The first trailer for TMNT: Mutant Mayhem is finally here, and god! There’s a bit we need to cover here. We hoped the teaser would drop before we went to bed, but it didn’t, so it’s the first thing that will be covered in our Friday newsletter. Anyway, let’s dive into the NYC sewers!
We start with shots of New York.
Interestingly, the Old Turtle Den on YouTube pointed out that the soft music in the background could be the instrumental track for the theme of the 1987 TMNT series. It could be. We also heard a rift of a familiar song, but for the life of us, we cannot remember what it was called.
Also, it was awesome that one of the title cards said that Seth Rogen was a “permanent teenager.” It goes to show that he’s a massive fan.
Next up, we have the turtles emerging from the sewer.
We only get a shot of Raph as the action is so quick it’s hard to get the screenshots in the right spot. The wide shot is of the brothers climbing to the roof, which brings us to the next few shots.
So, these five shots are just part of the roof scene. We’ll get back to that in a minute. These shots tell us a fair bit about these versions of Donnie, Raph and Mikey.
It looks like that Raph is the one who likes to mess around the most, as he is seen using one of Leo’s katanas to cut a watermelon in half. Donnie, meanwhile, is the one recording the action. Mikey is almost like the second clown doing Raph’s bidding by throwing the melon at him.
Also, if you look at the fifth screenshot, the one with Raph, Donnie and Mikey, Mikey has braces. It’s a little hard to spot, though. This is a massive contrast to the concept art, which had Leo with the braces. We’ll get into that when we get to the close-ups of Leo.
Raph suggests they experiment again, but they use ninja stars, much to the excitement of Donnie and Mikey.
So, now we have the close-up of the ninja star, and you can see the hand-drawn details right down to Raph’s thumbnail.
Shot two here is a wide of Mikey holding a second watermelon, this time with a smiley face. The detail we missed the first couple of times we watched the trailer was that the belts the turtles wear are reminiscent of the 1987 turtles. Mike seems to want to say that Raph’s idea is terrible, but Raph and Donnie talk him out of it being horrible.
Donnie, under his breath, says, “He’s going to die.” Also, you can see Leo in the background of the shot with Donnie, and he does not look happy. This shows how different Leo is, to say Raph, who has zero qualms with what they’re doing.
These next two shots are Donnie and Leo watching Raph lob the ninja star at an uncertain Mikey. You can better see the braces on Mikey in the full scene.
Next up, the throwing star goes through the smiley watermelon and hits an apartment across the road. This leads Leo to panic. Raph, meanwhile, doesn’t seem to be too concerned. We also see the expressions of Mikey and Donnie too.
Our next batch of shots comes from a teaser Seth Rogen presented at the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards, but with one extra shot; one of Splinter with a mullet. Also, the shot of Raph licking the sai isn’t included in the trailer. Donnie’s weapon shot is in this trailer, but it wasn’t in the tease.
Next are shots of Bepbop and Rocksteady, a tight close-up of April’s eyes and a look at two of the four turtles as toddlers. One we know is Donnie due to the glasses, but the other is hard to tell. Mutant Mayhem will be the second time that April will be African-American. The first time was in Rise of the TMNT.
What’s fascinating about April is that she has dark skin but is also sporting her famous red hair as a nice homage to caucasian April. We’ll touch on this in the second shot of April, which is right towards the end of the trailer.
There were also a few shots before these ones is of Raph bursting through a door and being caught by two human dudes who call the Turtles “little Shreks.”
The next couple of shots we have is Leo and Raph sliding down a row of lights and then Donnie getting hit in the thigh with one of Raph’s sai. He screams with Leo yelling, “Oh, my god!” Then we have Mikey worried about Donnie before something smacks into his head.s
Finally, we get to the last shot with April. Now, it’s hard to tell how old April is. She could be a teenager, or she could be an adult. In recent iterations, she’s been a teenager. However, in the 2003 series, she’s an adult. Also, it doesn’t look like she knows the turtles until the movie’s events.
In Rise of the TMNT, April grew up with the turtles and considered them her brothers.
Anyway, it looks like she’s a journalist, taking notes on the turtles’ life story of how they came to be.
Be sure to check out the Mutant Mayhem trailer on the official Twitter page, or check it out below!
