Blast from the Past #392: Apr. 2, 2004: Re: TMNT -72 2nd draft 4-2-04

Apr. 2, 2004: Re: TMNT -72 2nd draft 4-2-04

From: Peter Laird

To: Lloyd Goldfine

Lloyd,

Here are my notes on the second draft of Ep. 72.

1.) Re: the following:

"75. methania

Wait!  Raphael.  Maybe we can help YOU.  There’s a super-computer called Janus on the Toyetsu Station.  If there’s a way to get you back, it will know.  We’ll take you there... AFTER the race."

While I appreciate the mention of Janus, it is problematic -- because, given PLANET RACERS continuity, the Janus supercomputer is a SECRET project, and there's really no way for Meth to know about it. But all is not lost!

I think she could instead say something like this:

"Wait!  Raphael.  Maybe we can help YOU.  After this charity race series, we'll have a break of a couple of weeks. Back on my home world, one of my uncle's friends is the premier subspace and temporal mechanics theorist in this sector. If there’s a way to get you back, he'll figure it out.  We’ll take you there... AFTER the race."

If we use this, it would be a cool detail to also use Meth's uncle's name (which I forget right now).

Of course, I still like my "we're planning to give the purse money to the Basfornia orphans" idea, but I'm willing to let it go.

2.) Before I forget, I had an idea which might be both fun AND maybe give Playmates a cool Turtle variant for the toyline. The idea is this: When Raph takes over as pilot of the #23 bike, Meth wants him to look the part as much as possible. There's no time to make him a real set of leathers in the Team Fitts design, but I'm envisioning some kind of "spray on" costume machine which essentially paints onto Raphael a decent replica of Fitts Racing leathers, complete with his name on the back (which Raph would love).And so as to not have any kind of continuity problem in the following reunion episode, this "spray on gear" is only good for a certain amount of time, after which it naturally degrades and sheds itself... which could happen near the end of the last race, or just after it, and before Raph vanishes.

3.) Re: the following:

"There’s a bit of a jump!

EXT. ICE PLATEAU - FAR SIDE OF GLACIER – CONTINUOUS

Bike-23 launches out of a crack in the glacier wall –

-- and ARCS OVER a huge bottomless chasm.

140. FALCON

Going for the burn!

We see a PLUME OF FLAME shoot from the rear exhaust, propelling the bike forward as the worm flies out after them.  But it can’t make the jump and disappears down into the misty depths --"

A couple of problems with this. First, Falcon is not the pilot and I think this kind of action is something the pilot would need to take. Second, I'm not crazy about this "going for the burn" line followed by flames (!) shooting out of the rear exhaust. The bike is not rocket-propelled. (This kind of reminds me of the cover art on some of the old Gold Key "Star Trek" comics based on the original TV series, where the cover artist -- in ignorance of the advanced nature of the Enterprise's propulsion systems -- would draw the ship with rocket flames shooting out of the warp nacelles!) Why not have Falcon just say "Full throttle!"?

4.) As I have said before several times, I am REALLY not loving this whole "phasing" thing. To me it's totally extraneous and inconsistent with the way we have the Turtles (or at least Raph, Mike and Don) get rescued from the different dimensions they've been sent to, i.e. by Leo using the power of the Daimyo's warstaff... which, if memory serves, he uses only ONCE. So why are the boys constantly "phasing" in and out?

And if the "phasing" has NOTHING to do with the warstaff, and it's just some weird side-effect of the Turtles' being sent to the other dimensions, why bother with it? It's just a time-waster then.

-- Pete