Animorphs

Yeah, Avatar doesn't really present the horror of war. While there are definitely some war themes and it's much more serious than most childrens' cartoons, at its heart, it's still an idealistic childrens' story where most of the horror and devastation of war happens offscreen, our heroes can prevail without compromising their moral center, and no major character - not even the villains - ever dies*

edited 15th Sep '13 2:35:51 PM by TobiasDrake

That's the one thing I really hated about ATLA. After killing probably thousands over the course of the series, Aang suddenly decides to become nonviolent on the one guy who actually deserves it, even after his reincarnated selves tell him not too. But you can't have anyone die on screen, can you?

I think the closest ATLA comes to showing the horrors of war is that one moment in The Avatar State when they point out all the injured veterans. But none of that really shows up in the main series.

Anyway, there are books aimed at kids which depict war, but I can't recall anything quite like Animorphs.

I would agree that The Hunger Games is similar in the line between right and wrong becoming blurred and showing the horror of war. I like HG too, probably for reasons similar to why I like Animorphs. The Hunger Games might not count as being adult, but it seems like it's definitely on a higher reading level than Animorphs so it's not quite the same.

The Hunger Games is certainly better than many parts of Animorphs - the series was of very variable quality - but they both seem to fall into the general category of "teen fiction" in terms of the primary audience they're directed at.

Hunger Games falls apart for me after the first book, but there are a lot of Animorphs books I never want to read again, so I think it evens out.

Any thoughts on where Adam and Ifi are these days?

I follow Ifi on tumblr, so she's definitely still alive.

Link? I might be interested in it, and in any web presence Adam might have.

She is 'pinkrobotgirl'.

There is actually a small but... fierce animorphs fandom on tumblr.

There are several ways to interpret that, most of which make me wary.

this will be a bit of an unusual request: after seeing in the WMG page for animorphs that "carry on wayward son" can fit as Tobias's theme, I started to try to think of fitting themes for the other characters, I thought of "outsider" from the resident evil apocalypse for Rachel, (which I think fits her self destructive tendencies) and maralyn manson's "sweet dreams" for Cassie, which is fitting for her, ( ultimately destructive), compassion. For david, i think celldwellers "own little world" fits his narcisitic personality Anyone have any ideas for themes for the other characters?

Can we revitalize this thread? Animorphs deserves it.

I hope to see a well done TV series of Animorphs one day. I think an animated series would work best.

But we did get an tv show back in the day.

Yep, it's a shame they never made one.

I figure the trick would be finding a network that would be willing to show the darker aspects of the character arcs and universe without fear or meddling to tone it down or making it more idealistic in it's hero/villain conflict. We've been getting a little more of that these days, but they're still cautious. For every Adventure Time is a show CN sabotages because it's too serious.

edited 4th Jun '14 9:38:38 PM by KnownUnknown

I think a live action tv show that doesn't shy away from scary stuff ( like Walking dead or Supernatural) could work. Problem is, animorphs is "kids books"

Yeah, an animated series would have to tone down the violence for sure. Unless it was a gritty anime-esque series, but good luck getting something like that produced.

Still, I feel like an animated series has a higher chance for success. Live action might fall into the pitfalls of the first. Face it, without a decent budget there's no way they can pull off some of the things in the book. The animals themselves would look awkward unless they have some really good CGI.

Animation is also REALLY expensive, so I don't think it's gonna happen any time soon.

I see pros and cons for both sides,

Animation, Pros: more room for creative effects. (relatively) cheaper, which leaves room for using the budget for other things to enhance the show. Cons: Animation wouldn't "suck the viewer in" as much as live action, more likely to fail due to Animation Age Ghetto

Live Action:Pros: allows for more nuanced acting. the subtle unscripted things that cannot be captured in animation (subtle facial expression changes are more important than youd think) allows for more improvisation, thereby making it more "real" Cons:considering this is sci fi,with an established way of working, i can imagine it would be incredibly expensive to do right

the only thing I, personally, think animation would be superior, would be the morphing sequences. I would imagine that would be similar to Dead Space Downfall

edited 6th Jun '14 2:47:31 PM by dontcallmewave

I get the feel from the books that the tv show was supposed to be animated. Or they could remake it live action if they can get the dialog and characters right.

With the technology of today, you could do a downright amazing live-action reboot of Animorphs.

It all comes down to money. The technology is there, but to do it right, it would be expensive.

Not to mention Animorphs was very timelocked in the 90s; the Animorphs would have been TOAST with more pervasive recording tech.

Maybe it'd be better as a film.

I could actually kind of see a film doing a massive composite plot. It has bits and pieces from the first few books, with events shuffled around in terms of placement in the plot. It could start with finding Elfangor, then jump to the plotline with Chapman from Rachel's first book, then jump back to the doomed infiltration of the Yeerk pool from #1 - with our heroes realizing they're more outgunned than they thought and Tobias stuck as a hawk. The Stinger could have Cassie start to dream about Ax.

Movie #2 could involve them finding Ax while Tobias slowly goes nuts from the whole "trapped as a bird" thing, before he finally bonds with Rachel and Ax and starts growing as a person. With less obligation to really stick to the precise way the series ran, they could even skip head to The Pretender and make it a big Tobias + Ax movie... though just because I like that plot, it could also involve Jake getting Yeerk'd and dive into The Capture. Jake could see a glimpse of The Crayak in the climax, setting up for another future plot.

Movie #3 could be the David movie - established as it is that Ax is there and the secret war against the Yeerks is ongoing. It could kinda sorta fuse the two David plotlines together and have the main David plot be manipulated from behind the scenes by the Crayak.

Etc. That's just off the top of my head.

The downside is it would take a lot of movies to make decent headway into the series, unless you were to really start skipping around. Composite plots can only take you so far - many of the later plots only really work because of themes set up by previous books, even just the idea that the Animorphs have been fighting the Yeerks for a long time.

I think the chronicals would work best as movies. Especial the andalite chronicals.

If there's only one Chronicles movie, it has to be Hork-Bajir. I mean, that one would work even in the absence of movies about the actual Animorphs. (Ellimist would work not at all as a film. But it would make one kickin' Neil Gaiman comic.)

I was looking at the NYT book review over the weekend and saw a review of a book of poetry called Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals. The review mentioned and briefly quoted the following poem from the book.