Let’s all agree, the new Ninja Turtles design in Michael Bay’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles look bad. But as bad as they may be, they could have been far, far worse.

Bay met with several visual effects houses who each pitched their own interpretation of the heroes in a half shell. Concept artist Anthony Francisco from Illusion Industries released his rejected artwork for the film and while they look closer to a turtle, they also look like ass.

I mean, how hard is it to follow the original design of the ninja turtles which is already perfect? Why must you make them look so horrible? Basically, the version we got in the movie is the best we can do– which makes me sad. So very sad. Check out the concepts in the gallery below.