Splinter (Golden Harvest/Imagi)

Splinter's movie origin followed more closely to the original Mirage Comics than the 1987 series. Splinter was the pet rat of Hamato Yoshi in Japan who followed the teachings of his owner from his cage. When forced to flee to America and after his master's death, Splinter found himself in the sewers of New York where he found four turtles.

One morning Splinter awoke to find the turtles playing in a glowing green "goo" spilling out of a broken canister. Soon, he noticed that not only were the turtles changing, so was he. Eventually, he grew to his fully mutated form and began to teach his adoptive sons the ways of honor and the path of the ninja. This version of Splinter is still a brown rat but is not as active like most other versions of Splinter. He is seen wearing tattered grey rags in this movie. Raphael is the one closest to him than the other turtles are. Splinter also gives advice to a Foot Clan member named Danny Pennington and convinced him to leave the clan. In the climax of the film, Splinter saves the turtles from The Shredder and sends him off the side of a building into a garbage truck.

Where in the first film Splinter was a dignified father figure for the turtles, in the subsequent sequels he became more of the "hip" elderly person offering more and more one-liners with each sequel.

Finally, in the 2007 film he had once again reverted back to his origins of the dignified master, and father with only a handful of humorous scenes in his role.