Comic Book Film Adaptations: How Would You Do It?

[DrCosmic]

How would I do Ninja Turtles?

Spoiler

The Look of the Turtles is the foundation. They must be equal parts badass ninjas and ridiculous saturated cartoon characters, evoking the same sense of ironic dissonance as Chucky or Pennywise, the realism should be in the textures and practicality, all of which turns further when these incredible warriors turn out to be teenagers, and not 80s children's teenagerss, but fun, dumb, messy, silly, angsty, girl crazy, but still 'a good kid' teenagers like we see in Spider-Man Homecoming or Stranger Things. In short, they must be nothing less that teenagers, mutants, ninjas and turtles, with everything that name implies.

They each should have their own look, Leon clean and simple, Mikey with a lot of accoutrements, Raph cloaked or shrouded, Donny dressed oddly like a normal guy. They have different builds and skin tones, different bandana designs, move and speak distinctly, but most importantly, they each have their own narrative, their own arc and story, just like the characters from Guardians of the Galaxy, or Dodgeball, or any other team-action-comedy, which is precisely what this is. So instead of just developing Leo and Raph, all four of the brothers get explored equally, because they are part of a whole, part of a real family.

This also is why none of them are the 'main character.' That honor goes to none other than April O'Neil, as both the audience POV and the best vehicle for the coming of age story and the family acceptance story since she can have the biggest change, from foster kid who misses her late scientist dad, to an honorary Ninja turtle.

That gives our movie heart and fun, and so we need to cast it. Modern mo-cap allows one actor to do everything for a turtle, but it also allows multiple performers in one character. Imagine Jet Li's fighting with Nolan North's vocal performance? Now, it's not likely you can get movie stars to give up their faces and voices, and Nolan's not the best to voice teenagers, but that's okay, because you want your physical actors to have chemistry with your April actress, and so you want younger stuntmen and actors, people who have proven great action chops, even if not great acting chops, get the best of both worlds.

Save Shredder for the sequel, of course, instead use mad scientist Baxter Stockman, and the whole scientific partners had a falling out with him and Dr. O'Neil practically writes itself. So, with all that said, here's my cast and overview of my TMNT Film.

"Ninja Turtles: Teenage Mutants"

Cast
April O'Neil: Hailee Steinfeld
Leonardo: Ryan Potter & Johnny Young Bosch
Michaelangelo: Noah Ringer & Vincent Martella
Donatello: Taylor Lautner & Khary Payton
Raphael: Brandon Soo Hoo & Crispin Freeman

Hamato "Splinter" Yoshi: Ken Watanabe
Baxter Stockman: Jeffrey Wright
Ivan "Rocksteady" Steranko: Brock Lesnar & John DiMaggio
Anton "Bebop" Zeck: Booker T & Phil LaMarr
Dr. Kirby O'Neil: Jeff Daniels
Casey Jones: Dylan O'Brien

Fight Coordinators (or at least inspirations): Jackie Chan & Samo Hung - a fighting style that involves seamless fusion of multiple allied fighters, along with lots of physical comedy and dramatics while weaponizing the environment.

Director: Duncan Jones

Music: Alan Silvestri

Act I:
April O'Neil is a foster kid and finds something from her father, which leads to her investigating some stuff to do with his work with Baxter Stockman and ends up almost getting killed by some thugs only to be rescued by a mutant turtle, but it's not clear which one, and when she wakes up in the sewer, they are all blaming each other, and Splinter allows her to stay after it turns out the thugs are staking out her place. The turtles are full of energy and attitude, and she hits it off with Mike and Donny, though Raph and Leo are more standoffish in their own ways. Eventally they all discover that Dr. O'Neil and Baxter Stockman are behind the creation of the turtles, and Stockman when they go to stop him, they end up giving him what he needs to create more, starting with Bebop and Rocksteady.

Act II
April begins training with Splinter, living with the turtles, there's Mike and his practical jokes, and he longs for a real party. Donny cooks, and does lots of tinkering and gadgeting, and he is really not sure what he wants to do or be, signified by him not yet choosing a signature weapon over the basic staff, and worries a lot about being found out, and being accepted by others. Leo is hard trying to be the perfect student and Raph has more of an existential crisis, why me and a lot of anger on being treated like a freak when he rebeled and went out as a younger kid. In time, Leo comes to help teach April and Raph comes to protect her as a sister by the middle of the film when she has a run in with Casey Jones and soon after, Bebop and Rocksteady, and Baxter's equipment goes out of control, trapping him with a fly and mutating him into a mutant fly, spurring him to do even bigger and more destructive things. After April's foster family is run out of town, her father's safehouse and its work destroyed, Mike is injured by Rocksteady, Donny is captured and put on the news, and Raph and Leo come to blows, April feels its all her fault and runs away, like she always does as Baxter works up his big plan to mutate the entire city into mutant animals.

Act III
The turtles are all apart and wallowing in their pain. Leo tries to meditate, Raph goes vigilante on some thugs looking for info. Donny tries to bargain with Baxter, who cares not, while Mike is unconscious as Splinter reflects on his failings as a teacher. April ends up running into Casey who points out that those guys are like her brothers, and realizing what her father said about new family, she runs to bring them back together, finding Raph and heading to the sewer to mend Raph and Leo's relationship, teaching them both to let go a bit. Mike wakes up and tells them what he remembers from Baxter's location and they all head to stop him and rescue Donny. Lots of action happens, April learns to be a real ninja by faking that she knows how to be a real ninja, tricking Baxter into turning the other way. Donny decides that he's cool the way he is and wrecks shop with his staff, helping his brothers find him using his tech skills and the four brothers wreck shop on the building security and attempt to take down Baxter, but even though he has no training, his eyes and agility make him as hard to hit as a fly would be for a normal turtle. Meanwhile, April manages to elude Bebop and Rocksteady stealthily, tricking them into breaking the path into Baxter's machine she then gets them to chase her back to the turtles, who then, while protecting April, who is working on a laptop on Donny's back to deactivate the machine's countdown as the turtles fight Baxter and Bebop and Rocksteady and end up trapped into the machine's transformation tube. Baxter cackles and the energy thing goes off, but April has reversed the polarity, and like in Superman 2, it's Baxter and Bebop and Rocksteady who are back to normal and the turtles emerge from the chamber and swiftly KO them. The city is saved, and in the end, April returns to school, coming home to the sewer to learn ninjitsu and teach the brothers how to read or something.

FIN

Sequel - "Ninja Turtles: Shredded Cheese"

Splinter's old nemesis returns as The Shredder, blanketing New York City in a gripping crime wave powered by the Foot and their tributary gang, The Purple Dragons, which Casey infiltrates as the turtles find themselves, their home and their brotherhood taken apart as Shredder recovers Stockman's technology and uses it to make a female turtle, Sophonisba or 'Sophie' that infiltrates the turtles as no one else can. Only April's friendship with Shredder's daughter Karai that can save them... or will it doom them instead? April, in a yellow uses a staff while Donny uses a Naginata spear temporarily and Sophie uses a Tessen, which she gives to April in the end. Also, Shredder just drops a buttload of mutants on them in the end for a big sprawling fight scene.

Oroku "Shredder" Saki: Will Yun Lee
Sophonisba: Sophia Boutella & Grey Delisle
Hamato "Karai" Mira": Karen Fukuhara

Threequel - "Ninja Turtles: Multidimensional"

The source of Shredder's resources is revealed, higher level aliens playing on our playing field, all bets are off. Shredder and Splinter back to back taking on waves of alien robots. Michaelangelo mutated into a human. Raph coated in a black shroud, left for dead but playing home alone inside the technodrome. Leonardo lost in Dimension X alongside a rabbit samurai. April meeting her alt universe counterparts. The turtles end up regrouping again, this time all with their traditional weapons with all red bandanas, because they've all mastered ninjitsu to that level, and the audience knows them well enough to tell them apart without color coordination. April gets up to 'green belt' alongside them. Splinter probably dies.

Krang: Benedict Cumberbatch
Miyamoto Usagi: Rain & Steven Yeun
Metalhead: Iko Uwais & Alan Tudyk

So pretty much that.

 

[Jochimus]

Spoiler

THE TRANSFORMERS

Essentially, a combined adaptation of IDW's first two TF story arcs, Infiltration:

The most immediate shift from original continuity is the nature of the Transformers' presence on Earth. In this continuity, there was no ancient starship crash, nor robots awakening from a four million-year slumber; the Autobots and Decepticons have arrived on Earth fairly recently and on purpose, operating undercover for at least four years. The story is told through the eyes of four main characters: Verity Carlo, a young drifter; Hunter O'Nion, a conspiracy theorist; Jimmy Pink, mechanic and Verity's net-friend; and Ratchet, a medic who puts his conscience over his mission.
The series quickly and consistently establishes a strong Cold War, cloak-and-dagger theme, where secrecy and rules of espionage are as important as, or perhaps even more than, vanquishing the enemy. Thundercracker and the Battlechargers attack the humans and Ratchet to retrieve data on a palmtop PC that might reveal their existence; Ratchet is arrested by Prowl for breaking cover to rescue the humans; both Autobot and Decepticon operations are small cells instead of full-fledged armies. Also, a third faction is at work: a secret human organization known only as the Machination which appears to be aware of the Transformers' presence on Earth and has its own plans, as yet unknown, for the robots. Finally, it becomes evident to the Autobots that the Decepticon operation is up to something unusual, and their new human allies may have a part in unraveling the mystery.
The series has taken an interesting and rather unique approach to the standard Transformers story: introducing only a few new characters with each issue. This enables each issue to focus on a small selection of leads (Ratchet, the humans and later Bumblebee) without overwhelming them and gives each issue space to explore their characters.
The series culminates in a battle between Starscream, who leads the Decepticons on Earth, and the recently arrived Megatron attempting to put his house in order. Their animosity seems to be a constant in any Transformers continuity!

And Escalation:

The story centers on two plot threads: the activities of the human group known as the Machination, and the Decepticons' attempts to exploit the Ore-13 energon discovered by Starscream in the previous series. The Machination kidnaps Sunstreaker, while Ratchet and Ironhide violate orders to try and find him. The Earth-bound operations of the Autobots and Decepticons come into direct and open conflict as the Decepticons initiate Phase Two and the Autobots attempt to counter it, with Megatron and Optimus Prime going toe to toe in battle. What was, not so long ago, just another skirmish in the cold war between the two alien forces heats up very rapidly.