The '90s TMNT film featured impressive live-action renditions of its titular heroes, but their suits hid an unsettling secret. Released in 1990, the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie became a financial hit, earning $202 million worldwide against a $13.5 million budget. One of the movie's highlights was the design of its four protagonists. The turtles were brought to life via actors in suits made by Jim Henson's Creature Shop. The suits were quite advanced, but they infamously broke down easily. They also required intricate inner workings, something that resulted in the masks having a potentially disturbing design detail.
The Making of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Behind the Shells documentary offered insight into the creation of the turtles' suits. In the documentary, Michelangelo's in-costume actor, Michelan Sisti, revealed that the eye slits for the actors were right beneath the turtles' eyes, which inadvertently created the illusion of the heroes being some sort of four-eyed creature, making them feel eerily akin to an H.P. Lovecraft creation. Moreover, the costumes also had a mouth hole inside the turtles' mouths (the hole was visible in the film), presumably for actors to breathe through it and be more easily understood during filming, which unwittingly added to the costumes' unsettling design.
How Knowing The Turtle Suit Secret Changes The Movie
After revealing the eye slits in the turtle suits, Sisti jokingly lamented the revelation. Yet, while his tone was playful, his response did highlight how details like that can break audience immersion. Pulling back the curtain on a film typically gives a different perspective on it; that is particularly true for projects as reliant on practical effects as the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies were. Being aware of crucial production details could prove detrimental to the viewing experience. Case in point, knowing about the eye openings may lead viewers to focus on the workings of the turtle suits, as opposed to the characters and story.
However, that may not necessarily be the general outcome of the reveal. Though being cognizant of the eye slits may understandably be detrimental to some, it may also have no effect on others. The turtle costumes were an achievement, especially for the technology available at the time of their creation. The efforts behind bringing them to life resulted in an impressively realistic outcome. As such, some viewers will most likely look past knowing where actors could see through their costumes due to the high quality of the live-action TMNT protagonists.
Why Being Inside The Turtle Suit Was Even Weirder
The suits' inner workings were odd, but wearing them was an even stranger experience for the turtle performers. The suits were incredibly advanced, being capable of realistic facial movement controlled by puppeteers from afar while the in-costume actors performed. To achieve this symbiotic relationship between actors and puppeteers, two types of suits were built: one for action sequences and another one for close-ups and dialogue scenes. The latter was filled with electronic components, which resulted in an uncomfortable experience for the physical performers. Speaking in the documentary, Michelan Sisti revealed how noisy and odd embodying the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (who are being rebooted) was:
"You've got the motor sounds that are constantly going on, you can't see. [...] And you've got the sound from your puppeteer, 'cause you can talk to him. In the other ear, you've got the sound from the common feed, which is everybody talking together. And then, you have whatever's going on in the outside world, which filters through as well. So, it's basically like being in Grand Central at rush hour with a tin can over your head."
The awkwardness of filming in the costumes was exacerbated by their considerable weight. As mentioned, two versions of the suits were created. One was performance-focused while the other was free of electronics to facilitate fight scenes. Nonetheless, the costumes were quite heavy, weighing 70 pounds each (via The Hollywood Reporter). Though it's unclear which version of the suit weighed that, filming in either one was extremely taxing on the actors, with them reportedly losing around five pounds per day. Though the challenges brought on by the suits were many, they resulted in a memorably realistic interpretation of the turtles that allowed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to become a cult classic.