First they put nipples on the Batsuit, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Batman fan.
Then they reduced The Force to midichlorians, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Star Wars fan.
Now they’re coming for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and I am speaking out. Shouting in fact. And I’m not alone.
In case you haven’t heard, Michael Bay recently announced that his 2013 reboot would redesign the Turtles’ origin as extraterrestrial. Instead of ordinary pets mutated with ooze, Bay’s Ninja Turtles will be aliens. From space. Turtle-shaped aliens.
As you might imagine, the blogosphere lit up like a mannequin covered in light bulbs at the news. Nerds all over the Internet gathered to bay at Bay, voicing their vitriol at the change to their beloved TMNT.
The anger was so widespread, in fact, that Michael Bay was forced to address it head-on with an official statement on his website:
Fans need to take a breath, and chill. They have not read the script. Our team is working closely with one of the original creators of Ninja Turtles to help expand and give a more complex back story. Relax, we are including everything that made you become fans in the first place. We are just building a richer world.
Bay doesn’t understand why people are so upset when they haven’t even heard the full pitch of his changes. So I will explain it to him in a language he understands:
OOM-BAY!!
But seriously, the reason we aren’t happy is obvious. These are the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. If you are willing to change something as fundamental as a descriptor in the title, how can anything be safe?
This is the type of mercurial change thrown out by a suit that doesn’t get the importance of art in pop culture, that doesn’t see how committing to and enriching a story is better than tossing it out and using a new one. The decision was clearly made by someone who was not a fan of the Turtles, only of the money that can be made off their name.
Michael Bay doesn’t have any love for the Turtles; if he did, he wouldn’t be doing this. Besides, after the inglorious debacle that was the Transformers trilogy, how can we be expected to trust this guy with our favorite franchises?
Which face do YOU trust?
So why don’t you chill, Michael Bay. Because that’s what people do when they don’t care one way or the other. I’ll be over here with the nerds, worked up into a frenzy and telling anyone who will listen. Because I do care. Because it matters to me.
People often confuse nerd rage with Internet trolling, but the two couldn’t be more different. Trolls draw from a place of hate, a deep dark well of dissatisfaction that they can’t release in their public lives. They wait until they can hide in the high grass of the Internet and let their bile fly.
The Secret of the Ooze
Nerd rage, on the other hand, comes from a place of love. Our aggression is that of a mother protecting her child. We love things so much that we can’t stand to see them destroyed.
Because that’s what defines us nerds. Love. Forget all of the descriptions you’ve heard; we don’t need to be hyper-intelligent, socially awkward, or technologically inclined. Nerds are people who love something so much that they examine it obsessively in an effort to completely understand it, and thus to ultimately understand ourselves.
I love the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I grew up watching the cartoon, collecting the action figures, playing the video games. I even played TMNT with my brother and some kids around the neighborhood. The Ninja Turtles gave me countless hours of pure childhood joy.
Michael Bay gave me racist robots.
Tyler Perry's Mudflap and Skids
Even if the Turtles aren’t your thing, if you’re a nerd like me, I guarantee something you love has been tampered with, tainted, or destroyed by non-nerds. The Rise of Cobra, the gentrification of The Last Airbender, whatever 2003’s The Cat in the Hat was supposed to be- something has been marred forever thanks to the tinkering of people who don’t love the characters the way you do.
Or maybe your favorite story is next.
If we don’t tell the Michael Bays of the world exactly how we feel every time, they will take our silence as implicit consent. And without a solid phalanx of dissent, the suits will interpret a mix of negative and positive comments, no matter how lopsided, as “indeterminate”. We have to band together under a common nerd banner and cry “NO” to Darth Vader crying “NO.”
We need to speak up for the Turtles, or they won’t be there to speak up for you. Because they’ll be on Ork or something.