Watch Some Ninja Turtles Get Absolutely Wrecked in the Opening of the Rise of the TMNT Movie

Watch Some Ninja Turtles Get Absolutely Wrecked in the Opening of the Rise of the TMNT Movie

Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles always caught a bit of a rap from old-school TMNT fans for its focus on hijinks rather than particularly serious adventures for the most part. Let this opening sequence from the show’s new movie prove, however, that’s not always the case.

Ahead of the film’s release on Netflix this Friday, the streamer has released the opening four minutes of the film, which opens not with the Rise gang of goofy teen turtles as we know from the show, but in a post apocalyptic future where, uh… half of them are already dead, and the rest of them aren’t looking too hot.

And neither’s New York City, for that matter.

Following the perspective of remaining turtles Leo and Mikey’s student, Casey Jones (played by Haley Joel Osment), we get to see just how terribly wrong everything’s gone for our heroes in a future timeline where the alien Krang have completely ravaged the world. And it’s surprisingly grim for a show mostly known, tonally at least, for silly fun and only occasional seriousness. It’s not bloody, but it’s brutal — the Krang are just straight up disintegrating people, there’s bodies on spikes, and that’s even before you get to the part where you watch the future Mikey tragically sacrifice himself to send Casey into the past. And Leo, left alone to make a hero’s final stand? It’s more like a hero’s final step, because he just gets got by a Krang laser while a temporally-tumbling Casey looks on in horror.

It’s an opening that goes hard to say the least! Sure, it’s not the first time we’ve seen Turtles mortally wounded in the line of ninja-duty, but it’s a pretty quick way to get people on board with Rise of the TMNT: The Movie being a much more grave adventure for this incarnation of the turtles than some might have expected. RIP Future Turtles, you had some cool designs.

Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie hits Netflix August 5.

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