This is the third stab at making an animated series about these radical reptiles. This particular DVD set is the lfirst half of the show’s second season. We are privy to a wide array of toys…er, I mean, characters whose stories are firmly established at this point.
This is the first series presented as a 3D computer animation. The graphics are nicely rendered, but are sometimes hard to see since the movements, especially during fight scenes, are incredibly frantic. I certainly hope the fact that I find the pacing too fast isn’t a sign of old age arriving. The animators have clearly gone through a lot of trouble choreographing a fight that can sometimes have at least a couple dozen characters interacting (a very difficult thing to manage) and I’d appreciate it more if the speed didn’t make me feel like I need to feed the DVD Ritalin.
Fans of the original animated series will appreciate the familiar sound of Rob Paulsen providing a voice, although said fans may be a touch confused with the fact that he is now voicing Donatello. (He previously spent roughly a decade providing Raphael’s voice.) As another nod to longtime fans, the theme song is a remix of the original from the 1980s.
The turtles have the same character dynamic they always have; Leo leads, Don is the tech nerd, Raph is rude but strong, and Mikey is skilled but immature. The stories are sometimes goofy, but offer real dramatic character growth other times. The goofy moments do tend to dominate, though, as this series adopts the Anime-ish tendency to have non-diegetic graphics appear on screen to emphasize a joke (a trait also adopted by the recent Ultimate Spiderman cartoon series).
Since Nickelodeon acquired the rights to this franchise, expect many more of these types of episode sets to be released. I wouldn’t be shocked if TMNT episodes showed up on some of their compilation DVDs too. On top of that, this show’s villains and vehicles are all action figure-ready, so expect at least a few more holidays loaded with TMNT merchandise of all kinds.
This season, the Turtles are under the assumption that their enemies the Krang and the Shredder are vanquished. Quickly their hopes are dashed and dozens of canisters of “mutagen” is spread throughout the city. This gives the Turtles an item-finding quest that will be very familiar to kids raised on video games like Pokemon that focuses on collecting an enormous number of items.
As an attempt to bring the Turtles to a new generation of child viewers, this is about as good as one can ask for. Although it really hasn’t been that long since the second series stopped airing, this show (which is presently in its second season of a 3 season renewal) makes for a nice segway into the upcoming feature film.
I suppose either Nickelodeon is nervous about release a large, complete season edition because a smaller edition costs less for fans, or they are taking advantage of both impulsive and completest fans who will pick up any edition that gets released, therefore a complete edition can arrive after some sales have already tested the market.
