But beyond that, they largely left Bannon and the English-speaking creatives to adapt the Turtles iconography of both the comic book and cartoon as how they saw fit. Hence Rockwell’s Foot Clan scene.

That sequence contains everything a ‘90s kid could want (or at least an adult’s assumption about “kids these days”). There were the skateboard ramps, the arcade games, and the karate duels; there was also just enough of an edge for families to think there is something dark here—like Rockwell’s box of menthols and Toshishiro Obata kicking some poor kid in the head when he is performing a bow. To even film the setting, Bannon admitted on the DVD commentary that they commandeered an abandoned warehouse in Wilmington, North Carolina (where most of the film was shot) and bussed in local kids from nearby high schools to do a bit of extra work for the day.

There is nothing in these scenes a seven-year-old couldn’t handle, but a bit like the Turtles using their weapons to lightly smack around Foot Clan members, or shouting the word “damn,” it is nothing conservative Hollywood money would let slide into a family product (hence none of the above appearing in the sequels). Yet we would argue the light edge, as goofy as it often can appear to the modern eye, is the charm that helped make TMNT a runaway hit 35 years ago and still the most memorable and successful film version of this property to date. 

Arthouse is wonderful, but indies like New Line Cinema of the 1980s and ‘90s, or a particularly hands-off Golden Harvest, created cultural touchstones for generations of young people who were trained to love going to the movies. This was also the era of Hairspray, House Party, Critters, Mr. Nice Guy, Rumble in the Bronx, and The Mask—as well as Glengarry Glen Ross, Wag the Dog, and Boogie Nights from the same studio.

There is room for all, but getting that middle-brow, kid-friendly movie with more shadow and edge than Disney is a market long since left abandoned.