The stars of the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" movie are not shy about how they really feel about director Jonathan Liebesman's movie. They all dissed the movie but sang praises for the sequel, which is directed by Dave Green.
Alan Ritchson, who plays Raphael in the franchise told Collider that Liebsman and the studio essentially shot "three different versions of the movie, for one movie," which is why the original film was a disaster.
"I got to be honest, I was a little nervous about coming back because the first run of this-the first trial run-was pretty tough," he said. "I think it was a mystery of what survived from the first shoots, into reshoots and beyond."
Pete Ploszek, who portrayed Leonardo added that the original film only made them realize what worked as far as technology and tone are concerned. He said that their new director knows how to tackle these things because he grew up loving the same characters they are now bringing to the big screen.
"Dave Green is 32. He grew up with these guys (the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles). What was communicated to us early on was how much of a fan he is, and really gets it. I think he was able to watch the first movie-like we all did as an audience-and say, okay that works, that doesn't work," he said.
As for Noel Fisher, who played Michelangelo, he said that the sequel will focus more on the turtles and delve deeper into their family dynamics.
"We really genuinely like hanging out and busting each other's balls, like brothers would," he said. "The main thing is we're (adding) more turtles into this movie."
Ritchson said that the first movie's mistakes was not entirely Liebesman's fault, since "everybody was trying to figure it out as we were going."
"And Liebesman had a vision that was different than the final movie, and different than the movie we're making today," Ritchson explained. "I think-to Dave's advantage- he desperately wants to make a love letter to the Turtles, the authors (Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird) and the fans. And there's a lot less battle to make it happen."
And Jeremy Howard, who played the fun-loving Donatello best summed up what makes the sequel even better than the first movie: "The first movie was one-third turtles, this one is two-thirds turtles."
