dwayne, all the faces were animatronic but the bodies were people in suits. It's similar to how they did the Gorgs in Fraggle Rock. They had actors, who essentially had a helmet on with animatronic stuff on the inside and they did the physical body acting, and there were seperate actors who did the dialogue, which the puppeteer matched from far away with equipment.
But I do have the making of the ninja turtles on tape (I think it came with the second movie which I've had since I was a kid) and Splinter the rat was actually a complicated puppet, Kevin Clash (Elmo) performed him. The turtles were suits, though.
This movie looks awesome, though! I want to see it. This and transformers coming out around the same time, it's like childhood nostalgia. It will definately get alot of people watching. When they remake 80's stuff like this is make me happy that the Fraggle Rock movie willl be coming out at just the right time when everyone is hooked on these 80's franchises. ^_^