By Zamantha Munoz Morales

Since the early 1990s, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or TMNT, have had some of the most recognizable characters in pop culture. The four turtles have seen many reincarnations over the past three decades, whether in TV shows, or movies. This year they’ll receive another reimagining with the new movie, Mutant Mayhem. Since the movie is two months away, let’s look at what to expect for the future of TMNT.

The most recent news surrounding this reboot was the new trailer that dropped on Wednesday morning. As if the hype wasn’t big enough, it just got a whole lot bigger! We saw reveals of many of the villains. We learned what the turtles want to do if they weren’t monsters shunned by society. We got more April screen time, and we heard our first bit of dialogue from Jackie Chan’s version of Splinter. The trailer was just as good, if not better than the one released on March 6! It was a good day to be a Turtles fan! Okay, I’m getting ahead of myself, let’s start at the beginning of what’s soon to be a new era of Turtle mania.

The Kids Choice Awards happened in March and was full of many unexpected wins and surprises. Why do the Kids Choice Awards matter in this case? Well, it wasn’t until the very end that TMNT fans rejoiced. The cast was unveiled by the producer, Seth Rogen. The cast of the new movie is, Brady Noon as Raphael, Shamon Brown Jr. as Mikey, Micah Abbey as Donnie, Nicolas Cantu as Leo, Jackie Chan as Splinter, Ayo Edebiri as April, and many more celebrities joining the cast. Not only were the main four turtle voice actors there, but they got slimed after Seth Rogen’s announcement! Rogen also announced that the trailer would drop two days after this announcement and when it did, fans had a lot to say about the turtles.

The trailer dropped at 9:00 Eastern Time on March 6. And while some kids waited until the bell had rung to see what all the buzz was about, others just watched it as they learned about fractions. All jokes aside, the trailer is two minutes long and opens with our turtles training on a rooftop and Raphael attempting to cut a watermelon with his sword and then with ninja stars. The trailer also reveals Bebop and Rocksteady, who were big antagonists in the franchise since the beginning and haven’t appeared since the TMNT show from 2012. At the very end, we get our first look at April O’Neil and this was certainly a controversial topic. 

Many fans shared their disappointment about April’s redesign saying that they hated her race being swapped from white to black. Some fans were okay with it, but others were not as easily pleased. This was the first push of the dominos that led to the Mutant Mayhem redesign war. Some people took to Twitter and compared this to the Megan Fox interpretation of April, claiming that Megan did a much better job. Some fans fought back and said that this isn’t the first time April’s design has been changed. What many fans didn’t know is that April was originally black and not white in the TMNT comics from the early 1980s and was black in the Turtles’ most recent TV show, Rise of the Teenage Mutant Turtles. Also, several fans even pointed out that it’s a ridiculous fact that people are being racist towards the new April despite all the facts that were just mentioned. 

The controversy didn’t end there. A minority of fans were upset at the new turtles with some saying that these designs aren’t the same turtles we know and love. With some small changes like giving Mikey braces, or bigger ones like giving Donnie glasses and headphones, fans thought that the design make them look like an entirely different show.  However, TMNT has made it clear that hardcore fans are no longer the target demographic anymore. The most recent reincarnations since Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are targeting new fans to be introduced to the turtles. Personally, I think the redesigns given to the turtles are well executed because it provides an amount of diversity so that new fans won’t have to depend on the colors of their masks to identify the turtles. The final piece of controversy surrounding the new movie is Splinter. He was only shown for a split second and despite this factor, fans caught a good amount of details in Splinter’s redesign. Surprisingly he got a lot less flack, but the one thing fans disliked the most was him having an afro now. To this day if you look up Mutant Mayhem trailer breakdown or reaction, there will be an endless amount of YouTubers commenting on the rat’s new hairstyle. It was a relatively small thing but fans still caught this small factor. 

It wasn’t all hate though. Many fans loved the trailer. One thing that will come up in most fans’ minds is the animation style. For those who have seen Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse, you’ll immediately see that the animation for this movie is strikingly similar. This isn’t the first time Spiderverse’s animation has been used for a film. This can be seen with a more recent film, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, which also tackles the comic book animation style. Another bright side to the film is that this is the first time in turtle history that the turtles have been voiced by actual teenagers. Many fans at first were worried about Leo in particular because his voice actor also happened to be the voice of Gumball in seasons 5 through 6 of The Amazing World of Gumball. This shook fans’ minds because once his voice was heard in the trailer, it sounded like an entirely different voice than from Gumball himself, which was a huge relief. All the other cast members did an amazing job with the voices and garnered the film praise for that. So it’s safe to say that the community was split 50/50, with some hating this movie and others loving it. The major reason why the community is divided is because the movie is no longer trying to appeal to the old fans but rather trying to appeal to the kids of Gen Z. As of right now there’s not another trailer, so there’s little to go off of what the film’s tone and storyline will be.

While all we have are the cast members, one trailer, and a new Playmates Mutant Mayhem toy line, the film is off to a decent start. It managed to keep the old fans intrigued and introduce new ones to the mix. There’s still plenty of room for surprises since the movie has a release date of August 2, 2023. On the surface, it may not seem like a long time on its own but that doesn’t mean the TMNT team won’t surprise within the time. That’s all we know about the upcoming movie and now here’s the question, will you give this new turtle generation a chance? I know I will!