Recently Michael Bay made some comments about the upcoming reboot of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that has fans understandably furious.

Bay, who’s a producer on the Nickelodeon project through his Platinum Dunes, said that their mutated reptiles would actually be an “alien race,” leading many to assume that these guys were actually going to turn the Ninja Turtles into aliens. Not the most popular thing to say, as you might imagine.

Angry fans took to the ‘net in droves to voice their fiery disapproval, and Michael Bay was quick to respond. Read what he said below.

One of the outraged is none other than Robbie Rist, the voice of Michelangelo in all three ’90s Ninja Turtle movies. He put his feelings rather bluntly in a message to Bay via TMZ, saying:

Bay responded to this and all of the fans’ anger with a simple forum post, saying:

I personally find it hard to believe that they’re actually going to make the Ninja Turtles aliens; it makes no sense. In fact, I wonder if Bay was simply misunderstood. The definition of alien is “A foreigner, especially one who is not a naturalized citizen of the country where they are living,” and so—even though Bay’s been knee-deep in alien movies with the Transformers franchise—could he have simply meant that these mutated turtles living in a New York City sewer are a foreign species of sorts? That would make more sense…unless of course you consider genetic mutation via ooze a valid method of creating “naturalized citizens.”

Then again, if that were the case one would assume Bay would have just explained that that was what he meant in his forum post.

As a lifelong fan of the franchise, though I would be fairly annoyed if they do end up making the turtles aliens, I’m a little more saddened by another part of Bay’s initial comments, where he said “When you see this movie, kids are going to believe, one day, that these turtles actually do exist…”

Most fans such as myself are 20 and 30-somethings who have been craving a Ninja Turtles movie more faithful to the much darker original comics. Yes, it makes more business sense to keep the characters and franchise popular with each new generation of kids, but what about the “kids” who have been loyal fans for multiple decades? Do they want to see another family-friendly installment or do they want the Dark Knight treatment?

In any case, I’ll wait to see how the cast plays out and how the trailers look before settling on a level of expectations for this movie.

But one thing I do know is: if they can get Sam Rockwell to reprise his role as “Guy who offers cigarettes to confused and outcast teenagers,” I’m in.

[Source: Heat Vision]