Ani-Tv:"Likes and Dislikes

[TobiasMasonPark]

     I think we can all say that the Animorphs television series was, for lack of a better word, a flop. But I doubt that one can completely despise any show without liking at least ONE thing about it (music, actors, etc). And, I think we can all put aside the many, many, many inconsistencies resulting from such an attrocity; as this thread would get very long, very fast (there must be about 300 in the entire series). So, to make this thread much, much shorter, I'll simply list somethings I liked about the show; or, at the very least, tolerated.

      I'm not going to lie. I didn't mind Christopher Ralph and Paulo Constanzo as Tobias and Ax respectively. I always imagined Tobias as having dark hair when I read the series. For some reason, I never did picture him blonde. And I guess Ralph's acting isn't completely terrible (not when Nadia Nasimento and Brooke Nevins are on set, anyways), and I think Paulo was spot on when acting out Ax. Seriously, everytime I read Ax, or write Ax, I can hear Paulo Constanzo's voice in my head. It's either the way he talks, or the odd way he walks, but something about Constanzo just screams Andalite-impersonating-a-human. Again, that's probably just my humble opinion.

     I didn't mind Shawn Ashmore as Jake. Though, that's not to say that I would have picked Ahsmore to play the fearless leader. I think his delivery is a bit wooden, and he is nothing like I pictured Jake to be (nor does he have any of the qualities of a leader [thus explaining his role as Iceman in the X-men]) but you can live with him. It's like bubble rap you get in packages: dull....but you can't resist popping one!

[LisaCharly]

The actors they had for Marco's dad and Cassie's mom were both very good and should have gotten more screen time. And when they're angsting, I like Boris Cabrera as Marco and Christopher Ralph as Tobias. Neither of them can deliver more lighthearted lines at all, though.

I adore Eugene Lipinski as V3, but for probably all the wrong reasons.

[Josh (J)]

I've only watched a few episodes of them, but I really like the actor for Jake and Rachel, and the opening theme. I disliked the poor quality, the bad dress styles, and the Andalite...the programming for them, I mean. They didn't look that real.

[Myitt]

The opening song wasn't so bad.  And yes, I didn't mind Christopher Ralph and Paulo Constanzo. 

But I can't forgive the flashlight Dracons and the thermos-Yeerks and...and...zombie Controllers.  No.

[Darth Zakryn]

I liked the opening music sequence. It sounded kinda Animorphs-like. And I agree with Tobias and Ax. In fact, the only two actors I could find fault with were Cassie and Jake, for the listed reasons. I liked SOME of it, but the rest just didn't pan with me. I see the TV series as a separate universe, not the REAL Animorphs. It feels a lot better if you watch it like that. But, seriously? No mention of the WORD Animorphs? No Crayak, Howlers, Chee, Cassie getting the morph allergy, FLASHLIGHT Dracon beams, ships that all look alike? NO, uh-UH!

[anijen21]

wasn't the actor for Marco's dad Hector Suarez from Ugly Betty

or am I just fabricating memories

[LisaCharly]

Fabricating, unfortch. This is the guy. I liked him, and generally thought he and Boris Cabrera played off each other well.

I could not at all stand Brooke Nevin as Rachel. Granted, part of it was that she was working with a terrible script, but Rachel read as so gutless and insecure. It was painful. Shawn Ashmore blatantly used a teleprompter at times, Nadia Nascimento had the screen presence of a log. I feel like as much as Boris Cabrera occasionally got it right with the more serious scenes, he tended to play Marco as just a class clown, not really conveying that Marco's a sarcastic little jerk because he's an exceptionally cynical, pessimistic kid. Christopher Ralph in the early first season had one facial expression (O.O) but gradually improved over the series, which was nice. I can't say I'm a big fan of Paulo Costanzo but my God, it's not his fault most days, the script goes out of its way to make Ax look like an idiot sometimes. The kid who played Tom was alternately good and horrid.

Honestly, half the time the problem was the script. So many inconsistencies, general idiocy and senselessness. Like the one where Jake chases Tom's car yelling "I know all about the Sharing" - and then this gets portrayed as a totally reasonable thing to do instead of the super stupid act it is. The script really tried to have the best of both worlds with the book's tone, which is tricky, because Anis balances lightness with really dark ideas - under a less skilled hand, we ended up with Visser 3 getting hit by a water balloon. Which then made it into the opening credits. Ouch.

[VisserZer0]

The Chee were in it. S2E1 I think. It was a horrible episode though.

[LisaCharly]

Oh God the My Name is Erek episode...so much wrong with it.

- What is up with the kid they got to play Erek? He seriously couldn't dye the roots of his weird orangey-purple hair?
- What is Boris Cabrera wearing and would a jury find me guilty of vandalism if I destroyed it?
- If Erek can project holograms, why does Ax need to deliver a hologram projector? Just...what?
- Ax is so stupid in this ep it gives me a headache.
- In one of the few episodes that they write Marco as sufficiently paranoid, it's written off as him just being a jerk to Erek, who at that point had given them no reason to trust him and was only distinguishable from random joe on the street by his gross grown-out orangey-purple hair.
- "If I wanted to kill you, you'd already be dead" *twenty minutes later* "Bee tee dubs that was actually a lie, I'm a programmed pacifist" "Gee, Marco, why didn't you trust him?"
- The crux of the plot is Erek's ability to ventriloquize. Seriously.
- Isn't this also the one where they sneak into a movie and have that truly horrendous green-screen shot of the mice flying in a box of popcorn?
- The moral at the end of the episode is "TV makes you stupid", and having watched this ep, I could not agree more.

[TobiasMasonPark]

     Despite the fact that the writers totally goofed up and gave Tobias a pretty decent homelife, the episode about Tobias's life was one of the better episodes.

[LisaCharly]

I loved the Visser One episodes. Even if the ending leaves you with a total "what happened to the ship?" hanging plot.

[TobiasMasonPark]

     I wonder how Christopher Ralf felt when he found out that he would mostly be doing voice overs for most of the series. I doubt the actors read much farther than the Invasion.

[Semeir-Cooraf-Armaheen]

I think they all had their star moments, but the budget made everything suck.

I did like Ax and Tobias, though. Heck, the episode Changes where Tobias finds out Elfangor was his father had GREAT moments. I made a music video and I kept one of Elfangor's sound bytes because he had one of those epic lines you just can't stop thinking about. (Ironically, the voice for the show is pretty close to what I imagine his thoughtspeak sounds like anyhow!)

He said: "I would gladly sacrifice forever with strangers for a single moment with someone I love."

Sound file: http://www.box.net/shared/y099zjre82  It's a .wav file so you can make it a computer sound if you want.

It's too bad the show never panned out. A lot of people who only saw the show and not the books were probably confused as hell about how an Andalite had a human child.


There really COULD be a souped up movie like Power Rangers got--maybe if they have to tweak it, it could be the kids finally figured out how to open/read/download/whatever Elfangor's Hirac Delest and the movie becomes a frame story, beginning and ending with the kids reading the disk.

[TobiasMasonPark]

     You'd have to release a film about the invasion before, so the third generation kids would get it. People who read the books back in 1996, and those of us who started after the series ended, then something like that makes sense. But to a ten year old, it would just be confusing. It wouldn't be like the Power Rangers, since the series is still airing ten years later. Animorphs has been out of print for nine years.

[Semeir-Cooraf-Armaheen]

I meant old school Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. They got a movie.