Unpacking the year’s most important release!!
Turtlemania!! With a new short in theaters, a new season of the animated series, a reboot of the IDW Comics series, and a scorching hot Arrow Video Limited Edition box set of the original movies, there’s no question it’s totally Turtlemania time! Join us as we celebrate the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!
Few physical releases have been as long in coming as a special edition of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and its sequels. Despite their massive mainstream and cult appeal, these movies have pretty much only had barebones home video releases.
Arrow Video’s new Limited Edition box set not only brings these beloved films to 4K UHD, but also gives them deluxe treatment with a slew of extras for the first time.
Here’s a detailed pictorial look at what’s in the box!
Sealed Views
Outer Box (Slipcover)
The set’s main box is a rigid cardboard case, which is covered by a slip (O-card). The slip has raised spot gloss accents on all four sides, highlighting titles and subheadings.
Inner Box (Slipbox)
The inner box is a sturdy slipbox which houses all the contents and features different cover art than the slipcover.
Exploring the Contents
The slipbox directly houses the three movies in individual cases, a book, and the first of three posters. (Additional contents are packed into the three cases).
Book
The squarebound booklet, designed to look like a pizza menu from the outside, is 60 pages including covers, and contains several terrific essays as well as technical information about the films and their restoration.
Reversible Poster 1
The first of three folded posters is housed directly in the slipbox. This poster is an anomaly in the set. It’s slightly larger than the other two, fitted to the slipbox rather than to the interior of a Blu-ray case. Additionally, unlike the II and III posters it does not include the new cover artwork by Florey. It would have made more sense to be parallel in size and art to the other posters, so they could be displayed as a set; this seems like an oversight.
Instead, it features the 1990 movie poster art on one side, and the “turtle kappa” manuscript art from TMNT III on the reverse.
Disc Case – TMNT (1990)
All three cases feature reversible art allowing you to choose between the classic poster or newly commissioned art. Usually it’s an easy choice for me to go with the classic designs but I love the new art (which makes the poster anomaly even more unfortunate).
Inside each movie case are some additional goodies.
The trading cards aren’t contained in a pack, but rather divided up between the three movie cases. The first film contains the cards for the four turtles as well as a set of stickers (which feature character designs from TMNT III – I moved mine to that case instead).
Notice anything weird about the cards?
That Donatello is an error card – it features an image of Leonardo!
Disc Case – TMNT II (1991)
The TMNT II movie case houses the reversible poster, Splinter and Shredder trading cards, and a business card for Keno’s employer, Roy’s Pizza.
Disc Case – TMNT III (1993)
It’s worth noting that they got the title correct – no “Turtles in Time” subtitle as other releases of the film have retroactively applied. (Turtles in Time is the name of a video game, which has often been misapplied to the movie – even by Warner Brothers).
The TMNT III case includes a reversible poster and trading cards for April and Casey.
Finally, here’s a shot of all the trading cards collected together. I opted to put these all into a sleeve together rather than have them loose across the three movies.
At the time of this publishing, you can still purchase not only this limited edition release, but Arrow Video’s exclusive version with alternate artwork.
Purchase directly from Arrow Video (4K or Blu-ray in standard or variant artwork): https://www.arrowvideo.com/p/teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-trilogy-limited-edition-4k-uhd/17348371
Purchase from Amazon (best price on standard 4K) – https://amzn.to/4s05SKX
