Still not sold on Michael Bay's "Ninja Space Turtles"

Good news coming from the "Ninja Turtles" front! A leaked script found by Latino Review's El Mayimbe contains references to the classic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles villains Bebop, Rocksteady, and Krang.

But this also comes with bad news, because there is apparently a synopsis floating around as well. It mentions the turtles "[coming] to Earth" with Splinter from their "recently destroyed planet." No. The only thing that should be coming from a destroyed planet to Earth is the ooze that turns the Earth turtles into the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Because those guys are from New York, thank you. The fact that TMNT co-creator Kevin Eastman is allegedly responsible for some of this script does not make me feel better. This reboot is definitely going to lead me into a What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? moment, I can just feel it.

El Mayimbe has been tweeting responses to the script he's reading, apparently code-named "The Blue Door." But unless you know of another franchise getting a reboot that also has characters named "Bebop," "Rocksteady," and "Krang," this is a draft of the script by Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec (Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol) for the TMNT movie being produced by Michael Bay and directed by Jonathan Liebesman. He doesn't go into details and only discuses what he sees while skimming, but sure enough, all the usual suspects are there, in good ol' Dimension X, where the evil Krang resides inside the Technodrome. You may remember that from the animated series, but it also appeared in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures comics (which were spun off of the original Dark Horse comics). None of these villains appeared in the live-action movies, which was kind of curious at the time of their release in the early '90s. At least it was to me and my friends, who were huge fans of the cartoon when the movies came out and assumed that these movies were being based on the TV show.

But here's the thing about Bebop and Rocksteady that really throws a wrench into Michael Bay's TMNT-ruining gears: both of them were definitely human first. They were humans, street toughs in New York City, who were then mutated into a man-sized warthog and rhinoceros (respectively) by Shredder when the two volunteered to become the latter's henchmen (not knowing what his creepy plans were). But what they are not are aliens from another planet.

Krang, who is best known as the "brain in the stomach of a robot" guy, allies himself with Shredder after he's banished from Dimension X in his current form, asking Shredder to help him restore his body when the two run into each other on Earth. I should mention that I didn't see any mention of Shredder, but you can't have any incarnation of TMNT without Shredder. Or can you? Here is the synopsis, found by Comic Book Movie:

"After their planet's destruction, four turtle-like alien warriors and their master come to Earth, where they join forces with reporter April O'Neil to prevent the extradimensional conqueror Krang from enslaving the human race."

So, no mention of Shredder. But maybe if we remember that this could very well be the script that caused Paramount to delay this movie from December 2013 to May 2014, then we can probably assume that more than a few things will be changed before a real script is finalized.

Also worth mentioning: April, I'm disappointed. You're a reporter. Don't make yourself part of the story. Journalism 101, girlfriend.

No real call to get excited just yet, but if this was very close to being the final draft, then are we to believe that the movie will be based more on the cartoon than the original comics, like the first live-action movies were? And then also completely different anyway?

(via /Film)