Blast from the Past #585: July 4, 2002: Re: FW: NAMES OF VEHICLES and Splinter turnaround roughs, July 10, 2002: TMNT Episode 7 revised premise and Mouser sketch, July 11, 2002: new designs, and July 12, 2002: recent designs comments

Subj: Re: FW: NAMES OF VEHICLES
Date: Thursday, July 4, 2002 12:11:11 AM
From: Peter Laird
To:   Gary Richardson

Gary,

For the Turtle Phone -- how about the "Shell Cell"?

--Pete

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Subj: Splinter turnaround roughs
Date: Thursday, July 4, 2002 12:16:01 AM
From: Peter Laird
To:   Lloyd Goldfine

Lloyd,

The Splinter turnaround roughs look pretty good except for one big mistake which actually made me chuckle when I saw it -- the tail coming through the hole in the back of the robe! Splinter's tail should really come out from under the bottom edge of his robe in the back.

--Peter

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Subj: TMNT Episode 7 revised premise and Mouser sketch
Date: Wednesday, July 10, 2002 2:34:23 AM
From: Peter Laird
To:   Lloyd Goldfine

Lloyd,

I like the revised Mouser sketch more... I think it's pretty close. I'd like to see what it look like from the rear.

The revised premise for Episode 7 -- "The Way of Invisibility" -- is much better but still not quite there. Here are some comments...

1.) I'm glad the "stealing turtles from pet shops as bait" thing is gone, but I'm not totally convinced about the new graffiti angle. Although I think it would be fun to play with that "Raph and Casey egg each other on" thing, the upshot of it is the same as if they had just gone up aboveground looking for some Purple Dragon heads to bash -- they get in a fight, the Purple Dragons delay them until the Foot Tech Ninjas can be called, and they take out Raph and Casey. In which case, I wonder if we even need the whole "bait" angle. I think I'm still bothered by the idea that our heroes -- even goofballs like Raph and Casey -- could take graffiti insults so seriously that they would deliberately walk into an obvious trap as the result of such an obvious and juvenile provocation.

Actually, just as I was typing that, I wondered if it would work if we kept the graffiti angle but tweaked it a bit -- instead of Raph and Casey taking it so seriously, they see it as a stupid, pathetic attempt to get their goat. But Casey gets the idea into his head that to show whoever did it how stupid they think it is, they should "tag" the Purple Dragons' graffiti with their own counter-graffiti, and he goads Raph, who's at first reluctant to go against Splinter's admonitions. Eventually Raph can't take Casey's taunting anymore, and the two of them go up, find an example of the insulting turtle graffiti, and start spraypainting over or near it things like, I don't know, Purple Dragons in tutus or something. THAT'S when the fight as described in this premise could start.

2.) I think we need to establish -- somehow -- that even a crushed Shell Phone can still be used as a source for a tracking signal. It might also help to have a line for Raph which helps to explain why he scoops up the broken Shell Phone and takes it with him.

3.) As is, I don't think this premise makes it clear enough that the reason Don couldn't track Raph's Shell Phone signal is (as we discussed on the phone) because the place he's being held is somehow shielded or constructed in such a way that it blocks the Shell Phone tracking signals. Also, in this premise it says Don can track Raph with a device "... he's cobbled together." That gave me the impression that it's something he just whipped up on the spot, which I think is not right -- he should have made this gizmo some time ago, for this very purpose. 

There is also a bit that didn't feel right to me, where Casey shows Don a piece of circuitry from a Foot guy and Don "... gets to work trying to calibrate a scanner to it's frequency". (Huh?) I thought that Casey would just describe what happened and Don would figure out that the Foot are using some kind of cloaking technology, and that the best way to counter that would probably be the heat sensor goggles.

And i was wondering if it might be more fun if when Raph escapes, he doesn't discover that he's on a grungy barge -- but instead some kind of super fancy passenger yacht. We might get some laughs from the reactions of some of the society swells who are partying on this yacht, and it might even be fun to have Saki there in a cool tuxedo (with Japanese design hints) and a couple of hot babes on his arms... and looking like that Raph would pay him no mind, but we could have a great LOOK moment as Saki watches Raph escape... a wicked evil smile playing across his features.

4.) I think it's a bit much that (even with the advantage of Don's heat sensor goggles) the turtles defeat the Tech Ninjas "... with almost comic ease." This should be more of a struggle for them. And I was wondering if it might be cool to emphasize the level of ninja "vanishing" skill that the turtles have -- that while their heat sensor goggles counter the cloaking devices of the Foot Tech Ninjas, their own non-techy ninja skills of concealment, blending in, and disappearing allow them to finally defeat the Tech Ninjas.

5.) I'm unclear how the Foot Tech Ninjas get "... washed away into the river..." Is this the result of one of those regular raging sewer floods?

Talk with you soon!

--Peter

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Subj: new designs
Date: Thursday, July 11, 2002 1:21:11 AM
From: Peter Laird
To:   Lloyd Goldfine

Lloyd,

I got a bunch of figure designs today, and have a few comments. 

1.) Donatello's bo staff should have one set of leather wraps only in the middle of the staff, not two sets (on either end).

2.) The diagonal belt across Leonardo's chest should be flipped, so that instead of running from left waist to right shoulder, it goes from left shoulder to right waist. If we need some kind of release point, I think we can come up with something that looks better. Also, I'm not crazy about the big metal ring in the center of Leo's chest -- I'd lose it. And I'd like to get the leather wrap detail in the scabbards if possible.

3.) Depending on the needs of the scene or story, I think it's fine if we allow Mike and Raph to stick their respective weapons in their belts behind their backs, though for most purposes having the weapons up front will serve us better to identify those two turtles.

That's all for now.

--Peter

P.S. I got a note from Sarah at 4Kids about a faxing problem (it was an empty cartridge in my machine) with the rough designs for the Purple Dragon Gang from Episode 1, which I do not have as of this writing. But I suppose I'll get them tomorrow. 

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Subj: recent designs comments
Date: Friday, July 12, 2002 12:39:35 AM
From: Peter Laird
To:   Lloyd Goldfine

Lloyd,

I got a bunch of faxes of designs today and thought I'd give you a few comments.

1.) Don's staff looks much better.

2.) I like the fact that Leo's cross-chest scabbard belt doesn't have the big metal ring in front, but it's still crossing his chest in the wrong direction. Also, my copy of the revised design still has a comment about "sword harness is a single strap connected to a steel ring in front" -- is it safe to assume that's just a leftover from the previous iteration which should have been erased?

3.) I don't know why this didn't pop out at me earlier, but it did tonight -- looking at the drawings of Saki and the Shredder, they look like they are two different people: One muscular and broad (Shredder) and one significantly less so (Saki). The difference isn't SO radical that we can't make it work in the show, and I'm not suggesting that we redraw either design. However, it did make me wonder -- should we have them actually BE two different (exoskeleton) bodies? Why couldn't our little evil Saki Utrom have both a Saki AND a Shredder body? If we did allow this, I could see it making for some cool eerie scenes -- for example, a big battle between the Shredder and the Turtles ends with him getting his head (or arm, or leg, or whatever) cut off... yet later, his Foot minions see him back in the Foot HQ as Saki -- COMPLETELY UNHARMED! Just a thought.

I haven't read the script for episode 5 yet... hope to do that tomorrow.

--Peter