Are The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Getting An Origin Change After All?

There's been a lot of debate and anger over where the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles come from in the new "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" film. We still don't know anything for certain, and likely won't until the film is actually released in August, but we thought we'd try to piece together where exactly ninja turtles come from with the information we have avaiiable. Last year, internet fandom became furious when Michael Bay stated that the Turtles, in the new film, would be aliens. The furor got so bad that Bay eventually had to come back and say that he misspoke about the Turtle's changed origin and that they were not, in fact, aliens. Of course, there are plenty who believe that he did not actually misspeak, but that the idea was scrapped following the negative reaction – the power of fandom and all of that – but judging by the new trailer, it seems he was likely being honest. The origin of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has been retold and altered over the years, through various comic book and cartoon reboots and relaunches. The one common denominator they all have is mutagen, the strange chemical substance that mutated regular turtles in ninja turtles. The exact properties and makeup of the mutagen has varied over the years – sometimes it just makes you bigger, sometimes it turns you into whatever creature you were most recently close to, sometimes it gives you superpowers, etc. – but it has always been the catalyst for the Turtles' existence. Presumably, the removal of this one, defining common denominator in the Turtles' origin (since one assumes alien turtles are just born that way) is what set fandom off. Kind of like changing Batman's origin so that his parents are still alive and well and he just runs around dressed like a bat at night for funsies (okay, not that bad).

The mutagen, some form of it, is clearly present in the new trailer, as seen in the above screenshot. So that should be it, right? The turtles get mutated and therefore aren't aliens, the end. Well, yes, but there's likely more to it. The canister containing the mutagen in this shot is marked with the letters T.C.R.I. T.C.R.I. stands for Techno-Cosmic Research Institute, located in a mysterious and impenetrable building introduced in the original 1985 comic book series. They are the company that created the mutagen, a canister of which accidentally fell off of a truck and into the sewer where it transformed some turtles into the heroes we know. Notice the word "cosmic" there? That's because the institute is actually a front for some aliens who crash-landed on Earth. These aliens, called Ultroms, are trying to build a device that would let them get back home from Earth. The mutagen is a component of that device. Its other properties are just side effects. It's important to note that the film left the cosmic part in. In "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze," the company's name was changed to Techno-Global Reasearch Institute, because they didn't want there to be any alien connections in the film. Sounds like Bay does, specifically, want some aliens in his movie. It does sound like Bay misspoke about his earlier assertion that the Turtles would be aliens, confusing the fact that they are terrestrial turtles transformed by alien technology. Of course, it also sounds like there is at least some, small change to the Turtles' origin. The trailer introduces a character named Erich Sachs. Sachs is this film's Shredder, instead of the more well-known antagonist, Oroku Saki. This isn't the first time another character has taken up the Shredder's mantle, so we'll move past that for now. Sachs monologues throughout the new trailer about how the city needs heroes, and how heroes are created. Is it possible that the Turtles were not a mistake in this film? Were they intentionally made? Or were they an accidental by product of tests meant for Sachs himself, kind of like the relationship between Norman Osborn and Peter Parker in the "Amazing Spider-Man" films? We'll have to wait until August to see exactly how things turn out, but it sounds like the Turtles' origins will be much closer to their original comic book form than anyone seemed to expect, aliens and all. "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" comes to theaters August 8, 2014.