The Future of the Turtles

“Unlike Rome, New York has never learned the art of growing old by playing on all its pasts.  Its present invents itself, from hour to hour, in the act of throwing away its previous accomplishments and challenging the future” (1343)

I understood this passage from de Certeau’s “Walking in the City” to mean that the beauty of New York comes from the idea that this city is able to reinvent itself and constantly push itself to be more.  It’s able to move on from the past and build on it to create something new, therefore moving towards the future.

With the past in mind, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles may bring about nostalgia among all of us.  Did you know that there is a new movie based on this franchise in the works produced by Michael Bay?  However, he has said that he’s changing it from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, to simply Ninja Turtles.  This seemed to cause a mild uproar among fans who have grown up with TMNT and who have seen TMNT reproduced over and over on the big screen, cartoons, a new generation’s cartoon, comic books, etc.  Changing it to Ninja Turtles changes the identity of the characters and of the franchise.  I know fans who have criticized Bay’s reproduction by saying that he should just create a whole new story and universe instead of making such a drastic change to something that is already so established.  However, I think de Certeau would say that these fans are too set on the past.  They need to look to and challenge the future.  Bay is taking the past and tweaking it to build on a future picture of the franchise.