We all know the drill by this point. 39 years and a baker’s dozen reboots later, it would be weird if we didn’t. Donatello does machines. Raphael is rude, but cool. Michelangelo huffs paint out of a sock in the bathroom of a Greyhound station. It’s all pretty boilerplate.
And then there’s Leonardo, the leader of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Team management is pretty much what makes him unique, along with “using one to two swords to stab people” and “wearing blue.”
But with so many versions of the character existing across many, many reboots, it’s only natural that some Leonardos lead more effectively than others. In 1990, the first big screen Leo led his brothers into a battle that ended with their adversary, Shredder, being thrown from the top of a building, landing in the back of a garbage truck, and being compacted by pneumatically-powered steel. Normally, when a group of teenagers and their dad do that kind of thing, it ends with a pretty sick true crime documentary on Netflix and a hasty intervention by Social Services. In this case, it led to three sequels of disparate quality and seemingly no guilt or remorse on the part of the turtles. That’s no coincidence, that’s just fine leadership. Let’s take a look at how the other Leonardos stack up.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)
Would we help him throw a strange man in a trash compactor: Yes.
Why? Putting aside his studious, dedicated nature and his dedication to justice? The Leonardo of 1990’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was the original – the only – Leonardo in history that took his brothers on an adventure which ended in a strange man being thrown off of a roof and into a trash compactor. He’s the only one whose quiet dignity and perseverance, at some level, convinced relative-stranger Casey Jones to say “Oops” and hit the thingy that then crushed that strange man in a pile of trash. If you were in that same situation, can you honestly say that you’d know better than Casey Jones? Than the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Of course not. That would be hubris.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Secret of the Ooze (1991)
Would we help him throw a strange man in a trash compactor: No we would not.
Why? Because it’s got the stink of a setup all over it. Think about it: Leonardo shows up for his second movie in two years, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Secret of the Ooze. All of a sudden, he’s not using his swords as much anymore. In fact, none of the turtles are. They’re behaving strangely. Lighter than before. They’re definitely not doing any permanent damage, and they’ve even started mentoring a troubled youth.
Now you listen, and you listen close: People – or turtles – who change that drastically overnight aren’t doing it for no reason. They’re doing it because they want character witnesses to tell a judge that they’re not so bad. They’re feeling the heat from Johnny Law and they’re looking for a sneaky way out. If a former stabbing enthusiast-turned-pillar of the community tells you to push a guy off a roof, you can bet dollars to donuts that his next request is going to be “get your fingerprints on these katanas real quick, would you?”
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: Turtles in Time (1993)
Would we help him throw a strange man in a trash compactor: Absolutely.
Why? Because we appreciate dedication.
Not a lot of actors elected to return for all three of the original Ninja Turtles movies, but Brian Tochi – the guy who voiced Leonardo – did. That’s the sort of loyalty that you want in a leader. You don’t want the kind of guy who turns tail and vamooses just because Vanilla Ice shows up on set and it seems more and more likely that he was invited. You definitely don’t want a guy who jets when he finds out that all of the turtle costumes for Turtles in Time look like they were made out of watermelons that somebody put out a bunch of cigarettes on. You want a George Patton type, having a staring contest with an enemy aircraft piloted by Tokkha and Rahzar as it bears down on him, firing his service revolver into its roaring engines. You want a guy who won’t run.
For three straight movies, Tochi didn’t run. That’s a real hero turtle in our book.
TMNT (2007)
Would we help him throw a strange man in a trash compactor: Yes, but not because of his leadership.
Why, then? Because the animation style from TMNT aged like the main character from Jack, and it feels like seeing one of the characters from that movie walking towards you on a roof would trigger some sort of panic reflex. No court on Earth would convict you – it would technically be a mercy killing – but the experience would haunt you forever.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)
Would we help him throw a strange man in a trash compactor: Yes, but again, not because of his leadership.
Why, then? Because he’s an eight-foot bulletproof lizard monster who carries swords around in public and he crushes cars with his body. When a guy like that tells you to throw someone off a building, the best thing you can do is hope that he won’t ask you to do it again to another guy once you’re done.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016)
Would we help him throw a strange man in a trash compactor: No.
Why? Oh, we’ll tell you why.
When the Leonardo of Out of the Shadows finds out that there’s an anti-mutagen capable of turning him and his brothers into regular human beings, what does he do? Trust his team, his family, with the agency to control their own bodily autonomy? Accept with grace the things he can’t control, allowing the universe to unfold with each turtle living as he sees fit?
No. He tells Donatello to hide the goo’s fantastic properties from Mikey and Raph. What’s worse, he does it for the most selfish reason of all: Because the movie needs a B-plot. That sort of mindset is how we got Thor taking a bath in a cave for 20 minutes in Avengers: Age of Ultron, and we’re not going to prison for it.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023)
Would we help him throw a strange man in a trash compactor: Yes.
Why? Mostly because he doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would ask you to. Real leadership is knowing that just because you can involve people in a conspiracy to crush a man, doesn’t mean you should. If someone asked the crew of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood if they’d cut off their toes for their boss, they’d probably feel safe saying ‘yes,’ just because they’d feel comfortable in the knowledge that he’d never want them to. The same goes for the Leonardo of Mutant Mayhem. He’s a kinder, gentler reptilian assassin.
