Summary

• The Last Ronin needs to ditch CGI in favor of practical costumes to capture the dark, gritty feel of the original comics.
• The animatronic costumes from the 1990 TMNT movie aged well and would be a great fit for The Last Ronin's darker tone.
• The success of The Last Ronin movie hinges on effectively translating the fan-favorite story to the screen with practical effects.

The live-action adaptation of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin needs to borrow a timeless trick from the classic ‘90s movie in order to avoid Michael Bay’s biggest franchise misstep. The Last Ronin is a five-part comic book miniseries written by Kevin Eastman and Tom Waltz. It takes place in an alternate future in which the last surviving turtle sets out to avenge his brothers by killing the Shredder’s grandson. The Last Ronin is set in its own continuity, dubbed the “Ronin-verse,” so this new movie can co-exist with the more family-friendly animated films.

The Last Ronin’s movie adaptation has a lot going for it. It’ll be rated R and shot in live-action, so it’ll be completely different from any previous TMNT movie. Boy Kills World’s Tyler Burton Smith is on board to write the script and The Conjuring’s Walter Hamada is set to produce. The comic has quickly become a fan-favorite, so as long as the filmmakers can effectively translate that story to the screen, they’ve got a sure-fire hit on their hands. But they need to borrow a production technique from the classic ‘90s movie to get it right.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' Last Ronin Movie Should Use Practical Costumes

Although it’s been the norm to use CGI for decades, The Last Ronin movie would really benefit from practical costumes. It might be easier to use CGI, but practical effects generally look a lot better. The CG turtles in Bay’s movies just didn’t look convincing. It had the feel of a Who Framed Roger Rabbit-style hybrid of live-action and animation, with photorealistic cartoon characters stumbling into a live-action world. It just didn’t look right, and the movies suffered as a result (not that their scripts were that great to begin with).

Of course, it wouldn’t be easy to pull off a new TMNT movie with practical costumes – especially since audiences have gotten so used to computer-generated effects – but it could work. The best medium for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise is animation, as proven by last year’s universally acclaimed hit Mutant Mayhem, but as long as Paramount is committed to making The Last Ronin in live-action, they should really commit to the live-action. It’s a cop-out to make a live-action movie that ends up being mostly animated due to rampant CGI effects.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin was published from 2020 to 2022.

TMNT's 1990 Movie Aged Surprisingly Well (Thanks To The Costumes)

The first ever feature-length movie adaptation of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise, released in 1990, is still the best live-action Turtles movie by far. The action scenes are a lot of fun, the humor lands, and it captures the camaraderie between the brothers beautifully. Plus, its animatronic turtle costumes still look incredible today. The costumes used in the two sequels that followed – released in 1991 and 1993, respectively – don’t look so great, but the costumes in the original movie haven’t aged a day.

The practical costumes for the original 1990 TMNT movie were developed by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop (it was one of Henson’s final projects before his death) and their reputation for iconic work shows in the masterful puppeteering work. The movable masks with expressive facial features were state-of-the-art at the time, and they’re still just as impressive today. For the The Last Ronin movie to feel unique and lively, it should borrow this technique.

Practical TMNT Costumes Would Suit The Last Ronin Perfectly

The animatronic costumes used in the 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie would be ideal for The Last Ronin. The Last Ronin is a much darker and grittier story than the average TMNT adventure, so it would make more sense to use rough, cumbersome, lived-in practical costumes than perfect-looking photorealistic CGI. CGI effects look too clean and polished, and that aesthetic just isn’t right for this dark, brooding antihero story. It’ll undermine the darker themes if the lead character looks like he wandered in from a Saturday morning cartoon.

There’s a lot that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin has to do to succeed. It has to capture Michelangelo’s darker ronin persona. It has to bring dystopian futuristic New York City to life. It has to justify its tantalizing R rating with scenes of gruesome violence. And above all, it has to find the humanity within that grisly sci-fi action story. But on top of all that, practical costumes would go a long way towards making this a great Turtles movie.