Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles Forever (Review)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles Forever
2009
Directed by Roy Burdine and Lloyd Goldfine
Turtles Forever is the 25th Anniversary celebration that brings together different branches of the Ninja Turtle franchise in a way that is not only a good story, but a fun reference to the past 25 years of the franchise. Both people like me, who grew up with the older cartoon in the 1980s and the more modern fans who were raised on the modern cartoon will have plenty to make them smile.
For those of you who never really watched the modern TMNT cartoon, it is a slightly more realistic take with less crazy stuff and more actual deaths. Though they still have a bunch of wacky adventures and aliens and all that fun stuff. The Turtles still have the same basic personalities but they are less over the top.
When the 80s Turtles show up, their voices are different from the classic voices (due to union issues, IIRC) but they have the same animation. There are plenty of Easter eggs – including Tokka and Rahzar in it! We also see Irma and unmutated gang members (including unmutated Bebop and Rocksteady) back in the 80s Turtles’ universe. There are lots of other references to the old show, including the 80s Turtles finding all sorts of ways to use the terrain to take out bad guys instead of directly attacking them.
This is dubbed off of a TV broadcast because I am cheap and the DVD isn’t out yet! For purposes of this review, we will refer to the 1980’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as 80s Turtles (80s Leonardo, 80s Donatello, 80s Raphael, and 80s Michelangelo) and the modern TMNTs by their regular names. 80s Shredder will be referred to as such, and Utrom Shredder is the modern version. 80s Splinter and Splinter. Any other random characters (like 80s April O’Neal) will follow the same pattern. Isn’t that easy? So let’s begin. First up is the Roll Call:
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Categories: Bad, Movie Reviews Tags: animated, Lloyd Goldfine, Roy Burdine, TMNT
Rare Movie Time!!! – Our Friend, Power 5 (Wurideul-ui chingu pawo 5) (1989)
From the depths of Korea comes the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles piloting giant robots! Yes, in a live action movie mixed with cartoon robot fights! Our Friend, Power 5 (Wurideul-ui chingu pawo 5 aka 우리들의 친구 파워 5 )Besides directly ripping off TMNT, the robots are ganked from Go-Bots, most particularly the Gobots Guardian Power Suit. This copyright nightmare is probably never going to get a legit release in the US because no company wants to get sued into the ground. I don’t even know if it has much legitimate releases in South Korea, because the only shots of it seem to be from VHS. But you never know when funky DVDs or VCDs will show up. Until then, all we have are internet images, translated websites, and a lot of frustration. Just the thing rare cult movie fans love to hate to love.
On a star called ‘Battlestar,’ a class of turtles have evolved to form a civilized society. Shark, villain of the universe, attacks Battlestar. The princess escapes with the secret design plans of the Comentor Robot. On earth, Dr. Yang discovers how to bring garbages of the universe to earth and take care of them. Dr. Yang brings the princess to earth. Hyuk walks into Dr. Yang’s lab. Contaminated by gamma rays, Hyuk grows supernatural powers. Hyuk and the princess combine forces and fight Shark and his men. Dr. Yang and Dr. Gong finish the Comentor Robot to defeat Shark’s troops. The princess and her people return to Battlestar.
Unfortunately the site won’t let me access the stills, so screw KMDB!
Here are some scans of a promo-booklet ganked from here. (Click for HUGE!)
How about screen shots of the actual film? Got you covered, thanks to some Korean guy! Hooray!
Some toys were produced, this TMNT fansite has some photos:
More at GoGreenMachine, which now has a stand alone site at GoGreenMachine.org
Searching in Korean also yielded this site that has more photos of both of the robots used. Thank you, random Korean blogger guy!
You can rest assure that if TarsTarkas.NET gets a hold of a copy of Our Friend, Power 5, we will review the FRAK out of it!
Categories: Movie News Tags: Our Friend Power 5, Rare Movie Time, TMNT