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So the last time there was a tv series for Animorphs, it was on Nickelodeon and HBO. It was only 26 episodes and on a super tight budget and schedule. It didn't stick to the books completely and was limited by the effects and props of the era. That didn't stop Star Trek from being great nor did it stop other scifi shows from using green screen effects. But for whatever reason Animorphs was held back, maybe because of the target age demographic, maybe because of the weird timeslots, maybe because of the competition at the time... Either way it wasn't completely offensive but apparently everyone on the internet hated it, both fans and non fans. I had read the books growing up and was a super fan as a kid into my early teens when the books came to an end. It had a decent ongoing story that mixed science fiction with PTSD and was super paranoid. I mean the enemy could be anyone and you had a group of teenagers who were like secret warriors fighting an unseen empire slowly taking over Earth. There was so much more to it than the covers but that's all anyone outside the fandom would talk about. It was a series that you had to stick with, not drop after a single volume. The books weren't expensive either, around 3-5 dollars a book. They were released monthly like comics and were short paperback volumes. There was no excuse not to keep up with it save for the chunk of filler books written by ghost writers in the 3rd to 4th year. The original writer came back for the final year leading up to the end so that chunk is officially cannon. Same as the first 20 books or so. Then there's the Chronicles and Megamorphs. Chronicles were individual books based on aliens from different races, important characters telling more lore and expanding the universe. Megamorphs were like big events, sorta like movies after each season was over. The regular volumes each starred one individual Animorph and it's told from their narrative point of view, then each book following would swap narrators cycling through them all. But Megamorphs starred all of them and would bounce back and forth between different characters' perspectives. You would read something happening to one person and then the same thing from another point of view. If there was any criticism it was the fact that the books all had the same intro where the kids would have to explain the brief synopsis of what was going on, why they were there, ect. because anyone could start reading the series at any point. Any volume could be someone's first volume. That both helped them and hurt them. Because it's also told from a kid's perspective, it's not as detailed as most other books by other authors. It's meant to be more relatable to the target audience I guess but it didn't always land. It's adult writers trying to get into the heads of kids, what did you expect? lol It's that meme, "Hello, fellow kids." I do think it should be taken more seriously than just making fun of it for having early cg covers. It is a war story, after all. One of them even dies at the end. BUT that's getting ahead of myself. The real reason I posted about Animorphs even 30 goddang years later is because Disney is supposed to do a new take on the books, most likely in live aciton. Now I don't doubt Disney has the budget for this, moreso than Nickelodeon. Technology has improved a lot too so morphing can probably be done quicker and more convincingly. But there's rules they have to stick to in order to make this work. For example, Animorphs took place in the 90s when technology was much more limited, as in there were no smartphones and high speed internet didn't even exist yet. Stuff like that. They had to keep a low profile too. SNL screwed up a lot with that dumb skit they made recently. Robot Chicken got a lot of stuff wrong with their old parody too. It's like nobody bothered to read the actual books. We need someone who is familiar with the actual books. What are your thoughts on it? Do you trust Disney? Did you like the Nick show? Did you like the books? Are you jealous that Vietnam got the better book covers?
