The upcoming Michael Bay-produced reboot of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has brushed up quite a bit of passionate discussion regarding the finer points of turtle mutation, but the comic book series co-creator Kevin Eastman is put those reservations at bay (pun intended).  Though Bay’s comments about the Turtles coming from an alien race in this new iteration got many a Ninja Turtles fans’ undergarments in a twist, director Jonathan Liebesman shot back that whatever changes they were making to the source material were coming from Eastman himself:

“Whatever mythology we’re building on or expanding is coming from that guy, Kevin Eastman’s head, who created the Turtles in the first place.  And so everything will tie in with the mythology; fans will be extremely excited with what we’re coming up with.”

Now Eastman himself has spoken a bit about the property, confidently proclaiming that Ninja Turtles is the best adaptation of the comics yet, despite its glaring lack of Vanilla Ice.  Hit the jump for more from Eastman.

kevin-eastman

The latest word on the development of the Ninja Turtles reboot came last month, when Paramount decided to delay the project in order to address script issues.  The release was pushed back from December 2013 to May 2014, but who knows if it’ll even make that date when all is said and done.  Nevertheless, Eastman seems extremely optimistic about the film, comparing it to a couple of recent success in its fighting style and visual effects angle during an interview with MTV:

"From what I've seen, it's easily the best Turtle movie yet. We're talking Raid: Redemption-style fight scenes; we're talking about epic Rise of the Planet of the Apes sort of effects."

Eastman went on to address the changes made to his source material, saying he has no problem with people wanting to put their own stamp on the characters:

"I know that Michael and his group really like [the changes] and that Paramount was supportive of that, so I think that it's great. I grew up reading Captain America and The Avengers and all that stuff, and over the course of the comic book history, since Avengers has been around, how many times has it been reinvented, reformatted, restructured, replatformed?”

As I said, development has been stalled for the time being, so depending on how long it takes the writers to get the script into tip-top shape, it may be a while until we see the reboot on the big screen.  For now, die-hard fans of the comic books can take or leave Eastman’s comments concerning the changes being made to the source material.  Go Ninja, Go Ninja, GO!