(CNN) — Fact: You can’t just decide that the “Teenage MUTANT Ninja Turtles” will suddenly become aliens in an upcoming reboot and get away with it quietly.
Ticked off “TMNT” fans, including some of the original voice actors, have now forced producer Michael Bay to respond.
On Tuesday, the “Transformers” filmmaker published a statement on his website asking the outraged to calm down.
“Fans need to take a breath, and chill. They have not read the script,” Bay wrote. “Our team is working closely with one of the original creators of ‘Ninja Turtles’ to help expand and give a more complex back story. Relax, we are including everything that made you become fans in the first place. We are just building a richer world.”
This post comes after he took heat for an announcement he made at the annual Nickelodeon upfront presentation that he was making modifications to the origin story.
“Kids are going to believe one day [that] these turtles actually do exist when we are done with this movie,” Bay said last week. “These turtles are from an alien race, and they are going to be tough, edgy, funny and completely loveable.”
For those not familiar with the beloved comic books/television series/movies, the story goes that four baby turtles mutate into warriors Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo and Donatello after they fall into a sewer and hit radioactive ooze.
So now, from what we can infer, these pizza-loving mutant turtle crime-fighters are becoming edgy aliens?
You bet your nunchucks that didn’t sit well with fans.
“I am looking forward to Michael Bay remaking Care Bears except they’ll be indifferent and also technically walruses,” Bruce Arthur, a National Post sports columnist, tweeted.
“In the new ‘TMNT’ Movie, the turtles all have gluten allergies and have to eat specialty pizza prepared by their mom,” user YuckyBot tweeted.
Even voice actor Robbie Rist, who voiced Michelangelo, penned a letter to Bay, which he published on his Facebook timeline.
“I know believing in mutated talking turtles is kinda silly to begin with but am I supposed to be led to believe there are ninjas from another planet?” Rist wrote.
So did “TMNT” fans follow Bay’s advice to “chill” and let go? Of course not. No self-respecting “TMNT” fan would.
“Michael Bay wants angry ‘TMNT’ fans to ‘relax.’ You know who else seemed relaxed? The guys waiting for the premiere of ‘The Phantom Menace,'” author Blake Northcott tweeted.
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