SepTMNTber - Turtles Forever Review
Before I even get started, let me say I absolutely love the idea of these two shows and wish more cartoons did this. Each one crosses over the then-current cartoon with the original show. Both stories are fairly similar - someone creates a dimensional portal and the different generations of turtles meet, make fun of each other, and team up to kick ass.
In Turtles Forever, which was released as a stand-alone movie featuring the 2003 Turtles (thought it was planned to be part of that series), their Shredder is searching for a way to kill every version of the Turtles by finding the Prime universe, the one where all other Turtles dimensions started—the Comics dimension. Three separate versions of the Turtles team up - the 2003s, the 1986s and the Comics—to defeat Shredder. The best part for me was the different Raphaels making fun of each other; 2003 Raph makes fun of the 1986 one for being lightweights compared to the more mature 2003 Turtles, only to be ridiculed by the much darker Comics Raph.
Trans-Dimensional Turtles matches together the 2012 Turtles with their 1986 counterparts—switching from 3D to 2D versions and back as they travel between the two worlds. They face off against two Krangs, and we find out that the 1986 Krang was banished by the 2012 Krang for his ineptitude. Again, the best bit is the jokes thrown back and forth between the two generations of Turtles. Old Raph gives new Donnie some lip about his weird voice, both of which are provided by the same voice actor. Though they travel to the comic dimension, they don’t interact with those Turtles—instead, that short scene is animated as if they were jumping between comic panels to mimic the two different animation types.
Both shows are so well done and full of nostalgia. The character designs match perfectly with the older shows and all the available voice casts come back to reprise their roles. It’s obvious to any fan of the Turtles that these shows are made with a lot of love and respect for the source material.
As a fan of both TMNT and Transformers, I wish so hard that we could see this kind of crossover for our Robots in Disguise. Imagine Opimuses and Megatrons from across the multiverse joining together to clash against some massive threat like Unicron! Get on this Hasbro!
Throughout the rest of this month, I’ll be going through every series through Rise of the TMNT, which I reviewed recently. I will also be reviewing all of the movies on the Retro Network ending with Mutant Mayhem, so make sure to check them out there.
