Why Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Should Continue Airing!

Ah, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles......... One of the biggest franchises of all time. These pizza-loving, crime fighting reptiles have been a huge part of most of our childhoods growing up! If you ask someone who grew up in the 80's, they'll probably tell you that they were BIG back in the day. From action figures, clothing, movies, food promotions, you name it, they were everywhere! But the hype mostly died down later on in the 90's.

But what if I told you that back in 2018, Nickelodeon revamped the franchise by creating "Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles"! I bet you would be excited right? I mean after the 2012 series ended, you need more Turtle adventures.

Next thing you know, information of the plot, characters and setting are released online, but something doesn't look right? You ask yourself: "Since is when Raph the leader? I thought it was always Leo. And wait, Raph's the older brother too!? What the hell's going on!?"

As you continue you to read you also start to find out that they've changed April's race to African-American, changed the Turtles' species and they made Splinter lazy. Not to mention that they basically got rid of the classic villains we love like Shredder, Bebop, Rocksteady, Baxter Stockman, etc, and replaced them with Baron Draxum, Meat Sweats, Hypno-Potamus, Repo-Mantis, etc.

Now, you're starting to doubt this show and decide not to watch it all together. Not going in with an open-mind, NOTHING!!!!!!!!

To be honest, none of these changes sound all that bad. In fact, they sound unique and different in a good way.

A little bit of a backstory here, I've never became a TMNT fan until 2016 back when the previous Nickelodeon series was airing. I was on YouTube one day and came across a clip from the episode: "The Creeping Doom".

Incase you haven't seen it, it's basically about Donnie getting a serum splashed on him and it starts to drain his intelligence and Leo, Raph, Mikey, April and Splinter tried to find ways to cure him before it's too late.

I was shocked to see how much I've enjoyed that episode, which led me to search for more episodes, then watching the movies, and then start collecting TMNT merchandise! I found myself becoming more of a fan day-by-day.

Fast-forward to 2017 and the 2012 show had just aired it's final episode. I was upset, but I knew another show was on the way the upcoming year. When I first heard about Rise, I myself was kind of skeptical on what would come of it. "

Would be as good or bad as the previous show?" I kept asking myself.

Soon, the day Rise of the TMNT came up and I was excited, yet nervous at the same time. So I watched and you wouldn't believe how entertained I was. It was humorous. full of action, and the animation and music were amazing! Even the Turtles personalities were on point, even if they were changed a little. You can tell the cast had good chemistry.

Speaking of the cast, let's talk about them for a minute........

In my honest opinion, this is the most impressive, most diverse, most entertaining TMNT cast to date! They work off each other and you can tell how much heart and soul they put into their voice work.

First, let's start with Omar Miller. He voices the oldest brother Raphael and in this incarnation, he is a snapping turtle. He's amazing at capturing both the gentle side and the hothead side of the character. Usually Raphael is my least favorite turtle of the TMNT franchise mostly because on how he's angry most of the time. But Omar's performance changes that and is now my third favorite turtle in this series.

Secondly, we have Josh Brener as Donatello. Now here me out, Donnie is my number one favorite turtle as a whole. But Josh's performance knocks it out of the park! He's the most sassiest, dramatic, bravest and sarcastic version of the character and I love it. And even though Donnie is a softshell turtle in this series, he doesn't let it stop him as long as he has his battleshell on. His quips to Leo are also top-notch.

Speaking of Leo, now let's move on to Ben Schwartz's performance as "The Turtle In Blue". The difference with this Leonardo is that he isn't the the leader of the team, Raph is this time. He has more of a chance to lay back and behave like an actual teenager. As we all know, Ben is really great at improv which helps out a lot in his voice work, usually his one-liners. Even though he is the goofy one of the group, he still loves and cares for his family.

Now we have Brandon Mychael Smith as Michelangelo! He is the most artistic turtle of the team with a kind heart and I like to think a tad bit more mature than his previous incarnations. This version of Mikey has a little bit of a temper too, and Brandon is good at switching over from a sweet little cinnamon roll, to an angry turtle when he doesn't get his way. Brandon's Mikey also isn't afraid to speak his mind and wants to be friends with everyone he meets, which is also like Brandon's real life personality.

And now, I like to talk about one of the best versions of April O'Neil who is voiced by the talented Kat Graham. To me, this incarnation of the character is by far the best! Mostly because this time along with the 2012 April, she is able to fight along side the turtles rather than be a damsel in distress. And she is more like an older sister to the Turtles and is accepted as part of the Hamato Clan. Also along with Josh Brener's character, they play off each other well. It's hard to tell sometimes if deep down, April and Donnie have feelings for each other.

Now onto Eric Bauza as Splinter. To be honest at first, I was never really a fan of this Splinter. I used to think that he was selfish and lazy and didn't really care about his sons. But that was until they revealed more about this past which actually makes sense on why they did this to the character. I love Eric's voice for Splinter because he has his combination of serious and heartfelt moments. You can tell that even if his sons mess up, he is always there for them and isn't going to shame them for their mistakes. He's trying his best to be a single father, raising four turtles and it works out well in the end.

Lastly now we have John Cena and later on Roger Craig Smith as Baron Draxum. I'm happy that they added this character to the show. At first he was an evil Yokai scientist bent on using his Oozesquitos to mutate every human in New York City. He was even the one who mutated the turtles in the first place, making him the turtles' father as well. His evil days are over later on in the series as he has a change of heart and tries to live with humans and to accept the turtles as his sons as well. John Cena did a pretty good job bringing Baron to life, he was sinister, evil and conniving. He was later replaced by Roger Craig Smith, I honestly can't tell the difference between his Baron and John's Baron. They sound exactly alike and it felt like that John had never been replaced. And that is talent if you ask me!

It's such a shame that Nickelodeon treated this show like shit! From giving it bad timeslots to barely giving it any promotion, you can tell they never cared about the fans who actually enjoyed the show as a whole.

This is why I think Rise should continue to air, it dared to be something different than previous TMNT movies and shows and you could tell that everyone who worked on it was loving every minute of it.

There is an upcoming Netflix movie set to release sometime next year. All we can do right now is see how the movie goes with audiences and how it affects the show entirely.