Teenage Robot Ninja Turtles? The Technology Behind ‘TMNT 3′ Explained! [Video]

Sure, everyone may be getting all upset about the prospect of Michael Bay's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles alien-enriched live action film no longer being teenaged or mutants, but did you know that the turtles that appeared in the 1992 movie Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3 were robots? See footage exposing this horrifying truth past the jump.A YouTube video that recently surfaced via Reddit shows off the cutting edge technology of 20 years ago used to create the "lifelike" Turtles on display in the third-and-by-far-the-worst of the the live-action Turtles movies, as well as the spectacular hair of the man in control of the system. Marvel as a technician demonstrates a robot turtle's ability to make vowel shapes! Thrill at such technical explanations as "When you combine 'evil' with 'smile,' you get an evil smile!"

What's particularly odd about the video - aside from the odd party scene that happens at the end, with nearby conversations easily eavesdropped - is just how simple the high-tech system seems to be: For all the computers and hydraulic tubes, the turtles seem to be controlled using traditional puppeteering method. Sure, there's definitely something cool about the idea of remote-controlled, robot puppets... but they're still just puppets when it comes down to it. Clearly, if producer Bay and director Jonathan Liebesman really want to make an impact with the new movie, they needs to ensure that the new generation of Turtles are fully, 100 percent autonomously robotic. Or, of course, CGI; that's probably less likely to lead to some apocalyptic crossover between the Turtles and the Terminator down the line.

[Via Gizmodo]