Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-32181199-20170619135553/@comment-995426-20170810033445

Well, some of us are well into our adult years, and have been reading or watching TMNT in some incarnation since as far back as the 1980s. And I do like the family slice-of-life elements in TMNT. But I also like them to try to be at least as well-written and well-characterized as they were when it started. For many of us, this show has been on a major decline. The dialogue more wooden, the plots more facile, the plot holes even worse. Though, in fairness, I guess it's possible to watch these things at age 15 and not have this kind of sensitivity.

And personally, I prefer TMNT that matures gradually over time, whether it starts out for kids or started out for adults since the beginning. The paradox is that, with good Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, they can't remain teenagers forever&mdash;it's a coming-of-age story, where eventually the children are adults and settle into more adult lives. And sometimes this means more meaningful relationships, and possibly raising kids (whether biological or adopted), and even living in a family of three generations. When TMNT is only allowed to be for kids and doesn't grow up, it loses something, like a fruit tree that always flowers but never bears fruit.

Here are some of the moments I think help their stories. Slice-of-life moments that are more complicated, more psychologically adult, and sometimes with more serious consequences.

One of the problems with the 2012 TV series is that, when it began, it portrayed both family relationships and potential love interests with a great deal of believability and realism&mdash;nothing is just handed to you on a silver platter, and you have to earn your happy ending and actually gradually mature in the process. But now, those same family relationships and love interests have become far too contrived and artificial, as if it were cheap fan fiction written by an impatient fanboy. This show started off with a certain interesting level of social maturity, but it actually became less mature with time, with a lot of the social developments (like fast and easy girlfriends who become the love of your life in under 30 minutes) coming off as maddeningly infantile or transparently pandering. As we grow and age and mature and experience more of life, we anticipate a certain...realistic imperfection in our world, or else it seems too fake to accept. A younger viewer might not yet be mature enough to know the difference, but we (adults) certainly may, and the difference can violently shake not only our suspension of disbelief in the story, but our very ability to keep enjoying it in any way.