Count to a Million

[The Truth]

72740

Indeed.

[MsRowdyRedhead]

72742

This is so kewl.. warning very minor language (he..)

[Trijhak]

72743

An endless cycle.

[The Truth]

72744
Ace Attorney Investigations 2 is amazing...but I seriously despise Judge Courtney. She may be the most obnoxious character in the series, especially since Edgeworth literally cannot argue with her (She overrules everything he says).

[MsRowdyRedhead]

72745

third week of 90°+ temps

[Wantija$$$]

72746

Guardians of the Galaxy was great and EVERYBODY has to see it.

[MsRowdyRedhead]

72747

I plan on it.

[The Truth]

72748
As do I.

[Obi]

72749

[Haünter]

72749

[The Truth]

72750
Taking a break from Ace Attorney Investigations 2 because of how much I hate Judge Courtney...Got Ghost Trick on my iPhone (which is part of the Ace Attorney universe anyway...)...good game, awesome soundtrack, but man does it get depressing at times.

[Trijhak]

72751

Then they will arrive.

[Haünter]

72752

Underside of Kitten Paw

[Wantija$$$]

72753

MEGA ALTARIA IS SO FLUFFY /caps

[MsRowdyRedhead]

72754

From my friend Jim Stigall.. lead LU artist...  bad language removed.


Cowabunga.


The 2014 reboot of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ultimately did what I suspected it would from the day I saw the first leaked photos of the new Turtle designs – it left me… well, scratching my head and disappointed.

My wife scored free tickets to this evening’s preview screening at the Westminster Promenade. She got the tickets the very same day I vowed not to pay to see this film – the day Megan Fox told TMNT fans to drop dead Until that day I was still on the fence. I mean, it is a TMNT film after all, right…?


Let’s talk about the perks of seeing a pre-screening. Perhaps the “buttering-up” of a pre-screening is more appropriate? The tickets were free. Major plus, of course, because, as a life-long fan of the Ninja Turtles,part of me really wanted to see this movie - if only to tell you all how bad it is, backed up by my vast useless knowledge of the franchise, of course.


Secondly, schwag - and some  good schwag too! Though I hate the new visual design of the Turtles (as we’ll talk more about) everyone was given a very nice poster  - an illustrated comic book style poster set in a calm, day-in-the-life sewer scene featuring all fourTurtles. Great illustration, great print quality – I mean, in all honesty I would have expected a glossy mini version of one of the many lobby one-sheets that have been floating around for this movie if anything, so this poster is very nice. It was honestly my favorite part of the evening.


Being a preview screening the movie was presented in its full 3D glory, of course, and the3D glasses themselves were also quite nice.Plastic molded Ninja Turtle eye-masks in all four colors – complete with cloth back ties and the new TMNT logo on the side. It was impossible, dork as I am,to not feel that character when wearing these things. Luckily a guy in the row in front of me was willing to swap me his Mikey glasses for the Leo ones I received at the door – after all it just would not have been right for me to not rock Michelangelo’s colors.


I suppose we should get to the movie itself, yes? It has now been a few hours since the film let out and I have had some time to mash out my feelings – both in my head and with my wife. So, here we go… WARNING – spoilers ahead.


The 2014 version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles basically revolves around April O’neil in every way. So, you’re looking at an hour and forty minutes of mediocre acting at best.


Who am I kidding? Megan Fox is a terrible actor.Period.


The storyline behind the origins of Splinter and the Turtles was altered quite a bit and, though the Turtles are fortunately not aliens (as we were furiously lead to believe some months ago), some of the film’s origin story changes are just as bad. The TGRI Mutagen that we all know as the source of the Turtles mutation was created in a joint venture between Shredder and anew villain who plotted to use the Mutagen as an anecdote for a nerve gas they had also been brewing up for some 15 years to take over power of the world via government fear from a domestic biological attach on Manhattan. The Turtles andSplinter were test subjects for the Mutagen and ALSO happened to be the pets ofApril who was the daughter of a scientist working for Shredder. Follow? I don’t really either – the whole story is clumsy and weak and ultimately plays into the over-arching story for the film, which is also weak.


Ultimately what it boils down to is that the Turtles were pets of April. April saves them as a child and released them to the sewers so that 15 years later April is the Turtles “spirit protector” (according toSplinter). April, April, April, and more Megan Fox April. I think someone is cozy with Michael Bay.


Oh, and let me not forget to mention that Splinter was never trained in Ninjitsu in this version of TMNT. He finds a Ninjitsu book in the sewer when the Turtles are about ten-years-old or so. Splinter trains himself in the ways of Ninjitsu and then trains all four Turtles – all five of them completely mastering the martial art in five or six years.

What?


Character design, personality, and character flaws. This is ultimately where the film could have been saved – let’s face it, no TMNT story is terribly deep. Great characters could have even helped get over the fact that they were all terribly over-CG’ed and the film was just generally over-Bay’ed. Sadly, this is also not the case.


The Turtles are six-plus feet tall and almost IncredibleHulk strong. Hardly stealthy ninjas, these Turtles can take out a Hummer with a strategic fall and are apparently bullet proof. Individually I felt differently about all of them… Donatello was the one who was most overly stereotyped. They really made sure you understood that he was the geek from personality out.He wears taped nerd glasses over his purple eye mask – this alone has infuriated me since first seeing the character designs. It continued to infuriate me throughout the movie. Leonardo was ultimately forgettable. Raphael played the true New Yorker as we have seen in previous versions. His emotional journey was also similar in nature to, say, the 1990 film, but he was ultimately was just cheesy and not as believable in this film. I enjoyed Michelangelo’s personality the most. He was taken a bit past his normal party-dude status and made into almost a street thug clown. The movie was full of cheap on-liners –Mikey’s actually got grins out of me from time to time. As a whole, the fourTurtles felt cheap and were not given the love they deserved from script to acting to CG and design in this film.


After all of that, I feel like I came away from the movie actually liking the Turtles a bit more than I should have thanks to Shredder… Shredder was absolutely terrible in this film. He was completely one-dimensional and evoked almost no emotion aside from annoyance – even when he was beating the tar out of Splinter and all four of the Turtles! Visually he was a waste.His armor was supposed to be a hybrid robot/traditional samurai designed by his bio-chemical experiment partner. What he really ends up being is just anotherMichael Bay Decepticon. Pitiful.


Splinter was hideously visually designed. He’s just strange.As previously mentioned, his back-story was made considerably shallower than the Splinter we know and I just did not feel for him at all.


The “Foot Clan” is basically city militia – trained American terrorists. They barely hold a trace of the former ninja Foot and are completely pointless.


As one would expect from a Michael Bay production, the action sequences in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were over-the-top and over-CGI’ed. The main action sequence consisted of about ten minutes of choreographed snow sledding with explosions and an avalanche – all on a mountain somewhere very near the heart of New York City proper. Um, yeah… makes no sense to me either.


A shining spot artistically speaking – the films opening and closing credits where done in a beautifully rendered comic book line-art style…a look that topped the rest of the film’s visuals in my opinion.


In the end the theater was full of kids. And those kids laughed. They laughed through the whole movie… I mean, there was a Ninja Turtle fart. How could they not?


I walked away from the theater really feeling like this movie was aimed directly at kids – those kids. But not like the 1990 film was - produced for kids by people who actually cared about the Turtles franchise. It’s not even made in the same playful but caring manner as the new Nickelodeon Saturday morning TMNT series (which is excellent by the way). This film gets kids with its terribly stupid humor, its modern rap/pop soundtrack (‘oh, Mom won’t like this – it must be cool’), and its attention-stealing graphics. It will take the kids new to the Ninja Turtles and make them clearly understand whom the nerdyTurtle is. That is for sure.


I am thankful that my sons where raised with the original comic, the original cartoon, and the 1990 film version of Teenage Mutant NinjaTurtles. This new film is ultimately not worthy of my childhood love of theNinja Turtles and it will not be worthy of my children either.


Don’t waste your money – and ultimately don’t give them the box office success they are so smugly expecting.


Cowabunga indeed. Never hold that back, Mikey.

[Haünter]

72755

fufufu

[MsRowdyRedhead]

72756

orlly?

[The Truth]

72757
Ace Attorney Investigations 2 is almost definitely my favorite game in the series...though I'm a bit worried that I accidentally spoiled who the final villain is for myself.

[MsRowdyRedhead]

72758

A new game my friend Jim Stigall (Beastoh) has been working on since LU was just released.
"A game that I worked on for a good deal of time here at Backflip Studios finally went live yesterday... I am very proud and excited to introduce you all to the world of Spellfall!! My hands are all over this project, artistically speaking, so I am sharing with you a very very small sampling of the concept art I did for the game. Download and play the game for FREE on iOS right now (and see if you can find these locations & critters in the game). Enjoy!
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/spellfall-puzzle-rpg/id809027853?mt=8"

[Trijhak]

72759

brb saving the universe