August 8th will see the release of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which is the fifth feature film to star those characters. The first three films took place within the same continuity, the fourth was an animated reboot of the franchise, and this new fifth one – the most controversial of the lot – begins the series fresh once again, with live-action actors and fully-CGI created turtles.
The biggest controversy surrounding Jonathan Liebesman’s newest iteration of the franchise – aside from the outcry over the involvement of infamous schlockmeister Michael Bay – is the turtle design. In this new film, the central turtles are hulking, eight-foot monsters with flared nostrils, flat faces, and some disturbingly real human lips. Fans took a look at the previews to this film months ago, and immediately whinged about how creepy the characters had become.
Related: Nine TMNT Characters We Want in the Movies
But are they as bad as all that? Indeed, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have had a long and varied history, several different continuities, and almost a dozen different distinct designs, if one were to count TV and video game iterations. Starting with the 1987 cartoon show, the Turtles were color-coded to distinguish them from one another, and they each carried a signature weapon, but those details remain the only consistent visuals throughout the varies designs.
Let’s go through all five of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies, film by film, analyze the best and the worst aspects of each turtle, and determine – once and for all – which versions of the characters really look the best.
Witney Seibold is a commentator at Nerdist, a contributor to the CraveOnline Film Channel, and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. You can read his weekly Trolling articles here on Crave, and follow him on “Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.
Which Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles REALLY Look the Best?
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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (dir. Steve Barron, 1990)
This was the first time anyone had seen the Ninja Turtles in live-action, and, to this day, the look of these Jim Henson-created turtles is impressive. Using stunt actors in full-body suits, and fully-articulated masks, these turtles were alive in a way the cartoons couldn't capture. Some off the details in the articulated faces are also uncanny. We can see the turtles' teeth and jaws moving when they speak. Sure, the lips didn't always match the words... but they were awfully close, and the attempt is astonishing. The designers also added details to their faces like freckles and scars, giving the weirdly-shaped turtles faces a flesh-like texture. The biggest flaw in this design was the unavoidable rubberiness of some of the suits. When the turtles bend at the waist or fall on the ground, you can see the crinkles.
DESIGN GRADE: A-
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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze (dir. Michael Pressman, 1991)
Rushed into production, this sequel was deliberately altered from the first to be a little more kid-friendly. Not only was the film less violent (the turtles weren't allowed to use their signature weapons), but the turtles themselves were slightly redesigned to look more friendly. Their eyes were slightly bigger, for one, and their color a little more brightly green. This was not a positive change, overall, making the “real” turtles look a little bit too much like their cartoon counterparts. The animatronics are on par with the first, however, and the suits look lighter and more easy to operate within. And the new design fits in with the tone of the film, which features some other awesome creatures.
DESIGN GRADE: B
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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (dir. Stuart Gillard, 1993)
As the films progressed, the design got cheaper and more kid-friendly, and we eventually were presented with these weird-looking iterations. The turtles in part III – a time travel adventure set mostly in feudal Japan, sigh – had enormous eyes, and, most frustratingly, very similar faces. In the original two, an attempt was made to make each turtle look a little different. Here, they are nearly indistinguishable apart from their masks. The freckles and details had now been exaggerated into weird-looking large round green spots all over the turtles' heads. The animatronics are still pretty good, but the faces look blank and far less expressive this time around. They're also too shiny and rubbery and fake-looking.
DESIGN GRADE: D+
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TMNT (dir. Kevin Munroe, 2007)
This was the first fully-animated Ninja Turtles feature film, and the first time we had seen the characters rendered in CGI. While a lot of fans resented that any attempt at live-action was being totally eschewed this time around, I have to point out that the final design was actually pretty good in this flick. For one thing, this is the first time the turtles could be smaller and kid-sized, rather than big enough to allow a stunt man to fit inside a suit. It also meant that the teenaged turtles – for the first time – had the physique of teenagers. These turtles feel more youthful. Their faces were squared-off and expressionistic versions of their more rounded and realistic live-action counterparts, but the faces were also distinct from one another, and plenty expressive. Well, except around the eyes.
DESIGN GRADE: B+
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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (dir. Jonathan Liebesman, 2014)
Also fully-rendered CGI creations, these turtles were created with motion-capture technology. As such, the facial expressions on these turtles are more expressive than any other version we've had, allowing for blinking eyes, facial tics, and little lip movements we had never seen before. They are, however, too busy for their own good, draped in so much detail that it's hard to absorb. Also, these turtles are huge! They tower over human beings, and have biceps as big as toddlers. They don't look like ninja turtles so much as villains from Hulk comics. As for the controversial lips and nostrils, I don't object out of principle. The lips, however, look oddly plastered on.
DESIGN GRADE: C+
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The Winner: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)
The clear winner here is the 1990 film. They have the best turtle design. Although they may not be the most intricately detailed or wholly natural (they do look rubbery from time to time), the actual heft of the actual on-screen animatronic faces make the turtles seem the most real. the most important quality that teenage mutant ninja turtles require is that they interact the most believably with the world around them. Not just fight and whack and bruise bad guys, but actually banter and smile and look like they're having a good time. They need to be, well, teenagers. For that, you need smaller creatures. They need to be green, but not too turtle-like or reptilian (which would be weird). And they need to be slightly cartoony to match the fundamental silliness of the characters.
The 1990 film wins in all these regards. They perfected the look early on.
