If you left Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem before its end credit scene, turn off your phone, get back in your car, and head back to the theater. What you missed was not just a tease for the future of the franchise, but a crucial ending to the film’s story.
But, if you can’t go back to see the movie again, we’ll talk about it here, and what it means for the future.
After the film’s main ending—where the Turtles take off their masks and go to high school with April—we get some animated credits followed by the true ending of the movie. In it, we see that all of the Turtles have fully embraced their individuality and are thriving in school. Michaelangelo is having fun with the improv group. Donatello is hanging out with his anime friends. Raphael has joined the wrestling team to channel some of that rage—and Leonardo and April are onto the next investigation.
They’re looking into TCRI, the company that had captured and was milking the Turtles for their blood. Leo and April reveal that the company disappeared after the Superfly incident, and they are investigating where they went and what they were doing. At this point, Leo awkwardly asks April to the prom and the movie shifts there, only to back out and reveal that TCRI (which stands for Techno Cosmic Research Institute in the Turtles universe) is spying on the Turtles.
Specifically, it’s Cynthia Utrom (Maya Rudolph) watching, and she mentions that the Turtles, being as they’re now out in public and in school, are not going to be hard to find, but might be hard to stop. They then decide to unleash a new option and we get the reveal of none other than Shredder, the Turtles’ most iconic villain, watching from across the city.
So yes, the Mutant Mayhem end credits scene is part sequel tease, but it’s more the actual ending of the movie. We get the crucial information about all the Turtles enjoying their new lives, we tie up the whole prom situation, and then get that peek at the future: TCRI is still out there, and Shredder is coming for them.
I think out of all of this, the thing I love most about the ending of Mutant Mayhem is the idea that the Turtles are out in the world now. They don’t need their specifically colored masks anymore. They’ve achieved the acceptance, and popularity, they dreamed of all throughout the movie. It’s something so new and fresh for the big-screen Turtles, and to see that go just a few extra scenes for each character really adds to the film.
Then there’s the TCRI stuff which is also very well integrated. We remember from the film’s very first scene that Utrom wanted Baxter Stockman’s rogue research before there were any real mutants. Later, we see that she’s been thinking about and following up on those leads ever since.
Utrom didn’t just sit idly for 15 years waiting for Stockman’s mutants to emerge. She kept busy, as evidenced by all the technology that Superfly steals from her and the reveal of her grand plan to create mutants as military weapons, hence the milking machine. So there are plenty of places to go from there.
One thing that’s left a bit more vague is Shredder’s origin. Is he a recruit of TCRI or, maybe, one of their creations? That would be different from the usual Shredder stuff but also fit into this world—I’m sure we’ll find out in the sequel. All of these seem like very exciting places for a sequel to go.
Did you catch the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles end credit scene? Are you excited for the sequel? Let us know below.
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