Michael Bay To Remake TMNT As Aliens 481
Nidi62 writes "We all know that Michael Bay loves to put 86 minutes of explosions into a 90-minute movie. But it appears that he has found a new way to screw up a movie. He is directing a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot in which the turtles are not created with ooze: they are 'from an alien race, and they are going to be tough, edgy, funny and completely loveable.' No word yet on whether he's consulting with George Lucas on how to totally destroy the origin and essence of a classic story."
Responding to criticism, Bay thoughtfully explained that fans need to "chill."
And in other news (Score:5, Insightful)
Michael Bay Signs $50m Deal to Fuck Up Thundercats [theonion.com].
le sigh.
Re:Bay needs to... (Score:5, Insightful)
"chill" AND "relax" (Score:5, Insightful)
Did... did he just tell us to chillax?
We've suspected it for years, but I think the trolling has just become completely overt.
Fuck him (Score:5, Insightful)
Teenage Alien Ninja Turtles = TANT
As in, this dude is tainting my childhood memories!~
An Analogy (Score:5, Insightful)
Michael Bay is to 80's cartoons as Uwe Boll is to Videogames.
TMNT: Mostly Sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
Michael Bay takes a shit, sets it on fire (Score:5, Insightful)
Calls it Transformers 4.
Re:Bay needs to... (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe years ago, but now Megan Fox's ass has probably had 15 surgeries and looks like it's made of plastic, much like the rest of her. I'll pass. Why the hell do naturally beautiful women feel the urge to completely destroy that??
I'm not a psychologist, but I'm pretty sure it's because deep down most people have self-esteem issues and when they were in high school the only boys who approached them were the confident ones who 'negged' them and provided a level of mental abuse that they tolerated and even found attractive. And they never recovered from it.
Add the regular rejection of Hollywood and it just gets even worse.
Re:This is (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah right.
The guy just keeps resuscitating properties that have been long dead and buried, licensed for somewhere near the price of a six pack of Coors, and turning them into brands worth hundreds of millions of dollars again.
We should all hope to "screw things up" like he does.
Re:Michael Bay takes a shit, sets it on fire (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you meant...
1. Michael Bay takes a shit
2. Sets it on fire
3. Calls it Transformers 4
4. ???
5. Profit. Mad, mad profit.
Transformers 1 - budget: $150M, worldwide gross: $710M
Transformers 2 - budget: $200M, worldwide gross: $836M
Transformers 3 - budget: $195M, worldwide gross: $1123M
The only reason he gets away with this stuff is because he's bringing in umpteen millions on his films so far.
He may flop entirely with TMNT and consequently be pulled from ThunderCats, though. Hollywood can be fickle like that. But then they'll just find somebody else to screw that up :)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is news? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Palladium roleplaying game was pretty awesome too
Re:Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
The rights-holders sold him the rights and he is free to do with them as he pleases.
Yet we are for some reason not free to express our displeasure?
Amen. I wasn't- and amn't- a major TMHT (*) fan (**), so I'm not massively upset personally. However, variants of the following stupid argument pop up on Slashdot all the time, namely that "it's a free market / free world therefore they're within their rights to do what they want with their thing / run their company how they like and you're free to not buy it and therefore you're not entitled to complain about it."
;-)
All but the last bit in bold may be arguably legitimate- and standard- but for some reason people around here seem to think that because there's a free market and people have the right to make a free choice then they have no right to complain.
Wrong. If "Fanboy Electronic Fashions" makes something I dislike or conducts their business in a manner I disagree with, yes, I don't have to buy it or do business with them (just as they're not obligated to pander to me). This fact *does not* disqualify me from criticising them anyway- whether I choose to buy their stuff or not- nor does it entitle them to protection from criticism. If I don't like the "uPhone" then "you don't have to buy it" doesn't stop me from criticising it, or encouraging others not to buy it- in fact, to believe otherwise pretty much implies you dislike free criticism of products (plus people who *had* bought it could similarly be dismissed with "well, you bought it anyway").
(*) Teenage Mutant *Hero* Turtles, yes, I live in Britain and we got the BBC-approved title
(**) Probably due to being just a bit too old for the cartoon when it first came out (early to mid teens), though I knew people in my class at school who liked it.
You know (Score:4, Insightful)
You know, I honestly don't give a crap about TMNT. Not at all. Never a fan. But this STILL MAKES ME SEETHE.
Why the fuck can't Hollywood EVER GET ANYTHING RIGHT, EVER?
It's like Bryan Singer admitting he never read comic books as a kid. [inspirationalstories.com] So what do they do? Give him the X Men franchise to direct. Great thinking, guys. That's exactly what you want. Directors who never read the source material. Pilots that never read a flight manual. Doctors that never read a book on physiology. Truck drivers that never read the drivers code, driving on the wrong side of the streets. Perfect. And it's not uncommon. Same goes for Tim Burton, [imdb.com] which perfectly explains Edward Bathands.
But this time, I have to be impressed though. This time, the ignorance of Hollywood rings true a clear as a bell. You know right at the outset that this is going to absolutely suck. Some people like Mr. Singer and Mr. Burton admit to not knowing the source material. Mr. Bay has basically admitted that he hasn't even read the fucking title. Because it's Mutant turtles, not Alien turtles as others have correctly noted. A new low, even for Hollywood.
Why the fuck do they keep hiring these people? A total fucking stranger they pick randomly off the streets could do better. They certainly couldn't know less about the topic. You can only go up.
Re:Just what Hollywood needs.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Just stop.
We are very near the point where the free stuff out there is good enough to replace the stuff in theaters and on television (and I'm not talking about The Pirate Bay kinda free). Freeware games. *Excellent* YouTube series. Really original daring stuff.
Just stop watching Hollywood's crap.
Re:TMNT: Mostly Sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
As long as no one straight jackets me and props my eyes open to watch it, I am OK with the fact that it might exist.
It would suck to live in a world where someone could say "no" to economic activity for non-objective reasons... oh, maybe we are too late.
Re:TMNT: Mostly Sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
"No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have searched the record for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people." H.L. Mecken
Re:TMNT: Mostly Sucks (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm so angry right now, I'm molting. I would wish an aneurysm on him, but frankly, he's clearly already brain dead.
Re:Bay needs to... (Score:4, Insightful)
The real reason is society at large. The problems facing actresses are no different than the average girl. The key differences are that, a) actresses are pushed even more aggressively into conforming to a certain aesthetic; and b) the have the income to be able to act on it.
The guys in high school were douchebags and as such their mentality easily dismissed. The problem is that they were equally affect by social norms and thus were simply repeating what society at large expects of these girls.
Hence the expectation that women should look like surgically augmented toothpicks. The real problems are always a lot more subtle than people believe.
Re:TMNT: Mostly Sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
"No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have searched the record for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people." H.L. Mecken
There have been other stories on Slashdot where this quote would be pithy and appropriate, but here - man, we're talking about people getting their panties in a bunch over CARTOON TURTLES!
I'm not planning to go see this movie, but - CARTOON TURTLES!
Re:Teenage _________ Ninja Turtles.... (Score:5, Insightful)
You guys do know that Joss Whedon wrote Titan AE as well as Firefly don't you?
Re:TMNT: Mostly Sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
The Michael Bay formula, explained.
Step 1: Take franchise with loyal following.
Step 2: Shit all over it.
Step 3: Add CGI explosions.
Bonus points if you make the camera work so fucking terrible (Transformers 2 is a great example of this) that NOBODY HAS ANY FUCKING CLUE WHAT IS GOING ON in anything resembling an action sequence.
Re:TMNT: Mostly Sucks (Score:2, Insightful)
But who thinks this is a GOOD idea? anyone?
I do.
At least if he's busy raping the turtles, he won't be thinking about molesting Firefly.
Re:Just what Hollywood needs.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure the jury on Star Trek is already out, and that it was good, just different. The movie changes the series from an adventure drama to more of an action movie. Although the reboot feels like a dumbed down version of Star Trek, they tried to stay true to the original cannon.
While I'm sure any Trek fan will point out all the things they changed, they did change things up a bit, they did a lot of things right (ladder in the hallway, redshirt on an away team mission, rigging the Kobayashi Maru Test, Sulu is a fencer) to make sure everybody knew that the movie was really Star Trek. Besides, the original Star Trek already established split timelines as cannon, so any changes you make can be considered cannon in an alternate universe.
The movie was good, tried to stay true to the original, what's not to like?
Re:TMNT: Mostly Sucks (Score:4, Insightful)
Obviously he didn't live long enough to see what happened to Disney, and their brutal, $200 million loss on John Carter.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2012/03/20/bloomberg_articlesM15FX36JTSE801-M1793.DTL [sfgate.com]
Re:Just what Hollywood needs.... (Score:4, Insightful)
I watched the original Battlestar back in the day, as well as the abortion commonly known as Battlestar 1980. Trust me, the reboot is WAY better. Bay is drinking way too much of his own koolaide these days. Give 'em plenty of explosions to keep the 8-12 year olds happy, and who gives a fuck about a plot?
You wanna see some goddamned good Hollywood movies? Watch Casablanca. Silent Running. 2001: A Space Odessey. 2010. Outland. North By Northwest. These movies didn't need 87 minutes of every 90 in a car chase or an explosion, they had a story, plot, and actually didn't insult the intelligence of the people who watched them.
Chill, it's a reboot. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And in other news (Score:5, Insightful)
Thundercats was awful. I'll admit I watched the show as a child. I even enjoyed it. A while back I had the misfortune of seeing it again on cable. My advice to the world is never watch 1980s cartoons as an adult. (Especially anything that had action figures!) Your brain will thank you.
Re:Chill, it's a reboot. (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that the Star Trek reboot was still taking place in space, with space ships, on a trek, if you will...
If you take Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and make them aliens instead, you kind of just ditched half the title right there; they're no longer mutants, or turtles. For that matter, they may not qualify as teenagers, and can an alien really be a ninja?
If you take TMNT and change enough so that none of those letters can apply anymore, is it still TMNT?
Re:From a scifi perspective, STXI sucked. (Score:4, Insightful)
Moon (2009)