Michael Bay’s Edgy ‘Ninja Turtles’ Script Has Leaked, And Yup, It’s Terrible

So, hey, remember when we all choked on our pizza at the idea of Michael Bay ruining our childhoods by making a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, minus the Teenage and Mutant? Well, it turns out we had good reason to. In June, Paramount shut down production of the film, which was slated to be released in December 2013; the studio is now aiming for May 2014 so more time can be spent “restructuring” things. Because oh boy, is it awful. A Ninja Turtles fansite, TMNTnotTANT, got their mitts on an alleged copy of the script, and they write:

A little more than a week ago, I was able to get my hands on the TANT script in order to figure out if all of our worst fears were realized, once and for all. Were the turtles really written in as aliens? Is the script a clever adaptation, or just another Michael Bay shit-fest? I have the answer…It’s worse than anyone could have ever imagined. And since production on the movie was canceled, I see no problem in summarizing the parts I read (that is, the parts of the script I read until I got angry and just stopped reading). (Via)

FYI: Shredder has been renamed General Schrader. (Hank?) Michael Bay, you’ve done it again.

Here are some notable excerpts:

The movie ends with, “You’re never as alone as you think you are.” Again, the team behind TMNTnotTANT could just be pulling an extremely involved, cruel prank, but to prove their find is real, you’re invited to read the whole script here, assuming you make it through the thing without…

UPDATE: I haven’t had a chance to read through the entire script yet, but Comic Book Movie has:

18 year old Casey Jones is going nowhere in life. His friends have moved on. His girlfriend April O’ Neal has a prosperous career in NYC. He also works a security guard at a furniture factory. But all of that changes when one night, he stumbles upon a secret underground government hideout and finds four humanoid turtles. From there, he and the reptilian “mutants” uncover a plot to destroy Earth and are set on a course to discovering the Turtles’ secret past.

This script has a bad case of Spider-Man 3 syndrome. Too many villains and none of them given proper time to develop. There are 4 villains in this movie: Shredder (Here, a colonel named Schrader. God, shot me.), Krang (Who only has 2 lines of dialouge and doesn’t come in until the 3rd act.), Bebop, and Rocksteady. The latter two are the only ones who resemble and act like the versions fans know and love. Shredder is given the worst treatment of them all. He’s been so altered that the writers might as well just cut him and replace him with a new character. Splinter is okay, but he’s pretty weak. In every action scene where he’s present, he is always getting his ass kicked. (Via)

That’s so Splinter.

(Via)