Why Is a Hybrid Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles a Good Thing?
A while ago amidst the back and forth whether or not a new live action endeavor would be made on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, co-creator of the cultural icon Peter Laird discussed that a hybrid Turtles was the proposed idea.
Then yesterday after it was confirmed by Mirage Studios they were going ahead with a TMNT live action reboot, the news of hybrid resurfaced from Laird’s personal website saying,
“As you may recall from some of my previous comments, our initial discussions regarding the next film had to do with what we were calling a “hybrid” — live action with realistic Turtles rendered in CGI and blended in. This new idea — which, frankly, I am VERY pumped about — will have actors and stunt performers in full Turtle suits for filming in live action. As of right now, there is talk of using CGI to do “face replacement” for the suits so that we can get those great, expressive faces possible with CGI.” [via /Film]
I know some griping within the Ninja Turtle fanboy community surfaced as to why they would do such a thing? Why wouldn’t they just do like the original live-action films? What was wrong with those?
Well I am here to tell everyone that I think a “hybrid” concept is something that should happen. Having seen Iron Man I loved Favreau’s combination of CGI and practical costumes designed by Stan Winston Studios, there was a very fluid look to the whole suit in various stages and shots as Stark designed it throughout the film.
Another movie that is on the release schedule that is doing similiar work in combining CGI, muppeteering, animatronics is Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are. The movie is said to be using combination of live action, suitmation, animatronics, and CGI. Having seen the trailer for the film I can say pretty comfortable and confidently that combination suited the film’s look and didn’t take away from the core of the film which is the creatures.
Using these two films as examples of “hybrid” style visual effects films I can say that using the same concept in the new live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film is something that I welcome and whole-heartedly support. I do not know about the “face expression” thing Laird mentioned but I think the suits combined with motion capture for great action effects such as a turtle jumping from building to building or even something more complex would look good. I hope this is the direction the film will take as it enters development but like many I still hold judgement and reservations until more is known, obviously Laird is speculating as many do at this point. Let’s hope that they take notes from the two films I mentioned and others like it and I will not have a problem…till then…Cowabunga dude!
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