{"id":5186,"date":"2014-08-09T10:37:49","date_gmt":"2014-08-09T15:37:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/?p=5186"},"modified":"2014-08-08T01:00:31","modified_gmt":"2014-08-08T06:00:31","slug":"those-roided-up-monsters-are-not-ninja-turtles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2014\/08\/those-roided-up-monsters-are-not-ninja-turtles\/","title":{"rendered":"Those roided-up monsters are not Ninja Turtles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>(Detouring from highways and Iowa coverage because this is important, darn it.)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Michael Bay&#8217;s latest salvo in his war on 1980s-early &#8217;90s childhoods hits theaters this weekend. I am old and not in the target demographic anymore, I get that. These characters and stories have been redrawn repeatedly, I get that too. But I don&#8217;t believe my younger self would have seen much in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ign.com\/articles\/2014\/08\/04\/teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-review-3\">the CGI creatures who are allegedly supposed to be the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles<\/a>. It&#8217;s really difficult to strike hard and fade away without a trace when you&#8217;re built like an offensive lineman in full pads.<\/p>\n<p>These are my Turtles:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/eShxKiQ9-6U\" height=\"315\" width=\"420\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>And these are my Turtles*:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_7P1z28mCwI\" height=\"315\" width=\"560\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>And <em>maayyyybee<\/em> the newest cartoon series, which appears more playful than this movie, although it bugs me to no end that the voice actor for &#8217;80s Raphael is &#8217;10s Donatello.<\/p>\n<p>But I do not plan to fork over any money to see this PG-13 execution (in multiple senses of the word) of all things TMNT. (<em>Variety<\/em>, <a href=\"http:\/\/variety.com\/2014\/film\/reviews\/film-review-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-1201274733\/\">in full damning-with-faint-praise mode<\/a>: &#8220;The film manifests all the usual attributes of a Bay production \u2014 chaotic action, crass side jokes, visual-effects overkill, Megan Fox \u2014 but is nowhere near &#8216;Transformers&#8217;-level off-putting.&#8221;)<em><br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p>They may look like Shrek&#8217;s long-lost cousins, but <a href=\"http:\/\/screenrant.com\/ninja-turtles-2014-origin-story-discussion\/\">at least they weren&#8217;t turned into aliens<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>*Looking back, the original movie is as much a product of Dinkins-era New York as it is the glory days of Jim Henson&#8217;s Creature Shop. But this isn&#8217;t a post for sociohistorical musing on pop culture, it&#8217;s for a rant against Michael Bay movies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Detouring from highways and Iowa coverage because this is important, darn it.) Michael Bay&#8217;s latest salvo in his war on 1980s-early &#8217;90s childhoods hits theaters this weekend. I am old and not in the target demographic anymore, I get that. &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2014\/08\/those-roided-up-monsters-are-not-ninja-turtles\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5186"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5194,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5186\/revisions\/5194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}