"Deep in the sewers of New York City, four mutant turtle brothers lurk. Raphael, Donatello, Leonardo and Michelangelo (calling themselves the 'Mad Dogs') are in their early teen years and the brothers go on new and exciting adventures. They tap into their mystic ninja powers to learn to work together as a cohesive unit and become a team of heroes as they navigate the modern world and other hidden realms. The brothers get a whole new look, new weapons, and new powers as they discover the hidden city beneath New York and find time for a slice of their favorite pizza."
— Wikipedia
When Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles first had its promo poster circulating the interweb, back in my first year of college I believe, I’ll admit to being a little put off at the time. The style looked different from the 'classic' framework the show was built upon, with the turtles designs varying not just from the philosophy of the franchise itself, but also in relation to each other. They had markings that seemed excessive, new weapons that felt randomly thrown in, and a flair to them that indicated an absence of established personality archetypes.
I can’t confidently say this was a game changer for me, as I had little to play in the game to begin with. So I had originally just shrugged my shoulders and went back to the bachelors trudges. The Cartoon Community at the time though? Whoooo, they were hot. Not exactly what I’d call ‘open’ (shoot, I wouldn’t even say it is now in a sense), as people were still huffing the putrid coal smoke plumes of the ‘Teen Titans Go’ hate train. Reboots might as well have been a death sentence, so you could only imagine the things being said from just the bits of sneak peeks alone.
I think I was more annoyed by the Black April ‘debates’ on Twitter than anything the team was doing over at Flying Bark.
Fast Forward to 2020, which I think was the late half of my second year of college. I can’t exactly remember the details of just when or how I started watching–it’s a cross between either in the middle of season 1 in a call one day or I started binging to catch up with the season finale–but either way a binge happened. And I had blown through all the episodes and brought the finale on google play in a vain attempt to show my support for the otherwise cancelled show.
Rise was THAT worth it to me.
I’d think I wanna list off first that the animation and choreography of the show is, of course, marvelous. This isn’t me just glazing three key fight scenes and equating the whole show to a banger because of them, but the show just moves in a very nice way. It’s settled into its snappy dialogue and slapstick nature so well that they can seamlessly blend smooth character acting with funny ass faces and quick-cuts. And the background work is so square and angular, yet colorful and vibrant. You never get the feeling they cut corners during the show, y’know?
The characters are just as unique! The turtles act so much differently than they do, with Leo being the snarky sarcastic one and Donnie being the maniacal egotistical one and Raph being the voice of reason with a heart and Mikey being the hyperactive wildcard. Even Splinter and April don’t really act like their ‘traditional’ selves. But with the way Rise is written, it's as if they use this to give characters their own agency and layers. It’s still a comedy at the end of the day, so you won’t REALLY get deep dives into certain character traits akin to an analysis post.
But if you look past the setup and mark instances where you can see the inklings (the rise even) of their core functionality in the franchise, I think that’s when it clicks that Rise isn’t just a reboot, but a retelling. And you never have to guess how they act with one another-as it's not just another turtle property where you have the Raph and Leo argument here and the Donnie and April episode there with Michelangelo just doing whatever it is he does in the background and Splinter only really being there for the story. They really make use of them all to where you understand their a unit or an ensemble than just an assortment, y’know?
Anyway, this post is just something to test out my blog, so I’mma sign off for now. But who knows–maybe I’ll talk about the episodes more later on!