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"Secret of the Ooze" at 35: Were Critics in the 90s Wrong about "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II?" · Meet Your Double Feature | Movie Reviews & Forgotten Films

• 0:00
  Ever wondered what critics had to say about your favorite films
• 0:03
  when they first hit theaters? That's what we're taking a look
• 0:05
  at today with a new series from Meet Your Double Feature that
• 0:07
  we're calling What Did Critics Think?
• 0:10
  For our first episode in the series, we're going to take a
• 0:11
  look back at an old childhood favorite to see what critics had
• 0:14
  to say about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2, The Secret of
• 0:18
  the Use when it first hit theaters back in March of 1991.
• 0:32
  Hello and welcome to Meet Your Double feature.
• 0:34
  My name is Thomas, joined as always by my brother Frank.
• 0:37
  Frank, how's it going? I'm.
• 0:39
  Excited to talk about some turtles man.
• 0:41
  Some turtles. 4. Turtles in particular. 4 turtles
• 0:46
  no more. We're not talking about the girl
• 0:48
  one. I will.
• 0:50
  If you want me to he. Loves he's not in the movie, but
• 0:53
  I mean, that is its own can of worms.
• 0:55
  Anyway, yes, we're kicking things off here.
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  We're in our offseason from our regular meet you double feature
• 0:59
  content and once again, just trying out a new format just to
• 1:02
  see, you know, stretch our legs a bit.
• 1:04
  Talk about movies you and I have seen prior to recording episodes
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  about them. I would say Secret of the Use,
• 1:11
  maybe a movie I've seen more than any other movie in my life.
• 1:16
  Yeah, yeah. I think possibly the same.
• 1:18
  For me, like a lot of people, and maybe it's different now,
• 1:22
  but like especially in the age where you had like a home video
• 1:24
  collection, a lot of kids would just have one movie that they
• 1:27
  watched over and over again from like a certain age range.
• 1:30
  And for us growing up in the 90s, I would say Secret of the
• 1:33
  Use was your main one. And then I also ended up
• 1:36
  watching it a lot. And then I also watched a ton of
• 1:38
  the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers movie.
• 1:40
  So like those two were just on constantly.
• 1:43
  And even as an adult, I'll put Secret to the Use on every now
• 1:45
  and again because I like it. It's a fun movie.
• 1:48
  Yeah, we watched those on VHS, and if you don't know what Avhs
• 1:53
  is, get out of here. Get out of here.
• 2:00
  Not welcome. No, of course.
• 2:04
  Yeah. So that was like our routine
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  watch as kids. And we we just know those movies
• 2:08
  by heart. We can quote them front to back.
• 2:10
  And what I thought was interesting was that for the
• 2:13
  second year in a row, they've shown one of the live action
• 2:15
  Turtles movies from the 90s at movie theaters as part of one of
• 2:18
  those like Fathom Events screenings.
• 2:21
  Because I think this year, 2026, was the 35th anniversary of
• 2:24
  Secret of the Use. So I went to see that back in
• 2:27
  March. Were you did you go as well or
• 2:29
  did you miss that one? No, I didn't.
• 2:31
  I didn't. I didn't see either of them in
• 2:32
  theaters, but that was really cool because I don't think they
• 2:34
  originally were going to release secret reviews as well.
• 2:37
  I think it was the first one did so well financially that they're
• 2:41
  like, OK, I guess we'll do secret reviews too.
• 2:44
  Yeah, we're in an era of profitable theatrical re
• 2:47
  releases, which I don't mind at all.
• 2:49
  I think it's super fun. I also got to see the Star Wars
• 2:50
  prequels in theaters again. I like it as a trend.
• 2:53
  But what I thought was interesting coming back from
• 2:56
  watching Secret of the Use, was I took a look at critic reviews
• 2:59
  because obviously it's a family movie from the 90s.
• 3:03
  It's like an action comedy. I know that it was not highly
• 3:06
  regarded, even scored lower than the previous live action Ninja
• 3:10
  Turtles film from 1990. But I wanted to look at like
• 3:13
  what actual film critics were saying about it week of, you
• 3:16
  know, like what was like the capital D discourse about Secret
• 3:20
  of the Use just in America when it was released.
• 3:24
  Because I imagine it, it must have been so different than how
• 3:27
  people would look at it now when it's like a film with a long
• 3:30
  legacy and impressions have kind of morphed over time.
• 3:34
  Like at this certain point, this was just a movie you could go
• 3:36
  see at the theater. And I thought it'd be funny to
• 3:38
  look at like, what were people saying about it?
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  And honestly, the findings are shocking to me.
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  Very. Bizarre takes the findings, it's
• 3:48
  like we've done the research, it's the results will shock you.
• 3:53
  They will shock you. I have done more research for
• 3:55
  this than usual because rather than just watching the movie, I
• 3:58
  went and I sourced. I think I read through probably
• 4:02
  like a dozen or so reviews from like larger, mostly newspaper
• 4:05
  offerings in 1991. And I looked at a couple that
• 4:08
  are like newer reviews from like websites and fan sites in the 20
• 4:12
  tens. And then of course, you and I
• 4:15
  have our own opinions, which we'll get into.
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  But overall, there was just like a broad narrative around this
• 4:21
  sequel, specifically Secret of the Use, where people were
• 4:25
  talking about a movie that was not what was released, if that
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  makes sense. Like, they had all these
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  expectations going in that they just ignored what was actually
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  happening and criticized it over things that I think were
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  entirely unfair. So I want to revisit that today
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  and sort of interweave it with our own perspectives on the
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  movie, you know, 30 years on. Wow, that that's a long time.
• 4:47
  That's a long time ago that that movie came out.
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  Yeah, I know, right? It doesn't feel like everything
• 4:52
  in the 90s feels like it's perpetually 10 years ago to me.
• 4:56
  Yeah, it is. It is.
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  Don't. It is until otherwise, Yeah,
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  these other years don't count. So the biggest thing that set me
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  off, I'll just I'll get into this, I guess.
• 5:06
  Do you want no box office? You want no box office numbers
• 5:09
  first. Tell me the.
• 5:10
  Box office. Let's look at that box of
• 5:13
  offices or whatever that is, whatever that means.
• 5:16
  So part of the deal was that the original TMNT movie from 1990,
• 5:21
  the first live action feature film that the Turtles appeared
• 5:24
  in, did way better than I think people were expecting.
• 5:27
  It was a massive release. I have written down here that it
• 5:30
  was like the ninth highest grossing film of 1990.
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  And because it was distributed by New Line Cinema, it's
• 5:37
  technically hailed as at the time the highest grossing
• 5:40
  independent film release up until that year.
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  I think it's been beaten since then, but at the time it was
• 5:46
  like a record setting independent film release because
• 5:48
  it was not distributed by a huge studio.
• 5:50
  So Massive hit more than people I think were even expecting.
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  Although it does make sense because Turtle Mania was like a
• 5:56
  whole thing at the time. Oh, I was there.
• 5:59
  I was there for Turtle Mania. I was a part.
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  Of I was there 3000 years ago, what were you saying?
• 6:07
  You said you started it. Yeah.
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  That's the first one I told everybody.
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  Here's the word of mouth. You're like pretty good this
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  one. Cool, but rude actually.
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  Interesting. Interesting.
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  So yeah, I think the first film did like $200 million worldwide
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  and that's a 1990 money. So quite successful 19. 90
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  money. It was funny looking.
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  It was orange. It's funny, it was weird, had
• 6:34
  Homer Simpson on it and then the sequel came out like a year
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  later. I always thought this movie was
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  from 1992, but it was a 91. Came out almost exactly a year
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  later and still did quite well, although not as big as the first
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  one. I think I wrote it down
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  78,000,000 for the second film, so still a big success.
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  Not as much as the first one, but in addition to box office,
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  people had had time to ruminate on this first movie being such a
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  big hit. And I honestly think it like
• 7:01
  poisoned the will of like critical discourse around Secret
• 7:03
  of the Use 'cause people just came out swinging, they were
• 7:06
  ready to not like the movie. Yeah.
• 7:08
  I wonder if this is like, I think there was a documentary
• 7:11
  about this recently. But also in the 90s, there was
• 7:14
  this weird thing where, like, everyone wanted to like, hate
• 7:17
  Barney. Do you remember this?
• 7:20
  Yes, you were even part of that, I remember you saying.
• 7:22
  Well, hang on, I didn't. Start that one.
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  I was like, turtles good, Barney bad.
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  We're at 11. Yeah, now I know exactly what
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  you mean. It was like people really
• 7:33
  souring on I just cause was it just that they saw Barney all
• 7:37
  over the place and so they just got tired of him?
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  I don't know. I don't.
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  Yeah. Maybe it was a it was a backlash
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  to the success or popularity of something that maybe they didn't
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  understand because it was aimed at younger audiences.
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  I couldn't tell you. I maybe got to watch the
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  documentary. Yeah, yeah.
• 7:54
  It's definitely worth investigating because I think
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  it's a similar phenomenon. I mean, the Ninja Turtles, just
• 7:58
  broadly speaking, I know that they were a huge hit by the 90s
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  because they started as a comic book, which had like kind of a
• 8:04
  cult following. And then there was the really
• 8:07
  popular like NES game and the hugely popular 80s to 90s
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  cartoon. That was probably what like
• 8:14
  really ballooned their popularity and got them
• 8:16
  Greenland for a live action film.
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  So turtles are everywhere. Turtle mania was like a concept.
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  It was like a real commercial thing.
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  Yeah, I think I remember the animated series too after the
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  first movie came out. Like in the intro to the show
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  which has that like iconic catchy theme song they like
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  started splicing in clips of the live action Ninja Turtles into
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  the animated shows intro which I always thought was super neat.
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  It is neat. It was very much like a shared
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  moment in time because I think the way I often hear it's
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  surmised is that the Turtles like pushed so hard into
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  merchandising and spin offs that they like kind of overstayed
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  their welcome. And then that's why there was a
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  bit of a drop off. But it was still at its peak in
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  91. And I honestly think that like
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  the two things that stand out from reading like a dozen or
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  more professional film critics reviews of the movie in the
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  weekend where it came out, there's 2 problems that they had
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  going in. First, there was some sort of
• 9:13
  hubbub going in that the Turtles promoted violence to children.
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  That was the big one. And the second one that I'll get
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  into later is that I think people were concerned that
• 9:22
  turtle mania wouldn't end and they were trying to, like,
• 9:25
  torpedo it so they didn't have to go see another one.
• 9:30
  It's just going to be like this forever, just turtles all the
• 9:34
  time. They were like, Oh my God, the
• 9:36
  Turtle cinematic universe is going to go on for 20 years
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  because that's how they talk about it.
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  But I want to start on the violence one because to me as
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  someone who watched both movies a lot as a kid, it's an insane
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  take that the first Turtles movie was fine and the second
• 9:51
  one is too violent. Like Frank.
• 9:54
  You can explain this to the people if they haven't seen it.
• 9:56
  What is the main difference between the tones of the 1st and
• 10:00
  2nd Turtles movie? Well, I mean, just in regards to
• 10:03
  the violence. I remember they because this was
• 10:08
  the thing in the animated series too.
• 10:10
  It was really strange. They like Michelangelo, his
• 10:13
  signature weapon is the nunchucks, but they took those
• 10:17
  away from him in the cartoon and gave him like a grappling hook.
• 10:19
  I think because they were like nunchucks, too dangerous, even
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  though one of the other characters literally has swords.
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  So I don't know how that makes any sense.
• 10:29
  But then it was the same case for the second film where there
• 10:33
  there was like a specific note to turn down the violence.
• 10:37
  And so I think they almost never use their actual weapons on
• 10:42
  people in the second movie. They still do a lot of like
• 10:46
  martial arts maneuvers, but it's a little more wacky.
• 10:49
  Like the whole opening sequence. They're using like other props
• 10:52
  and stuff to kind of like fend off the bad guys.
• 10:56
  But I I don't think they, I don't know if it's not at all or
• 11:00
  just a lot less, But that was like a note from the first movie
• 11:04
  heading into the second one was yes, violence bad Barney, bad
• 11:09
  violence bad Barney, bad turtles.
• 11:11
  Good. Yes.
• 11:13
  To me that's always been the biggest difference.
• 11:14
  The original 1990 Turtles film I think shocked certain audiences
• 11:19
  who'd only ever seen the cartoon because it carried in some of
• 11:22
  the more like noir comic book influence from the original
• 11:26
  like. Oh, the source material is dark.
• 11:28
  It's a dark, dark comic series, Yeah.
• 11:30
  Yeah, it's like Batman. Like the whole thing is it's
• 11:32
  like a joke. It's like Batman, but they're
• 11:34
  like giant mutant walking, talking turtles, you know, And
• 11:38
  the first movie, like carried in some of that, like self
• 11:40
  seriousness and actually is like kind of genuinely dramatic,
• 11:45
  which is what a lot of people like about that one.
• 11:47
  Whereas the second movie much more heavily embraces like the
• 11:50
  cartoon's comedic tone. The turtles are like sillier.
• 11:54
  They're having more fun. And to your point, like Leo
• 11:56
  still has his two Cortana blades, but he never hits
• 11:58
  anybody with them. He'll just like throw them into
• 12:00
  the ceiling and then kick him in the head.
• 12:02
  Yeah, yeah. So that's what you and I think
• 12:06
  and I think is what anybody looking back on the series would
• 12:08
  say now. But going into the release of
• 12:10
  Secret of the Use, even professional famous film critic
• 12:14
  Roger Ebert, for example, just does not care.
• 12:17
  He doesn't care what's in the movie.
• 12:18
  He's he's already decided that they're too violent.
• 12:21
  Like if you go back and you read the reviews on his website for
• 12:24
  the first Turtles film in 1990, he mentions that there is
• 12:28
  concerns about violence, but he says quote and the violence is
• 12:32
  fairly routine as these things go, stylized and not very
• 12:35
  graphic. That's his description of the
• 12:37
  first movie. His entire review of Secret of
• 12:40
  the Use is about how horribly upsetting and violent it is.
• 12:44
  The second movie. The second one, he's he.
• 12:47
  He goes off on Secret of the use.
• 12:49
  He gave it one star and he genuinely says that the turtles
• 12:53
  are like contributing to like the moral rot of America's
• 12:56
  youth. He thinks they're like sinister
• 12:59
  creatures. These big green.
• 13:03
  I can't believe Barney did this. He made this.
• 13:05
  Movie Barney would take this, but like right away I'm like
• 13:10
  Ebert is one of the most like well known film critics.
• 13:13
  He wrote for the Chicago Sun Times, local celebrity in
• 13:17
  Chicago. People respect his opinion not
• 13:19
  'cause they always agreed with him, but because they respected
• 13:21
  like his. You could kind of gauge things
• 13:23
  based on your knowledge of how he viewed films.
• 13:26
  And I just thought right off the bat, like his review secretly
• 13:28
  used is just like petulant. He's so angry that it exists and
• 13:32
  has been convinced by what was probably a year or more of
• 13:35
  public conversation that these films were promoting violence,
• 13:38
  even though he watched the first one and thought it was fine.
• 13:41
  Well, I mean, as we brought up before, he watches Inferman
• 13:46
  weekly. He just can't stop thinking
• 13:49
  about Inferman. And that is just that did come
• 13:53
  out when we talked about. Inferman that's true.
• 13:55
  It's just shaped his whole perception of of violence.
• 14:00
  It's just he just doesn't understand anymore.
• 14:02
  I I can't believe this though. I, I don't know, like, did he
• 14:07
  forget he saw the first movie? Did he forget he's seen any
• 14:10
  other movies? Why did he think that the second
• 14:13
  film was so violent? Because it's not.
• 14:15
  It's bizarre. It's so much less so.
• 14:17
  It's overtly comedic and takes away any sort of like, dangerous
• 14:20
  aspects like in the first film. Like there's threats of physical
• 14:25
  violence, April O'neil's apartment burns down, like
• 14:28
  Raphael almost dies and they have to like nurse him back to
• 14:31
  health. Nothing remotely that serious
• 14:33
  happens in the second film, but he just was adamant that the
• 14:36
  turtles, like as characters were bad for America.
• 14:41
  Like let me see if I can find another good quote here.
• 14:44
  First off, Ebert thinks that the turtles come from the NES game
• 14:48
  because he says here quote. All that differentiates them in
• 14:53
  the Nintendo game that gave them their berth is their weapons.
• 14:56
  It's as if the whole sum of a character's personality is
• 14:59
  expressed by the way he does violence.
• 15:01
  The turtles are an example of the hazard of individuality.
• 15:06
  What does that even mean? Hazard of whoa, hang on now he's
• 15:10
  getting like into some, I don't even know, philosophical
• 15:15
  manifesto type stuff here. Yes, he's pissed.
• 15:19
  He was so mad at this movie to the point where it just clouded
• 15:23
  any real conversation about what's actually happening in it.
• 15:26
  It's like he could have written that review before he watched
• 15:28
  it, you know? Yeah, I do like that, he says.
• 15:30
  The Nintendo game that they came from, like they came to life
• 15:34
  from this Nintendo game and made their own movie like.
• 15:38
  And like, we have to put a stop to him.
• 15:40
  A small boy told me that Barney's responsible for this.
• 15:43
  Yeah, I can't keep getting away. Maybe he played the Nintendo
• 15:46
  game because it's notoriously difficult and he was like.
• 15:49
  He did. He did actually, if you go back
• 15:51
  to read his first review. I don't have a quote about it,
• 15:53
  but he mentions that he tried playing the NES game and
• 15:56
  couldn't get past level 2 and I'm like now I know.
• 15:58
  No, see, OK, I see the order of events now.
• 16:01
  He saw the first movie. He was like, that was all right,
• 16:02
  I'm going to go play the the source material.
• 16:04
  Obviously this Nintendo game. And then it was too hard.
• 16:08
  And he's like, if you ever make a sequel to this movie, I'm
• 16:11
  going to use I'm going to throw throw my weight around as Roger
• 16:14
  Ebert. Roger E is going to come in and
• 16:17
  he's going to sink this. Movie.
• 16:18
  He's going to nunchuck this movie.
• 16:20
  Give it one star. And then surrender my nunchucks
• 16:23
  to the police because I'm not a bad person.
• 16:26
  This seems like it was at the peak of like when the media was
• 16:31
  obsessed with talking about like, video games are bad,
• 16:34
  they're too violent. That's what's causing all the
• 16:36
  violence, not all the actual real problems in the country,
• 16:38
  but video games are the. Problem pretty much.
• 16:42
  I just was so stunned by that review alone because Ebert's
• 16:45
  someone who, again, I don't agree with his perspective on
• 16:47
  everything and he's reviewed like 10,000 movies, so of course
• 16:50
  he's going to have a bad take every now and again.
• 16:52
  But right away I'm like, that's one of the reviews that gets
• 16:55
  totalled into the films like Rotten Tomatoes score, you know
• 16:57
  what I mean? And all of a sudden you're like,
• 16:59
  well, what was everyone else say?
• 17:00
  Like, did anybody engage with this film in a more like sincere
• 17:04
  way? How long has Rotten Tomatoes
• 17:07
  been around? That's a great question.
• 17:09
  I don't know how long it's been around, but it does
• 17:11
  retroactively pull critical reviews from when the movies
• 17:13
  were made. Oh interesting.
• 17:15
  OK because that's how I found this actually.
• 17:16
  I think I went through either Metacritic or RT and just would
• 17:18
  like link back to published reviews.
• 17:21
  I actually had to go through a whole rigmarole to find the Gene
• 17:25
  Siskel review in the Chicago Tribune because it wasn't like
• 17:28
  widely accessible. I think I had to like sign up
• 17:30
  for the Tribune and now they won't stop emailing me just
• 17:33
  because I wanted to find an article from 1991.
• 17:36
  What? Oh Siskel of Siskel and Ebert
• 17:40
  his his partner. In in his own poem in Cry Yeah,
• 17:45
  Ebert with your nunchucks. And So what did Siskel?
• 17:48
  Say, I was going to say, I think I had that further down.
• 17:51
  Let's see what Gene Siskel said. So in the Sun Times, March 22nd,
• 17:54
  1991, the weekend the movie came out, Siskel also gave Turtles to
• 17:58
  one star. And his review was like, not as
• 18:02
  scathing. He just seemingly found the
• 18:04
  movie boring. Although he did reiterate the
• 18:06
  point that, like parents were concerned about violence and he
• 18:10
  can understand why. So he didn't rebuke that either.
• 18:13
  He was like, no, the movie is super violent.
• 18:15
  And the more I read, the more I realized that in my eyes, the
• 18:19
  reason secret of the use is less violent is because they don't
• 18:22
  stab people or use like blades and the ramifications of the
• 18:27
  violence are less severe. But I think what these people
• 18:29
  are seeing in 91 was the martial arts itself as like less of a
• 18:34
  choreography and more of just like really violent action.
• 18:39
  Because, you know, this was before, like, the Jackie Chan
• 18:42
  films had like really made their way over and martial arts was
• 18:45
  still kind of just like a niche genre of film making that was
• 18:49
  mostly international. So I honestly think people like
• 18:51
  Siskel just saw them doing like karate kicks and were like, Oh
• 18:53
  my God. This is so horrendous.
• 18:54
  Yeah, it's like he kicked that man in the head.
• 18:57
  He can't do that. He can't do that.
• 18:59
  That foot ninja is dead. He could have been
• 19:04
  rehabilitated, but now he's been kicked to death by a giant.
• 19:07
  Turtle, we're supposed to send that man to jail and go through
• 19:10
  the courts, not kick him in the head.
• 19:14
  I mean, probably, probably a fairpoint.
• 19:18
  They're just like, what's all this Kung Fu business and why is
• 19:22
  that rat teaching him this? I gotta get these rats out of
• 19:25
  the. Streets teaching our kids Kung
• 19:27
  Fu. Yeah, you see your child
• 19:30
  learning from a rat, and he's like, oh, no.
• 19:35
  I will say Siskel also highlights the other aspect of
• 19:38
  this where he First off, he calls the movie depressing.
• 19:42
  He he yes, because the violence he thinks that the turtles
• 19:46
  resorting to what you and I would see as a dance like action
• 19:51
  sequence of like karate and acrobatics is them just like
• 19:54
  beating the hell out of somebody.
• 19:57
  He doesn't like the comedy he likes.
• 19:59
  He said it's occasionally the comedy lands, but mostly
• 20:01
  doesn't. And then he mentions that even
• 20:04
  though he hated this movie, he laments that it will probably
• 20:08
  become a long running film franchise.
• 20:10
  So that's the other angle. He's like, I got to end things
• 20:13
  here or else we're going to be seeing Ninja Turtles for the
• 20:15
  rest of my life. Correct the timeline, although
• 20:18
  you know what they're totally right because turtles much like
• 20:24
  like Pokémon, you know, there was a pokey mania turtle mania.
• 20:28
  They had their peak and then for sure dips from that, but never
• 20:33
  really went away. And now of both had somewhat
• 20:36
  major resurgences. And that's always been kind of
• 20:41
  interesting to me because I have friends around my age who have
• 20:44
  like kids now and like their kids are like super into like
• 20:49
  Pokémon and Ninja Turtles. And I'm like, that's the same
• 20:51
  thing I grew up on. Like the stuff just never went
• 20:53
  away. Like.
• 20:55
  But, you know, I mean, it's, it's like, obviously the parents
• 20:58
  are the ones showing these kids this.
• 20:59
  And, you know, they're, this is what I was into and, you know,
• 21:02
  we're going to watch this. But those properties have
• 21:06
  persisted. There's been so many iterations
• 21:09
  of the Ninja Turtles. I'm almost positive there's a
• 21:12
  Ninja Turtles TV show airing right now.
• 21:14
  Oh, they just greenlit a baby turtle show.
• 21:16
  Did you see that? I definitely did not.
• 21:19
  What does that? Mean they did like baby puppet
• 21:21
  babies but it's literally called like teenage baby Ninja Turtles
• 21:25
  or something. Teenage baby mutant Ninja
• 21:27
  Turtles. They just keep mixing the words
• 21:29
  up. Are they actually?
• 21:30
  It would be awesome if they were actual Muppets.
• 21:33
  Oh no, no, no. It's, it's a lazy cartoon like
• 21:35
  CG thing. But if they were Muppets, yeah,
• 21:37
  that'd be awesome. That would be great because the
• 21:40
  characters in these live action films, they're stuntmen in
• 21:44
  suits, but then they also have like animatronic heads that were
• 21:47
  made by the Jim Henson Company. Yeah, that's really awesome.
• 21:52
  Yeah. Because they made the 2010
• 21:54
  Turtles movies where they all looked like giant Optimus
• 21:56
  Primes. Those turtles were scary, that
• 22:00
  was. Scary ugly.
• 22:02
  Hideous. That was the strangest iteration
• 22:04
  of those characters I've ever seen like and then there was two
• 22:08
  of those movies and I frankly, that was off putting to me.
• 22:12
  They need to be kind of cute still while they're beating
• 22:15
  people's heads in and and sending.
• 22:16
  Well, at their hospital, sending those poor poor foot ninjas to
• 22:19
  the hospital. It is kind of funny because the
• 22:22
  turtles are teenagers, but also those foot ninjas are teenagers
• 22:26
  as well. That's like a whole plot beat,
• 22:27
  especially in the first film, is that the Foot Clan is being
• 22:30
  essentially supported by all these disaffected teens who are
• 22:34
  being turned to a life of crime and then folded in to become
• 22:36
  ninjas. Yeah.
• 22:38
  Why are these critics not mad about that?
• 22:39
  They're they're more mad that the kids are going to turn into
• 22:42
  turtles. Like that's.
• 22:42
  Yeah, they're going. To turn into Barneys and
• 22:44
  Turtles, that's what I mean. If you watched either of these
• 22:47
  films, I would say even going back to the first one, which
• 22:49
  Ebert didn't care about at all. He he literally said like this
• 22:52
  is about as good as a Turtles movie as you could make.
• 22:54
  He was totally fine with it. And in that one, the entire
• 22:57
  point of the film is to contrast Splinter, who's like a good
• 23:01
  father figure to these young boys, with Shredder, who is a
• 23:05
  nefarious father figure that uses that like, desire for
• 23:08
  approval from these young kids to make them literally go do
• 23:11
  crime. And it's like about parenting
• 23:14
  and like, how to kind of deal with the inherent boundless
• 23:17
  energy of, like, teenage boys and like, trying to steer them
• 23:19
  in the right direction. But then everybody saw it was
• 23:21
  just like, leave the foot alone. Stop picking them.
• 23:25
  Yeah, Siskel saw that, and he's like, clearly the rat is just
• 23:28
  better at teaching violence to the turtles than than the other
• 23:31
  guy, so there. Was a thing in the Ebert review
• 23:34
  that was like kids who like these movies.
• 23:36
  This isn't a quote, but it's like a paraphrasing Run the risk
• 23:39
  of growing up to star in videos of police brutality like people.
• 23:44
  He thought that I was going to leave the theatre after watching
• 23:47
  it. Or maybe you because you would
• 23:48
  have been the right age to go see it.
• 23:49
  Go leave the theatre and then just like punch the nearest guy
• 23:53
  you see on the street and then just shout cowabunga and then.
• 23:56
  I mean, I did do that a few times, but like mind your
• 24:00
  business, Siskel, like. Just so aggressive.
• 24:06
  It's just so like heightened the vitriol against what was a
• 24:10
  fairly banal kids movie. It wasn't everybody, though.
• 24:14
  I will say I have other reviews sourced of people who definitely
• 24:17
  saw the change that they were making.
• 24:19
  Let me pull one up. So there was a review from
• 24:22
  Michael Sauter in Entertainment Weekly published looks like a
• 24:26
  couple months later, maybe he gave the film AC Plus.
• 24:29
  And he I just kind of have like bullet points about his
• 24:32
  thoughts. Noted that the film did
• 24:35
  intentionally tone down the violence and that the second
• 24:38
  movie he phrased it as like, this is one that you can safely
• 24:41
  leave to, you know, babysit your kids at home.
• 24:45
  Like he was essentially like, can this just come out on VHS so
• 24:48
  that I could put it on to distract my child.
• 24:51
  But he also knows he. It's OK to just leave.
• 24:53
  Leave your kids at home unsupervised.
• 24:56
  Just make sure Ninja Turtles 2 is on.
• 24:57
  Not the first one, not. The first one, what do you mean
• 24:59
  jokes that it's like an electronic babysitter, But
• 25:01
  again, it feeds into the other thing where they're like I think
• 25:04
  he mentions. Can the next one just come out
• 25:05
  straight to video so I don't have to see it?
• 25:08
  That's the whole angle. They're like, we know that the
• 25:10
  kids will love Ninja Turtles until the day they die.
• 25:13
  It'll last 100 lifetimes, but I'm sick of it and there's only
• 25:16
  been two of them. Yeah, it's just the 90's, the
• 25:22
  90's, the 90's, the 90's. The 90s were a time where there
• 25:30
  was like unprecedented levels of marketing towards kids, I think.
• 25:36
  True, it was I I think this was new I I think I could be wrong,
• 25:41
  but I don't believe there was any time prior or really maybe
• 25:45
  as much since where there was so much media aimed at kids so much
• 25:52
  of like toys and movies and action figures.
• 25:56
  And it was like, there was just a realization that there was a
• 26:00
  lot of money to be made there off like what kids were
• 26:03
  interested in. And it seems like these are
• 26:07
  people that are struggling to deal with that.
• 26:10
  I mean, I genuinely, I think that maybe it was part of the
• 26:12
  reason people are mad at Barney. People are mad at the turtles or
• 26:15
  Pokémon or whatever it may have been because it it was sort of
• 26:18
  unprecedented prior to this. Yeah.
• 26:21
  As as a kid growing up in the 90s, it was awesome.
• 26:22
  I'm like, yeah, give me all this stuff.
• 26:24
  All this stuff exactly, but I can see it being a like endless
• 26:28
  conveyor belt of kids asking for things from you that you don't
• 26:30
  want to spend money on. Like, pointless tie insurance
• 26:34
  and toys and Happy Meals and all that stuff.
• 26:37
  So yeah, it's like a cultural context for about when the movie
• 26:39
  came out that manages to make its way into what are supposed
• 26:43
  to be fairly straightforward, just reviews of what that movie
• 26:46
  is. Yeah, I also think your point
• 26:48
  about the martial arts not being something that these critics
• 26:54
  would have been familiar with at the time probably did play a big
• 26:57
  part too. Just genuinely not being able to
• 27:01
  discriminate between the types of violence and the
• 27:06
  characterization of how like martial arts was used to teach
• 27:09
  these rebellious teenagers discipline.
• 27:12
  Because that's kind of part of the the theming of the movie.
• 27:16
  It's actually funny to to kind of bring it back to that idea
• 27:19
  again. So Siskel or not Siskel Ebert
• 27:21
  wrote for the Chicago Sun Times. There's also a review from a
• 27:24
  different critic about the same movie, Dave Care.
• 27:27
  Same day, because again, newspapers used to have a lot of
• 27:30
  movie content in them. There was like three articles
• 27:32
  about this movie in the same issue.
• 27:33
  It was like 2 reviews. And then there was one about how
• 27:36
  you could go see the stunt performers.
• 27:37
  Like if you went to see the film at a local specific theater in
• 27:40
  Chicago, like some of the stunt actors were there doing like
• 27:43
  martial arts demonstrations. Oh that's awesome.
• 27:46
  Wait, can we go? When is this?
• 27:51
  Missed it by about 35 years and two months.
• 27:55
  Dang, next time. Close, but Dave care from the
• 28:02
  sun times actually was very glowing about secret views.
• 28:05
  Ironically almost too much. He he like glazes it too hard.
• 28:09
  Gave it a three out of four and was the only person that I found
• 28:12
  a review from who's who mentioned any sort of
• 28:15
  familiarity with like Japanese and Hong Kong martial arts
• 28:19
  films. And I think that immediately
• 28:21
  helps understand like what we're saying that if you're used to
• 28:23
  that as a genre, the turtles movies don't seem hyper violent.
• 28:27
  They just seem like they have choreography again, almost like
• 28:29
  a dance. Because he mentions even
• 28:32
  specifically, I think Golden Harvest produced these films,
• 28:35
  which are the same company that produced all those like classic
• 28:38
  Jackie Chan movies in Hong Kong. Oh, that's neat.
• 28:41
  I didn't know that. Exactly.
• 28:42
  There's a connecting thread there.
• 28:43
  And at the end of his review, care even like says like, I hope
• 28:47
  the success of these films convinces Golden Harvest to
• 28:50
  release some of these Jackie Chan movies, for example, like
• 28:53
  in the US And that's exactly what would happen.
• 28:55
  Wow, so he was a real 1. He saw the potential here.
• 28:59
  He's a real one, but again, he might be like 2 ride or die for
• 29:04
  this movie because he tries to explain that the like metaphors
• 29:08
  in the story in the second one are on par with classic Disney.
• 29:14
  In what way does he elaborate on that?
• 29:16
  Or is he just like Cinderella equals Michelangelo?
• 29:19
  The end. Says that they both tackle
• 29:21
  metaphors about like how children deal with adolescence.
• 29:24
  I have a quote here where he says that Secret of the Use
• 29:28
  shows the turtles quote sitting on a powder keg of nervous,
• 29:31
  antsy energy that could be turned toward either anarchy or
• 29:34
  idealism, which is accurate. That is what the movies are
• 29:37
  about. But he then compares it to like
• 29:39
  classic 90. I I wouldn't say this goes
• 29:41
  anywhere near like Lion King, you know?
• 29:44
  Yeah, yeah. Although that wasn't out yet, so
• 29:46
  he wouldn't have been talking about that.
• 29:48
  He'd been talking about probably Alex Cinderella.
• 29:50
  Yeah, yeah. I, I, I don't think he's that
• 29:53
  far off base. He's just talking about the
• 29:56
  thematic content of the movie. I suppose.
• 29:59
  It's maybe high praise, but. It is high praise, but I just
• 30:02
  think that proves our point. Someone who's familiar with
• 30:05
  martial arts action as a concept would not be so put off by the
• 30:09
  violence quote UN quote in the movie.
• 30:12
  So where these movies met? Or I guess the second one
• 30:14
  specifically with almost universally negative reviews
• 30:18
  outside. As far as I could tell, this one
• 30:20
  real one. Yeah, this one real guy mostly
• 30:24
  mixed to negative. I think the first film, if you
• 30:26
  looked right now I don't have it in front of me, the Rotten
• 30:28
  Tomatoes from critics is higher. And I feel like the reaction to
• 30:33
  that seems almost like people are surprised that it was almost
• 30:35
  like a real movie. You know what I mean?
• 30:36
  That like had characters and drama and what actually even
• 30:40
  kind of works on an adult, like as a dramatic story just mixed
• 30:43
  in with all this silly comedy. And the second one, I think just
• 30:46
  people were just tired of it. They didn't like that the
• 30:48
  turtles are still around. Where's the, I found it even
• 30:51
  funnier quote from Janet Maslin, who was writing for the New York
• 30:55
  Times, who was like very harsh towards the movie.
• 30:59
  And she said, quote, if the Turtles insist on remaining a
• 31:03
  mainstream box office attraction, at least they've now
• 31:06
  had the decency to make a mainstream movie.
• 31:09
  So again, they don't like that first one, and they make them
• 31:12
  very apprehensive about the other one.
• 31:14
  They're like, stop making me feel things about these
• 31:16
  disgusting turtles. I like that they keep blaming it
• 31:19
  on like the turtles themselves too.
• 31:20
  Like these video game characters have to come to life and start
• 31:24
  filming their lives documentary style in two films.
• 31:27
  At least they made a good one this time.
• 31:29
  What did she say? She's saying that again that
• 31:32
  they toned down the violence and up to the comedy and made it
• 31:35
  safer for children like that is a lot of the concern is people
• 31:39
  took young kids to see the first one and were shocked that it was
• 31:42
  not as carefree as the cartoon. Man, forget them kids.
• 31:50
  That's. The thing like kids like it.
• 31:52
  Yeah, yeah, they like it. They like it, they like it.
• 31:57
  Never mind, they like it. They like it.
• 32:01
  Vanilla Ice was the was. What did they have to say about
• 32:03
  Vanilla Ice in the second? The one I'm surprised about
• 32:05
  South, for anyone who maybe hasn't seen Secret of These in a
• 32:07
  while, the way that movie ends is they're fighting these other
• 32:11
  mutated monsters, Toca and Razar.
• 32:13
  They accidentally spill over into a nightclub that exists on
• 32:17
  a dirty dock outside where people are fishing because for
• 32:22
  some reason that's where people want to go dancing.
• 32:24
  And Vanilla Ice is performing his own music on stage and he
• 32:27
  sees the turtles and improvises an entire song and dance with
• 32:31
  his backup dancers in four seconds about the turtles.
• 32:35
  I don't even think he communicates with them.
• 32:36
  I think they just know the choreography is just in their,
• 32:39
  it's in their soul. It's it's in their soul.
• 32:42
  It's a great shot actually, where he's like nodding along
• 32:44
  because the same backing beat is playing and then him and the
• 32:46
  dancers leap into the choreography all at once.
• 32:49
  And it's like cool and fun. And that's where he sings the Go
• 32:52
  ninja go ninja Go, which is very much a lasting part of this
• 32:55
  movie. Not one critic talked about how
• 32:58
  surreal and insane that is that in the context of the story,
• 33:02
  Vanilla Ice is just like an omnipotent rapper who can just
• 33:05
  come up with verses about anything and knows a lot about
• 33:08
  the Turtles already. They're like, that's how video
• 33:10
  games work, OK? These characters, they came to
• 33:13
  life from a Super Nintendo game, made their own movie.
• 33:15
  They have an omnipotent rapper. We've all been through this
• 33:17
  before. It's Disney.
• 33:19
  It's Disney. It's Cinderella.
• 33:21
  The rat is teaching them about pizza.
• 33:25
  Teaching them about pizza, pizza is OK, pizza is OK.
• 33:30
  No concerns about the kids diet. They're just like, listen, the
• 33:34
  violence, that's one thing. Eating pizza all the time, go
• 33:37
  for it. That's that's.
• 33:38
  Great, too. That's the best part of the
• 33:40
  secret of the use is the opening montage of every single person
• 33:43
  in New York City eating pizza outside.
• 33:45
  That's what I'm saying. It's like so fun that.
• 33:48
  Pizza has looks delicious by the way that they're eating.
• 33:51
  I don't know who made that. I want some The production value
• 33:55
  of both of these movies is actually quite high.
• 33:58
  They're like the cinematography that there's tons of night
• 34:03
  cinematography in New York City. It looks great.
• 34:07
  There's there's whole sets that they've built, like the
• 34:10
  underground train set that the turtles go to live in in that
• 34:15
  second movie looks amazing. It's shot really well.
• 34:19
  It has this really hazy look. There's a ton of props, a ton of
• 34:25
  detail, like to sell that kind of classic, like 90s clutter
• 34:29
  that all the kids movies had. Yes, yes, there is really
• 34:34
  strong, competent filmmaking happening in both of those
• 34:37
  movies. The first one is honestly, as
• 34:40
  you mentioned earlier, dramatic in an interesting way.
• 34:43
  The second one leads a little bit more into the comedic fun
• 34:46
  side, but is also just supremely entertaining.
• 34:51
  Yeah, Bodacious. It's bodacious.
• 34:54
  It's radical. Yeah, that's my thing with all
• 34:59
  of this. It's like I'm not surprised when
• 35:01
  I go online and I see that both films, I think the first one's
• 35:04
  OK, but the second film has like a 40% or something critic score.
• 35:08
  But then I look at what the critics are saying and I'm like,
• 35:09
  no, you're all wrong. Most of you have very odd qualms
• 35:13
  about this and are not really giving credit to what the movie
• 35:17
  does well, because I think both of these are just straight up
• 35:19
  good films and unless you really hate the overall bit with the
• 35:25
  turtles talking like silly surfer dudes, like there's so
• 35:28
  much to like about them. Which they don't even lean too
• 35:31
  heavily into that. I would say the the turtles
• 35:35
  individually are characterized very well in those films too.
• 35:40
  You know their personalities. I would say even better in the
• 35:44
  second one because they do a good job of showing the
• 35:47
  individual qualities but having them all still act like 4
• 35:50
  brothers who get along. Like they all kind of
• 35:51
  participate in the silliness in a more like even way.
• 35:56
  And just honestly to bring it back around to like American
• 36:00
  martial arts films, because that's a genre that's not, you
• 36:05
  know, outside of like a lot of maybe John Claude Van Damme
• 36:08
  movies or like Canon films, not a lot in that catalog.
• 36:13
  A lot of like traditional martial arts films will come
• 36:15
  from like China mostly. And like the action choreography
• 36:22
  is great in these movies too. It's one of the better ones in
• 36:25
  that regard as well. So I think that's that's worth
• 36:28
  noting too. The movie, yeah, the action in
• 36:30
  the movies holds up great. Some very, very impressive stunt
• 36:33
  work. And the second one even elevates
• 36:35
  Ernie Reyes, who was a stunt actor in the first film and
• 36:38
  makes him Keno, who's like the Turtles new friend in this one.
• 36:41
  So they even acknowledge like how crucial that is to the
• 36:44
  storytelling here. And then they let him show off
• 36:46
  just as himself. Yeah, totally.
• 36:49
  Yeah, it's amazing. This was a note actually.
• 36:51
  I had this I I took notes watching the movie after I was
• 36:53
  done. Outside of this context about
• 36:55
  the critics response, it feels to me watching it like Keno was
• 36:59
  originally written as a different type of character who
• 37:02
  did not himself know martial arts.
• 37:04
  Because if you look at like his first couple of scenes, he
• 37:07
  really specifically has this kind of like a like New Yorkie
• 37:10
  guy quality to how he like what he's saying and like how he's
• 37:13
  interacting with other characters that slowly like
• 37:15
  gives way to. I'm a very disciplined martial
• 37:18
  artist. Like his first line of dialogue
• 37:21
  strikes me because it's so bizarre.
• 37:23
  He's a pizza delivery guy. He's going to deliver a pizza to
• 37:26
  April O'Neil. He's about to meet the turtles,
• 37:28
  but he gets on his little moped and he looks at these two women
• 37:30
  on the corner and he's like, which one of you ladies wants to
• 37:32
  ride with me tonight? And then they say no.
• 37:34
  And he, like, fat shames them as a joke where he's just like,
• 37:37
  they're like, dream on, dweeb. And he says, yeah, but when I
• 37:40
  do, I'll dream of something a little thinner.
• 37:41
  And then just laughs and drives away.
• 37:43
  And I'm like, that's crazy for this character.
• 37:46
  Given the rest of the movie, it seems so different at the
• 37:49
  beginning. Yeah.
• 37:50
  But then the very next scene that's I think that's
• 37:53
  intentionally done because then the very next scene is he shows
• 37:56
  up, he sees those guys robbing the place and they're just like,
• 38:00
  oh, let's beat up this pizza guy.
• 38:01
  And then he starts busting out some sweet Kung Fu moves on him.
• 38:04
  And he's like, did I mention I know martial arts?
• 38:06
  So it's like, I think, an intentional subversion of the
• 38:10
  type of character you expect him to be.
• 38:12
  Yeah, I guess maybe the other way to put it is I like that he
• 38:15
  has multiple layers because he also kind of like there's a
• 38:19
  scene where he knows that the turtles live in April's
• 38:21
  apartment and he's trying to prove it, where he kind of like
• 38:23
  muscles his way to get into where it like she is so we can
• 38:26
  look for him. And even that like he's being
• 38:27
  very kind of like prodding and like a little rude.
• 38:31
  And I'm like, that's kind of funny to me that this small,
• 38:34
  like somewhat meek character who then shows all these martial
• 38:37
  arts moves. Also it's like a little bit of a
• 38:39
  bully. Like that's such a funny like
• 38:41
  extra bit of flair on a a relatively minor role.
• 38:44
  He, he's featured in a lot of that movie.
• 38:46
  He's not the POV character. Obviously it's not called Kino,
• 38:51
  the secret of the use, but. Why not?
• 38:55
  Could have been, but he plays a great role.
• 38:57
  He's in a significant amount of the movie and his character is a
• 39:01
  lot of fun, especially because I think he was just kind of
• 39:05
  created for that film. I don't think he exists in any
• 39:07
  other Turtles Canon, although that would be a fun character to
• 39:10
  bring back. Like if they did like a modern
• 39:11
  cartoon in like Keno showed up, that would be pretty great.
• 39:13
  That would be pretty good, yeah. Especially, he essentially takes
• 39:17
  on the role that in other Turtles media is filmed by Casey
• 39:20
  Jones, who's just like another human friend of the Turtles who
• 39:23
  can fight with them. Because Casey's in the first
• 39:25
  film and then comes back in the third one.
• 39:27
  But for this one, they were like Keno.
• 39:29
  And I do respect it because it's funny.
• 39:31
  Yeah, no, Keno's great. Keno's great.
• 39:33
  And he, I think as you mentioned, he was one of the he
• 39:36
  was one of the turtles. He was one of the stunt
• 39:37
  performers in the first movie. And then, yeah, just got bumped
• 39:42
  up, bumped up the card on this one.
• 39:44
  Bumped up the card. OK, I have one more recurring
• 39:47
  narrative about the critic reviews of Secret of the Use
• 39:50
  that I found odd. This is a smaller one, but a
• 39:53
  multiple people said in their reviews they wanted to highlight
• 39:57
  that the actress for April O'Neil changed in between the
• 40:00
  1st and the second movie from Judith Hogue to Paige Turco got
• 40:05
  recast. And I will say right off the
• 40:07
  bat, I read, I don't know how if this is confirmed, but it's I
• 40:10
  saw it in multiple places that the reason Judith Hogue was not
• 40:13
  even asked to return. As April in the second film is
• 40:16
  that she had trouble with the producers in the first one
• 40:20
  because she would like give them a hard time about like the
• 40:23
  filming conditions for the stunt performers.
• 40:26
  Like she was essentially advocating for the other like
• 40:29
  performers on the production and about like some of the shortcuts
• 40:32
  being taken by the by the like film makers themselves.
• 40:34
  And so they just like blackmailed her and didn't let
• 40:36
  her back for the next one, which I'm like, that's what April
• 40:39
  O'Neil would do. Yeah, yeah.
• 40:41
  Action News reporter April O'Neil that's IA 100% believe
• 40:47
  that that's true. I wonder who who revealed that
• 40:51
  Did she say that after the fact? I.
• 40:53
  Don't think she confirmed it. I'm annoyed because it's in.
• 40:55
  I have so many notes on this and I don't remember where I wrote
• 40:58
  the details of that part down, but I'm fairly certain that's
• 41:02
  been reported in multiple places.
• 41:03
  Is that she was not asked to return because she wrote people
• 41:06
  the wrong way by essentially doing what the character April
• 41:09
  O'deal would do. Or just like a good person or
• 41:12
  somebody who. Is a.
• 41:13
  Professional and has is familiar with the standards of how our
• 41:18
  production should be run and they're like, you know what,
• 41:21
  don't bother coming back next time, said the.
• 41:25
  Discovery producer. That was a bummer.
• 41:28
  I'm like I liked I like both of them.
• 41:30
  I think like in isolation, both the people who play April do a
• 41:32
  good job. And I do like that they update
• 41:35
  April's presentation in the second film because story wise,
• 41:37
  in the first one, she's is again at odds with her news producers
• 41:42
  and then at the end gets promoted and they make a whole
• 41:44
  thing about how like you're the highest paid newscaster in town,
• 41:46
  April. And so in the second movie, like
• 41:47
  her costuming changes, her apartment's a lot nicer.
• 41:50
  It like makes sense that the character has progressed.
• 41:53
  But what I found weird is that multiple people went out of
• 41:56
  their way to highlight that they like the new actress better who
• 42:00
  plays April because she's prettier in their eyes.
• 42:02
  Oh my gosh, I'm like what the heck, What a weird thing to say.
• 42:08
  Like, yeah, that's, I mean, that says more about the people
• 42:13
  critiquing these movies than anything else.
• 42:16
  That that's that's. What I mean, like, it's such a
• 42:19
  90s thing again, Like, you would not see that presented that way
• 42:22
  now, Like, where's the one there's an article from?
• 42:25
  OK, so Janet Maslin, again, the New York Times columnist, has a
• 42:29
  quote where she says, like everything else in the second
• 42:31
  installment, April looks better largely because she's played by
• 42:34
  a different actress and makes no attempt to resemble her earlier
• 42:37
  counterpart. And then, like, at least two
• 42:39
  other ones specifically say, like, pretty actress Paige Turko
• 42:43
  takes over as April. And I was like, First off,
• 42:46
  they're both Hollywood actresses.
• 42:48
  They're both pretty. Like, what a weird thing to say.
• 42:51
  Also it honestly think I think it's just 'cause she dresses in
• 42:54
  like fancy business attire in the second one.
• 42:57
  Yeah, I mean that just I feel like that just kind of devalues
• 43:02
  your previous argument if your critics saying well, this is bad
• 43:05
  because of violence and not for kids or whatever, but also this
• 43:10
  actress is hotter, I guess like I.
• 43:12
  Just was so like dismissive and rude to both people involved.
• 43:16
  I also thought it was interesting because, again, part
• 43:20
  of my conspiratorial angle on this is that critics were
• 43:24
  affronted that the first film made them feel something because
• 43:27
  it was like kind of a real movie that was a little bit genuinely
• 43:30
  dramatic. And I also think that they
• 43:32
  didn't like the first actress because she had genuine on
• 43:35
  screen chemistry with Casey Jones in the first film.
• 43:38
  Like there's like an actual sexual tension between those two
• 43:41
  characters in that movie and I think.
• 43:44
  An intense sexual tension between.
• 43:46
  Casey Jones. I think that's what they were
• 43:49
  mad about. I think they were like, I went
• 43:51
  to see the Turtles movie and then April O'Neil made me feel
• 43:53
  things and now I'm mad. And so then they recast her and
• 43:56
  they were like, good. I didn't like her anyway.
• 43:59
  Yeah, yeah, that. I mean, Oh my gosh, those scenes
• 44:02
  at the farmhouse between, Yeah, Elias Coteus and Judith Hoag.
• 44:06
  It's great. It's like an enemies to lovers
• 44:07
  trope from like a like somebody's fan fiction.
• 44:11
  Yes, it's good. And it's another layer to that
• 44:13
  first movie that feels sort of like authentic.
• 44:16
  The second movie is intentionally silly and like
• 44:18
  much more specifically for children.
• 44:20
  But the first time just kind of has everything.
• 44:22
  And I think that's what I like about it so much.
• 44:24
  Like it's a watchable movie for fans of the Turtles themselves
• 44:28
  or fans of martial arts or just fans of 90s cinema.
• 44:32
  It just works. Yeah, I've always kind of
• 44:34
  thought like the second movie. I've seen a lot more and is more
• 44:40
  fun or funny in some ways, but the first movie is a better
• 44:45
  film. It's just really solid.
• 44:48
  I do appreciate the second one though.
• 44:49
  Like, I was seeing it at a theatre, which I'd never done,
• 44:52
  and multiple times the movie got like a legit laugh, like out of
• 44:55
  the audience, even though I'm sure a lot of them had seen it
• 44:56
  before. Like there's a bit where RAF
• 44:59
  gets captured by the by the Shredder and the other turtles
• 45:02
  are like sneaking into the junkyard to find him.
• 45:04
  And they keep commenting on like, oh, there's nobody here.
• 45:06
  They're like, oh, it's quiet. Yeah, a little too quiet, and
• 45:09
  they do it a couple times. And then when they see RAF, they
• 45:11
  go, it's RAF, and then Mikey goes, yeah, a little too RAF.
• 45:14
  And that kind of like a legit big laugh from everybody in the
• 45:17
  room. And I'm like, it's because it's
• 45:18
  funny. It's a funny movie.
• 45:19
  Because it's funny. Yeah.
• 45:21
  Yeah. So yeah, the April O'Neil thing.
• 45:23
  Bizarre. I think the only person who
• 45:25
  spoke highly of the original was a staff writer for the
• 45:30
  Washington Post named Donna Britt.
• 45:32
  Her article was interesting, it was written as if she was having
• 45:36
  a conversation about the movie with her young son who went and
• 45:39
  saw it with her. I don't believe that.
• 45:41
  Like I think she just summarized it, but it's written almost as
• 45:43
  dialogue. OK, that's interesting.
• 45:46
  So she was complimentary of Judith Hogue as April O'Neil
• 45:50
  she. Was and I think was probably the
• 45:53
  only person to both acknowledge that the second movie did dumb
• 45:56
  things down but also look at like what was lost in doing so.
• 46:00
  This is probably the longest quote I have, but I thought it
• 46:02
  was really interesting. So she says, quote.
• 46:05
  The first film was more mystical, darker, with more
• 46:07
  allusions to Eastern religion. It spent more time encouraging
• 46:10
  kids to be patient and to find strength within themselves.
• 46:13
  Director Michael Pressman made the sequel brighter, sunnier,
• 46:16
  much more like a traditional kids cartoon.
• 46:18
  Parents will like that there's no cursing.
• 46:20
  I do miss Hogue, who brought some much needed female energy
• 46:24
  to a baby macho movie. But the second TMNT has enough
• 46:27
  jokes aimed at adults to make for a relatively painless outing
• 46:30
  for parents forced to take their kids to see it.
• 46:33
  And I'm like, that is the most accurate assessment of the movie
• 46:36
  out of anybody here. Yeah, totally.
• 46:40
  I mean, I don't what was the actress's name in secret of the
• 46:45
  use secret? Of the use, I think it was Paige
• 46:47
  Turko. I don't mind Paige Turko as
• 46:51
  April O'Neil. I've much preferred Judith Elko
• 46:54
  personally. Between the two of them, she's
• 46:56
  way better. She's way better.
• 46:58
  And as you mentioned too, the chemistry between between her
• 47:00
  and Elias Koteas is honestly some of the best on screen
• 47:02
  chemistry I've ever seen it. It's amazing.
• 47:05
  It's. Surprisingly good for such a
• 47:07
  like side aspect of that story. And again, you're talking about
• 47:11
  POV characters. April gets to be APOV character
• 47:14
  through parts of the first film, whereas in the second one she's
• 47:16
  relatively minor. Like she kind of falls out of
• 47:18
  the story in the second. She's she's totally sidelined.
• 47:21
  Yeah, absolutely. She barely does anything in that
• 47:23
  movie. So yeah, I thought that part was
• 47:25
  really interesting. When I went in, I knew there'd
• 47:27
  be conversations about the violence in the film, about how
• 47:30
  like prevalent the turtles were. That's that through line about
• 47:33
  April was really stood out to me because again, I feel like it
• 47:36
  highlighted a little bit of hypocrisy and a little bit of
• 47:38
  what made people seemingly uncomfortable with that first
• 47:41
  movie was that they were just like, oh gosh, it's a real
• 47:43
  movie. And they weren't.
• 47:44
  They weren't emotionally ready for Teenage Mutant Ninja
• 47:47
  Turtles. Because they're a bunch of
• 47:49
  babies. OK, they're a bunch of babies.
• 47:51
  Exactly, that's my. You know.
• 47:54
  This video is going to be 5 seconds.
• 47:55
  I'm going to cut it down to they're a bunch of babies.
• 47:58
  They're burbers. There you go.
• 48:05
  Before we before we wrap up, just for comparison's sake, I
• 48:08
  was like, well, I know what you and I think about the film.
• 48:10
  It's awesome. And we've talked about a lot of
• 48:11
  the reasons why both the first film and Secret of the Use.
• 48:14
  I think they're almost like a good compliment because it
• 48:16
  captures both versions of the turtles.
• 48:20
  You know, like from their different appearances over the
• 48:23
  years. The wait what the first movie
• 48:27
  does? Or both movies.
• 48:28
  I'm saying that between the 1990 film and the sequel Secret of
• 48:32
  the Use, we kind of get to see the full scope of how the
• 48:34
  Turtles can be performed. Like you see both.
• 48:37
  They're more like authentic, serious, like dramatic qualities
• 48:40
  and the more overtly comedic, like cartoon side.
• 48:42
  And so I don't think that we that either movie should be more
• 48:45
  like the other. I like that they're kind of
• 48:46
  different. Oh, me too.
• 48:47
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. What I thought was interesting
• 48:50
  because I was like, you know, Frank and I like it.
• 48:52
  What what is like common perception now because I think a
• 48:55
  lot of time, a lot of the time now, obviously both movies just
• 48:57
  came back out in theaters again. People like them, people who are
• 49:00
  fans of the Turtles would want to see them again.
• 49:02
  And so I just looked up a random website blog review from 2016,
• 49:07
  long after the fact from a website called Cinema Crazed.
• 49:10
  It was written by Felix Vasquez and Felix actually had a good
• 49:13
  point where I'll get I'll read a quote quote.
• 49:17
  Much to the shock of everyone involved. 1990s TMNT movie was a
• 49:21
  film for all ages that took violence seriously and depicted
• 49:24
  actual consequences to actions and decisions.
• 49:28
  And I was like, that's a that's a good point.
• 49:30
  The first movie is it not almost better for children to show
• 49:33
  violence is something that is consequential and not completely
• 49:38
  harmless and silly like the second one does.
• 49:40
  Like that kind of topples the argument from a lot of the
• 49:42
  concerned people as well. Yeah, that's that's completely
• 49:47
  valid takedown, I would say. I, I mean, as I said before too,
• 49:52
  it's just that era where, I don't know, it was like the
• 49:55
  media was trying to blame violence on anything, but any of
• 50:00
  the real causes trying to pin it on this is what's corrupting our
• 50:05
  youth. And I, and I honestly think it
• 50:06
  was just in unfamiliarity with what their kids were being
• 50:11
  exposed to. And it kind of ties into what I
• 50:13
  was saying about like, friends I know that have kids now, they
• 50:17
  can show their kids Ninja Turtles and know exactly what it
• 50:20
  is. They grew up on the same thing
• 50:22
  where it's like our parents had no idea what that was because
• 50:26
  they had been exposed to completely different things
• 50:29
  through various forms of media. Yeah, it's more of like a a
• 50:32
  curation at that point where like you always know that
• 50:35
  turtles is safe for children, Pokémon is safe for the
• 50:37
  children, whereas if it's a new they're like Bluey.
• 50:40
  What's his agenda? Yeah, who is this guy?
• 50:42
  He's Australian. I don't like that.
• 50:44
  I don't like it. Down under where?
• 50:46
  Bluey? Down under where?
• 50:48
  Down under what? It's a league with the big Dino.
• 50:54
  I know it. Barney's out there.
• 50:56
  Barney. There's a Barney movie.
• 50:58
  The first Barney movie is not bad.
• 51:00
  I'll say it. All right, that's some character
• 51:03
  growth because I think you, you were on the Barney hate train
• 51:05
  for a time. I don't think I was was.
• 51:08
  On the Barney hate. Train.
• 51:09
  Our mom has said that you at one point really didn't like Barney.
• 51:13
  Well, I mean it's what all the other kids was doing.
• 51:14
  I was just watching shows and and hitting people so.
• 51:18
  People with my nunchuck. Oh, man.
• 51:22
  All right. That's that's what I got.
• 51:24
  That's my research project. This is what critics said about
• 51:26
  Secret of the Use when it was new in theaters.
• 51:28
  I think it differs dramatically from how people view the film
• 51:31
  now, and I think that many of these complaints would never be
• 51:34
  made nowadays, especially with regards to the violence, because
• 51:38
  like those Michael Bay Ninja Turtles movies were way worse
• 51:41
  about it, as is most things. Mm hmm.
• 51:44
  Mm hmm. Gosh, those Michael Bay movies
• 51:47
  are so I was like upset when those came out because I was
• 51:53
  just, I was like, I don't, I don't want people that think
• 51:56
  this is what Ninja Turtles is. It's supposed to be guys in
• 51:58
  suits doing martial arts, not these giant weird freaky
• 52:02
  monsters things. Yeah, I didn't like that either.
• 52:05
  I think there was also the gosh, what's the one from a couple
• 52:09
  years ago? It's like Turtles Unleashed or
• 52:12
  Mutant Unleashed. What was it?
• 52:14
  Got ice cubes in it the animated.
• 52:16
  One, people seem to like that one, I haven't seen it, but
• 52:18
  that. One that one was.
• 52:19
  Pretty well received. I think it it did a good job of
• 52:23
  modernizing the turtles where like again, a lot of the
• 52:25
  language of the turtles in the 90s was like almost like surfer
• 52:29
  slang. Whereas the newer Turtles film
• 52:32
  was like, well, the Turtles are kind of hip hop heads and we're
• 52:34
  going to lean into that. I'm OK with that though, because
• 52:38
  it's, you know, it's a different era of teenagers.
• 52:41
  I mean surf culture stuff was bigger in the 90s than it is
• 52:44
  now. Exactly.
• 52:45
  Nobody's on ironically saying things are bodacious except for
• 52:48
  me. You do save a lot.
• 52:50
  I've been meaning to tell you. You got to stop.
• 52:51
  You got to stop. It's too much.
• 52:55
  Things are not bodacious, they are in.
• 52:56
  Fact not they're actually very unbodacious currently.
• 53:00
  Couldn't be less bodacious than they are right now.
• 53:03
  Bodacious levels are at an all time low.
• 53:06
  Radical hasn't been seen in years.
• 53:08
  Hasn't been seen in years. We don't even know what happened
• 53:10
  to him. Where is he?
• 53:16
  Love it. All right.
• 53:17
  Well, I'd say that's pretty much a.
• 53:20
  Wrap. Oh, cowabunga, cowabunga.
• 53:24
  All right. Cowabunga Yeah, OK, we'll just,
• 53:27
  I'll just layer it four times a second.
• 53:31
  Hey, let's, let's get it on through.
• 53:33
  Let's get the real 1. Then I'll I'll duplicate both of
• 53:35
  us and we'll see how it. Sounds.
• 53:37
  Oh, OK, yeah. Cowabunga.
• 53:40
  Oh, no, no, I'm sorry.