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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990 film)

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Wikipedia article




{{Infobox film

| name = Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

| image = Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990 film) poster.jpg

| caption = Theatrical release poster

| director = Steve Barron

| screenplay =

| story = Bobby Herbeck

| based_on =

| producer =

| starring =

| music = John Du Prez

| cinematography = John Fenner

| editing =

| production_companies =

| released =

| runtime = 93 minutes

| distributor = New Line Cinema

| country =

| language = English

| budget = $13.5 million

| gross = $202 million

}}

'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' is a 1990 superhero film based on the characters created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. It is the first theatrical 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' film and the first installment in the original trilogy. Directed by Steve Barron from a screenplay by Todd W. Langen and Bobby Herbeck, it stars Judith Hoag and Elias Koteas with the voices of Brian Tochi, Robbie Rist, Corey Feldman, and Josh Pais. The film follows the turtles on a quest to save their master, Splinter, with their new allies, April O'Neil and Casey Jones, from the Shredder and his Foot Clan.

The film is an adaptation of the early 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' comics, with several elements taken from the animated series airing at the time. The turtle costumes were developed by Jim Henson's Creature Shop, one of Jim Henson's last projects before his death shortly after the premiere.

The film was released theatrically in the United States on March 30, 1990, by New Line Cinema. It received mixed reviews from critics, but was a box-office success, grossing $202 million against a budget of $13.5 million, becoming the highest-grossing independent film up to that time (surpassed in 1999 by 'The Blair Witch Project') and the ninth highest-grossing film worldwide of 1990.

The film was followed by two sequels, 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze' (1991) and 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III' (1993).

Plot



In New York City, television reporter April O'Neil is investigating a "silent crime wave" involving theft of various goods across the city. One night, while leaving the station, she is mugged by a group of thieves, but is saved by four anthropomorphic turtles: Teenage Mutant Ninja TurtlesLeonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael; the latter of which loses his sai in the fray, which April discovers and takes with her. The group returns to their secret Den in the sewers, and to their master; an anthropomorphic rat named Splinter who stresses the importance of being unseen. Upset after losing his weapon, Raph argues with Leonardo and storms out to a movie while the others enjoy pizza. Raph encounters a hockey-masked vigilante named Casey Jones accosting a pair of thugs in the park and intervenes due to Casey's more violent methods, but Casey escapes.

April earns the ire of Police Chief Sterns, blaming him for not following up on rumors of a group of thieves known as the "Foot Clan"; however a mysterious figure orders April silenced. Later that night, she is ambushed in the subway and knocked unconscious before Raphael reclaims his weapon and fights them off. Taking her back to their Den, he fails to realize he's being followed. When April awakens, she is introduced to the group and befriends them after learning their origins. They take April home, only to return to find their den demolished and Splinter missing. With nowhere to go, they return to April's place.

Danny Pennington, the son of April's boss Charles Pennington, is arrested for stealing. Using the boy as leverage, Chief Sterns coerces Charles to visit April and warn her to cease her investigation into the Foot; Danny catches a glimpse of Michelangelo in the apartment. On the way to school, Danny runs away from his father to the lair of the Foot Clan. When their leader The Shredder announces their search for the turtles, Danny reports what he saw.

April continues to antagonize Chief Sterns while the turtles get used to their new living situation. Leonardo and Raphael get into a fight and Raph goes to the roof to cool off, while April takes the others on a tour of the thrift store in her building. Casey spots Raphael from an adjoining rooftop, before he is ambushed by dozens of Foot Clan members who beat him unconscious and throw him through the skylight. Joined by Casey, the remaining turtles battle the Foot until the building catches fire, forcing them to retreat. They go to April's abandoned family farm to recover; Leo is wracked with guilt over the argument he had with Raph and leaves to meditate, while Donatello and Casey bond over repairing an old truck. April also learns from Casey that she has been fired from her job. Eventually Raph wakes from his coma and the four begin training together. Leo makes contact with Splinter through meditation and invites the others to join him; Splinter gives them a farewell speech, professing his love for his sons, which spurs the four to return to the city. Meanwhile, Danny meets Splinter at the Foot hideout and hears the story of how a violent ninja named Oroku Saki killed his master Hamato Yoshi, realizing that Saki and Shredder are one and the same.

Upon their return, the turtles encounter Danny hiding out in their Den. Feeling claustrophobic in the sewer, Casey goes to sleep in the truck on the street and spots Danny sneaking out after everyone has gone to sleep. He follows Danny to the Foot's hideout and confronts him. When Shredder orders Splinter's execution after learning of the turtles' return, the two rescue him, defeat Shredder's lieutenant Tatsu, and inspire a group of teens to leave with them.

The Foot Clan attacks the turtles' hideout and are ambushed by them. The fight eventually spills into the streets, then up to a rooftop where they encounter Shredder, who defeats each of the turtles easily. After pinning down Leonardo, Shredder threatens to kill him unless the other Turtles surrender their weapons. Although they give in to his demand, Shredder decides to kill Leonardo anyway, until Splinter intervenes to confront him, naming him as Oroku Saki. Shredder lunges at Splinter with a yari, but Splinter dodges and throws him over the edge of the roof with Michelangelo's dropped nunchaku, leaving him dangling over the city streets. He then throws a dagger at Splinter, which Splinter catches as he lets go of the nunchaku, dropping Shredder several stories into the back of a garbage truck; Casey then activates the compactor, crushing him. As the Foot are arrested and their hideout discovered, Danny reunites with his father, while April is rehired by Charles to provide exclusive coverage of the story. She urges Casey to kiss her as the turtles cheer them on and exclaim their new victory cry of "Cowabunga!"

Cast



Live action

* Judith Hoag as April O'Neil, a reporter for Channel 3 News

* Elias Koteas as Casey Jones, a streetwise vigilante and former ice hockey player who becomes an ally of the turtles

* Jay Patterson as Charles Pennington, April's boss

* Michael Turney as Danny Pennington, Charles's teenage son

* Raymond Serra as Sterns, the Chief of New York City Police Department

* James Saito as Oroku Saki / The Shredder, the leader of a network of runaways-turned-thieves and the main antagonist of the film

* Toshishiro Obata as Master Tatsu, Shredder's second-in-command

* Sam Rockwell as Head Thug, an unmasked gang member

Skeet Ulrich and Scott Wolf appear as unnamed members of the Foot Clan, in uncredited roles.

Voice cast

* Brian Tochi as Leonardo, the leader of the Turtles and the closest to Splinter

* Josh Pais as Raphael, the rebellious and angry Turtle

* Corey Feldman as Donatello, the brains of the Turtles

* Robbie Rist as Michelangelo, the youngest Turtle, a fun-loving partier

* Kevin Clash as Splinter, the Turtles' master

* David McCharen as Oroku Saki / The Shredder

* Michael McConnohie as Master Tatsu

Puppeteers

* David Forman as Leonardo (in-suit performer)

** Martin P. Robinson as Leonardo (facial assistant)

* Leif Tilden as Donatello (in-suit performer)

** David Rudman as Donatello (facial assistant)

** Ernie Reyes Jr. as Donatello (in-suit martial arts stunt double)

** Reggie Barnes as Donatello (in-suit skateboarding double)

* Josh Pais as Raphael (in-suit performer)

** David Greenaway as Raphael (facial assistant)

** Kenn Troum as Raphael (in-suit martial arts stunt double)

* Michelan Sisti as Michaelangelo (in-suit performer)

** Mak Wilson as Michelangelo (facial assistant)

* Kevin Clash as Splinter (puppeteer)

** Rickey Boyd as Splinter (facial assistant)

** Robert Tygner as Splinter (assistant puppeteer)

All four actors who played the in-suit turtles also appeared in cameos, with David Forman (Leonardo) as a gang member, Michelan Sisti (Michaelangelo) as a pizza delivery man, Leif Tilden (Donatello) as a messenger of The Foot and Josh Pais (Raphael) as a passenger in a taxi. Pais was the only actor to portray a Turtle on screen and also provide his voice.

Production



The script is based mainly on the early 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' comics, including the stories of the turtles' origins, rooftop battle, sojourn to the farmhouse, and battle with Shredder. Elements were taken from the 1980s animated series, such as the Turtles' colored bandanas and love of pizza, elements of Michelangelo's character, and April O'Neil as a television reporter instead of a lab assistant.

The film's budget was $13.5 million. Much of the production took place in North Carolina, with a couple of location shoots in New York City during the summer of 1989 to capture famous landmark areas, such as Times Square, the Empire State Building, and the Hudson River. Filming in North Carolina took place at the North Carolina Film Studios, where New York rooftop sets were created. Production designer Roy Forge Smith and his art director, Gary Wissner, went to New York City four months prior to filming and took still photographs of rooftops and other various locations. While in NYC, Smith and Wissner were allowed to explore an abandoned Brooklyn subway line, as they could not gain access to a city sewer, but the structure of the subway had the same principle as a sewer. They also went to a water tunnel which had large pipes running through it.

After design sketches were created, the construction team used the studios' backlot to create some of the sets. There were problems with the manholes that led to the turtles' home, in that an eight-foot square room had to be constructed beneath them, but found water at about five-feet, and thus had to pour concrete into the underground rooms to keep the water out. In order to make the sewer authentic, a tide-mark was given, and it was covered with brick, plaster and stucco paint to give the walls a realistic look.

The turtle costumes were created by Jim Henson's Creature Shop in London. Jim Henson said that the creatures were the most advanced that he had ever worked with. The creatures were first made out of fiberglass, and then remolded out of clay. They were produced as molds to cast the whole body in foam rubber latex. The work at the Creature Shop was completed within 18 weeks.

Many major studios, such as Walt Disney Pictures, Columbia Pictures, MGM/UA, Orion Pictures, Paramount (whose parent company Viacom would acquire the 'TMNT' property in 2009), and Warner Bros. turned down the film for distribution; they were worried that despite the popularity of the cartoon and the toy line, the film could potentially be a box office disappointment, like 'Masters of the Universe' was just a couple years prior. The film found distribution roughly halfway through the initial production, via the then small and independent production company New Line Cinema, which had been known for distributing low-budget B movies and arthouse fare.

According to Brian Henson, the film was finished in post-production largely without Barron. Editor Sally Menke, who later edited many films by Quentin Tarantino, was removed as production company Golden Harvest did not like her work.

Music



Release



Marketing

Live Entertainment Inc. announced that the film would go to VHS via its Family Home Entertainment label on October 4, 1990. The suggested price was $24.99 per cassette. Pizza Hut engaged in a $20 million marketing campaign tied into the film (despite the fact that Domino's Pizza was used as product placement in the film itself). Items included advertising in print, radio and television, and several rebate coupons.Pendleton, Jennifer. "[http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=NewsLibrary&p_multi=DSNB&d_place=DSNB&p_theme=newslibrary2&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0F35FDC0189F21A1&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM RELEASE OF `NINJA TURTLES' WILL FUEL BUSY VIDEO-BUYING SEASON THIS FALL]." 'Los Angeles Daily News' at 'The Deseret News'. July 22, 1990. Retrieved on September 6, 2011.

Alternate versions

The UK version removed Eastern fighting weapons like the nunchaku, using alternate shots of Michaelangelo in order to conceal his nunchaku weapon, or omitting the show-off duel between Michaelangelo and a member of the Foot clan. Also, the scene of Shredder in the garbage shred was heavily edited and the Turtle Power song was edited to change the word 'ninja' to 'hero' as per the UK television series. The unedited version was released on DVD in 2004 in the UK.

The German theatrical voice-dubbed version is identical to the UK version, i.e. it omits the usage of the nunchaku. Furthermore, the German dubbing audio track contains several "cartoon-like" sounds in order to soften the violence of the fight scenes. Although the German dub of the film was released with unedited pictures on DVD, the German dub audio version with the cartoonish sounds were still kept, because they were permanently merged into the German voice-dubbing audio.

Home media

In 1990, the film was released to VHS and reached No. 4 in the home video market. The film was released to DVD in Region 1 on September 3, 2002; it includes only minor special features, such as a trailer and interactive menus. The film was also released in the MiniDVD format.

On August 11, 2009, the film was included in a special 25th anniversary box set (commemorating the original comic book), released to both DVD and Blu-ray formats. It also contained 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze', 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III', and the animated release, 'TMNT' (2007). No additional features, other than theatrical trailers, were included. In Germany, a "Special Edition" was released on March 12, 2010, with additional features, including an audio commentary by director Steve Barron, an alternate ending, and alternate takes from the original German release, where Michelangelo's nunchaku had been edited out. Warner Home Video released the film along with 'Secret of the Ooze' and 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III' as part of a "Triple Feature" on Blu-ray in June 2012, minus the fourth film 'TMNT'. Warner Home Video released the film separately on Blu-ray on December 18. In the UK, Medium Rare released the film along with its sequels in a 3 DVD set on 28 October 2013. Bonus features included a 30-minute documentary entitled Making of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and trailers.

Reception



Box office

The film opened in the United States on March 30, 1990, and was number one at the box office over the weekend, grossing more than $25 million, the biggest opening weekend an independent film had ever had up to that time. It went on to gross in its opening week, making it the second biggest US opening ever up until then (after 1989's 'Batman').

The film turned out to be a huge success at the box office, eventually making over $135 million in North America, and over $66 million outside North America, for a worldwide total of over $200 million, making it the ninth highest-grossing film of 1990 worldwide. The film was also nominated for awards by The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films.

Critical response

On the film's initial release, Roger Ebert gave the film a 2.5 out of 4 stars and concluded that the film is "nowhere near as bad as it might have been, and probably is the best possible Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie. It supplies, in other words, more or less what Turtle fans will expect". Ebert stated that the "most interesting part of the film for a non-Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle fan is the production design", which he described as a "low-rent version of 'Batman' or 'Metropolis'." 'Variety' praised the film's tongue-in-cheek humor and the "amusingly outlandish" martial arts sequences. Maslin of 'The New York Times' criticized the cinematography, stating that it was so "poorly photographed that the red-masked turtle looks almost exactly like the orange-masked one". 'Variety' described the film as "visually rough around the edges... sometimes sluggish in its plotting".

Lloyd Bradley of 'Empire Magazine' gave the film a four out of five stars, stating: "A well-rounded, unpretentious, very funny, knockabout adventure - subtly blended so that it's fun for all the family". Owen Gleiberman, writing for 'Entertainment Weekly', gave the movie an F rating, finding that none of the four turtles or Splinter had any personality, but felt that a young audience might enjoy the film, noting that the reviewer might have "gone for it too had I been raised on Nintendo games and the robotic animation that passes for entertainment on today's Saturday-morning TV". Kim Newman wrote in the Monthly Film Bulletin that he found the characters reminiscent of the early 1970s Godzilla film series, describing the turtles as "loveable monsters in baggy foam rubber suits" who "befriended lost children and smashed things up in orgies of destruction that somehow never hurt anyone", and that the turtles "drop the occasional teenage buzzword but are never remotely convincing as teenagers, mutants, ninjas or turtles, leaving them stranded on the screen as big green Muppets with different coloured headbands".

'Entertainment Weekly' and 'The New York Times' praised the work of Jim Henson's Creature Shop, with Maslin stating "without which there would have been no film at all".

As of 2022, the film has an approval rating of 41% on Rotten Tomatoes based on reviews from 54 critics and an average rating of 5.10/10. The website's consensus states, "'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' is exactly as advertised: one-liners, brawls, and general silliness. Good for the young at heart, irritating for everyone else". 'Variety', the 'New York Times', and the 'Monthly Film Bulletin' all noted the Asian villains of the film; 'Variety' described "overtones of racism in its use of Oriental villains", while the Times' Janet Maslin stated "the story's villainous types are Asian, and the film plays the yellow-peril aspects of this to the hilt". Newman noted a racist joke in April O'Neil's response to the Foot Clan, "What's the matter, did I fall behind on my Sony payments?", finding that the film expressed a "resentment of Japan's economic strength even while the film is plundering Japan's popular culture". Ebert felt there was "no racism" in the film.

It is the highest rated live action film in the franchise, and third overall, behind the Netflix original film 'Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie,' and the direct-to-video crossover 'Batman vs. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'. On Metacritic, it has a score of 51 based on reviews from 21 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

Sequels and reboot



Following the huge success of 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' at the box office, several films were created. A year later, 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze' was released in theaters, and was a commercial success. In 1993, 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III' was released in theaters, to a smaller box office take. After a 14-year absence from theaters, a fourth film, 'TMNT', was released in 2007, though unlike the trilogy, this was a CGI animated film. Seven years later, a reboot, also with the title 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles', was released in 2014, and a sequel titled 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows' was released in theaters on June 3, 2016.

Notes



References




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