Teen Titans (2003)

I really don't expect it to be different than her usual behavior. She will just be all smiley and positive and so glad to meet Robin's parent and overall contrast comedically with Batman's attitude.

Pretty much. Overall they would get along fine all things considering Batman's usual interactions with people including his love ones. He's not really good at showcasing positive emotion but he still cares.

Just a thought but after the events of ‘The End’ how long do you think it would have taken Slade to regain all of the power that he had lost after ‘Aftershock’? By which I mean having a variety of secret hideouts at his disposal, a vast army of robotic commandos at his command, along with brutish monsters like Cinderblock and Plasmus, and a numerous array of technologically advanced weaponry within his arsenal

At Wondercon last week, TTG! producer Michael Jelenic said he "can almost guarantee" this version of the Titans are going to come back.

Outside of this, been hearing some wiki's have put up new info, but I doubt it's real because look at the date.

No. It's done.

As much as I enjoyed it, maybe it's time to move on.

I'll bet you anything that more than a handful of TTG haters would beg to differ.

That said, I honestly agree with you. What more can we do with the '03 Titans?

Besides, aren't we going to get season 3 of Young Justice eventually?

Wait. It's it April Fools tomorrow?

Right, they got us.

And yeah, with Young Justice coming, we don't really need TT.

I should point out the Tweet I posted about the panel was from last weekend, so it wouldn't be tied in with April Fools. So, there is a want from the producers to come back to these Titans or they know there is fan want.

And I'd have to agree with y'all, this series ended on a pretty conclusive note. Terra's arc had it's conclusion, most of the villain's are on ice, the only thing I can think of is either creating new villains, or go back to Slade, who is still out there from what I can remember.

Whereas Young Justice was cancelled on a cliffhanger.

It'll be Teen Titans Go!: Electric Boogaloo.

x2 What you said. Writting wise there isn’t much more the show can offer, especially when the quality of said cartoon started to dip by season 5. Even though I’m not the hugest fan of the show I will say it made the right decision in just ending it now instead of continuing on with episode that isn’t as good as the early season.

Plus lets face it, there is going to be plenty of Teen Titans shows to enjoy from once that DC streaming service comes out (Young Justice Outsiders and Titans being the prime examples) so why bother reviving the cartoon?

That is the first time I've heard that. The Doom Patrol/Brain arc sure. If they'd ended on all of the Titans gathering to take down all of the villains sur.e

The last episode had Terra's resurrection a mystery, Beast Boy having to "accept" that she simply didn't want to be the Terra he believed she was, Red X was never unmasked, Slade disappeared and his last appearance was taunting Beast Boy over never getting Terra back.

Trouble in Tokyo existed only to get Robin and Starfire together.

Because the show was so episodic I'm sure there's plenty of comic storylines they could adapt. However, given the lack of action cartoons of late, I doubt Teen Titans 03 would have much of a place on the network. Especially 5-8 years after the fact.

The last episode is a pretty conclusive ending - an Open Ending, yes, but one that deals with that in a fairly definitive way. The fanbase by and large interpreted it as a "mystery" or a "cliffhanger" because they wanted exact answers that the show was definitively telling them didn't matter, but there was resolution.

In any case, my response to "we're totally bringing back the 2003 Titans" is a mix of not-really-surprise and, just generally, "why?" Teen Titans 2003 is quickly becoming the new Superfriends, a largely inaccurate adaptation that is incredibly well remembered and thus overtakes most new interpretations of the characters - DC has been making new adaptations of the Titans as similar to the 2003 show as they can for a while now, and that it includes TTG of course.

They're doing the thing again where they overemphasize something that worked a long time ago and not focusing on the actual brand they have, which has long been one of DC's biggest problems as a company. How are they going to do it? An animated movie series, putting their current movies on the backburner? An animated tv show, putting Young Justice on the backburner? A comic that nobody is going to read?

edited 1st Apr '18 7:48:06 AM by KnownUnknown

I hear what you're saying, but 12-4 year old me is saying "screw that, just tell us already."

Open Ending's are not fun or inviting. It did not feel conclusive. They didn't even beat the monster they were fighting in that episode, which never really got any explanation anyway. Why is Terra back? Why does she not want to remember? Does she remember and she's hiding it, does she not remember and Beast Boy is genuinely frightening her, or is this a suspiciously similar lookalike? Slade doesn't seem to know either.

As for overemphasizing on 03 instead of focusing on the brand, CN is making a third of Young Justice, and DC has been doing the New 52-esque Titans films.

edited 1st Apr '18 7:50:38 AM by Soble

I mean, it's entirely YMMV on whether Open Endings are engaging. They've been a staple of storytelling - including animated series (Justice League as one, as did Justice League Unlimited to a lesser extent, for example) - for hundreds of years, so they clearly work.

In this case, it works as a resolution because the entire theme of the episode is "live and let live." Beast Boy doesn't know what happened with Terra, but Terra just wants to live her life, so Beast Boy learns to accept it and moves on. The idea is clearly "you don't need those exact answers, and going out of your way to get them isn't going to give you closure," with Beast Boy accepting that she's alive and that he's on his way to a new stage in his life.

It's basically him wrestling with maturity, and then ending the season - and the show - deciding to embrace it. Which also concludes the character arc he got that season, and was probably intended to hit the audience with Beast Boy being a surrogate for them. It's a pretty well built ending.

I - cynically speaking - have always just figured the writers underestimated their fanbase's desire to see their attachments to the characters work out as perfectly as they wanted, causing "they didn't do what I wanted -> it ended on a cliffhanger!" to be come memetic. But as with most cases where a minor backdraft like that becomes memetic, it's arguably more the fans' fault than theirs.

Also keep in mind that this was the 2003 Teen Titans show. They almost never explained their oneshot bad guys.

edited 1st Apr '18 8:06:33 AM by KnownUnknown

I suppose I can't argue with that.

I think he monster was just part of the metaphor (things change), his defeat wasn't that important.

Comics based on cartoon had her brother, Geo-Force show up. He saw Terra, decided she looks happier than ever and left without approaching her.

03 Titans is already a product of its time, stuck in a weird place between silly fauxnime and serious action, from when other shows (though not really that many) were doing it at that time, and other superhero shows have done comedy without half-assed animation gimmicks (see: Batman: the Brave and the Bold, Justice League Action) and even actual anime straight from the actual creators (see: Batman Ninja). The current crop of Titans movies are more in spirit of the comics and the rest of the animated DC verse.

Infact, I can't believe I didn't think of it that way earlier: the 03 Titans are the Superfriends of the new Millennium.

Yeah, I listened to a podcast with Glen Murakami about a year ago, and he strikes me as a very minimalist storyteller, only using the bare essentials to portray characters and their stories (lack of secret identities and double lives, metaphors and analogues, etc.) So, even if the show had more episodes back in 2006 or they've gotten revived (which I doubt), it doesn't necessarily mean any of the things left in air (Terra's resurrection, Red X's identity, Slade, that one briefcase from the racing episode, etc.) will be touched upon. They are concepts that he, as well as the other producers, aren't interested in detailing.

edited 1st Apr '18 2:59:35 PM by GamerSlyRatchet

Well, unlike the Superfriends, Teen Titans Go could get away with stuff they couldn't in the 70's due to Saturday Morning Cartoon restrictions.

Teen Titans also didn't so thoroughly define a character in such a negative way that said depiction became the common belief in the non-comicbook public for years.

I mean, maybe Beast Boy, but he's since had better interpretations in both the animated movies and Young Justice.

And even 2003 Beast Boy had his moments, like the Penultimate episode of the 5th season, where he pretty much took over as leader and took down the Brotherhood of evil (while reminding people that he's actually a Veteran hero like Robin, though I bet a lot of people didn't buy it).

I never watched the credits of Trouble in Tokyo.

Yeah. The credits for the Japanese version make a lot less sense in english. It's actually pretty hilarious.

Beast Boy's practically a non-character in YJ. It doesn't help that we don't even get to see him join the team.

I'd definitely say this depection of him is better. While the balance isn't quite as good as say, JL's Flash in terms of balancing comedy and pathos it's still pretty good.

The reason I don't really want this Teen Titans back (though I do have fond memories of it) is because unlike YJ which has a big underlying narriative this one doesn't (unless you count Robin and Starfire getting together - which, yeah, happens in the movie), and while YJ's made some missteps I am a lot more interested in where their main plot is going than what a TT continuation would look like.

The above leads me on a tangent I just thought of, do y'all think the individual Starfire focused episodes have a good enough focus on her to where you are fine she was short-changed on having her own season length arc, unlike her teammates?

I can only remember four episodes where Starfire had focus (Trog, her transformation, and the two Blackfire episodes), whereas Robin had two season length arcs dedicated to Slade, Raven with Trigon, Cyborg with Brother Blood, and Beast Boy with the Brotherhood of Evil.

You could probably make that argument. The fact that her feud with Blackfire is relegated to side episodes is probably why, and I'm guessing that's the case because a season spent in space would be too much of a commitment.