Richard's Animorphs Forum
Animorphs Section => Animorphs Forum Classic => Topic started by: Zues770 on June 11, 2008, 10:56:09 PM
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Who, if there was a show or movie, would you cast in the Animorphs?
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Rachel = Brooke Burke
Marco = The Rock
Jake = Edward Norton
Cassie = Halle Berre
Tobias = Shia LeBauf
Ax = voice of Conan O'Brien
Visser 3 = voice of James Earl Jones
Visser 1 = Penelope Cruz
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The Rock for Marco???
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Do you have any better ideas?
Besides The Rock kicks ass (both the actor and movie)
Hardest choice: R. Lee Irmey (Sgt Hartman from Full Metal Jacket) or James Earl Jones (Darth Vader) for Visser 3.
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i cant tell if your serious or not cause i dont know you all that well lol
i hate perfect cast lists, they never work out
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The Rock?
I don't think he could play a below average size, egotistical and cunning 13 year old.
Now for the main cast: no one you can name.
Seriously when you see that kid from some other series, so much gets killed in the new role.
For special characters sure, but for the stars no.
For example, I'd love to see Morgan Freeman as the Ellimist, that'd be sweet.
And I think Christopher Lee would be perfect for Crayak, things like that
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oh this is hard :-\ i give up.
But I like the guy who already plays Jake..Sean someone i think his name is. Iceman..he's hot :P
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there is no actress on earth who could properly do rachel
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the best looking Rachel from all the covers was the one where she was allergic to the crocodile..it's how I've pictured her the whole time
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part of it is looks, But rachels character was just so hard to pull off, the ghost writers couldnt get it right in my oponion. I like the number 22 rachel. Turning point in the series for her too, an awesome rachel book. DONT GET ME STARTED lol.
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someone loves rachel.
:P
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who? *looks around*
but actually yeah I do, her books are still some of the best for me.
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it's so cool that they were made with totally different personalities like that, really well written.
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animorphs is good, if not awesome :] im hoping most of the people here think that.
I really dont think there is a cast that could do it justice.
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yeah well, everyone pictures the characters in a different way, so it would never please everyone.
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as long as it's not the people you see on the disney channel, I think I'd be happy with it...I'm not terribly picky and I already have low expectations of such a project, unless they go big-budget major motion picture... or... okay, one other option, and this is just because they do "big budget" tv with all the special effects and such, would be if the WB (or is it the CW ... Warner Bros) picked it up as a show... *shrugs* just my opinion. I wouldn't mind seeing Jared Padalecki from Supernatural as a grown-up Tobias...*whistles*
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Honestly I always pictured marco kinda like mario lopez (A.C.Slater) from saved by the bell only not as muscular. but I guess he would be to old now.
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oh this is hard :-\ i give up.
But I like the guy who already plays Jake..Sean someone i think his name is. Iceman..he's hot :P
Shawn Ashmore
If we're talking live action, then I would go with unknowns.
I personally would prefer a cartoon series, and I can think of a few voice actors
Rachel: Tara Strong (Raven from Teen Titans, Ben Tennyson from Ben 10, many others)
Marco: Billy West (Fry from Futurama)
Visser Three: Ron Perlman (Hellboy, Slade from Teen Titans)
Jara Hamee: Tom Kenny (Spongebob Squarepants)
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oh good choice for V3 voice, i like that, i was just watching hellboy last night, i can really see him pulling that off well
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Yeah, I agree with Matt, it'd be better to go with unknowns for live action.
As for a cartoon, it's very hard for me to imagine Animorphs as a cartoon. I also just had a weird image of a Hork-Bajir running around with a pink starfish...
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You have been watching way too much anime, I would envisage an Animorphs cartoon to be more stylistically similar to something like Justice League or the other DCAU stuff.
While we're talking voice talent I thought Peter MacNicol would be good as Chapman. He does a lot of voice over work and he's done the range of bad guys, weasels (metaphorically speaking) and even the odd likable character so he's more than capable.
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If Animorphs was an animated series, this would be my dream cast of voice actors:
Jake: Yuri Lowenthal
Marco: John Leguizamo
Rachel: Hayley Williams
Cassie: Cree Summer
Tobias: Michael Angarano
Ax: Tim Dadabo
Elfangor: David Scully
Visser one/Eva: Jennifer Hale or Katie Segal
Visser Three: Terence Stamp
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oh this is hard :-\ i give up.
But I like the guy who already plays Jake..Sean someone i think his name is. Iceman..he's hot :P
Shawn Ashmore
If we're talking live action, then I would go with unknowns.
I personally would prefer a cartoon series, and I can think of a few voice actors
Rachel: Tara Strong (Raven from Teen Titans, Ben Tennyson from Ben 10, many others)
Marco: Billy West (Fry from Futurama)
Visser Three: Ron Perlman (Hellboy, Slade from Teen Titans)
Jara Hamee: Tom Kenny (Spongebob Squarepants)
yes that's right..thanks.
i've never heard of anyone else with the name Slade before :)
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I would only watch this show if it was live-action. An animated would be horrible. Actually, I take that back, I'd watch a CGI show, they could do good with that.
Now though, with how much we can do with special effects, this show could be seriously awesome.
If I had to cast it, I'd go with unknowns, personally, but if I had to choose right now I'd pick:
If I was going with an older teen (16-18) series:
Jake: Thomas Dekker (Heroes, Sarah Connor)
Rachel: Kristen Bell (Veronica Mars[She'd probably be too old though]), OR Kirsten Stewart (Twilight, Jumper[again probably too old, but she could pull it off with some good hair dye])
Marco: Josh Peck (Drake and Josh [DON'T TEASE, lol, if you've seen how he looks now, he could totally pull off a Marco, he's even a good actor, so I think he'd be perfect for it.
Cassie: Someone fill this one in, I'm stumped.
Tobias: Michael Cera (I CAN'T STAND THIS KID, but he does pull off the whole loner feel, and he's funny, so he's up there[he'd have to grow his hair out though, my Tobias has long hair]), OR Jason Dolley (Some dude on some Disney show my sisters were watching, he looked the part, and I think he could pull of Tobias).
Ax: Well, this'd mainly be voice, and the human Ax wouldn't really have to have to same voice, so I think for voice, I'd pick Nicholas D'Agosto (Heroes), though I think he could pull off human Ax too... Dunno, but his voice is how I picture Ax's thought speak.
Hmmm, that's the main cast...
For Visser Three's voice: Chuck Norris (I'm KINDA kidding, but seriously, you KNOW you can picture it! And imagine what'd it would do for ratings!)
The Hork-Bajir voices: Whoever did the Covenant voices in Halo would be perfect, cause that's how I picture their voices.
Ok, I'm spent, I'll think of more later.
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Those people are too old, we want younger ones
If the movie ever gets made, they probably wont do 13 yr olds, but i hope they don't go to far, 14-15 is the highest they should go.. and young looking 14-15 yr olds :P
you realise that Nicholas D'Agosto is 27 years old?
Kristen Bell is 28
and Thomas Dekker is 21
The others I don't know, can't be bothered to find out.
so.. yea they couldn't pull it off.
I used to have a dream cast, but it just doesn't ever work out the way I want.. If only the kids from the book covers were in the tv show when it first came out or something and the show was more closer to the books
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I think the only way a live action could work would be if the kids were sixteen to begin with (ooh controversial, but hear me out). One issue (of many) the last series had was that it was made and marketed as a 'kids' series. If the series could be made and marketed to the Buffy/ Smallville crowd then they could do a lot more with it. The forty five minute hour should be enough time to do a book, and having it as a prime time series would mean they get a higher budget and attract better actors and writers. I think the content and tone and content of the books is better suited to this type of series, the books already dealt with mature themes and the level of violence is certainly not suitable for a kids series. A lot of what they did before felt toned down and sanitised.
The biggest problem is that the books were marketed to the early teen crowd, which might put a a sigma on them, and the name Animorphs might sound a bit too 'kiddie'.
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All those guys would be in the event of the Animorphs being around 17ish, which all those guys could pull off, as they had in their prospective series.
Again, I would pick unknowns for the actual cast, but if we weren't I'd probably pick some of them.
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Miley Cyrus for Rachel :D
:-[
Okay I'm joking don't smite me please.
I didn't realize how hard this actually would be. I guess all unknown stars for the Animorph roles.
However for Visser Three I would choose Peter Mensah http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0579795/ (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0579795/)
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Miley Cyrus for Rachel
LOL! hahahhaha....
I wished they would pick unknown actors again, so that the mysterious feel of the Animorphs would still be there.
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i can really see clare-hope a****ey as cassie, aka the girl who played kee in children of men. here's a picture of her: http://www.childrenofmen.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/clairehopea****ey.jpg
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Miley Cyrus for Rachel :D
with her Hannah Montana wig on.
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If it were Animated
Rahcel: Grey DeLisle (Azula from avatar, Mandy from the Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, Sam from Danny Phantom, and various other cartoons)
Marco: Jack Desena (Sokka from Avatar, Himself on All That) Or Greg Cipes (Beast Boy from Teen Titans, Kevin from Ben 10: Alien Force, and various other cartoons)
Jake: Yuri Lowenthal (Sasuke from naruto, and Ben from Ben 10: Alien Force)
Cassie: Cree Summer (Pretty much every Cartoon in the US)
Ax: Crispin Freeman (Kouichi and Thomas from Digimon)
Visser Three and Elfangor: The same guys tht did their voices in the show
Ellimist: Morgan Freeman or the guys tht plays Dumbledore in the Harry Potter movies
Crayck: Dave....sumthing(Kakashi from Naruto)
Drode: Richard Horvitz(Zim from Invader ZIM)
I'll have more later
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Animated TV series or film:
-Amber Heard as Rachel
-Victor Rasuk as Marco
-Jessica Szhor as Cassie
-Hugo Weaving as Visser Three
Live Action film
-Blake Lively as Rachel
-Hugo Weaving as Visser Three
Live Action TV Series:
-Hugo Weaving as Visser Three
(Blake Livey has "Gossip Girl" so she can't play Rachel. The available Ashley Tisdale doesn't have the look. Best to go with young newcomers).
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kelly its shawn ashmore
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Why doesn't anyone give Tobias an actor?
And I would stick Johnny Depp in as someone. He would have to be someone weird. I can see him doing Visser 3 or like Jara Hamee.
Greg Clipse as Marco makes sense because Beast Boy in Titans is very close to Marco.
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Why doesn't anyone give Tobias an actor?
I forgot about Tobias. My bad. He could be voiced by....Dante Basco(Zuko from Avatar and Jake Long from American Dragon)
And I would stick Johnny Depp in as someone. He would have to be someone weird. I can see him doing Visser 3 or like Jara Hamee.
I could see Johnny Depp playing Crayak
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I think Johnny Depp would be a good match for The Drode.
I can't see anyone as playing Crayak like in a costume. They'd have to do CGI.
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Why doesn't anyone give Tobias an actor?
And I would stick Johnny Depp in as someone. He would have to be someone weird. I can see him doing Visser 3 or like Jara Hamee.
Greg Clipse as Marco makes sense because Beast Boy in Titans is very close to Marco.
Ha, I completely made the same comparison with Beast Boy and Marco.
And I could see Johnny Depp as Visser Three. Good idea.
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I think Johnny Depp would be a good match for The Drode.
I can't see anyone as playing Crayak like in a costume. They'd have to do CGI.
The Drode should have a cartoony voice like Richard Horvitz
I always pictured Crayak as this hooded figure wearing a red robe while the Ellimist had a blue robe and no hood covering his face
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(Okay, so I got the warning that this was an old topic, but I don't want another redundancy fail. So... Yeah.)
As nerdy as it is, I watch a lot of Radio Free Roscoe (The first season. It went downhill after that.), and I saw that a lot of the characters on that would do well in Animorphs. No idea if they still would as I haven't seen them recently, but still.
Marco: Ali Mukaddam. He's my favorite out of all the actors. He's perfect for Marco. Look up some clips on YouTube. His character's name is Ray http://gfx.filmweb.pl/p/54/78/115478/70911.1.jpg (http://gfx.filmweb.pl/p/54/78/115478/70911.1.jpg)
Jake: Nathan Carter. He just has something that to me screams 'Jake'. http://www.freewebs.com/radiofreeroscoelrtr/travis_001.jpg (http://www.freewebs.com/radiofreeroscoelrtr/travis_001.jpg)
Rachel: Kate Todd ---Happy Mall rat Rachel: http://www.imdb.com/media/rm2202570752/nm1433900 (http://www.imdb.com/media/rm2202570752/nm1433900),
'I'm gonna kick your *ss' Rachel: http://www.imdb.com/media/rm2219347968/nm1433900 (http://www.imdb.com/media/rm2219347968/nm1433900)
Cassie: Genelle Williams (Can't find a good picture)
Tom: Steve Belford (Can't find a picture of him from the show..)
As for Visser Three, the actors I thought would do well as his voice are Tim Curry (but played down a bit, and more angry) or Robin Sachs. For those who have seen Galaxy Quest, Sachs voices an alien warlord and acts a lot like Visser Three...
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People we don't even know the names of yet. Ideally. Average suburban middle-class not-perfect-looking-models normal everyday kids.
If you've heard of them before or recognize their faces, they're automatically wrong for the part.
In this case, believability is law. That means no Disney kids, that means no one who's acted in anything with recognition. As much as I loathe Harry Potter, that's something major they got right with their adaptation.
I'd even go as far as saying a no-name supporting cast (parents, teachers, Tom, Andalites, etc) would be preferable. Maybe get someone like Ron Glass for Elfangor or the Visser, the recurring big roles, someone a little more recognizable but not high-profile. But the kids would absolutely have to be "and introducing..." in the credits. Example, Edward Furlong in Terminator 2. Absolute no-name.
The problem with Animorphs casting is aging. These kids are between 13 and 16 in the books. A movie takes two-three years to produce. One movie, three years from scripting to marketable product. So, you start with a 13 year old in pre-production on film one, by the time film two has its theater release the kid is already 15-16. You can maybe make two movies, tops.
Insurmountable challenge, unfortunately.
Animation is obviously a different story. Either traditional or CG, doesn't matter. Voicing doesn't pose the same problem as live-action, live-action is pretty much a "don't go there" scenario, if the responsible party is wanting a reasonably faithful adaptation of the source material.
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Who, if there was a show or movie, would you cast in the Animorphs?
i want all the models (from the book cover) to play the roles...
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oh greg cipes would be awesome lol
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Unknowns, all of them unknowns!
No movie star drama, no "I had to be the tiger, it was so important I got to be the tiger" none of that!
Unknown little actors who could use the work and wouldn't dare try to hold out for more money when the sequel came around!
And no live action, it has to be animated so I'm just picking voices.
Sara Lahti as Cassie . . . such a mellow voice, y'know? No, you probably don't, watch an episode of R.O.D.
And Wally Wingert as Tobias. That's right, Tallest Red as the bird boy, I went there.
That's all I've got for now . . . I'll think of some more later.
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(Okay, so I got the warning that this was an old topic, but I don't want another redundancy fail. So... Yeah.)
As nerdy as it is, I watch a lot of Radio Free Roscoe
Robin Sachs. For those who have seen Galaxy Quest, Sachs voices an alien warlord and acts a lot like Visser Three...
lol i like radio free roscoe and galaxy quest anyone else notice that sarris (the character sachs played) looked like a lion fish
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Who, if there was a show or movie, would you cast in the Animorphs?
i want all the models (from the book cover) to play the roles...
We have no idea if they can act. Also, the Marcos they picked were horrible.
lol i like radio free roscoe and galaxy quest anyone else notice that sarris (the character sachs played) looked like a lion fish
.....Not until now...
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We have no idea if they can act. Also, the Marcos they picked were horrible.
yeah, they probably aren't good actors, and marco.. you're right, he's not that cute!
but i think rachel from the cover is totally gorgeous
:)
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You do know the cover-models from the books are probably 27-28 years old now, right?
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Zac Efron as Jake.
Seriously. Listen to "Bet on It."
<_<
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ugh, let's please not use crappy Disney Channel stars as Animorphs
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Zac Efron as Jake.
Seriously. Listen to "Bet on It."
<_<
NO.
I refuse to let ANYONE from High School Musical in. Too many of their fangirls would become fake!anifans. I'd blow up a theater.
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Zac Efron as Jake.
Seriously. Listen to "Bet on It."
<_<
NO.
I refuse to let ANYONE from High School Musical in. Too many of their fangirls would become fake!anifans. I'd blow up a theater.
lol true. The movie would be packed with fangirls/fake anifans even if Zac Effron played some random human controller. So yea, lets not turn Animorphs into some crappy disney movie
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DiediediediedieDIED IEdiedieDIE DIE DIE DIE deedly-deedly-deedly DIE die die DIE die. Just die.
Rofl-waffle Dakota 4 Raychelz.
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Glory, I do seem to be getting some folks all riled up!
Maybe I should repost my HSM/Animorphs manip.
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Maybe you could suggest someone who'd be believable as a boy general and not a hair salon poster boy with a crush on Timberlake.
EDIT: Wow, that sounded more a-hole-y than I intended. *sigh* Sorry.
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Maybe you could suggest someone who'd be believable as a boy general and not a hair salon poster boy with a crush on Timberlake.
EDIT: Wow, that sounded more a-hole-y than I intended. *sigh* Sorry.
lol yea it did but it was true
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Haha, it's all good.
Just for the record, I personally loathe HSM and pretty much anything else Disney is producing these days. But I do like just that one song.
If only I was more knowledgable about young actors, I would have some more, er, serious suggestions...
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The actors that are right for an Animorphs cast should be people none of us are knowledgeable about yet.
I mean, they'd have to be 13-14, for one. So, with pre-production and stuff, even if a script was being written right now and financing was being developed, the right kids would currently be like 10-11 years old.
So, like, yeah. Unknowns.
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The actors that are right for an Animorphs cast should be people none of us are knowledgeable about yet.
I mean, they'd have to be 13-14, for one. So, with pre-production and stuff, even if a script was being written right now and financing was being developed, the right kids would currently be like 10-11 years old.
So, like, yeah. Unknowns.
Agree. ;)
But sometimes I can't help picturing Kevin Zegers as Tobias. But, of course, the younger Kevin Zegers.
I bet finding the right Rachel must be the toughest task..
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Rachel would probably be the easiest, actually. Just find a tall stereotypical model-looking girl with blond hair who isn't a total ditz. They do exist.
Jake and Ax would probably be most difficult, I suppose. Maybe Marco, since they'd have to be able to balance the goofball with that deadly serious intensity.
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The problem is can they act? A lot of child stars today can't act, heck a lot of stars today can't act.
Also the problem with child actors vs animation is you have no idea what they'll look like when they get older, i.e. the cast of the Harry Potter movies, some of whom were fine at first and are now growing out of the proper visual look of their roles.
But yes, indeed, unknowns as we've been saying, and lock the little buggers up so they have no outside contact with the media, if Furgie gets near any of them all is lost, they'll be contaminated and we'll have to liquidate them and requisition six new ones!
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Glory, I do seem to be getting some folks all riled up!
Maybe I should repost my HSM/Animorphs manip.
Do you really have one? 'Cause now I want to see it... uploaduploadupload!
Rachel would probably be the easiest, actually. Just find a tall stereotypical model-looking girl with blond hair who isn't a total ditz. They do exist.
No, she'd be the hardest. It isn't just about not being a ditz, she has to be really fierce.
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The problem is can they act? A lot of child stars today can't act, heck a lot of stars today can't act.
That's exactly why you don't get child stars.
As for the Rachel thing, she'd be easier in the sense that she's not about subtlety. You don't really have to balance a lot with Rachel, I mean fierce and confident isn't that hard to convey. Even if it wasn't in the actor's default personality to have those traits. It's more difficult with Marco, even Jake to an extent, because they're a lot less up-front and in-your-face, it's a little more of a balancing act.
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The only hard part about Rachel, maybe, would be getting that progression as the story goes on, how she starts to need the fighting and all that.
Glory, I do seem to be getting some folks all riled up!
Maybe I should repost my HSM/Animorphs manip.
Do you really have one? 'Cause now I want to see it... uploaduploadupload!
(http://i39.tinypic.com/2zhpfsn.jpg)
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The only hard part about Rachel, maybe, would be getting that progression as the story goes on, how she starts to need the fighting and all that.
Glory, I do seem to be getting some folks all riled up!
Maybe I should repost my HSM/Animorphs manip.
Do you really have one? 'Cause now I want to see it... uploaduploadupload!
(http://i39.tinypic.com/2zhpfsn.jpg)
....*whimpers*
I'd switch Afro and The Sparkly Lord Dansypants, King of the Daffodils (<--- What my sister and I call Sharpay's brother) as Marco and Tobias.
AND SPEAKING of disturbing images, I was reading an Animorph book the other day and my ipod was on shuffle. During a fight at the Yeerk Pool, the Hairspray soundtrack came on. The the mental image of Jake and the other Animorphs singing "You Can't Stop the Beat" to a very confused Visser Three entered my head and wouldn't leave...
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You're both dead to me. :(
*spirit breaks entirely*
But a big "Lulz, tee hee hee" at the Sparkly Lord Dansypants part. Oh, God.
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It's difficult to think of child actors today that would be good fits. When I thought about this kind of thing all the time back in the day, it was my opinion that they can't just look the part - they have to be good actors as well, especially during the final story arc when everything gets much darker. Here are a few just off the top of my head.
- Kirsten Stewart for Rachel (I've never seen Twilight, but judging from Adventureland it seems like she could play the world-weariness and possibly even rage that the role requires)
- Dev Patel as Marco (probably not the best for comic relief, but he's a Good Actor that could effectively portray the emotions over his Controller mom)
...and for Ax you could go the Dr. Manhattan route and have any guy (even an adult) play the role with performance-capture. This is a name I'm just throwing out there, but Sterling Beaumon could be good for his human morph, once he gets his growth spurt or whatever (it would be difficult to get away with Sterling being a DNA composite of significantly taller Stewart and Patel). As Young Benjamin Linus in LOST he was pretty great. He's going to be getting a 4- or 5-episode story arc very soon on LOST so I guess his acting ability will be on display for people on this forum to judge.
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Yeah, see, both of those are about 6-7 years too old, Kristen Stewart comes off more like a sarcastic preppy bish (bish?) than brave and intense, and Dev Patel's an English guy of Indian background. Playing a mixed white guy/spanish (or hispanic, we don't know) guy who's joke repertoire is mostly made up of Americana culture.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure there's someone better out there on God's green earth. Just a hunch.
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I say unknowns for the Animorphs because they need to be good, no drama, and resemble their characters, but a known voice actor for Visser Three and some of the other minor roles like Chapman, that way people don't roll their eyes at the movie, see people have this idiotic tendancy to ignore any movie that hasn't got known actors, or hasn't got enough known actors . . . Visser Three needs to be someone who can pull in the crowds, Chapman needs to be familiar without making people upset he's second banana.
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No self-respecting big-name actor's going to take the role of Visser Three if he's written the same way he is in the books. "I'll get you next time, Baaattmaaan, if it's the last thing I doooo!" *twirls moustache, pets evil kitten*
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I think that Visser Three's whole character though is sort of this power-hungry egomaniac to contrast with Visser One's more subtle approach. It's not like the story doesn't have enough depth to acknowledge that Visser Three is the apex of Animorphs villainy... you know? It's a little more nunanced than a cartoon villain, or to give a specific example, better than how Jim Carrey played Count Olaf in the Lemony Snicket movie. V3 is recognized as having relatively shallow intelligence amongst the Yeerks, he just retains his power because he's incredibly violent and ambitious. Or at least, um, that's how I remember it.
And I don't think they're too old, really. They're 3-4 years too old, not 6-7. And just IMO, there's no way a studio is going to greenlight a blockbuster movie with 13-year-old kids going through the incredibly violent types of atrocities described even early on in the books (severed limbs, etc.) I would think in the movies they would have to be a bit older: say, the war taking place as they age from 16-19 years old (as opposed to 13-16).
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Oh, I'm not saying that's not the way a studio would make the movie. They would.
But it really takes a lot away from the series, I think. I mean, what's more horrifying than a middle-school kid being forced to kill someone? 18-19, to me that's pretty much an adult anyway. Jake being a highschool senior isn't really the "boy general" anymore, that's pretty much armed forces recruitment age.
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The rest of the cast requires more thinking for me, but I would love it if Michelle Rodriguez played Visser One. The perfect amount of kick-your-butt attitude.
And I like agentAK's choices for Jake and Rachel, in terms of looks. I haven't seen Radio Free Roscoe to judge on their acting though.
I'm totally against Disney actors (Zac Efron? Really?) and that stupid Kristen Stewart- no offense to those who suggested them, I just don't like those actors.
Also, if anyone else watches Supernatural, what do you think about Katie Cassidy playing Rachel?
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She's frickin' 23 years old. No.
Michelle Rodriguez, as awesome as she is as Ana Lucia...eh. Probably too young. She doesn't really seem "foreign" enough, either, although I guess it's never specifically stated whether or not Eva has an accent. Meh. I dunno.
I still say Ron Glass for either the Visser (voice) or Elfangor (voice). He'd probably be too old to convincingly portray Elfangor if they ever got to a TAC, though. I think his voice would suit the Visser awesomely. Not sure if he's ever played a villain though.
As for totally minor inconsequential characters of no significance whatsoever, I'm getting a "Bill Paxton-type" vibe from the cop in #1, out at the farm. Totally random idea, there.
Oh. Michael Biehn for future Jake, in that crappy future book. ;D Bwahaha. Guy's a badass. Not entirely serious here, the dude's like 50 now.
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Rachel: Kate Todd ---Happy Mall rat Rachel: http://www.imdb.com/media/rm2202570752/nm1433900 (http://www.imdb.com/media/rm2202570752/nm1433900),
'I'm gonna kick your *ss' Rachel: http://www.imdb.com/media/rm2219347968/nm1433900 (http://www.imdb.com/media/rm2219347968/nm1433900)
Holy Crapola! I saw those and never fell more in love with someone fitting a role. The "Happy mall rat" one is good, but seriously that second one makes me think of The Return cover, but with attitude.
For Jake: Jeremy Jason McCole
P.S. I just researched Kate Todd, because I never heard of her and had no idea how old she was. 21 is pretty old. But right qualities.
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Better suggestion than most, agreed. Probably a little too anorexic-bulimic-model-y from the second picture, but whatever I guess.
Still, we're all lingering too much into the "college age kids playing middle-schoolers" BS, and that's a no-no. I mean, look at the first Spiderman and the highschool scenes. "What are you people, 32?!"!
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Better suggestion than most, agreed. Probably a little too anorexic-bulimic-model-y from the second picture, but whatever I guess.
Still, we're all lingering too much into the "college age kids playing middle-schoolers" BS, and that's a no-no. I mean, look at the first Spiderman and the highschool scenes. "What are you people, 32?!"!
Yeah, thats why I changed my vote. Like Power Rangers. They need to be actual kids, younger than older, so that even if they grow over the course of filming, it still fits.
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Like, totally, d00dz. Just to reinforce the point, even if they somehow miraculously condense 54 books into 6 or 7 films, Harry Potter franchise style, those kids are still going to age 12-14 years over six movies. Over a story spanning 6 total, including the post-war stuff.
Notgonnawork.
You hire a 13 year old for "Movie 1", they're 25 by the time you're dealing with the Pool Ship. Lame.
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(Okay, so I got the warning that this was an old topic, but I don't want another redundancy fail. So... Yeah.)
As nerdy as it is, I watch a lot of Radio Free Roscoe (The first season. It went downhill after that.), and I saw that a lot of the characters on that would do well in Animorphs. No idea if they still would as I haven't seen them recently, but still.
Marco: Ali Mukaddam. He's my favorite out of all the actors. He's perfect for Marco. Look up some clips on YouTube. His character's name is Ray http://gfx.filmweb.pl/p/54/78/115478/70911.1.jpg (http://gfx.filmweb.pl/p/54/78/115478/70911.1.jpg)
Jake: Nathan Carter. He just has something that to me screams 'Jake'. http://www.freewebs.com/radiofreeroscoelrtr/travis_001.jpg (http://www.freewebs.com/radiofreeroscoelrtr/travis_001.jpg)
Rachel: Kate Todd ---Happy Mall rat Rachel: http://www.imdb.com/media/rm2202570752/nm1433900 (http://www.imdb.com/media/rm2202570752/nm1433900),
'I'm gonna kick your *ss' Rachel: http://www.imdb.com/media/rm2219347968/nm1433900 (http://www.imdb.com/media/rm2219347968/nm1433900)
Cassie: Genelle Williams (Can't find a good picture)
Tom: Steve Belford (Can't find a picture of him from the show..)
As for Visser Three, the actors I thought would do well as his voice are Tim Curry (but played down a bit, and more angry) or Robin Sachs. For those who have seen Galaxy Quest, Sachs voices an alien warlord and acts a lot like Visser Three...
i totally agree with u on marco, that dude totally fits the discription i imagined while readin the books. jake no, cuz he looks too much like sean ashmore, and i didn't like him for jake cuz he wasn't "leaderish" enough.
I like johnny depp for drode. he's kinda too goofy for visser 3. I can't think of anyone else right now
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If they never do a TAC, then the voice of elfangor could be done by the same actor that does someone else's voice. Since he'd only be in episode 1 briefly.
I really don't know actors well enough to say anything, and I may have said this before. I'm all for animation, so appearance wouldn't matter for any of the actors. Only voice.
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I mean, look at the first Spiderman and the highschool scenes. "What are you people, 32?!"!
The whole point of this thread is to suggest people whose careers are established enough to have an IMDB page one can link to in a forum post. If we're going to restrict ourselves to a younger age range, then the choices we have are between Disney Channel stars (who hilariously make up almost all established child actors in North America) or unknowns that have no IMDB pages. The latter group isn't conducive to Internet nerd discussion, and most of the people from the former group are horrible actors. I mean, Kate Todd was in Degrassi for Christ's sake.
You could certainly encompass the entirety of the Animorphs story into a trilogy or, um, quadrilogy - certainly with seven or eight movies (like the master plan was going to be for Project AM) there would be a lot of awesome set pieces, but the story can really be condensed to the fight with the Yeerks and the character's overall emotional arcs, leaving out the many extraneous alien species and flashbacks, etc. Actors aging between movies wouldn't really be a problem then.
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I was watching an interview with Dakota Fanning (one of the few famous non-TV child actors) on Letterman and she reminded me a lot of Ja'mie King from Summer Heights High (great show if you haven't watched it). Kind of uncanny. Thinking about it some more, maybe she would be a good choice to play Taylor - she's definitely got the popular-girl pettiness thing down. (Not an entirely serious suggestion, just throwing it out there.)
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The whole point of this thread is to suggest people whose careers are established enough to have an IMDB page one can link to in a forum post. If we're going to restrict ourselves to a younger age range, then the choices we have are between Disney Channel stars (who hilariously make up almost all established child actors in North America) or unknowns that have no IMDB pages. The latter group isn't conducive to Internet nerd discussion, and most of the people from the former group are horrible actors. I mean, Kate Todd was in Degrassi for Christ's sake.
Well, if we can't use young actors, are we gonna have Animorphs 74 The Geriatrics? I think Jack Nicholson should play Visser 3
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You could certainly encompass the entirety of the Animorphs story into a trilogy or, um, quadrilogy
3 movies still equates to about 9 years, 4 movies to 12. Aging still poses a pretty significant problem, unless you want the characters looking like grad-students by the time Rachel bites the dust.
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They would definitely have to use different actors at different stages.
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After all; we all know what happened with the Harry Potter cast. Emma Watson grew out of her role by the third freaking movie!
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Harry Potter's a decent example, although I think in general they kind of made the best of that situation. Casting unknowns for the first movie, all young, minimizing the effect.
Animorphs is pretty much exponentially worse, though, seeing as there's more material to cover, in addition to the obvious obstacles posed by international ratings boards and the bleak subject matter. I know you're not allowed to show a minor using a weapon, for one. Pretty sure there's something similar preventing a kid turning into a tiger and shredding someone. Sure, you can hire 12 year olds, but then you have to remove 99% of the death and destruction of the war. Cutting the emotional investment, resulting in an inferior work. Or you can hire a bunch of highschool seniors, keep the edgy tone, and sacrifice the faithfulness to the books and the inherent disturbing nature of a bunch of kids fighting a war.
Animation? Now animation works. A miniseries, on cable like that old Spawn series from the 90's, or else straight-to-DVD works, both keeping the PG-13. You can have older people convincingly portraying younger characters, the ageing isn't an issue. You can have continuity and consistency in the animation, you cut the effects budget, you have a serial format which is better suited to the story than movies.
It makes so much more sense, and, you know, it's actually possible. A feature film series being...not.
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The more I think about this, the more I'm convinced that this would have to be a low-budget indie/arthouse movie, with effects work from dedicated fans looking to build their reel and willing to work on the cheap to make the finished product a reality (à la Escape from City 17 (http://newteevee.com/2009/02/19/interview-with-david-purchase-co-creator-of-escape-from-city-17) or Star Wars: Revelations (http://panicstruckpro.com/revelations/)). There is no possible way that a major studio could make an adaptation that I, a reasonably mature (at least I like to think so) 21-year-old male, could emotionally and intellectually connect with. I want a early-teens mumblecore (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mumblecore) film shot on a $5,000 camera intercut with tense action scenes laden with decently-composited special effects depicting the utter atrocities these kids are comitting.
I think if we're talking realistically here (as opposed to just speculating on the ideal), I would be willing to sacrifice giant set pieces and the participation of ILM so that they could keep the tone very dark without studio interference and have totally unknown actors that could realistically sell the character development.
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Meh. I wouldn't bat an eye if they through out most of the darkness and underlying messages. Heck, I didn't even take much notice of it before coming to this site. I wouldn't miss a thing. Make it more like Avatar, except with aliens and morphing instead of elemental attacks and martial arts.
My maturity level is not very high. Certainly not enough to get in the way of kiddifying Animorphs.
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Meh. I wouldn't bat an eye if they through out most of the darkness and underlying messages. Heck, I didn't even take much notice of it before coming to this site. I wouldn't miss a thing. Make it more like Avatar, except with aliens and morphing instead of elemental attacks and martial arts.
My maturity level is not very high. Certainly not enough to get in the way of kiddifying Animorphs.
If you take away most of the fighting (i.e. childproof it) and the messages and the darkness you're left with what? The TV series, random dribble about high schoolers who can turn into animals but usually don't for some reason, playing pranks on aliens who don't seem to realize what it means to be "in character" as opposed to fighting them like they're supposed to.
Animorphs and Avatar aren't as dissimilar as you might think. Avatar had its darkness and underlying nonsense too, I mean Aang pretty much does nothing to prevent his girlfriend from setting off to commit a murder, Azula is a freakin' psychopath and Suki's sneaking into a boy's tent in the middle of the night for "unknown" purposes, the series was actually fairly dark and grown up for a kid's series, much like Animorphs.
That's why it was good.
While Avatar wasn't exactly kiddy sunshine funtime hour it didn't let the war get it down like Animorphs did, the kids never stopped being kids . . . but there is a very good reason for that beyond it simply being a kids show . . .
The reason is the gAang weren't fighting the war, the soldiers and armies were fighting the war. Avatar could have a war without the children being soldiers (Except Suki, and even then its implied that she was given grunt work as opposed to actual combat duty) because there were other people to fight the war, entire armies in fact. In Animorphs Jake is the general, the others are his army, and that's pretty much it, there was no one else around to fight the war, the two stranded Andalites on earth didn't even contribute to the war, didn't offer any real help, at no point did the Animorphs find someone who would fight the war for them while they focused on just being kids, towards the end they got reinforcements but the burden was still on them. You can't make Animorphs like Avatar without first providing a way for it to be like Avatar, Avatar had adults shielding the kids, in Animorphs the kids pretty much had to band together to shield each other, this is why Animorphs is somewhat darker than Avatar, and more violent.
To change all that in order to make the movie marketable to children would be to completely rewrite the whole series, Animorphs doesn't need to be like 300 with violence left and right, but it most definitely doesn't need to be like Troy, utterly changing, rearranging, and in place of the profanity I wanted to use I'll just say "lying" about a story so that it's nothing like the actual tale . . . I mean except that there's some adulterous chick named Helen that every guy wants, and a city with some walls.
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I know why Avatar is good. And I know a kid's show can have that much fightin g and still stay a kid's show. I wasn't trying to say Avatar isn't similar. You didn't understand what I meant.
Animorphs can be better than the TV show, but it doesn't need to be as bad as the books.
There can still be the great charactarization of the team. There can still be good battles and dark times. But it doesn't need to be as gruesome as the books, or push some message that most people aren't going to care about.
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I know why Avatar is good. And I know a kid's show can have that much fightin g and still stay a kid's show. I wasn't trying to say Avatar isn't similar. You didn't understand what I meant.
I'm sorry if you felt slighted by my comments, I wasn't trying to imply that you were ignorant of anything. I perceived what you said to mean that you wanted an Animorphs movie to be more like Avatar than it already is, I simply explained why, in my opinion, that wouldn't be possible if one remained true to the source material. They weren't adventurers, and they didn't have that option; there was no army, no shield, yet for what they went through there were plenty of times that they just screwed around with their morphing power. They played on the thermals, swam with the dolphins, ate trash as flies and ran through mazes as rats.
In any event when expressing my opinion I tend to trail off and say whatever it occurs to me to say when I think whatever I think (this is why I utterly fail and staying on topic most of the time) so I may have just been ranting in general more than missing the point of your post, for that I again appologize. Also this post ended up being something of a rant, that's just who I am I guess ;)
Now I've considered that any Animorphs movie wouldn't contain the final arc, which to me was the only one that got truly gruesome, a good first movie for Animorphs would either be one of the chronicles, or cover the first (maybe first few) books and with the exception of Elfangor's death, the sharks turning on each other, nothing in books 1 through 5 seemed that gruesome, book 2 was fairly tame, book 4 had some exploding taxxons, in book 6 they do boil those Yeerks, something the Yeerks themselves didn't seem properly concerned about in the TV show, but the harshest thing in the early books seems to be Tobias' suicide attempt, which would be downplayed in the movie if it even made it in there so really I don't see any Animorphs movie being the Saving Private Ryan of kids' cinema, we're probably in for a fairly tame ride.
Animorphs can be better than the TV show, but it doesn't need to be as bad as the books.
There can still be the great charactarization of the team. There can still be good battles and dark times. But it doesn't need to be as gruesome as the books, or push some message that most people aren't going to care about.
As I've already said I don't see what's so gruesome about the books on the whole since they screw around more than they actually fight and no movie would show the details of Elfangor's death, would be really unlikely to show Tobias attempted suicide, and would handle the boiling of the yeerks as the killing of pests rather than the slaughter of living, thinking individuals.
When it comes to messages though if you mean environmentalist messages and animal conservation most people do care actually, I know there are plenty of people who don't care that Cheetahs and Tigers are pretty much about to go extinct, or that the whales are still being hunted, or about deforestation and all that but a lot of people do care, this probably isn't what you meant but the message I felt was pushed on me most from Animorphs was environmentalism. You can have an environmentalist message in Animorphs while still being subtle, just show off some neat animals and do something to imply that kids should maybe try looking up information on the animals they liked, might even get some of the movie going kids reading.
Now if you mean the whole "war is hell" and "it only ends in pain" message then . . . sadly you're very correct, the average person doesn't care about the reality of war simply because it's too terrible to want to think about. That's why we have actors screaming "This . . . is . . . SPARTA!" instead of actual historically accurate movies. People need the BS of 300 because the real battle would have been really horrifying, would have left a lot of movie goers shaking their heads and leaving the theater early. War just isn't entertaining and people go to movies to be entertained.
That's why historically accurate war movies are few, far in between, and generally not well received. The animorphs movie will likely either be aimed at little kids and therefore contain nothing more violent than what you'd see in Inspector Gadget (which wasn't a bad show, I'm just saying it wasn't very violent . . . not that it needed to be) aimed at older kids and so contain milder violence where nobody dies or bleeds, like the early edited episodes of Naruto, or it might just be aimed at the people most likely to make it successful (young adults who read the books growing up and would show up just for nostalgia) and be about as violent as a Star Wars movie, just one or two actual action scenes with for the most part no blood, but fast paced and intense combat. Frankly I'm rooting for the last one, but I'd settle for any of the three as long as the movie itself is actually good.
You don't have to worry about gore, guts and such, no one would green light an Animorphs movie like that. The sad thing is that while Animorphs isn't based on a real war it could be treated like a war movie, it could be one of the better fictional war movies, but it won't be. Whoever takes it up, if they do, will want to make money, not art, no studio these days seems all that interested in art so much as how much money they can make off the ticket sales, if the film just happens to be good well that's peachy, if it makes more money than it cost them they're satisfied.
So I think it'll be an adventure story, no one dies, no one bleeds, the story will be overly simplified not just so new viewers can understand it but to the point where they can understand it without actually paying attention, and I'll be mocked by everyone I know for going to see it. As long as it's worth the money I spend on the ticket though, I guess I really won't care.
So if the movie is an adventure story, and in the spirit of trying to force myself back on topic, I say get Tim Curry for Visser Three, he won't need to be menacing but he can act like he thinks he is, get Jason Bateman for Chapman, he can pull off a convincing two-faced assistant principal, but if you're going to show the flip/flop freak out of book 2 then Bill Murry might actually be the better choice because I utterly believe he can do that, though for overall villain's right hand man I think Bateman could look more menacing.
I still say get unknowns for the kids just because even in a not-so-violent Animorphs film you just cannot cast any actor I know of who'd be the right age, and perfect for the role, but whoever you get make them read no less than two of the actual books, The Invasion and one that has their character narrating (in the case of the actor playing Jake, he may not simply read The Invasion twice :P) but I still think it needs to be animated, rendering the age of the cast irrelevant anyway.
And if it gets far enough let the Olsen twins play Taylor and Tobias in Taylor morph, that way they can look the part and I at least would totally buy that one of them is insane :P