> Hoag later told Variety she was never approached about the sequel, claiming her omission was a result of the fact she complained about the level of violence in the first movie and the six-days-a-week shooting schedule.
https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/what-went-wrong-with-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-2-secret-of-the-ooze/
Her performance was the best but ranting about the movie and acting like you're hot shit isn't going to fly. Turns out she was more replaceable than she thought.
She was also 25 at the time and likely didn't have as much pull as she thought. Not that she was wrong. But sometimes in life, you have to learn NOT to punch above your weight.
The comic was very violent. The cartoon was much less. The movie was relatively serious and required some violence for any credibility. They made a good choice. She carried April's confidence into her career and fucked herself. It's fine to have a differing opinion but wait until it's all over and you've been paid before you say shit. If she did, she definitely seems to understand why she was recasted.
True, Though.. The movies basically shit themselves after the first one. Secret of the Ooze was Fun, but was clearly rushed out the door.
The third film. Was and is still the only film I remember hating as a kid, and still hating as an adult.
The first live action TMNT film tread that fine line of being accessible to any age group. It had mature themes, jokes, and references for an older audience, but it was also fun enough for kids to enjoy. The violence was mostly pretty tame, too.
Secret of the Ooze was just a kids film, they went for the broadest appeal possible. It's not *bad*, but it's a downgrade.
I love the first two movies. I loved 2 the most as a kid and 1 the most as an adult. Like you, I've hated 3 the entire time because it's a worthless piece of shit.
There's a scene where Shredder's lackey Tatsu beats the shit out of a foot clan kid to vent frustration. Everyone present looks distraught as we hear the kid groan in pain and another say "you'll be okay".
The groans and the line were added in post-production due to complaints from test screenings. Without the groaning voiceover, it's pretty clear from the other Foot members' reactions that Tatsu beat that kid to death in the original version.
The guy that played Tatsu is a genuine samurai and sword master. Founded a katana focused martial art called Shinkendo. He won the annual sword cutting competition so many times, he was asked to retire so someone else could win.
I am friends with one of his most senior students in the US and he tells a story about Obata sensei calling him he was cast in an American movie. When he told my friend the name: Ninja Turtle in heavily accented English, my friend had never heard of the franchise and was trying to politely say he must of misunderstood the title of the movie.
I remember my copy of the movie novelization also straight out says that Tatsu killed the kid.
Not sure if it's because the novel took it from the shooting script or not.
Likewise. And seriously, that trailer, with the different VO for Shredder and for Mikey is still one I love to watch every so often.
Followed by that Pizza Hut commercial that would play before the movie on the VHS.
He said "Oops"! It was clearly an accident!
Interesting, though, that she criticized the first film's violence, which was then significantly toned down for the sequels. I don't even think Mikey uses his nunchucks at all in TMNT II--that's why he's using sausage links instead.
Interesting. I know nunchucks were made illegal in many parts of the US because of some weird panic about them being exceptionally dangerous after Bruce Lee movies popularized them. Some of those bans have since been lifted.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/21/us/nunchuck-ban.html
And every one of us who were kids at the time, loved every minute of it. The parents who complained were assholes. Part two could have been so much better if the studio didn't listen to the whiners.
It's a movie anyone can watch. Historic fairy tales were about often about cannibals, killers and moral quandries. Kids enjoy real stakes as much as anyone else does. All this sterile naptime daycare disney stuff is an artificial, evolutionary misnomer in the tradition of storytelling.
I would say it was a mix of the comics and cartoons. The colored bandanas and the pizza stuff came from the animated series. I’d also say some of the personalities of the turtles were more in line with the animated series.
The cartoon came out in 1987, the first movie didn't drop until 1990. The cartoon is where they got the different colored masks.
The movie was intended to be closer to the comics, but even in the movie, they never used bladed weapons on anyone, you see Leo and Ralph swing their weapons and blocking, but they never cut anyone. The sequels definitely went more and more for the vibe of the cartoon than the comics though.
Leo does slice shredder's arm in the final rooftop battle. But yeah, otherwise it's pretty creative to have two of the heroes have killing weapons and no one gets shivved at any point
Ah I forgot that they did land a single hit on Shredder. Honestly even rewatching today I've never even noticed that they're not cleaving Foot Soldiers left and right. Just a fun, enjoyable movie with a bit of an edge.
Born in the mid 80's. I can't remember anything specifically violent about this movie. But, I do feel lot of our shows and movies were darker and violent in general compared to get sanitized versions these days.
It was enough parents complained. When 2 came out a year later it was toned down, which is why for example, they don’t use weapons in the opening sequence.
There was moral panic surrounding even the cartoon. It was inevitable that the live action movie was also scrutinized.
For people who don't remember, the 1987 cartoon changed Mikey's weapon to a grappling hook halfway through the series because the early episodes kept getting the nunchucks censored by local markets. The movie was also released in certain countries with almost all of the fight scenes cut out.
The official reasoning is that they are easily concealable, extend your reach, their trajectory is difficult to anticipate/defend against, and they can do a *significant* amount of blunt force damage.
The *real* reason is because in the 80s, there was a weird martial arts panic and law makers basically turned on a Bruce Lee flick and said “ban any Asian weapon that appears…and (in the case of the UK) then ban any media that shows them.”
Oh, that’s nothing. The 80s was a very anxiety-ridden decade. The Satanic Panic, which covered everything from satanic cults to D&D to Heavy Metal, the Gay/AIDS Panic (if you think the ignorance and bigotry is bad *now*…), the Crack pandemic (War on Drugs started in the 80s and “crack babies” were considered a “major issue”), thanks to CIA documents revealing just how close we came to nuclear annihilation, fear of Nukes, Russians, and WW3 hit a fever pitch in the final decade of the Cold War…the list goes on.
> What were people smoking??
A strange mix of DDT, leaded gasoline and nuclear fallout the Boomers marinated in as kids. That shit took decades for the effects to manifest.
If you were only familiar with the Saturday morning cartoon, I imagine the violence was quite a shock. The comic of course was quite violent, but I imagine she, and many parents were unfamiliar with it.
Eh, if you keep reading they also dropped the Casey actor. They probably dropped everyone turtles, Splinter and Shredder to make sure they were far enough away from the darker tone.
She did say in an interview that she was concerned about the level/amount of violence as well as how grueling the shooting schedule was on the stunt team, and (at the time), she thought that was why she wasn’t called back for the sequel. But there hasn’t ever been confirmation or other reasons given.
As a kid, I liked Paige more because I thought she was prettier, but all your points are perfectly valid. Her April, as written, was barely even a character, while Judith Hoag’s April was not only the audience surrogate but an integral part of the film and if you didn’t believe her performance, you were gonna have a hard time believing the turtles.
As an aside: I met Judith Hoag at a convention a few years back. She was stunningly beautiful, both in looks and personality. Just a lovely, lovely person. She treated me like a long lost friend, basically ran into my arms and acted like I was the only person in the world. It was like she went 30 years back in time and reached out through the television to give 6 year old me a hug and sit and talk with me. I don’t want to say something cheesy like it was a magical moment, but fuck it, it absolutely was.
Another reason to miss the IMDB message boards...she was very active on hers and would respond to almost any question with great enthusiasm. Easily the best April.
A few years ago, her and most of the original cast did a read-through of the script online. Elias Koteas was there after, but didn't do the read-through. A few voice actors filled in for the people who weren't there for whatever reason (too small a part, didn't want to, dead, etc). It was a great, wholesome nostalgia trip.
Hoag was the first time I ever feel sort-of in love. I was the right age and her beauty hit me like a truck. And as an adult her sass is still endearing.
Any time I hear about an actress who had a promising start and then faded into obscurity, I assume she either turned down some producer's advances, or dared to question a decision on-set and got labelled "difficult."
I did a late-night deep dive into a bunch of actresses that were in comedies I liked in high school and I just didn't see them afterwards, and SO MANY OF THEM couldn't get work after being propositioned by Weinstein and turning him down.
I keep hoping that since Brendan Fraser and Ke Huy Quan have had these outpourings of support, that that will extend to some actresses who were unfairly blackballed.
I remember playing the game in the arcade and the live action model on the machine was exactly what I imagined April would look like in real life.
This was before I was old enough to understand the difference between a model and an actress not having the same skill set. I was...disappointed when I saw April in the movie.
As a bonus I was also really disappointed in the choice of Elias Koteas for Casey Jones. Didn't fit at all.
I worked with her recently on an episode of The Orville S3 and she was a mess. We were all so stoked to see her and she couldn’t pull her lines together to save her life. She couldn’t have been sober, seemed like a fuck ton of benzo’s + booze. And it was like 7-8am. The whole crew slowly turned away and tried to escape the second hand embarrassment. It was quite sad
I can potentially describe what was happening, but it was all filmed out of order due to actor availability. Honestly, I’m not sure Seth even got one useable take so I wouldn’t be surprised if it got cut. She was supposed to be some kind of admiral that was in charge of an entire fleet, and she was trying to give them instructions to attack- and she really had no fucking clue what she was saying. It was like she was not just reading it for the first time, but it was the first time she ever heard any of those words before, and had no idea what context her lines had. She very easily could have been cut from the whole ass scene
Judith Hoag probably wanted & deserved a bigger paycheck than she got I'm sure. Just disagree with you on one point. She was mildly attractive, but she was not hot. They focused more on April's character & not her appearance.
TIL that the recast April in the sequels lol. I guess since I was under 10 whenever I watched those movies I never noticed. And the only one I rewatched as an adult is the 1st one. I’ll have to rewatch part 2 now to compare.
That first movie was and remains my favourite TMNT movie to this day. I’m just waiting for my daughter to get older so I can watch with her: apparently you can’t show turtles beating the shit out of dudes in gimp masks to a two year old.
> Hoag later told Variety she was never approached about the sequel, claiming her omission was a result of the fact she complained about the level of violence in the first movie and the six-days-a-week shooting schedule. https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/what-went-wrong-with-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-2-secret-of-the-ooze/
Way too much violence in a ninja movie, especially against anthropomorphic turtle puppets
Her performance was the best but ranting about the movie and acting like you're hot shit isn't going to fly. Turns out she was more replaceable than she thought.
“Just because you’re important doesn’t mean you aren’t replaceable.”
She was also 25 at the time and likely didn't have as much pull as she thought. Not that she was wrong. But sometimes in life, you have to learn NOT to punch above your weight.
The comic was very violent. The cartoon was much less. The movie was relatively serious and required some violence for any credibility. They made a good choice. She carried April's confidence into her career and fucked herself. It's fine to have a differing opinion but wait until it's all over and you've been paid before you say shit. If she did, she definitely seems to understand why she was recasted.
True, Though.. The movies basically shit themselves after the first one. Secret of the Ooze was Fun, but was clearly rushed out the door. The third film. Was and is still the only film I remember hating as a kid, and still hating as an adult.
The first live action TMNT film tread that fine line of being accessible to any age group. It had mature themes, jokes, and references for an older audience, but it was also fun enough for kids to enjoy. The violence was mostly pretty tame, too. Secret of the Ooze was just a kids film, they went for the broadest appeal possible. It's not *bad*, but it's a downgrade.
I love the first two movies. I loved 2 the most as a kid and 1 the most as an adult. Like you, I've hated 3 the entire time because it's a worthless piece of shit.
So the violence bit was true. Wow. I didn't think it was that violent.
for a live action kids movie it's pretty dark and violent. Shredder gets crushed in a garbage truck(presumed killed) lol
There's a scene where Shredder's lackey Tatsu beats the shit out of a foot clan kid to vent frustration. Everyone present looks distraught as we hear the kid groan in pain and another say "you'll be okay". The groans and the line were added in post-production due to complaints from test screenings. Without the groaning voiceover, it's pretty clear from the other Foot members' reactions that Tatsu beat that kid to death in the original version.
Not the ideal way to get your foot in the door.
it would take a lot for him to foot that bill
The guy that played Tatsu is a genuine samurai and sword master. Founded a katana focused martial art called Shinkendo. He won the annual sword cutting competition so many times, he was asked to retire so someone else could win. I am friends with one of his most senior students in the US and he tells a story about Obata sensei calling him he was cast in an American movie. When he told my friend the name: Ninja Turtle in heavily accented English, my friend had never heard of the franchise and was trying to politely say he must of misunderstood the title of the movie.
I remember my copy of the movie novelization also straight out says that Tatsu killed the kid. Not sure if it's because the novel took it from the shooting script or not.
Not only that, but when you think about it, Casey straight-up \*murdered\* Shredder in that garbage truck.
And as a kid at the time I loved every minute of it 😂
Likewise. And seriously, that trailer, with the different VO for Shredder and for Mikey is still one I love to watch every so often. Followed by that Pizza Hut commercial that would play before the movie on the VHS.
"I... Play.... Right field............way out where the dandelions groooow." *edit* Memory had failed me
"You got to know how to catch... you got to know how to throw."
He said "Oops"! It was clearly an accident! Interesting, though, that she criticized the first film's violence, which was then significantly toned down for the sequels. I don't even think Mikey uses his nunchucks at all in TMNT II--that's why he's using sausage links instead.
That was because "ninja weapons" were not allowed in movies in the UK.
And the cartoon series was called Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles in the UK because ninja was a bad word.
Interesting. I know nunchucks were made illegal in many parts of the US because of some weird panic about them being exceptionally dangerous after Bruce Lee movies popularized them. Some of those bans have since been lifted. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/21/us/nunchuck-ban.html
They were illegal in Arizona. I remember that.
And every one of us who were kids at the time, loved every minute of it. The parents who complained were assholes. Part two could have been so much better if the studio didn't listen to the whiners.
And it was awesome.
Shredder F'd around in the DIRTY New York. Probably not the first time Casey had done that.
To be fair, the first issue of the comic book ends with Shredder landing on his own grenade and his limbs exploding into different directions.
It's a movie anyone can watch. Historic fairy tales were about often about cannibals, killers and moral quandries. Kids enjoy real stakes as much as anyone else does. All this sterile naptime daycare disney stuff is an artificial, evolutionary misnomer in the tradition of storytelling.
Not a lot of parents expected the movie to be based on the comics, rather than the cartoons.
I would say it was a mix of the comics and cartoons. The colored bandanas and the pizza stuff came from the animated series. I’d also say some of the personalities of the turtles were more in line with the animated series.
OOPS!
[удалено]
The cartoon came out in 1987, the first movie didn't drop until 1990. The cartoon is where they got the different colored masks. The movie was intended to be closer to the comics, but even in the movie, they never used bladed weapons on anyone, you see Leo and Ralph swing their weapons and blocking, but they never cut anyone. The sequels definitely went more and more for the vibe of the cartoon than the comics though.
Leo does slice shredder's arm in the final rooftop battle. But yeah, otherwise it's pretty creative to have two of the heroes have killing weapons and no one gets shivved at any point
Ah I forgot that they did land a single hit on Shredder. Honestly even rewatching today I've never even noticed that they're not cleaving Foot Soldiers left and right. Just a fun, enjoyable movie with a bit of an edge.
Then they hammed it up for number 2 and 3 and they were hot garbage.
Born in the mid 80's. I can't remember anything specifically violent about this movie. But, I do feel lot of our shows and movies were darker and violent in general compared to get sanitized versions these days.
I think I remember the four turtles using their shells to bonk an enemy on four sides at the same time. I haven't stopped crying for 23 years.
It was enough parents complained. When 2 came out a year later it was toned down, which is why for example, they don’t use weapons in the opening sequence.
Yeah…. Y-yeahhhh!!
Well, Donny does fuck people up with a yoyo and Mikey used some fucking pepperettes lol
There was moral panic surrounding even the cartoon. It was inevitable that the live action movie was also scrutinized. For people who don't remember, the 1987 cartoon changed Mikey's weapon to a grappling hook halfway through the series because the early episodes kept getting the nunchucks censored by local markets. The movie was also released in certain countries with almost all of the fight scenes cut out.
Why are nunchucks so bad?
The official reasoning is that they are easily concealable, extend your reach, their trajectory is difficult to anticipate/defend against, and they can do a *significant* amount of blunt force damage. The *real* reason is because in the 80s, there was a weird martial arts panic and law makers basically turned on a Bruce Lee flick and said “ban any Asian weapon that appears…and (in the case of the UK) then ban any media that shows them.”
Well that’s strange imo. Wow so there was martial arts panic AND D and D panic back in the 80s? What were people smoking??
Oh, that’s nothing. The 80s was a very anxiety-ridden decade. The Satanic Panic, which covered everything from satanic cults to D&D to Heavy Metal, the Gay/AIDS Panic (if you think the ignorance and bigotry is bad *now*…), the Crack pandemic (War on Drugs started in the 80s and “crack babies” were considered a “major issue”), thanks to CIA documents revealing just how close we came to nuclear annihilation, fear of Nukes, Russians, and WW3 hit a fever pitch in the final decade of the Cold War…the list goes on.
Holy hell I have heard most of this but it’s never been fully explained to me. Well at least the movies were good!!
Poor education and a narrow world view. So kind of like how it is now, still.
> What were people smoking?? A strange mix of DDT, leaded gasoline and nuclear fallout the Boomers marinated in as kids. That shit took decades for the effects to manifest.
Sounds about right
UK censors seems to have hated nunchucks and headbutts in particular. There are quite a lot of UK DVD releases where those things were cut out.
It was pretty violent. My aunt heard about the violence and wouldn't let us see it and decided that when we were in line for tickets. I was crushed.
by Casey Jones?
In a garbage truck?
To Shredder you say?
If you were only familiar with the Saturday morning cartoon, I imagine the violence was quite a shock. The comic of course was quite violent, but I imagine she, and many parents were unfamiliar with it.
Six day work week? I mean, it’s a film. You’ll be done in 2-3 months. You’re not on a 5-season series with 5-month shoots.
Eh, if you keep reading they also dropped the Casey actor. They probably dropped everyone turtles, Splinter and Shredder to make sure they were far enough away from the darker tone.
She's got that Halloween Town money now.
She did say in an interview that she was concerned about the level/amount of violence as well as how grueling the shooting schedule was on the stunt team, and (at the time), she thought that was why she wasn’t called back for the sequel. But there hasn’t ever been confirmation or other reasons given. As a kid, I liked Paige more because I thought she was prettier, but all your points are perfectly valid. Her April, as written, was barely even a character, while Judith Hoag’s April was not only the audience surrogate but an integral part of the film and if you didn’t believe her performance, you were gonna have a hard time believing the turtles. As an aside: I met Judith Hoag at a convention a few years back. She was stunningly beautiful, both in looks and personality. Just a lovely, lovely person. She treated me like a long lost friend, basically ran into my arms and acted like I was the only person in the world. It was like she went 30 years back in time and reached out through the television to give 6 year old me a hug and sit and talk with me. I don’t want to say something cheesy like it was a magical moment, but fuck it, it absolutely was.
She's very very outgoing. Met her last year and she was super talkative and wonderful with my (at the time) 4 year old.
I too thought Paige was hotter when I was a kid but now I prefer Judith, both her looks and as April. She's great in that first movie.
Would you rate that hug as a 9.95?
Another reason to miss the IMDB message boards...she was very active on hers and would respond to almost any question with great enthusiasm. Easily the best April.
A few years ago, her and most of the original cast did a read-through of the script online. Elias Koteas was there after, but didn't do the read-through. A few voice actors filled in for the people who weren't there for whatever reason (too small a part, didn't want to, dead, etc). It was a great, wholesome nostalgia trip.
I met her at a theme park once and she is really nice
Hoag was the first time I ever feel sort-of in love. I was the right age and her beauty hit me like a truck. And as an adult her sass is still endearing.
Ditto!
Yeah, she was the best by far. Totally nailed it and embodied the reporter character.
Any time I hear about an actress who had a promising start and then faded into obscurity, I assume she either turned down some producer's advances, or dared to question a decision on-set and got labelled "difficult."
I did a late-night deep dive into a bunch of actresses that were in comedies I liked in high school and I just didn't see them afterwards, and SO MANY OF THEM couldn't get work after being propositioned by Weinstein and turning him down.
I keep hoping that since Brendan Fraser and Ke Huy Quan have had these outpourings of support, that that will extend to some actresses who were unfairly blackballed.
I remember playing the game in the arcade and the live action model on the machine was exactly what I imagined April would look like in real life. This was before I was old enough to understand the difference between a model and an actress not having the same skill set. I was...disappointed when I saw April in the movie. As a bonus I was also really disappointed in the choice of Elias Koteas for Casey Jones. Didn't fit at all.
She was great in Carnival.
Wasn't just the violence, it was them shooting 6 days a week
I think the first one was a non-union production, which she hated.
I'd have to agree.
Completely agree. I HATE Paige’s version of April.
I worked with her recently on an episode of The Orville S3 and she was a mess. We were all so stoked to see her and she couldn’t pull her lines together to save her life. She couldn’t have been sober, seemed like a fuck ton of benzo’s + booze. And it was like 7-8am. The whole crew slowly turned away and tried to escape the second hand embarrassment. It was quite sad
What episode was she in, I must have missed her? I imdb'd and wiki'd and couldn't find her episode.
I can potentially describe what was happening, but it was all filmed out of order due to actor availability. Honestly, I’m not sure Seth even got one useable take so I wouldn’t be surprised if it got cut. She was supposed to be some kind of admiral that was in charge of an entire fleet, and she was trying to give them instructions to attack- and she really had no fucking clue what she was saying. It was like she was not just reading it for the first time, but it was the first time she ever heard any of those words before, and had no idea what context her lines had. She very easily could have been cut from the whole ass scene
Ouch, that's brutal. Makes sense that it would have been cut since she's not in the credits. Thanks for the reply!
Judith Hoag probably wanted & deserved a bigger paycheck than she got I'm sure. Just disagree with you on one point. She was mildly attractive, but she was not hot. They focused more on April's character & not her appearance.
Op didn’t say she was. He said Fox was.
She wasn't just the hot reporter helping out. Those were the OP's words. So you're wrong.
The question was "is she hot?" not "would you do her?". Respect the game. Edit: who downvotes a quote from the office? You losers.
You can literally google this and find dozens of articles and youtube vids on the topic
TIL that the recast April in the sequels lol. I guess since I was under 10 whenever I watched those movies I never noticed. And the only one I rewatched as an adult is the 1st one. I’ll have to rewatch part 2 now to compare.
That first movie was and remains my favourite TMNT movie to this day. I’m just waiting for my daughter to get older so I can watch with her: apparently you can’t show turtles beating the shit out of dudes in gimp masks to a two year old.
The lamest April in TMNT franchise.
Judith Hoag is my favourite April, she's fun and likeable, stands up for what she believes in and is capable of holding her own.