MOVIE NEWS – Forward to the past: this was one of the watchwords of the creative team of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Chaos when they dreamed up the visuals of the production. They wanted to use computer animation, but in a way that would not be perfect, i.e. photorealistic, as is the case with so many animated films today.

After all, what would be the point of having animated characters look like live actors? Rather, they wanted the target audience to re-encounter the comic book visuals with which the teenage ninjas were introduced in the early eighties, still strictly on paper. Jeff Rowe, one of the film’s screenwriter-directors, explained to Variety, “We wanted our film to have a human face, and not to make it look like we fed the whole thing into a computer and then hit enter.” – We wanted to create the kind of visual that prevails in a school sketchbook, which the guys telegraph in boring physics class. It seems imperfect, contingent, unfinished, because it is full of unbridled passion, since it is not paralyzed by the compulsion to be an artist at school, with which the childish fantasy that wants to soar is imprisoned.”

The creators of the film want to guide the viewer into the authentic world of teenagers: their heroes are guys who stumble and stumble, are lonely, feel that the world doesn’t understand them, and definitely want to find their place, despite the fact that they are mutant ninjas. Or precisely because of this.

(Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem – domestic release: August 10, 2023.)