I hate to get technical but the first and original April O’Neil was Renae Jacobs, as she voiced the animated character starting in 1987, but Judith Hoag is most definitely the original live-action April O’Neil and despite not being much of a fighter in the first live action movie she had the attitude and personality of the popular reporter and longtime friend of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles down pat. Can anyone believe it’s been 30 years since that movie came out? It doesn’t feel like yesterday thankfully, but that time still flies quickly as things continue to move forward. The TMNT brand has definitely changed since Hoag’s time and her role was even taken on by a couple of different actresses throughout the years, but Judith is by far and large the woman that started it off and set the bar for how April is supposed to be represented. According to Jeremy Dick of MovieWeb there was supposed to be a 30-year anniversary but as you might have already guessed it was disrupted just as many things have been by the need to practice social distancing. Thankfully that doesn’t meant that party is shut down entirely since Judith and several others from the movie are going to attempt to hold their own pizza party via Zoom in order to celebrate three decades of Turtle-dom and give the fans something that they might want to check out.
The movie was a big hit with a lot of younger fans when it came out and while the sequels didn’t really pan out as well with a lot of people for various reasons, the first one is bound to be remembered by a lot of us for some time to come. After all it did end up introducing Casey Jones as well, with Elias Koteas taking on the role of the hockey-themed vigilante. Call me crazy but he still has my vote for the best representation of Jones since he had so much more of an edge to him than Stephen Amell, who took on the role years later. Something about the first TMNT movie was just so much better and remains so today even after all the advances in technology and special effects. Maybe it’s because the first TMNT movie wasn’t trying so hard to go over the top and were working with more practical effects and didn’t have CGI to fall back on so readily. Whatever it was there’s a good reason why the first movie is still capable of grabbing the attention of TMNT fans, and a lot of it has to do with the acting and the fact that the turtles didn’t look like nightmares brought to life.
It’s easy to give credit where it’s due when talking about the more recent movies as they’ve been able to stretch out more and expand the series just a bit, but it’s also been at the expense of the characters since April became known more sex appeal thank to Megan Fox taking the role while the turtles changed so drastically that it was hard to recognize them for a moment. The story is also something that changed, and not necessarily for the better in every way, as the fact that the Shredder became a walking death machine with an arsenal of blades and a metal exoskeleton to store them in instead of an impressive ninja with razor-sharp blades adorning his outfit. In a sense, the newer versions of the turtles and their enemies kind of just went above and beyond in a way that was a little too much, but were no doubt created to give that sense of awe that people want so badly these days. Bebop and Rocksteady actually didn’t look too bad despite what critics have said, and were more true to their origins than a number of other things were. I will admit that watching Splinter toss Shredder around was kind of satisfying, and that the fact that the turtles’ sensei was able to fight in such a convincing way was fun to see. But still, the original live action movie is where it all started and where the most impressive and satisfying April O’Neil came from.
If anyone remembers the movie also featured Corey Feldman and a few others as the voices of the turtles. Feldman played the part of Donatello, and it’s kind of a wonder if he and Elias will be in on this little celebration as well since they helped make it come to life those three decades ago. It was kind of amusing to see Casey Jones go toe to toe with Raphael considering they were both hotheads and enjoyed imposing their will on people. That Casey got the upper hand on Raphael was kind of lazy writing considering the turtle’s fighting background, but it was also kind of interesting since it showed the arrogance of the hotheaded amphibian as well. However it happens, May 23rd should be a lot of fun for fans that want to chime in.
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