid voice performances and some GREAT visuals… it’s one of the best-looking CGI movies in recent years… and while the story was a bit of a mixed bag, it did end with a pretty interesting new status quo for the TMNT, being accepted into society and actually attending regular high school at the end.

So I won’t lie, when the Tales of the TMNT spin-off cartoon was announced, I was actually pretty curious as to what an animated series would do with this premise. The Turtles, previously outcasts, now going to be part of society. How would they cope with being mutants in a human world? How would humans cope with them being mutants in a human world? How would they balance their ninja adventures with regular school, classes and homework? Yeah, this could be interesting! I was kinda psyched to see what the series would do with this new and different status quo.

As it turns out, not a whole lot. Really. Tales of the TMNT barely touches on ANY of this. The Turtles are known by the public and can walk around the city without hiding, and some humans like them and some humans don’t, but… that’s pretty much where it begins and ends. 

The 12 episode season is divided into two six-episode story arcs; the first six episodes are dedicated to the Turtles dealing with some mutant-destroying robots that wreak havoc in New York while hunting mutants, and the last six episodes are about a city-wide flood and a trio of aquatic mutants creating chaos. Both these story arcs have the Turtles split up due to circumstances, with each Turtle getting one solo episode where he has to deal with his own part of the adventure, and the adventures are all separate but interlinked, meaning that it’s kind of a big puzzle piece where we don’t get all of what’s going on until the final episode where everyone gets together and deals with the arc villain. While this does mean we do get some individual development for the Turtles, it also means we don’t get a lot of Turtle team action, and the  brotherly interactions between the guys is sadly limited.

Also, there’s this weird framing device where the stories are implied to not actually have happened at all. The first story arc is presented as a comic that Leonardo writes and draws, the second story arc is…. uh… I’m not actually sure what’s going on here. Splinter is telling April and the Turtles about the events of the big flood, but it’s really Raphael dubbing Splinter’s voce through as video recording and adding a bunch of stuff to make the story more interesting… I’ll admit I didn’t quite get what they were going for here.

Now… there IS a lot to love about this series. The visuals are AWESOME. They took the grungy “street art” look of the CGI movie and translated it to 2D animation, and it looks SO GOOD. The backgrounds are stunning and the character animation, while often choppy, is livelier and more expressive than anything I’ve seen in TNT cartoons before. The action scenes are fast-paced and fluid, and this New York feels LIVED IN. It’s not just a background for the Turtles to run around, it feels like a distinct place with a distinct character. Like… it doesn’t feel like a sanitized and cleaned up big city, you know? Sure, we don’t see gunnings or hookers or drug dealers on-screen, but they wouldn’t have felt out of place in this series. 

The dialogue is more hit-and-miss, but more hit than miss. There’s some genuinely funny bits here… as well as some absolutely awful “who could possibly think this was remotely funny” bits, but they can’t all be winners. The bird poop jokes DEFINITELY got old very quickly.

I definitely feel like I know a bit more about who the four Turtles are as individuals in this incarnation after seeing these 12 episodes. The villains are all interesting and engaging characters too, and that’s without even a glimpse of Shredder and the Foot Clan. 

But… I’m going to say it. The scripts aren’t up to much. Yes, the “Rashomon” style “we see each characters POV, only getting bits of the larger story at a time” storytelling mostly works, but there are plot holes and inconsistencies a-plenty. And some ideas are just BAD. Yes, I GET that you didn’t want to pay Jackie Chan to voice Splinter for the series, but come ON. Just recast the guy! I get that it’s supposed to be funny that he only talks in squeaks and chirps because he’s “decided to speak in Vermin,” but it doesn’t make sense with the character… and really, for the second story arc they go back on it anyway and have Raphael “dub” his voice in this weird “flashback within a flashback” technique that I REALLY don’t think they thought through. JUST RECAST HIM! WE WOULD HAVE UNDERSTOOD THAT YOU COULDN’T HAVE JACKIE CHAN IN THE SERIES! 

The voice acting in general is… kind of mixed. The teenage voice actors from the movie all return to voice the Turtles, and while I genuinely like their performances for the most part and applaud the idea of having the Turtles be voiced by actual teenagers… some of the deliveries leave a bit to be desired, with Michelangelo especially sounding kinda flat and dull. It’s not BAD, it’s just… after I was spoiled by the top-notch voice acting from Rise and the 2012 show, this does feel like a step down. 

Which is kind of my overall impression of the show. “Not bad, but it feels like a step down.” It’s still worth a look for its amazing visuals, brilliant character animation and interesting storytelling techniques, but if they do make more seasons I hope they at least work more on the scripts. Tone down the poop jokes, give more time with the Turtles as a team, make the framing devices a little less stupid, and for fuck’s sake, just let Splinter speak properly.