Turtles Forever

Turtles Forever is a 2009 American animated superhero film that is a crossover between two different incarnations of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise. The plot follows the Turtles of the 2003 animated television series as they team up with the Turtles of the 1987 television series to save the multiverse from the wrath of Ch’Rell, the Utrom Shredder of the 2003 television series. Directed by Roy Burdine and Lloyd Goldfine and written by Goldfine, Rob David, and Matthew Drdek, it was produced in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the characters while also serving as the finale to the 2003 television series.
Turtles Forever aired on The CW4Kids on November 21, 2009.
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles watch a video broadcast of warriors who look like them fighting the Purple Dragons on TV. The Turtles break into the Purple Dragons' HQ and discover that their "imposters" are actually alternate versions of themselves. The teams escape together.
The 1987 Turtles landed there after fighting their Shredder and Krang over mutagen in the Technodrome. During the battle, the dimensional teleporter malfunctioned, sending them all to the 2003 dimension. Checking recent tremor reports, the Turtles find the Technodrome, only to have to battle an army of Foot Soldiers led by Bebop and Rocksteady.
1987 Shredder sees the two Turtle teams and theorizes that another Shredder might exist in this dimension. Ch'rell, the Utrom Shredder, is on an icy asteroid where he was banished. 1987 Shredder and Kang beam Ch'rell to the Technodrome and revive him from the block of ice he was frozen in, but find him too insane for an alliance and try to vivisect him. However, Ch'rell's adopted daughter Karai, who had been monitoring his exile, breaks into the Technodrome and frees him, declaring the weapon's technology property of the Foot Clan.
While tracking the Technodrome, the Turtles and their master Splinter are attacked by Hun and the Purple Dragons, who want their mutagen. During the fight, Hun is accidentally exposed to it and turns into a mutant turtle. He wanders until coming upon the Technodrome, now under the control of Ch'rell, who takes Hun back into his service.
Ch'rell and Karai begin rebuilding the Technodrome with help from the Cyber Foot. Ch'rell and Karai use Utrom science to revise the Technodrome with the combined technology having been used to make Ch'rell's new Shredder body and create new Foot-Bots. Analyzing the mutagen that affected Hun, they reverse-engineered it to transform Cyber Foot into Mutant Foot Soldiers. Using the trans-dimensional portal, Ch'rell learns that there are many parallel universes filled with Ninja Turtles. Hun, Bebop and Rocksteady are dispatched alongside an army of Utrom Foot-Bots to capture the Turtles by breaking into their lair. The lair begins crumbling, forcing the Turtles to use their dimensional portal projector to escape into the 1987 universe while Splinter is captured by Hun.
While the Turtles are preparing for their fight, they discover that Shredder has started attacking the 2003 universe with the upgraded Technodrome and the Mutant Foot Soldiers. Casey Jones and April O'Neil try to hold the enemy off before the Turtle teams arrive. After entering the Technodrome to find Splinter, they are captured by Ch'rell, who plans to wipe out every version of the Ninja Turtles across the multiverse by destroying them in their source dimension, "Turtle Prime". By scanning the eight turtles' DNA, he finds the dimension, but the Turtles themselves are saved by Karai, who has started to question Ch'rell's goals. The turtles are joined by April and Casey, but realize that Ch'rell has started his plans and their dimension is being erased.
After a fight with the Dragons and Hun which results in their erasure, the Turtles escape to Turtle Prime, where they encounter their prime counterparts. The twelve Turtles team up and are joined by Splinter, Karai, 1987 Shredder, and Krang against Ch'rell. During the battle, Ch'rell's exo-suit grows giant, but proves to be vulnerable to the Technodrome's laser beam. Utrom Shredder seizes the Prime Turtles and attempts to destroy them and the entire multiverse, but the 1987 Turtles break his balance and save the Prime Turtles. Bebop unknowingly reactivates the Technodrome's laser beam, which vaporizes Ch'rell. With their foe defeated and their worlds restored, the two turtle teams and their allies return to their respective worlds, while the Prime Turtles decide to go get some pizza.
In the real world, Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman put the finishing touches on the first issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, hopeful that the book will sell. They then go out for pizza.
Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman make voiceover cameos as themselves.
Additional voices by Jason Griffith, Sean Schemmel, Bruce Falk, and Matthew Piazzi.
None of the original voice cast from the 1987 cartoon series reprised their roles, but the original music from the show was not used in this special. In the actors' case, the original voice cast are members of SAG-AFTRA, which 4Kids did not have a contract with. For the score, most of the music from the 1987 series was owned at the time by that series' producer, Fred Wolf Films, and would require a license fee to be used in the show. For a cost-effective solution, the special used many of the productions' frequent talents and used their in-score team to make a soundtrack reminiscent of the original series.
Fathom Events originally planned a special event to commemorate the franchise's 25th anniversary to theatrically release Turtles Forever across the United States on October 29, 2009, with plans for an introduction "hosted" by the Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello and Michelangelo themselves, followed by a documentary by Peter Laird about how he and Kevin Eastman created the characters with rare original comic book art, archival pictures and all-new interviews. However, the inability by Fathom to reach an agreement with 4Kids Entertainment and Mirage Studios led to the event's cancellation.
An edited version of the movie was released on July 11, 2009, worldwide on TV. The film was then released on July 29 in New Zealand, Australia, and Canada. In other countries, the film aired on The CW as part of their Saturday morning The CW4Kids lineup on November 21, as part of a 25th anniversary celebration which featured a top-10 episode countdown preceding the film's television premiere. In the United States, an uncut version aired from October 31 to November 14 in a form where three weekly 26 minute episodes were shown in a half-hour slot per week.
The uncut version of the film later appeared on the CW4Kids's website on November 16, 2009, which includes 8 minutes of footage cut from the original version that aired on TV. The edited version was released on non-anamorphic widescreen DVD on August 24, 2010 in North America from Nickelodeon/Paramount Home Entertainment. This same edited version was included on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003): The Ultimate Collection DVD released on July 25, 2023 in North America. The uncut anamorphic widescreen version was later released in 2011 on DVD in the PAL DVD regions (2 and 4). There are currently no plans for an American release of the uncut anamorphic version on home video.
The edited version of the movie (which was used for some TV airings and the Region 1 DVD release) removed several additional scenes which remain intact in the "uncut" version of the movie. Some of those key scenes include:
Turtles Forever received mixed to positive reviews from fans and critics. Alan Ng of Film Threat gave the film 5/10, calling the film "incredibly dated" and the lack of connection felt towards the different sets of Turtles, with "the 1987 crew [...] a little more mature than their 2003 counterparts". The review from DVD Talk called Turtles Forever a "mostly forgettable endeavour" and said that the "cheap shots [against the 1987 Turtles] are pathetic and get old immediately".