User blog comment:Kung fu frogz/Favorite Version of the Ninja Turtles?/@comment-28672978-20160607214629

"For me it's gotta be the IDW comics that I feel is the best. Its the perfect blend. Its like if the 1987 show was remade and directed by Chris Nolan!"

Yeah, not…really?

Christopher Nolan is an auteur by preference, a school of thought Eastman and Waltz clearly don’t and aren’t trying to subscribe too, and his work is clearly inspired by ethical, artistic, sociological and psychological ideals that TMNT and pop culture in general aren’t.

Also for all his high concept, high falutin’ stuff his probably greatest weakness as an actual writer is also his greatest strength. His characters may monologue about what their thing is in no uncertain terms even as he uses visual and musical cues to hint at what their thing is and how it works, but as a result he’s always being upfront with his audience about what his story is saying and what he’s trying to do.

Which isn’t a bad thing, translate Shakespearian English and the bard himself is being similarly intellectually honest. As an example, before we turned it into a meme Inception was all about corporate society, ambition in that society, the paradox of thieves with hearts of gold, the imposibility and temptation of redemption, identity as an individual vs identity as a parent and other film school thesis worthy things delivered through the vehicle of a heist movie. What If We Stole Dreams is the hook, what you come for. You stay for Cobb’s emotional journey and its ambiguous ending. IDW’s TMNT by contrast is about what happens next, the perpetual motion machine.

And yeah, Nolan has dabbled in superheroes but his big things besides Batman Begins, Dark Knight and the other one? Momento and Interstellar, trippy odysseys that have maybe only really the concept of identity in common with Batman’s (supposedly) more grounded ideas on fear, chaos and symbolism where everyone, even the bum Bruce Wayne slips his coat to, has a part to play. When Waltz’s takes on the character’s launch into their thematic monologues they present versions of the TMNT and friends who are concerned with family, anger management, self-worth, healing, heroism and pragmatism…which is neat but maybe only really superficially similar. The Dark Knight trilogy (well, the first two movies at any rate) is Nolan using the abstract concept of Batman to create a list of subject matters that similar to his interests that he can explore to make a movie, a visual and musical piece of art instead of just a story, with more meaning than just Patrick Bateman beating up some scruffy Scorsese film rejects with the ultra-realistic bulletproof hang glider suit Morgan Freeman just happened to have in his basement. IDW’s TMNT is more like 2K3 than really anything else: TMNT but pretending it had a real plan this whole time instead of being made up as it went along. Which again, isn’t an entirely bad thing. If it has to be compared to any superhero pop culture thing though it’d probably be more intellectually  honest to go with Marvel Studios tactic of going “Hey, it’s this thing only die hards know about but super awesome!” with TMNT’s trademark blend of weird-new-ideas-that-feel-like-they’ve-been-here-this-whole-time like Old Hob and Kitsune.

TLDR; While I’m sure they’d be flattered by the comparison, Eastman, Waltz and co are really too different from Nolan as creatives for it to work, and there’s a heck of a lot more to Nolan as a creative than just being the guy who let non-nerd cinema goers know it was cool to like Batman again.