Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles-
The film should start off by showcasing the rivalry between Hamato Yoshi and Oroku Nagi, leading to Nagi’s death by Yoshi’s hands and Yoshi’s death by the hands of Oroku Saki. The story will flash forward a few years and we will find Splinter rummaging through garbage in search of food. Next, the origin of the turtles will ensue. Now, the film jumps 15 years forward and we watch a gang war get broken up by the turtles.
The film will continue in the pattern of the turtles fighting other gangs and eventually breaking up a Foot operation. This leads to further conflict between the Foot and the turtles, leading up to the final battle with Shredder (Oroku Saki). April will come into play in a sequel possibly involving Baxter Stockman and the mousers. Casey would be introduced in the same film. A TMNT film without April and Casey may seem unhealthy, but my idea for the film is closer to the original comic and April and Casey were never in this story.
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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Escape from New York-
The film opens in the lab of Baxter Stockman. As Stockman and his assistant, April O’Neil, work in the lab, a news story plays in the background that gives coverage of Stockman’s Mousers. After that story finishes running, another story runs about a series of strange bank robberies. April listens to this intently. When the story seems to connect to Stockman, April begins to question him about it. The news story is then abruptly interrupted by a terrorist threat to destroy the Terxab Building. After April watches the building fall on the television, Stockman takes her to an underground bunker. Here, he reveals that he is the terrorist and that he used his Mousers to both rob the banks and destroy the Terxab Building. Before April can escape, Stockman hits her over the head, knocking her unconscious. The lights in the bunker go out. In the darkness, Stockman struggles with his controls, locking down the bunker and activating a self-destruct sequence. When the lights come back on, Stockman is tied up and Leonardo, Donatello, and Michelangelo stand in the room. The turtles had found one of Stockman’s Mousers near the Terxab Building and traced it back to him. Leonardo demands Stockman open the bunker, but the Mousers are already on their way. Donatello goes to work on the controls, while Leonardo and Michelangelo fight off the Mousers. At the final second, as the Mousers are closing in on the bunker, Donatello manages to shut down the system. With no way out but through the tunnel through which the turtles came, the turtles decide to take April back to their lair. When April awakens, she is shocked to find herself surrounded by three giant turtles and a huge rat. As Splinter begins to tell the origin of the turtles, the movie fades to Raphael on a rooftop. The entire Mouser sequence will be fairly short, as it is simply an opening to the film and a means to introduce April. Raphael is out at the time and this is when he comes across Casey Jones, the streetwise vigilante. The two are opposed at first, but come together to fight a gang of punkers. As the turtles and Splinter are out returning April to her home, construction above their lair caves in the ceiling and their home is buried. The turtles and Splinter find this out when they find Raphael in a tunnel near the lair throwing things about and raising hell about how their home was destroyed. This isn’t how it happened in the comic, but an alternative is necessary to expel the TCRI story. April, not expecting them back so soon, is surprised when the turtles come beating on her door. All of this (depending on the route of the film) should happen within the first half of the film with some other occurrences sprinkled in, and then the film can turn to the return of The Foot and Shredder. One night, while Leonardo is out he comes across a gang of Foot ninja. A fight ensues that goes on to involve many more ninja and span many back alleys and abandoned buildings.
The fight eventually spills into an empty lot tucked away in between some more abandoned buildings. It is here that Shredder returns. Leonardo, to the best of his ability, runs back to April’s apartment. Once there, he falls down, drained from the fight. The Foot attack April’s apartment, driving the fight down into the antique store on the first floor. Here, Casey Jones intervenes, but it is to no avail. The turtles and April are forced to flee the building, flee The Foot, and flee from New York. Heading to an old farmhouse that Casey inherited from his grandmother, the turtles are forced to go into hiding. The film will end on both a down note and a cliffhanger. I don’t see how that matters, seeing as how Empire did the same thing. There will be a sequel ready, so there is really no absolute necessity to tie up all loose ends. As for the general arrangement of the film, I see this as the only way to keep to a more grounded story and still connect storylines in a cohesive, chronological order. This leaves out the TCRI story and all of the outer space stuff, but the plot keeps the story grounded in the ninja aspect.
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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Return to New York-
In hiding, the turtles and their friends try to cope with their losses. Leonardo takes the loss to The Foot hard, spending endless hours in training to better himself. Raphael is becoming smothered in the world of hiding. April deals with nightmares of her home being destroyed and the Shredder coming for her. Casey gallivants around town, trying to play vigilante in a place with little to no crime (this leads to his retrieval of a cat from a tree). Donatello and Splinter tend to a garden of vegetables. Michelangelo spends his time working on a comic book (starring himself, of course), which will be given a one-to-two minute, live-action showcase. All of the activity on the farm should encompass either the first half or the first fourth of the film, depending on how much time is needed for the return to New York. After so many months in hiding, Raphael is anxious to go home and defeat The Foot. Everyone else is opposed to this idea. However, Raphael leaves anyway; this following an angry fight with Leonardo. Fighting his one-turtle war against The Foot, Raphael takes shelter in the storm drains.
Not wanting their brother to come to any harm, the other turtles eventually follow suit and return to New York also. With Raphael having snatched up some blue prints for The Foot’s base, the turtles plan their attack. After a long struggle through the Foot base, the turtles come across three freakishly mutated Shredders. As Donatello and Michelangelo fight the mutants, Raphael and Leonardo seek out the real Shredder. Realizing that Donatello and Michelangelo need his help, Raphael turns back and allows Leonardo to face this alone. Leonardo and the resurrected Oroku Saki engage in an epic battle, while the others finish off the mutants. In defeating the mutants, the other turtles triggered a fire that threatens to blow up the entire base. The three others escape. In end to what the audience will see of the battle, Leonardo and Saki will both leap at each other, swords ready to kill, just as the base explodes. As the other three turtles wait in a new sewer lair, someone enters. A bag, inside which is a body, is thrown to the floor. The other turtles begin to smile as Leonardo steps into frame, declaring that “Honor is restored.” Honoring their enemy, the turtles burn Oroku Saki’s body and cast him out into the sea. This is the end to any TMNT films that I would do, but if anyone else ever wanted to continue the series, then more power to them. The three films that I have plotted out are, in my opinion, the best direction to go with a new TMNT film series. The stories are almost completely accurate to the original comics, minus some leaps in chronology to avoid less realistic storylines.
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The Cast:
Leonardo- James Franco
Raphael- Donal Logue
Michelangelo- Jeff Anderson
Donatello- Danny Masterson
Splinter- Michael Yama
April O'Niel- Elizabeth Banks
Casey Jones- Kevin Durand
Oroku Nagi- Joon Park
Oroku Saki(Young)- Shahkrit Yamnarm
Oroku Saki(Old)/Shredder- Ken Watanabe
Hamato Yoshi- John Cho
Tang Shen- Grace Park
Prof. Baxter Stockman- Billy Dee Williams