What's the general opinion on TMNT 2003 nowadays? I was a 90s kid and TMNT '03 was largely the Turtles show I watched in my late childhood to teenage years. I caught a couple episodes of the 80's cartoon when they showed old shows in the retro block but that's as far as my experience with the OG goes.

While obviously Back to the Sewer and Fast Forward were shit, I remember really liking the 2003 show's earlier episodes. Utrom Shredder is stupid, but a lot of the 2003 characters like Splinter still to this day feel like the definitive versions to me and I generally feel like the show was ahead of it's time with how the vast majority of episodes were in chronological order with an overarching plotline. I also liked how it wasn't afraid to touch on outright horror themes at times.

I hear that a lot of people like the 2012 iteration a lot too, but personally I could never get past the 3D animation, which I wasn't a fan of and I thought often looked cheap. I never hear anyone talk about 2003 though despite it probably being by far the longest (and most prominent in the childhood period for most of my peers) running Turtles show. What's the general opinion?

>>149133855 (OP)
>What's the general opinion on TMNT 2003 nowadays?
"its great"
the spin off in the future is abit meh but i liked the aesthetic more.
just me though.

The first half or so of '03 is probably the best Turtles cartoon outright. The back half is just so shit that it almost cancels itself out. Still, best (pre-utrom) Shredder, best Splinter, best Casey.

The show is superb when it's handling street-level threats and Shredder, but it gets real retarded when it goes further than that outside of the halloween cosmic horror episode which was cool.

>>149133855 (OP)
no idea why people like 2012 desu, looks like cocomelon baby shi

>>149133965
Good writing, good turtles, hottest April. Don't shit on the animation either, 2003 looks like a slideshow. 2012 has fluid and fun animation.

>>149133855 (OP)
I loved it

>TMNT 2003 is far from us now as the 80s turtles were from 2003

>>149134007
>hottest april

People either think 2003 is the best TMNT show or it's edgeslop. I think the truth is somewhere in the middle - has incredible highs but unfathomable lows as well. If nothing else, the first few seasons are fire.

>>149133855 (OP)
It alright

I straight-up stopped watching 2003 TMNT past a certain point. The first few seasons were definitely elite. I really enjoyed the show's take on Leo, how he was very Zen/Buddhist, spiritual and religious in a deliberate way. You don't always see that from TMNT takes, seeing the Turtles get into the more metaphysical side of their martial arts.

>>149133855 (OP)
Not as good as the original but better than what we have now.

>>149135439
>I straight-up stopped watching 2003 TMNT past a certain
Same, it would be remembered much more fondly if it ended earlier

>>149133855 (OP)
It's my favorite take on the turtles, and my favorite April design.

>>149133855 (OP)
>Season 1-3 (Utrom Shredder arc) + Turtles Forever
Kino

>Season 4 (Karai Shredder arc)
Great. Lots of body horror episodes

>Season 5 (Demon Shredder arc)
Rushed + ass pull ending. But it wraps up the show at least

>Season 6 + 7 (Fast Forward + Back to the Sewers)
Weak soft reboot followed by a weaker course correction. Art style and writing are noticeably worse

I guess it wouldn't be a proper TMNT show if it didn't overstay its welcome

>>149133855 (OP)
>What's the general opinion on TMNT 2003 nowadays?
People who grew up watching it love it. People who didn't either don't know it exists or they're Risefags and they are pissed off that other people like any other TMNT more than Rise.

>>149134007
>Good writing

Eh

It may lose steam for Season 5/FF/BTTS..but that still makes 4 seasons and 100 episodes of mostly solid material. And the last 3 seasons aren't all bad by any means. There's even some good FF episodes. And Season 5 isn't really that bad if you like the attempt to make a more shonen-like TMNT season.

>>149138206
S5 is fine it just desperately needed more time.

>>149133934
>The show is superb when it's handling street-level threats and Shredder, but it gets real retarded when it goes further than that outside of the halloween cosmic horror episode which was cool.

I consider this to be true with any turtles series. I love the street level stuff where they fight punks and ninjas. But the minute they go off that and aliens and monsters from other dimensions start showing up I check out.

>>149139505
Fuck off nonfan, The turtles were fighting aliens and other dimensional monsters in the OG Mirage comic. Shredder was a one and done fucking nobody. who was eventually replaced by a FUCKING MUTANT so kill yourself.

>>149134007
>hottest April
you are so fucking stupid

03 has the highest highs, but some of the lowest lows. 12 is more consistent and I prefer it for that.

>>149139505
>>149139734
Even though the Utroms and the dimension-hopping stuff happens very early in the Mirage run (right after Baxter and the Mousers) it's shit like City at War that everyone hails as the best TMNT material. They went gonzo with it right away, and that's fine, but the stuff people truly love and that nearly every TMNT iteration has tried to copy is the street level shit. It's always impotent cope to pretend like people loved it when the turtles were turned into washing machine robots because everything but their brains got blown up.

12 was the start of "the Turtles need to act like children!" nonsense that plagues the franchise to this day. I don't know how anyone can even stomach it or it's ugly tv CGI

>>149139734
Nobody gives a fuck about the OG mirage comics, the franchise hasn't had anything to do with the original comics since the 80s outside of when they throw them a bone like Turtles Forever.

>>149133855 (OP)
Underappreciated compared to the 80s version when it comes to merch and references, but what isn't.

>>149140577
2012 straight up recreates issues of the Mirage comics in episodes though. More often than not they go to take some things from the Mirage well than straight up do a lot of the aspects of the 80's cartoons. The Neutrinos are barely a factor, Casey Jones is more of an ally instead of a random vigilante who shows up, If Krang exists he's a Utrom and not just a disembodied brain, and so on.The second Bay produced movie is basically the biggest homage to the 80's cartoon we've had.
The biggest sticking points the 87 show added have been Shredder as a regular villain and Bebop and Rocksteady as regular henchmen, even Hamato Yoshi as Splinter isn't always a thing.
And the headbands, which were Laird's suggestion anyway.

>>149140646
Never really understood why '03 gets the shaft while they continue to jerk off the '80s cartoon. Anyone with serious nostalgia for the '80s version is pushing 50 and generally '03 is more in line with what today's kids would enjoy with regards to its focus on horror elements and darker themes.

But there's no real merch, you can't buy it physically anywhere, it's barely on streaming if at all, and they just continue to dumb down and kiddify the Turtles when kids don't actually want that and constantly eat up any and all horror related media.

>>149140701
Maybe some Paramount or Nick executive thinks '03 "damaging to the brand identity", or some crap like that.

>>149140701
There's newer 03 TMNT merch, but it's stuff that runs a far higher price, produced in limited quantities by specialty toy makers. The Super7 Ultimates TMNT figures are shipping in a couple days, but I don't know if you'll see those on shelves at Walmart when they're 55USD a piece.

My opinion is that Utrom shredder should have been the demon/undead Shredder all along.
It fits better with the horror vibes he gave off in season 1.

>>149140701
80s was designed to appeal to a wider demographic (successfully) than 03. 80s reached the height of the franchise with world-wide popularity, pushing out a musical, a live-action movie, millions of toys all on it's own power without any sort of "legacy" or nostalgia-baiting to fall back on. Every other variation of TMNT has been chasing that success and has been less effective at it. It doesn't matter that it's "old," the designs and concepts are strong enough they still win people over the newer variations.

>>149140780
I shouldn't. I really shouldn't, but...

>>149140786
Not really an unpopular opinion. The show itself deals with the supernatural a surprising amount to where it's basically a paranormal soft-horror show like a lot of other shows from the era. I don't really think Demon Shredder was great or anything but I think it would have fit the show better tonally.

Utrom Shredder kind of loses a lot of his "sauce" too after he's revealed as a goofy alien puppeting a human mech instead of an actual guy

>>149140927
>Utrom Shredder kind of loses a lot of his "sauce" too after he's revealed as a goofy alien puppeting a human mech instead of an actual guy
this is the issue I have with utrom shredder more than it being a stupid twist or anything. 2003 oroku saki is interesting but ch'rell or whatever his name is isn't at all, absolutely no gravitas.

>>149140701
Part of it is that the execs running companies are still Gen Xers
Nick/Viacom mainly has been buying up these properties that were big at a certain point so they can merchandise them under Nick branding. TMNT87 was a big phenomenon and they want to make people think Nick was behind it. It was long enough ago that they can play with people's shaky nostalgic memories and make them think it was legitimately a Nick show. Ignoring 2k3 also makes their first Nick show seem more important as a revival of the series.

>>149139734
Who cares?
I don't give a fuck about the incarnation, I like the ninja story to be street level.

>>149140701
The want to make it Cool and Adult made for some really bland characters to play with when referencing it.

Thew 80s show, 2012, and Rise have a cast some some colorful over the top characters with interesting designs. 03 had a large amount of normal looking guys in black, normal looking guys in gray, and people wearing normal clothes. Nothing cool enough to want to reference outside the main turtles and Shredder.

>>149140758
Most likely. They have to reference the 87 show since that is where everything came from. But I imagine Paramount wants to keep all references to things Paramount produced and maintains full ownership of. Which excludes the Fox series.

>>149140301
Nope!

>>149142642
That guy was talking about 2012 April who is fugly. 2003 and 80's April are both great.

>>149142432
I sort of disagree, though I admit the supporting cast is somewhat weak outside of Casey and April when it comes to memorability.

I do think even beyond Shredder it had a fair few memorable or even iconic villains. Hun's largely stuck around in Turtles media and I would argue it has the best depictions of the Foot ninjas, Mousers, and Stockman as well. There's a few other villains largely from the first seasons that I would call memorable too, like the Ultimate Ninja and Drago, the Nanomachine monster, and the Cthulhu demon from the Halloween episode. I don't necessarily think it is a problem with blandness as much as it is that most of what you could reference from '03 is too inherent to '03's tone to really do anything with.

>>149133855 (OP)
Catchiest.

Theme Song.

Ever.