Maybe it’s indeed too extreme to compare some Hollywood chuckleheads running our childhood favorites to sexual assault, but we geeks feel very protective of our favorite movies, TV shows and comics.
We really don’t like seeing them ruined by people who don’t share the same passion and enthusiasm for them that we do. Star Wars is of course the best example, and George Lucas finally announced he can’t battle the heat from the geeks anymore and he’s retiring.
Now there’s many people in Hollywood that hate Michael Bay, and don’t think he can direct traffic, let alone a movie.
In addition to people hating his movies, he’s not known for being pleasant on his sets, or for being very humble either. So when word got out there could be some meddling with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the fans immediately went crazy.
According to Variety, the new version of Ninja Turtles will portray the creatures as aliens from outer space, or at least that’s the rumor that got out in cyberspace, and the fans were none too pleased. (Not to mention the Variety headline read: “Somewhere Splinter is rolling over in his sewer.”)
Robbie Rist, who you may recall from the last season of The Brady Bunch as Oliver, “the jinx” of the family, went on Facebook to denounce the Turtle reboot. Rist was the voice of Michaelangelo in the movies, and wrote that Bay will be “sodomizing” and “rap[ing] our childhood memories” with this new reboot.
In response, Bay issued a phrase you doubt he says often, or exercises himself: “Chill.” As Bay wrote on his blog, “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 Turltes 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.”
The new Ninja Turtles is due for release in 2013, and Bay certainly has a lot of geek goodwill because of the Transformers films, not to mention he’s back to make a fourth Transformers, but please Michael, be careful with those beloved heroes in a half-shell. Hell hath no fury like geeks scorned.
