The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Trilogy: The Live-Action Classics Come to 4K in a Fantastic New Set (Limited Edition 4K)

The Films:

There are few things that cause a larger burst of nostalgia for my childhood than the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." It was the first phenomenon that I can remember becoming obsessed with as a kid, which had me hooked on the popular cartoon series & collecting action figures, comics, posters, and more. With the incredible success of the show, it was hardly a surprise that a feature film came to fruition within a few years, though it was a bit of a surprise to see that it was live-action instead of animated. Nor was it a surprise that the film was insanely successful, grossing over $200 million worldwide on its relatively small production budget of $13.5 million, spawning two sequels in its wake before the demand appeared to die down somewhat.

With the first film reaching its 35th anniversary, Arrow Films has decided to celebrate by giving the entire trilogy a stunning 4K upgrade and packing it with special features both new & old, so now it's time to delve back into these classics to see if they've managed to hold up as decent films or if it's merely the pleasant nostalgic memory of them from long ago that has fans remembering them fondly.

Starting with the original 1990 film, a crime wave has recently gripped New York City, one that is rumored to be caused by a mysterious group known as "The Foot." Investigative reporter April O'Neil (Judith Hoag) is quite persistent in trying to find out more, much to the annoyance of her boss and the Chief of Police. However, things take quite a strange turn when she is attacked by thieves one evening, only to be rescued by four unseen vigilantes, who turn out to be the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:" Leonardo (Voice of Brian Tochi), Michelangelo (Voice of Robbie Rist), Raphael (Voice of Josh Pais), and Donatello (Voice of Corey Feldman).

As April continues to investigate, the leader of The Foot, Shredder (James Saito), sends some of his troops to silence her. Raphael ends up saving her and bringing her to the turtles' lair, where she learns from their adoptive rat father/teacher, Splinter (Voice of Kevin Clash), that he found the turtles in the sewer, crawling in a substance from a broken canister, which turned them into the walking, talking mutants they are today. Little do they know that one of the Foot soldiers followed Raphael, leading to an attack on their lair while the turtles are away and the kidnapping of Splinter. Even when they try to regroup in April's apartment, The Foot still manages to find them, forcing them to flee the city and come up with a new plan. Will our heroes be able to rescue their beloved master and bring down The Foot before it's too late?

From the start, the entire idea of a live-action "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" movie seems almost outright laughable. After all, the main reason it seemed to come about was because of the massive success of the 1987 cartoon, again making it seem like an animated film would've been the natural course to take... and yet, thanks to the magic of Jim Henson's Creature Shop, this seemingly ludicrous idea somehow works. Primarily adapting the early comics, which began in 1984, and utilizing its darker tone (compared to the much lighter tone of the cartoon), director Steve Barron and his team are able to blend all of these components together and turn it into something that's actually believable.

Sure, the basic concept of the idea may still be seen as somewhat silly, but with the aforementioned darker tone, it's taken seriously enough, while still being able to include plenty of humor throughout. Fans of the cartoon may have been a little surprised by the result (though it also uses elements from it as well), but what they got was a rather impressive adaptation of the characters that was able to successfully merge a lot of the material together, ultimately making for a fun, exciting, and highly-entertaining outing that still holds up quite well to this day.

Moving on to "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze," the film starts with a pizza boy named Keno (Ernie Reyes Jr.) stumbling upon an active burglary, which he tries his best to stop, but quickly finds himself vastly outnumbered. Luckily the Ninja Turtles just happen to be nearby and use their skills to shut it down. After their altercation with Shredder and The Foot, they've been staying with April (Paige Turco) in her apartment while searching for a new place to live, unaware that Shredder (Francois Chau) still lives and has regrouped with the remaining members of The Foot to plot revenge.

Meanwhile, April conducts an interview with Professor Jordan Perry (David Warner) of Techno Global Research Industries regarding buried toxic waste that they're trying to dig up and dispose of. This leads to Splinter revealing that the canister containing the substance that they were exposed to came from the same company, causing the turtles to go investigate the lab. However, their adversaries have discovered the same connection, causing them to kidnap the Professor and obtain the last canister of the "ooze," which Shredder forces Perry to use to create a pair of mutants known as Tokka & Rahzar (Voice of Frank Welker). Will our heroes be able to defeat these powerful new foes and stop Shredder's plans once again?

For this first sequel, it's more than fair to say that they significantly upped the goofiness factor and lightened the tone quite a bit, though that's not to say that they did away with the darker elements altogether. There's still the primary plot of Shredder being hell-bent on revenge by creating his own mutants that he wants to use to destroy the turtles, but it certainly seems to get covered up by the film's over-arching comical & silly components, such as having Shredder's mutants be infantile, its multitude of jokes & physical humor (which seems even more prevalent than in the original film), and, of course, the famous (infamous?) inclusion of Vanilla Ice and his "Ninja Rap."

Even so, this second outing remains rather entertaining as it lightens the mood for a tale that digs deeper into the turtles' origin and has them going up against adversaries that were created from the very same substance. Sure, the darker tone is missed a little bit, but as mentioned earlier, the entire concept of ninja mutant turtles is a pretty absurd one in the first place, especially when trying to trying to bring that concept into the real world, so perhaps the filmmakers felt it would be an intriguing idea to lean into that a little more when it came to a sequel. Regardless, while it may not reach the heights of the first film, it still makes for quite an entertaining follow-up that delivers where it counts.

Finally, we come to "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III," which begins in 1603 Japan. Prince Kenshin (Henry Hayashi) is fleeing into the woods on horseback, pursued by four guards, who eventually catch him and bring him back to his father, Lord Norinaga (Sab Shimono). His father tries to berate him, but Kenshin fires right back by openly declaring his father's urge for war to be disgraceful. When a trader named Walker (Stuart Wilson) arrives to sell his father guns, Kenshin takes his frustration out on a temple, where he discovers a mysterious scepter that has a special power.

Meanwhile, back in present day, the turtles continue to sharpen their ninja moves, with Raphael expressing frustration at their circumstances. April comes to visit before going on vacation, bringing gifts for her friends that she picked up at a flea market. Her gift for Splinter just happens to be an identical scepter to the one Kenshin found, which activates while April is holding it, causing her to swap places with Kenshin. The turtles immediately work on a plan to get her back, leading them to go back in time and inadvertently switching places with four guards. They soon find themselves entangled in Norinaga's lust for war as they desperately try to find April and get themselves back home before their brief 60-hour window to do so closes.

With this third and final outing, the filmmakers tried to regain a little of the seriousness that had been lost with "The Secret of the Ooze," though it's also where the trilogy sadly takes a bit of a downturn. It seems a little odd to be criticizing a plot that involves our heroes doing a bit of time-traveling as being a little farfetched, given how the concept of having mutant turtles learning martial arts from a mutant rat can be called the same, so perhaps it's better to say that it's not a particularly great plot for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles themselves. It may have worked quite well in the popular beat-'em-up SNES game "Turtles in Time," but in execution for a live-action movie, it just comes off as very clunky and ridiculous.

As mentioned, it does indeed try to have a rather serious plot about an over-eager warlord, whose appetite for war has led to a strained relationship with his son, but then you remember that this is a TMNT film, which leads you to wonder why are we watching generic villains like Norinaga & Walker go up against the turtles when there's an entire catalogue of villains from the show/comics that our heroes could be facing off against in their usual setting. On top of that, there appears to have been much less effort put into the jokes and the humor in general. Not that the jokes in these films were ever laugh-out-loud hilarious, but they didn't seem to try very hard when it came to this strange entry.

The other two films had been dismissed by critics, so it was hardly a surprise that this one was as well, but more important was the fact that the audience didn't come in droves as they had before, leading this one to barely break even at the box office, and subsequently causing New Line to pump the breaks on any further turtles films. It's a shame that the trilogy had to end on something of a low note, but even though it clearly doesn't match the quality of the first two films, it still manages to have mildly amusing moments here and there, though it does ultimately make you wonder what could have been if the filmmakers had poured their efforts into coming up with a narrative that would've truly made fans of the cartoon & comics happy.

Video/Audio:

The "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" Trilogy comes to 4K in 1.85:1, 2160p transfers of marvelous quality. The new 4K restorations (the first film from the original camera negative and the other two from the 35mm interpositives) have cleaned up the films beautifully, making them look fantastic throughout the entirety of their 90-ish minute runtimes. Likewise, the various audio tracks (two lossless stereo mixes & newly remixed Dolby Atmos for the first film and lossless stereo & 5.1 DTS-HD MA for the others) are outstanding, giving you all of the dialogue, sound effects, and music in fantastic quality. Overall, Arrow Films has done a wonderful job with the new upgrade, which is sure to please every TMNT fan out there.

Special Features:

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Commentary with Director Steve Barron (New)

Commentary with Comic Book Expert and Podcast Host Dave Baxter (New)

Rising When We Fall (15 Minutes) (New): An interview with director Steve Barron.

Turtle Talk (19 Minutes) (New): An interview with actors Robbie Rist, Brian Tochi, Ernie Reyes Jr., and Kenn Scott.

O'Neil on the Beat (20 Minutes) (New): An interview with actor Judith Hoag.

Wet Behind the Shells (11 Minutes) (New): An interview with producer Simon Fields.

Beneath the Shell (16 Minutes) (New): An interview with puppet coordinator and second unit director Brian Henson, and Rob Tygner, puppeteer for both Splinter and Leonardo.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turf (13 Minutes) (New): A featurette exploring the film's locations in New York City, and North Carolina.

Alternate UK version with unique footage prepared for censorship reasons, presented in 4K via seamless branching (91 Minutes)

Alternate Ending from VHS Workprint (2 Minutes)

Alternate Korean Footage (1 Minute)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze

Commentary with director Michael Pressman, Moderated by Filmmaker Gillian Wallace Horvat (New)

John Du Prez to the Rescue (14 Minutes) (New): An interview with composer of the trilogy John Du Prez.

Hard Cores (8 Minutes) (New): An interview with Kenny Wilson, mould shop supervisor at Jim Henson's Creature Shop.

The Secret of the Edit (15 Minutes) (New): An interview with editor Steve Mirkovich.

Behind the Shells (29 Minutes) (New): An archival making-of featurette from 1991.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III

Commentary with Director Stuart Gillard (New)

Daimyos & Demons (14 Minutes) (New): An interview with actor Sab Shimono.

Rebel Rebel (10 Minutes) (New): An interview with actor Vivian Wu.

Alternate UK Opening (2 Minutes)

Conclusion:

Arrow Films' new release of The "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" Trilogy is exactly what fans of these films have been dreaming of, featuring all three films in stunning quality and tons of special features that are almost entirely new. Sure, the third film may not be on the same level as the first two, but it still holds a special, nostalgic feeling for anyone who grew up with these classics, ultimately making this set a must-own for fans and collectors in general.

Score: 4/5

Available on Limited Edition 4K starting tomorrow.

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