#this is an anti 2012 spinter blog

[secretsocietyxmen]

The episode from TMNT 2012 that bothers me the most has got to be “The Pulverizer Returns”, or the weapon swap episode. Almost entirely due to how much the botch an amazing concept.

So, Splinter wants to impart the lesson that one should not over rely on a single weapon and learn to branch out. Weird time to teach them this, but it’s a solid ninja lesson on being adaptable. So, he makes them swap weapons and jump straight into a spar. This bothers me for a few reasons:

This is very off the cuff for a very important lesson

He doesn’t stop to make sure they actually know how to use each other’s weapons

He never actually trained them in each other’s weapons before now

Despite training together, sparring pretty much every day, and being out in the field together actually fighting, the brothers don’t seem to have any idea how to use the other’s weapons

So they fail. Epically. Then Splinter, in his infinite wisdom, tells them they have to continue to use weapons they don’t know how to fight with on their mission. They, of course, switch back when they realize that this is completely impractical and that they can’t fight like this.

When they get home with their normal weapons, Spinter gets pissed and just takes their weapons away for not following his admittedly dumb lesson. You know, the weapons they use to defend themselves against evil robots and fellow ninja? If you want your sons to learn a lesson, why not actually teach it to them?

So yeah, they messed up an admittedly cool story idea that I’d love to see be done properly. Due to the team not getting how to write actual martial arts.