Turtles in Time: Waxwork Completes John Du Prez’s “Ninja Turtles” Film Score Trilogy with Debut Release

TMNT3 CD
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While Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fever may have been cooling a bit by the release of the green gang’s third film in 1993, the music to their motion pictures was still going strong. Waxwork Records, which debuted composer John Du Prez’s scores to the first two films in 2018 and 2021, now offers the premiere release of his work for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III.

For the third go-round, the space-time continuum goes wild when an enchanted scepter makes April O’Neil (Paige Turco, reprising her role from the second film) switch places with a prince from 17th century feudal Japan. Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello and Raphael use that scepter to go back in time and rescue her, getting caught up in a battle between a local warlord and a village fighting for freedom. The resulting film is a bit of a mixed bag: All Effects Company’s work on the Turtle design doesn’t hold a candle to the work Jim Henson’s Creature Shop performed for the first two films; but fans welcomed the return of both Elias Koteas (as Turtle ally Casey Jones) and Corey Feldman (the voice of Donatello) to the cast after being absent for the previous feature.

After the first two film’s soundtracks featured an increasingly brief amount of score, the companion album to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III featured only one track by Du Prez (a former member of U.K. pop group Modern Romance), robbing fans the opportunity to dive into his unique approach to this film’s score. (While still mixing electronic and orchestral elements, Du Prez here moved away from the thematic material of the first two films, in keeping with the new film’s different tone and setting.) Now, nearly three decades later, that omission is fixed with the premiere score release courtesy of Waxwork. Like its predecessors – which are also now back in print – it’ll be available on CD and LP – this time on a 180-gram multicolored “time scepter” platter – and features all-new cover artwork by Kevin Eastman, the co-creator of the original Turtles comic series.

You can order the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III score from Waxwork below.

John Du Prez, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Waxwork, 2023) (CD / LP)

  1. Japan 1603
  2. Casey Jones & The Honor Guards
  3. Norinaga Castle
  4. Good Hair Day
  5. Kappa Battle
  6. Mud Wrestling
  7. Kite Flying
  8. Village Attack
  9. Fire & Love
  10. Fools & Villains
  11. Show Down
  12. Going Home
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Mike Duquette
Mike Duquette

Mike Duquette (Founder) was fascinated with catalog music ever since he was a teenager. A 2009 graduate of Seton Hall University with a B.A. in journalism, Mike paired his profession with his passion through The Second Disc, one of the first sites to focus on all reissue labels great and small. His passion for reissues turned into a career, having written at and worked for all three major catalogue music labels and contributing to Allmusic, Billboard, Discogs, City Pages and Ultimate Classic Rock. He's penned liner notes for Verve, Chess, Mondo and Soul Music Records.

Born and raised in New Jersey, Mike lives in Astoria, Queens with his wife, a cat named Ravioli, twin daughters and a large yet tasteful collection of music.

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