Michael Bay Clarifies His Statement On The ‘Teenage ALIEN Ninja Turtles’

Some days you just have to stand back and shake your head. The internet is a powder keg of misunderstanding and preconception. When a polarizing figure like Michael Bay makes an off hand comment about a beloved franchise that doesn’t meet perfect fan criteria, the whole things explodes in so much whiny status updates and forum threads.

Recently Bay, who’s Platinum Dunes is setting up a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle reboot, made a comment about the Turtles being of alien origin. He made the comments during the Nickelodeon up-fronts last week, and the internet has been all pissy about it since then.

Keen to clarify his original statement, Bay remarked on his official message boards about the subject:

Fans need to take a breath, and chill. They have not read the script. Our team is working closely with one of the original creators of Ninja Turtles to help expand and give a more complex back story. Relax, we are including everything that made you become fans in the first place. We are just building a richer world.

Sounds like the right approach to a Ninja Turtles reboot to me. If you want to make the heroes in a half shell relevant again you need to bring something new to the table. There were actually some really zany story-lines in the original comics about aliens and inter-dimensional beings that have never really made it to the films before.

It would be really exciting if they can tap into that tone, instead of giving us yet another origin/Shredder story. In fact, of all the people who you would want to take an iconic marketing franchise and turn it into a modern, accsessable feature it is Bay. Say what you will about the Transformers movies, but the first was fantastic, and the third was better than most expected it to be.

So moral of this particular story is to chill out, internet. We live in the information age, so lets all try to be responsible with the information and use it properly. Unless, of course, Fox wants to mess up the casting of their impending Fantastic Four reboot, then we take to the streets with fire and pitch forks!