Things You Missed In The New TMNT 2 Trailer
The first complete trailer for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows is out, and it'll smack you with a few minutes of exciting, hopeful, non-stop action.
It may be easy to be distracted by all of the big reveals, like the appearance of Casey Jones, and the surprisingly cartoon-accurate appearances of evil henchmen Bebop and Rocksteady, so there were probably a few things you missed in all of the excitement. Here's a rundown of some of the finer points.
The Tartaruga Brothers
The new Turtle Party Van is basically a kid's toy fantasy, straight out of 1987. While the original Turtlemobile was actually a pretty standard van, covered with slurs aimed at the Foot Clan, the Turtles' new ride is a tricked-out garbage truck, which is kind of awesome. Why didn't they think of this thirty years ago? Amidst all of the new tech, and the fact that this thing will actually provide them with a little bit of hidden-in-plain-sight stealth in the big city, you'll see that this new truck is emblazoned with the words "Tartaruga Brothers." Linguists, or maybe just Europeans, will know that "tartaruga" is Italian for "turtle," so even though they still need to hide from the ogling public, they can't help but be a little clever while they're doing it. Blame Donatello.
Totally Toyetic
When the Turtles' new vehicle starts launching NYC manhole covers right out of its front bumper, toy geeks everywhere got flashbacks to a number of classic TMNT action figures and long afternoons imagining life in the Sewer Playset, eating nothing but pizza and ignoring homework. It may or may not be an easter egg for the fans, but the whole manhole mechanism first existed in the Turtles' Shellrasier toy vehicle, and to a lesser extent, the classic Pizza Thrower. The whole trailer seems to borrow a lot from Ninja Turtle animation both new and old, so it's no surprise that they're straight up using action figures now.
Retro Donatello
It's only in the shot for a second, but Donatello is totally wearing a classic Super Nintendo controller on his wrist. The first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film seemed to want to tear apart everything we knew and loved about the Turtles we knew when we were kids, while reinventing that classic story about reptiles who are mutated by a mysterious ooze...but this time around, the focus seems to have returned to bringing the classic stuff to life once again, and the Super NIntendo controller from that era is a pretty clear icon that represents that focus. If Michael Bay was still focused on ruining everyone's life, it would have been an Xbox controller.
No Guns
One of the biggest complaints about this film's predecessor was that the Foot Clan didn't seem ninja-y enough, mostly because they seemed to really like using some very un-ninja-like firearms. They still might not be the eggplant-headed robot morons from the animated series, but this version of the Foot is actually a lot closer to Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird's original comics, where the Foot were actually something to be feared. Fun fact: the Foot Clan is based loosely on Marvel Comics' resident New York ninja clan, the Hand, since the original TMNT comics were partially a parody of Marvel's very popular Daredevil. And now you know.
Casey Jones, Police Detective?
We see the big Casey Jones reveal after the hockey-themed vigilante saves April O'Neil from a bunch of attackers, but aside from his appearances rollerskating and driving a car, Jones actually appears in the trailer one more time. Laura Linney's character, an NYC police chief, can be seen talking to the Turtles, surrounded by a bunch of officers with guns drawn, but out of nowhere, Casey Jones just seems to be sauntering between all of these armed policemen. There's no way that a civilian would be allowed to just walk into that tense situation, so he has to have some relationship with the police...which might be a more interesting backstory than his usual "insane mechanic" or "insane ex-hockey player" background.
Technodrome, Please?
When the giant, swirling portal opens up over the city, it kinda looks like there are a bunch of really ugly spaceships flying out and haphazardly crashing into buildings. While pilots from Dimension X are pretty bad, they probably wouldn't just bump into skyscrapers all willy-nilly. The things coming out of the sky are probably pieces of the legendary Technodrome, the spherical battle-station that's home to Krang, the turtles' number one, brain-shaped bad guy. The rough, techno-y, patchwork surface of the ol' 'Drome would match these pieces pretty well, and as it assembles somewhere in Central Park, the audience will gasp with delight.