Blast from the Past #424: August 19, 2004: Ep. 94 ("Prodigal Son") premise

Subj: Ep. 94 ("Prodigal Son") premise
Date: Thursday, August 19, 2004 12:54:33 PM
From: Peter Laird
To:   Lloyd Goldfine


Lloyd,


Here are my comments on the Ep. 94 premise.


1.) Re: the following:

"Leonardo tries to question this Foot Ninja, but the loyal Foot soldier breaks free runs himself into a wall knocking himself out rather than betray “the Shredder.”"

I think this would work better if the Foot ninja knocks himself out by slamming his head really hard into the wall (or post) that Leo is holding him up against. It just seems that if he actually got free from Leo's grasp, he would try to escape rather than knock himself out.


2.) Re: the following:

"Leo then discretely contacts April (have to come up with something that shows he in no way is endangering her), only to learn that everyone’s still missing – none of the others have contacted her.  Leo starts to freak.


Next, in montage, we see Leo do his stealth thing across the city (he should be amazingly slick – slicker than we’ve ever seen the Turtles be before), tracking leads, looking for clues.


He examines the ruins of the lair and …


…notices the ShellSub has been launched …
… that a new exit was punched through one of the lair walls …
… that the BattleShell was taken before the warehouse blew, etc.)."

The order of things here is a little confusing. I think Leo should first check out the lair, THEN start his search. 


3.) Re: the following:

"As he makes his stealthy trek across the city, he is stopped dead in his tracks when he spies the newly restored Foot Skyscraper Headquarters.


He sees the illuminated Foot symbol and the grander, restored Shinto Palace.


His eyes narrow as he inspects the Oroku Saki Memorial Library!"

Not sure if something is missing here, but the implication is that the Oroku Saki Memorial Library is right next to the restored Foot HQ. Is this so... and if so, does it make sense?? I see later on that:

"Meanwhile, after hours in the Oroku Saki Memorial Library, Karai enters through the back (which is connected directly to some portion of the Foot Building)."

... but I still have to ask -- does it make sense? For that scene, it doesn't seem to be necessary. Is a close proximity of this library to the Foot HQ a setup for something down the road? If not, I think it should probably be sited elswhere.


4.) Re: the following:

"Then, as tension builds, Karai and Leo will fight.  Karai drops her robes revealing herself in her new armor!  "

I'm not sure how this is going to look -- are we saying here that Karai is wearing full Shredder armor (obviously minus the helmet) under her robes? Won't that armor be kind of obvious, even under the robes, with all the blades and such? Maybe we should give Karai a new kind of Shredder suit -- one where the blades lie flat along the armor pieces, then flip up into fighting positions when needed.


5.) Re: the following:

"Later, Leo returns to new Central Park lair with a few odds and ends.  A laptop computer for Don, a punching bag for Raph, some comics for Mikey, and a new walking stick for Splinter.


The last item in his cart he unveils is a new “Lair Sweet Lair” sign, hand-painted but very homey."

Except for the new "Lair Sweet Lair" sign, I still think all this other stuff is too much. The image of Leo pushing a cart with all this stuff in it just seems really goofy to me, for some reason.
However, it does make me think about how quickly we should have the Turtles "restock" their stuff in the new lair. My gut feeling is that we should take it fairly slow -- for example, Don should not have the big "video wall" up and running for quite some time, if ever.
I'm not sure if the intention of the writer with this bit was to say that Leo had gotten (salvaged) these things in his "cart" from the trashed lair, or if they were new items that he picked up elsewhere. I think it's a fairly important dramatic bit to establish that the old lair was COMPLETELY trashed... it's one of the reasons I objected to Splinter snatching up the TCRI canister and the Yoshi holo-gizmo when they were escaping a few episodes ago. I think that we should have a totally new start here.


-- Pete