An Animorphs Movie

According to here, Universal is looking to adapt the Animorphs books into a movie (and presumably series.)

I'll admit, there could be good potential with these books if they're not watered down. I could see composite adaptations of some of the books, combining several for a packed installment. And a movie could definitely afford better FX than the infamous TV series. But will it be a compelling film deconstruction, or another YA cash grab?

edited 12th Sep '15 5:05:36 PM by Tuckerscreator

Shut up and take my money.

I hope they make the series appropriately dark and age up the protagonists a little. The main thing I'm wondering about is how they'll handle the Ellimist and Crayak.

The easy way is to not. Especially in the first movie. Conservation of fantasy is critical to suspension of disbelief in a live-action product.

Leaving them out of the first movie is one thing but they're pretty important to the series mythology. Heck, without their involvement the series never would have happened.

Having them as just enigmatic narrators at the end of the credits or that brief vision Jake gets when controlled might be enough for the first film. The only absolutely essential thing the Ellimist does to the main "humans vs. Yeerks" plot is giving Tobias back his morphing powers.

edited 12th Sep '15 6:52:55 PM by Tuckerscreator

M.Bison isn't enough to express all my yes!

...Now DON'T FUCK THIS UP LIKE NICKELODEON DID!

Yes and no. They're important in a grand cosmology sense, involved in the overarching, "God and Satan enacting their will through mortals" sort of way, but outside the specific issues they're directly involved in, it wouldn't be difficult to revise the story without them. The Yeerks' rise to power, Elfangor discovering humans on Earth, these are things that can happen on their own without being divinely motivated by sentient god-entities playing Species Chess.

The only thing an adaptation needs the Ellimist and Crayak for is if it wants to do the stories directly involving them, which are mostly standalone plots with little to no bearing on the main story anyway. They're an easy element to cut.

I love the Howlers, Super-Rachel, the Time Matrix, Back to Before, etc. as much as the next Animorphs fan, but unless we're going for an episodic adaptation like a TV series, the chances of those ever showing up are pretty slim.

Oh, yeah, there is that. That's...yeah, that's more or less impossible to write around. Huh.

edited 13th Sep '15 5:47:39 AM by TobiasDrake

I'll admit, the story I'd most want to see adapted is also one of the ones they are least likely to adapt, namely the Hork-Bajir Chronicles.

I guess this makes sense. With Hunger Games ending this year, the YA movie throne is completely vacant.

The one I most want to see adapted is one of the ones they're most likely to do, so that's awesome: the David Trilogy.

I don't see this working out well. The biggest theme is how the constant horror of war slowly robs them of their humanity and warps them into something else.

That's hard to convey in a few films. Unless they want to get in it for the long haul and make like 7 or 8.

Harry Potter was eight. Admittedly, there were seven (much longer) books, but still.

Either way, I do hope Applegate is closely involved with the whole process. I know that she felt rushed in a lot of ways, too many books were ghost written, and she was just burned out in general (especially when she started Remnants and Everworld at the same time). If she's one of the primary writers, I'll be at the theater on opening day.

There's 54 books and various supplementary stories. I think they could easily get 6 or more films out of this franchise.

True, but they're much more episodic, so you can't adapt them directly to film like Harry Potter or the Hunger Games did. The best way would be a tv series, but we all know how that turned out when they tried it. I imagine they'd probably have more luck these days, but I guess they decided to go with films instead.

You could always do an Adaptation Distillation. I was thinking about this a while back and came up with several movies that basically mashed up the plots of several books. I'll post it later since I don't have access to a computer right now.

I can see the first six books being combined. Elfangor lands, gives the kids their powers, the kids rescue Ax and he joins the team, they try an attack on the Yeerk pool but fail, Jake gets controlled and Tobias trapped in hawk morph, they're taken prisoner at the Pool ship where Marco learns the truth about his mother, they escape, Jake's freed, tease of Crayak, end first film.

It will need a Pragmatic Adaptation, to be sure. However, the books are fairly short which lends will for each film covering multiple books easily enough, but some interplay between the books will also be necessary to avoid feeling like each movie is just four or five short episodes glued together back-to-back. This is the fundamental weakness of Animorphs adaptation: it requires the budget of film but has the serial nature of a TV show.

Leave ou the Ellimist, Crayak, Helmacrons, random undersea mutants, and other stuff that hadnothing to do with the plot. Remove some of the wackier and less centrally important battles against the Yeerks, because it would get repetetive.

The core of the series could makes fantastic movies. Central events:

- The initial Call to Adventure and discovery that Tom is infested, and Tobias being trapped as a hawk

- Learning Marco's Mom is infested by Visser One

- Finding Ax

- Learning the Hork-bajir are actually good people, and the start of the Free Hork-bajir

- The Yeerk Peace Movement, which should be made to actually go somewhere and affect the plot, because it strengthens the moral greyness of the story by showing they aren't all evil

- Discovering the Andalites are willing to destroy humanity to stop the Yeerks, and did it before with the Hork-bajir

- The Yeerk discovery of the Animorphs, and the final battles

Three to four movies could probably cover that.

edited 14th Sep '15 2:43:38 PM by Galadriel

Idle thought: One thing that makes filming multiple movies difficult is the age of the characters.

Unlike Harry Potter, which has each book take place over the course of a year, Animorphs takes only two years from start to finish. If it takes eight or ten films to complete, the actors are going to be too old to believably play 14-year-olds before the third film is out.

A mix of Dawson Casting and aging up. Have the kids be 15-17 over the couse of the movies, cast them as 15-20, and have 3-4 movies. Hunger Games occurs over 2-3 years, the protagonist is supposed to be 15 when it starts, and the movies work.

8 or 10 movies is ridiculous. They'll need to cut tons of book material to turn an episodic series into a streamlined, cohesive set of films. But it can stll be good ; even better than the books in some ways, by removing much of the dross.

I think they should age them up so they're in high school at the start. If needed they can have them move on to college a few movies in.

So I came up with ideas for hypothetical movies earlier but I don't fully remember them. Based on what I do remember the series would progress as follows:

• Movie 1 is a loose adaptation of the first six books. The Animorphs get their powers, Ax is found, Tobias gets stuck in morph, Marco finds out Visser One is his mother, etc.
• Movie 2 would adapt books 7, 8, 10, and 13. By the end they'll have met the Ellimist, the Chee will be introduced as allies, Ax will contact the Andalite Homeworld, Tobias will get his ability to morph restored, and the free Hork-Bajir colony will be established.
• Movie 3 is the David arc which is pretty self explanatory.
• Movie 4 is where my memory gets fuzzy. The basic idea I had would hit the following points: Crayak and the Drode's are introduced(Book 26 and 27), the Animorphs learn about the Yeerk Peace Movement(Book 29), Tobias and Ax find out they're related(Book 23), and Visser One discovering that Marco is an Animorph(Book 30).

I don't remember the others much at all but sitting here thinking about it gives me the following ideas:

• Movie 5 would be the one where they introduce the Auxiliary Animorphs, show the attack on the free Hork-Bajir Colony, and have Tom steal the Morph Cube. The movie would then end with the rest of the world finding out about the Yeerk invasion.
• Movie 6 is the finale and loosely adapts the endgame arc of the series. The only major change I'd make is ending the movie at Rachel's funeral.

That's another touchy issue. We want the movies done faithfully, but doing them faithfully would probably mean the ending barely anyone liked. I have no doubt that the screenwriters would ignore plenty of the later more ridiculous books, but KA Applegate will definitely push hard for the ending to stay the way she wrote it.

In my personal opinion, I can see what she was trying to do with its Bolivian Army Ending. She wanted to convey that life doesn't stop at the end of a conflict and she wanted to give the heroes a thrilling way to go out. But having the new conflict come from nowhere, leaving Cassie out to live, and cutting short the more interesting plotlines of Andalite-human immigration and the Yeerks meeting the Iskoort undermined what was billing itself as a "realistic" ending.

edited 14th Sep '15 5:32:08 PM by Tuckerscreator

An ending that shows the fighting never stops is one thing but if she wanted that the enemy should have been something from the series. You shouldn't introduce this new and unexplained entity in the final pages of a story. That's just bad writing. If she really wanted that sort of ending then just use Crayak. At least he(it?) had a connection to the series.

edit: I just want to clarify something. Movie 5 would also be the one where Visser One is killed and the position is given to Visser Three. He then decides to wage an all out war on Earth which is the event that reveals the existence of the Yeerks to the world.

edited 14th Sep '15 5:26:07 PM by Kostya

She sort of did.

I mean, it's not explicitly stated but given the nature of the Ellimist and Crayak's conflict, it stands to reason that the One is Crayak's new team, while Jake, Marco, Tobias, and the new crew are the Ellimist's new player characters.

• Crayak: Congratulations on your victory. New game. I choose the Borg.
• Ellimist: Interesting. Okay, I'm going to use some of my characters from the Earth expansion of Invasion of the Yeerks, but I also want to spice things up a bit so let's go half and half.
• Crayak: Very good. May be the best eldritch entity win.

edited 15th Sep '15 7:41:42 AM by TobiasDrake