Original Turtles Movie
Gregory Monty
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles[a] is a 1990 American superhero film based on the comic book characters created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. It is the first film adaptation of the characters and was directed by Steve Barron and written by Todd W. Langen and Bobby Herbeck from a story by Herbeck. It stars Judith Hoag and Elias Koteas with the voices of Brian Tochi, Josh Pais, Corey Feldman, and Robbie Rist. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 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 adapts 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. Filming took place in 1989 in North Carolina and New York City.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was released theatrically in the United States on March 30, 1990, by New Line Cinema. It received mixed reviews, but was a box-office success, grossing $202 million on a budget of $13.5 million; it was the highest-grossing independent film up to that time[7] and the ninth highest-grossing film worldwide of 1990. It was followed by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze (1991) and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (1993). It is the only film in the original trilogy not to be distributed by 20th Century Fox internationally.
April's supervisor, Charles Pennington, visits April's apartment with his delinquent son, Danny. As Charles and April argue over her incident with the thieves, Danny steals money from her wallet. April later investigates the crime wave, correctly theorizing it to be the work of the ninja Foot Clan, whose leader, The Shredder, orders her to be silenced. Sterns, the Chief of Police, chastises April for embarrassing him during her interview. As April leaves the station, Danny is arrested. The Foot clansmen attack April in the subway. Raph defeats them and carries the unconscious April back to the turtles' lair, unaware that a Foot soldier is following. Once April awakens, Splinter introduces himself and the turtles, explaining that they were once normal animals, before being mutated into intelligent, anthropomorphic creatures by a mysterious chemical and trained by Splinter in ninjutsu. After the turtles escort April home, they find their lair ransacked and Splinter kidnapped. They return to April's apartment and spend the night there.
Sterns looks at Danny's mugshot and calls Charles to make a deal. Charles and Danny later visit April's apartment. As Charles tries to convince April to drop the investigation, Danny glimpses the turtles hiding and later runs away following an argument with his father. At the Foot's hideout, Shredder informs his followers of the turtles' threat, and Danny reports his findings.
During April's newest interview, Charles watches from backstage and is reprimanded by Sterns. The turtles watch April's interview, and Raph argues with Leo over his leadership while retreating to the roof. The Foot arrive and lay siege, beating Raph unconscious. The apartment catches fire, and the turtles and April escape with help from Casey; before Casey leaves, he overhears a voicemail left by Charles saying that April is released from her job. Guilt-stricken, Danny seeks counsel from the imprisoned Splinter, and runs away from the Foot Clan. The turtles retreat to an abandoned farm belonging to April's family. As Casey works to fix their vehicle, he informs April that she is fired, which results into an argument between the two. The days go by, and Raph recovers while April and Casey bond. As the turtles train intensively, Leo receives a vision of Splinter and assembles the other turtles to contact him through astral projection. Splinter delivers his final lesson, inspiring the turtles to return to the city.
The turtles repel the Foot from their lair and onto the streets. Shredder confronts the turtles on a rooftop. After a fierce battle, Shredder overpowers the Turtles. Shredder claims Splinter is dead, which causes an infuriated Leo to attack him. He is disarmed, and is about to be killed when Splinter appears. He quickly identifies Shredder as Oroku Saki, who in turn recognizes Splinter as Yoshi's pet rat. Shredder charges Splinter with a spear, only for Splinter to snare the spear with Mikey's nunchaku. Dangling over the roof's edge, Shredder makes a final attempt to kill Splinter with a thrown tanto, which Splinter catches as he lets go of the nunchaku, dropping Shredder into a garbage truck. Casey activates the truck's compactor, which crushes Shredder. The police arrest the Foot soldiers and recover the stolen goods from their hideout. Danny arrives and locates April, returning the money he had previously stolen from her. The Channel 3 news crew arrives and Danny is reunited with Charles. Charles also gives April her job back, with benefits. April and Casey share a kiss while the turtles celebrate their victory with Splinter.
Skeet Ulrich and Scott Wolf appear as unnamed members of the Foot Clan, in uncredited roles. TMNT co-creator Kevin Eastman has a small cameo as a garbage man. According to him, he was supposed to have an extended spot, but it ended up being a background cameo instead.[8] Peter Laird said in the 2014 Turtle Power documentary that he politely declined the offer as he was not comfortable with cameos in general.
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.
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.[9]
The film's budget was $13.5 million.[1][3] 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 the World Trade Center, Times Square, the Empire State Building, and the Hudson River.[7] 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.[10]
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.[citation needed]
The turtle costumes were created by Jim Henson's Creature Shop in London.[7] 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.[11] 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.[10]
The costumes used state-of-the-art animatronics to make the face masks expressive. The masks included a set of internal animatronic mouths, eyes and eyebrows which were managed by a technician with the help of a computer. The computer could codify set of expressions, such as anger or awe, which were later programmed into the keys of a joystick handed by the technician. Capture of movement was also used for the lips. The technician could wear a special helmet with cameras recording the lips when pronouncing a phrase, and transferring to the mechanical lips embedded in the masks.[12]
Many major studios, such as Walt Disney Pictures, Columbia Pictures, Universal Pictures, MGM/UA, Orion Pictures, 20th Century Fox, 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.[7] 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.[7]
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.[13]
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.[14]
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