TMNT: Mutant Mayhem Director Says Don't Think Too Hard About Superfly's Gnarly Final Form [Exclusive]
The following contains spoilers for "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem."
You can't have a truly great superhero without a worthy villain for them to square off with. That's even more true when you have four beloved heroes in the form of the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." Thankfully, the long history of comics, animated shows, and movies has cemented Shredder as the arch nemesis of the heroes in a half-shell.
However, director Jeff Rowe didn't want to jump into Shredder right away, equating the villain to the "TMNT" version of Joker, who was arguably best utilized as a sequel adversary in Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight." That's why "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem" beings the turtles' life of crime-fighting with a villain known as Superfly, a fellow mutant who is leading his own squad of mutated animals like Bebop, Rocksteady, Mondo Gecko, Leatherhead, and many more.
Though Superfly is technically an original character without a history in the "TMNT" universe, he works perfectly as the first enemy the turtles have to face. As a mutant himself, he's also been shunned by humanity, but rather than hiding in a sewer, Superfly is mad enough to do something about it. The villain's plan is to build a machine that uses the effects of the mutagen known as ooze, from which all the mutants were born, to turn all Earth's creatures into mutants, thereby becoming the dominant species on the planet.
Of course, that plan goes to hell when the machine gets destroyed, but when Superfly is thrown into the glitching device in a battle that finds his mutant goons turning against him and teaming up with the turtles, it inadvertently mutates him into a terrifying, nightmare of a kaiju that takes the horrors of David Cronenberg's "The Fly" to a new level. That's exactly what director Jeff Rowe wanted, but he'd also prefer that audiences don't think too hard about the grotesque nature of this monstrous version of Superfly.
'Don't stop and think about that the horses have feelings in his legs'
After the release of "TMNT: Mutant Mayhem" earlier this week, I spoke with Jeff Rowe about a myriad of details, digging into some of the finer points of his stellar take on "TMNT." That included this gigantic final form of Superfly, which sees the mutated fly first fused with a bunch of aquatic animals, and then transformed even further when his body smashes on top of a zoo. The result is the terrifying creature you see above, but it's when you see the character in close-up shots that the true horror of his creation becomes clear.
On Superfly's massive face alone, you can see elephant and giraffe heads fused together, with the latter's body oddly wrapping around the villain's head. Meanwhile, octopus tentacles double as Superfly's hair. The rest of his body is equally as horrifying, with a bunch of horses smushed together on his legs. Plus, one of his arms has fingers made of the heads of narwhals, with their horns protruding as dangerous claws. If you stop to think about it, that's pretty gnarly, so Rowe would encourage you not to worry about it too much:
"I think at a couple points, people were like, 'Wait, is he composed of animals writhing in pain?' And I was like, 'Yeah, no, no, it's fine. You won't see it. It'll be dark. Don't worry about that.' And it does walk the fine line of don't stop and think about it. Don't stop and think about that the horses have feelings in his legs. It's a hive mind thing. Just don't think about it, do yourself a favor."
Honestly, it's kind of a brilliant escalation for the villain, whose predecessor is a mutated version of the character Baxter Stockman, which took inspiration from David Cronenberg's "The Fly." In fact, Rowe said that "more Cronenberg-like" was a note that he kept giving throughout the making of the movie.
'Let's maybe not make the animals look so pained'
In our conversation, I pointed out to Rowe that the detail that really took this monster to a disturbing level was the fact that you can occasionally see the eyes of the individual animals that make up Superfly's body (look at his face above), and they blink. Rowe elaborated:
"Yeah, the animators had fun with it. The animators really had a good time with putting pained expressions on the animals. And I would have to be like, 'Let's maybe not make the animals look so pained,' because I detest animal cruelty. I don't want to see that in the film or put that out in the world, which is also why it was important to see the animals run away at the end and know that they're okay."
Yes, even the whale who gives Superfly a huge tail is okay, falling into a huge puddle created by the havoc that the monster wreaks in the city streets. All the animals who mutated into Superfly's body are fine, folks! Don't worry about it!
"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem" is in theaters now.