Richard's Animorphs Forum
Animorphs Section => Animorphs Forum Classic => Topic started by: goom on February 02, 2010, 02:12:02 AM
-
what books would you consider to be unnecessary to the series?
which fillers didn't serve any purpose in developing the plot or characters?
which redundant books re-stressed points already made in previous ones?
make sure to list reasons why you picked the ones you did.
excluding the alternamorphs, of course. no explanation needed there. ::)
i'm sure there are obvious picks out there, but many of you may have different opinions with the gray areas.
-
Probably both of the Helmacron books. And the Visitor.
-
The second Helmacron book was useless, man. XD In fact it was so useless and terribly written that I couldn't even finish it. Megamorphs # 2 covers a fairly important period of time, but the actual plot was just plain bizarre from what I remember. The book where Visser Three tries to control free will bugged me on so many levels, partially because it showcased the poor Visser suffering from severe villain decay. )= The Visser Three I had such a fondness of was the terrifying yet probably insane one of the earlier books. :3
There was definitely one ghostwriter in particular whose books left a bad taste in my mouth. Or at least I get that impression. The style of writing was too bland or something, not close enough to K.A's. Neither the characters or the plots read correctly in some of the Animorphs books at all.
-
Such a thread has probably been opened before but ... I can't miss an opportunity to spit on the Buffleman book.
It was so stupid. And the story was a bit like in megamorphs 1 as it was about the "morphing energy" (same kind of ending as well I think, Cassie morphed in something big and killed the veleek, Cassie morphed in something big and crashed the helicopter ::))
The thing is, I loved megamorphs 1 ;D But the buffleman thing > ::)
Also this book with monkeys ;D I loved it when Ax was the main character but it was so rare, once every 10 books... And they wasted a whole book with him :'( (28)
-
#11.
Absolutely nothing changed.
In fact, now that I think about it, metaplot books were thin indeed for a long while.
-
#11.
Absolutely nothing changed. [...]
Well, it did introduce Sario Rips. Of course, the dinosaur megamorphs did the same thing, I suppose . . .
-
Probably all the later books that were retreads of earlier books.
-
Book 34 would have been important, but since the hork-bajir resistance in it was never again mentioned, it to was useless. Good read though.
-
yeah you would think that would be mentioned again. Book 13 and 34 made me think after Earth was won there would be a continuation to the HB homeworld. But no.
-
Such a thread has probably been opened before but ...
i searched beforehand. saw this (http://animorphsforum.com/forum/index.php/topic,602) but i didn't consider it to be similar enough.
-
#11.
Absolutely nothing changed.
In fact, now that I think about it, metaplot books were thin indeed for a long while.
I actually really liked that book. Of course I'm biased since I love time travel, the rainforest and Jaguars...
-
Really? No one's mentioned the one where Cassie ends up in Australia?
-
australia and buffa-human definitely are both fillers. i'll post my list in a bit.
-
pretty much nothing happened in #13. Tobias whined a lot, ran around some, died or whatever, who cares right?
-
Cassie in Australia. No competition.
The whole story was an excuse to write about a Kangaroo morph.
-
pretty much nothing happened in #13. Tobias whined a lot, ran around some, died or whatever, who cares right?
13 was the one where they saved Jara Hamee and Ket Halpak, and got his morphing power back. You must be thinking of another book.
-
what, the free Hork-Bajir? Nothing important ever happened with them.
-
You're not being serious, are you? Okay the Free HB weren't as involved as they could have been, but Toby played a part in the final battle, and the Valley was used as a safe spot until that one Hork was captured.
-
Their valley, if nothing else, ended up being pretty important in the end-game, as it gave the Animorphs a place to hide when the yeerks discovered their identities.
-
you guys are crazy, that book did absolutely nothing to advance the storyline
but you know one that did? #28. Because not only are we introduced to the concept that Ax likes TV, but the effort by the Yeerks to control free will was a total failure in the first place! That one definitely changed the outcome of the war.
-
Not to mention it was also the book that gave Tobias back his morphing power. #13 was a VERY important book for the overall plot of the series.
-
Yeah, Anijen's being sarcastic.
-
am i the only one who actually enjoyed cassie in australia?
-
One of the things that bothered me was the piece of bugfighter that made the father's leg infected. Was that really neseccar? I'd say not because you could take it out and it wouldn't change the plot. Just some tidbit to angst about.
It was more intertaining than other ghostwritten books.
-
I don't mind filler, as long as its good and interesting. Some filler episodes of TV shows are my favorite in those TV shows, and some filler in Animorphs is also among my favorites. I mean Book 6: The Capture is mostly just glorified filler, but damn, is it good filler.
-
well,i wouldn't call #6 a filler at all.
it introduced crayak, to say the least. :)
-
Yeah, I guess, but 'introduce' wouldn't be the word I'd use, lol. More like slight wink. And then nothing comes from it until like, half the series later.
-
I would not say number 6 was a filler either.
The yeerk in Jake's head was Tom's previous yeerk and we get to know how Tom started to go to the sharing, how he became a controller, what was his feelings...
Jake is definitely upset by this as he can experience the feeling of Tom's despair and the yeerk gives him some of Tom's memories.
-
1
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54
that's what i think (with little thought, not enough time) crossed out means not important to me
-
Surprised nobody has talked about 14 yet.
I don't mind books with limited connection to the story arch as long as the story within them is interesting. Lots of these books deal with isolated and somewhat isolated missions that don't advance the overall picture much.
But book 14 was a 100 and some page long farce that built up to an alien toilet joke....
-
i know, 14 was really pointless, i'm not even sure if the horse morph was used after that
-
i'll admit the book was rather pointless, but the horse morph was used outside of that book.
the word 'horse' is mentioned 272 times in 34 books (a lot of the time to describe andalites). cassie had the morph way before #14 and used it quite a few times (if i'm not mistaken, it was her first one).
it was her 'battle morph' in #1 (she didn't have wolf yet) and also carried jake in book #6 right after he became a controller.
'you' actually morph horse in alternamorphs #2, but i'm sure most of you blocked that one out of your mind.
-
I thought the whole group specifically acquired the horses that were inhabiting that area for that book, so I believe Cassie has two separate horse morphs, one of which was used once and never again in book 14.
Could be wrong, mind you. Its been years.
-
None of the horses from book 14 were ever used again, and Cassie never used either of her horse morphs after that. (Maybe she went out and ran for fun, but nothing relevant to the story).
Though Jake uses a war horse he picks up in the middle ages in MM3
Interesting yunyun. You don't consider 5 important? Nor 46?
Most interesting
-
I jist did that in about a minute, since i barly had any time with that, i didnt think too much about the details, but i still dont find those too important to the whole series. Ok, maybe 46 sorta was bit i dont find 5 too important
-
Surprised nobody has talked about 14 yet.
I don't mind books with limited connection to the story arch as long as the story within them is interesting. Lots of these books deal with isolated and somewhat isolated missions that don't advance the overall picture much.
But book 14 was a 100 and some page long farce that built up to an alien toilet joke....
yeah I was gonna say, book 14 instantly comes to mind.
-
Book 5 is massively important. It introduces Visser 1, it gives Marco a reason to fight in the war, and its the first mission with Ax.
-
I know its not generally considered very good, but how is book 30 not considered important?
Visser One realizes the bandits are human and her host's son is among them.
Book 48 seemed like just an excuse to use popular characters (David, Crayak, Ellimist) but it does essentially nothing at all to advance the story.
-
Book 5 is massively important. It introduces Visser 1, it gives Marco a reason to fight in the war, and its the first mission with Ax.
I forgot about that.
-
I know its not generally considered very good, but how is book 30 not considered important?
Visser One realizes the bandits are human and her host's son is among them.
Book 48 seemed like just an excuse to use popular characters (David, Crayak, Ellimist) but it does essentially nothing at all to advance the story.
48 isn't 'essential' but it does provide some awesome characterization for all of the characters you mentioned but most importantly Rachel.
41 is a book most consider a waste but it is actually my favorite. It shows a lot of important stuff about Jake and its a cool book about him.
-
Surprised nobody has talked about 14 yet.
I don't mind books with limited connection to the story arch as long as the story within them is interesting. Lots of these books deal with isolated and somewhat isolated missions that don't advance the overall picture much.
But book 14 was a 100 and some page long farce that built up to an alien toilet joke....
Whenever I re-read the series as a kid I always sped through #14. It was the only one I did that to. Not interesting at all. When I re-read the series earlier this year I was reminded why.
Personally, though, I don't understand this need for various fandoms recently to trash "filler" like some piece of diseased meat. I also think the word "filler" is overused and misunderstood, especially with a series like Animorphs.
Animorphs is and always was a series of commercial children's books. Each book was designed to do nothing more than appeal to children and sell well. There was not some grand overarching plot intricately planned from the very beginning that the series played out (until the end, anyway). There may have been some ideas, but nothing laid out as concrete groundwork. As such, each book was just meant to be a fun adventure involving animals and aliens and kids. Some books were better than others. Some were referenced more often later on. However, I think its ignorant to dismiss everything else as nothing more than "filler" just because it didn't advance some un-existant grand scheme.
-
You make a reasonable point.
But I stick with the notion that the grand scheme was they were at war.
The overarching plot was to win the war.
And then there was the rather large subplots of how each character handles the war.
So I still think it's fair to say books that don't do anything to advance character development or affect the war effort can be called filler.
I agree, filler doesn't make them inherently bad (personally love 24, like 36 etc etc) but there is some larger context to animorphs that they don't contribute to.
Side note: last time I read through, I was surprised to see how often someone says in the first few books they'll blow up the pool someday. Then 45 books later they do? WTH!? Awesome