I’ve owned the first two Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies in different formats since they were first released on VHS in the early ‘90s. I’ve upgraded to DVD, then Blu-ray, and now, with Arrow’s new release of the trilogy: 4K UHD. There’s no doubt that yet another format will come along one day, but for now this new release should last for many years as the best way to own these three movies.
Before I get into the special features and whatnot, I wanted to get into the movies themselves and what they’ve meant to me over the years. The trilogy of live action TMNT movies serves as a kind of metaphor for my fandom over the years. I was a huge fan of the Turtles growing up, and watching the first film in theaters at age six is one of my earliest memories in a movie theater. I remember loving it, but it was only after the second one came out just a year later that I realized how dark that first film truly was.
Perhaps “dark” is the wrong word, but compared to the much sillier Secret of the Ooze, the first film is downright brooding. At the time, though, I loved them both. When I got the VHS tapes, I tended to pick the second film to watch over the first. The second one is simply more kid-friendly, intentionally so. The Turtles use their weapons sparingly, there’s a lot more pizza-eating, it’s brighter, and there are no overly sad or frightening moments.
The first film, by contrast, is literally darker, and the main focus is Shredder’s Foot Clan recruiting New York City’s youth into a crime syndicate, luring them in with the promise of videogames, gambling, skateboard ramps, and cigarettes (“regular or menthol” as offered by Sam Rockwell in an early role). The city is in turmoil, and when the Turtles get involved, people get hurt. Splinter is captured, and Raphael is beaten so badly, it seems like he might die for a long chunk of the film. This makes for a better movie overall, but when you’re six or seven, the fun one is an easier watch. But even back then I knew this was a higher quality film, even if it had slower moments.
As for the third film, I think it’s absolute trash for two reasons. First, it just is. Second, it came out two years after Secret of the Ooze, and I was nine and starting to move on from the Turtles. I didn’t even watch this one in the theater. And when I eventually watched it on VHS, it was one of the first movies to make me realize that movies could be bad, which is a devastating thing to learn when you’re little.
Some people defend the third film, but I can only assume it’s a Hook situation, and they just happened to be the right age at the right time to enjoy such garbage. As for me, I have tried to watch it a couple times as an adult, and it just gets worse each time. In fact, I only watched five minutes of it this time so I could check the transfer quality, and I turned it off as soon as I could.
I still enjoy the first two films, though I will admit that the first one is the only one I could seriously call “good.” The second one is nostalgic fun for me, and I do believe it is objectively better than the third film, but had I only watched the second film as an adult, I would probably not care for it much.
And this brings me to the full circle moment with these films. My kids are now old enough to be fans of the franchise (the latest animated Turtles film was a big hit with all of us), so I’ve gladly introduced these films to them, especially my son, who has taken more of a liking to the franchise. Just like me as a child, I can tell he likes the first one well enough, but it’s the second one that keeps his attention. As he gets older, I look forward to watching the first one again with him to see if he likes it more. And as for the third one, I’m going to do my best to convince him that it doesn’t exist.
The Transfer
I’m relatively new to 4K physical media, so I’m not the best judge of what a good transfer is. In fact, I’m still dealing with the fact that most of these new 4K releases are meant to restore the film to how it looked theatrically rather than making them all superficially crisp, as a lot of Blu-ray releases have done over the years. In other words, a lot of 4K stuff is grainier than previous releases, and the first two Turtles movies are no exception. It’s not overly grainy, but if you’re expecting a pristine look, then you should stick with the Blu-ray or streaming releases.
But the grain is actually a benefit with this series. Since the films, especially the first one, feature a lot of underground and shadowy scenes with actors in rubber suits. Grain can keep things realistic. The third film is perfect evidence of this. It’s the crispest transfer of the three, but the suits are comically worse than the first two films. Without a little grain, it is distractingly obvious that the suit budget was slashed for the third movie. In the first two films, it’s easy to accept Splinter and the Turtles as real characters. In the third film, they all look like animatronics from a theme park. Little kids probably won’t mind, but for an adult dork like me it made an already crappy movie practically unwatchable.
Special Features
There are plenty of cool collectible items included in this set like a Roy’s Pizza loyalty card, some posters, a booklet with new articles about the films, etc. If you’re into that stuff, it’s great. There’s not much to say about it, so I’ll focus more on the special features included on the actual discs.
Most of the new stuff consists of interviews with the cast and filmmakers of each film. The first film gets the most material, and it descends from there with the third film, rightfully so, receiving the least attention.
The interviews for the first film from Judith Hoag, Steve Barron, and Brian Henson are the most enlightening. I had no idea that the film was pretty much taken away from Barron in the editing process. But I kind of get why. Barron himself admits in his interview to taking the film to Disney in the hopes they would give him more money for reshoots in return, I assume, for distribution rights. I can imagine Golden Harvest, the studio that made the film, was not happy with this. It’s honestly a wild thing for Barron to try to do, but it doesn’t seem like they had the best relationship even before this as Henson claims that both he and Barron were fired from the film more than once.
There’s also an alternate ending that is worth watching just to hear the stunt guys doing the voicework.
Both of the first films have special features dealing with the whole “ninja” controversy of the series. There are alternate cuts that retitle the film Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, and apparently nunchuks were a real problem in the UK in the ‘90s, as there are edits of all the films toning down any nunchuk use.
The archival 1991 doc is nice just to see how popular the series was back then. And it features an interview with Eastman and Laird. There's plenty of behind the scenes stuff from the second film. I can't tell who this was made for, though. It seems promotional, but it kind of gives away everything that happens in the second film. The narration has the tone of something aimed at kids, but I’m not sure how kids would have come across this back then. I don't remember ever seeing this, and I was definitely the target audience back then.
There are also plenty of commentaries that I’m sure go into much more detail than the interviews, but I had to draw the line somewhere so I could finally write this, so I have not listened to them. But come on, you’re either a commentary person or you’re not at this point; nothing I say will change that.
This is certainly the definitive version of this trilogy to own, and I can’t imagine that will change any time soon.