Author Topic: New Animorphs Television Series Discussion: Season Breakdown  (Read 10978 times)

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Offline TobiasMasonPark

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Re: New Animorphs Television Series Discussion: Season Breakdown
« Reply #15 on: May 30, 2013, 09:46:58 PM »

     If we absolutely HAD to have an Animorphs animated series, I would settle for nothing less than this:
 
     http://i403.photobucket.com/albums/pp117/tehmels/anigroupextreme3copy.jpg

     Or this:

     http://i353.photobucket.com/albums/r397/Blue_Rampion/Anicomp/R1-Entry2.jpg

     I have no clue who did these, but I WISH I was the owner! This is what I would want an animated series to be like.
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Offline paul1991

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Re: New Animorphs Television Series Discussion: Season Breakdown
« Reply #16 on: May 30, 2013, 10:47:52 PM »
I really like that 2nd entry you posted @guyaboveme.

A noir, modern/futuristic, inner-city setting would be incredible to read.

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Re: New Animorphs Television Series Discussion: Season Breakdown
« Reply #17 on: June 22, 2013, 09:04:32 PM »

      http://zimonini.deviantart.com/gallery/24072635

     I particularly like the Hork-Bajir: http://zimonini.deviantart.com/art/ANIMORPHS-RACE-Hork-Bajir-13789124. It kind of reminds me of one of the more recent Spider-Man cartoons.

     Deviantart is making me consider Animorphs as a cartoon series.
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Offline SuperBlue

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Re: New Animorphs Television Series Discussion: Season Breakdown
« Reply #18 on: June 23, 2013, 09:35:36 PM »
I wouldn't mind an art style like this:
http://browse.deviantart.com/art/Animorphs-Manga-Splash-76965736
(though I can see people complaining that it looks too kiddy but w/e I love the Rachel and Tobias designs)

If they did go the Animated route (And I'm really hoping they do. No matter how many times I try to run it through my head, I just can't see another Live action attempt doing the series any justice. I'd just be way too expensive) I'd love for it to have an art style similar to Young Justice or the Last Airbender series. Those two are perfect examples of western animation done right.
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Re: New Animorphs Television Series Discussion: Season Breakdown
« Reply #19 on: June 23, 2013, 11:07:35 PM »

     Agreed. Particularly on not being able to picture a live action series that does the books justice--and on hoping the style is similar to Young Justice.
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Offline Snakie

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Re: New Animorphs Television Series Discussion: Season Breakdown
« Reply #20 on: June 24, 2013, 01:35:09 AM »
A live action thing would require a near Avengers-esque budget to pull off properly.

Of course, animation isn't exactly cheap either, so if this is fantasy we may as well go all out with it. :)

But yeah, animation certainly makes the more fantastical elements a lot easier to pull off.   Would people feel this way about live action if we hadn't already seen the miserable budgeted Nickelodeon series?

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Re: New Animorphs Television Series Discussion: Season Breakdown
« Reply #21 on: June 24, 2013, 02:19:23 AM »
Quote
   Of course, there's also an alternative that I am in favour of. Instead of keeping the David Trilogy as...well, a trilogy, we expand it. Now, this can go on for the entire season, or it could end sometime in the middle. Either way, David would be in the opening credits (feel free to discuss this [the opening theme/credits] as well!). This would give us a chance to see David in more missions than he was given, and also gives us a chance to see some personal growth. I always felt that David was too 2-dimensional in the series. We never really go to see his side of things. This alternative approach to the TV series might just convert a few of the haters.

     Anyways...Because it's difficult to plan out the second season, we'll leave the layout this way:

     14) The Unknown
     15) The Escape
     16) The Warning
     17) The Underground
     18) The Decision
     19) The Departure
     20) The Discovery
     21) The Threat
     22) The Solution
     23) The Pretender
     24) The Suspicion
     25) The Extreme
     26) The Attack

I actually think David should stay for the entire season. Give fans a chance to know him better and maybe expand on his character a little more so that we can actually feel some sympathy for him (I don't care how f***** up his life was, not once did I ever feel any sympathy for that little jerk. I was pretty much on Marco's side throughout that whole trilogy) and have him build relationships with the other Animorphs, particularly Cassie since his entire defeat was her idea. Maybe he develops some feelings for Cassie since she gave him a home (or rather barn) to stay in and generally treated him more like a person than the rest of the Anis (He's had negative things to say about everyone but I don't remember him ever saying anything bad about Cassie). So imagine how much the his eventual downfall would hurt the both of them (assuming David knew it was all Cassie's plan. I forgot whether or not they told him that) and how fans of the show (the ones who didn't read the books and wont know what's coming) will feel for this character, who's now been around for long that he's pretty much become a main protagonist and probably even has a fanbase by the time he goes bad, since he's not only been doomed to the life of a rat but it was all the idea of the one person on the team he could call a friend (plus his one sided crush on Cassie could lead to some amusing banter between him and Jake during their fight at the end of 21)

And not just Cassie, have him establish some kind of relationship (be it bad or good) with all of the Animorphs so that they genuinely feel bad about his betrayal and not just: "Ah-ha! I knew we couldn't trust this guy". Because really, none of them trusted him. It's not like he gave them many reasons to but, at least in my opinion, the whole "Animorph gone bad" thing could have been sooo much better if it were a character that the Animorphs all trusted and thought of as a friend. David can still keep his bad attitude but make him more than an obvious traitor. Give him some depth. It's like how the Teen Titans show handled Terra. In the comics she was a snarky **** and a complete psychotic monster who, at the age of 14, was sleeping with the Titans' elderly arch enemy. Plus the audience knew she was a traitor before the actual team ever figured it out. Sounds a lot like David, doesn't it? Well...except for the whole sleeping with the pedo bad guys thing. But in the TV show, Terra was more or less a tragic hero. She was a good guy (and a REALLY likable character) from the start. She only betrayed the team because the bad guy played with her emotions (but DID NOT have sex with her) and talked her into joining him in exchange for teaching her how to control her powers. In the end she eventually realizes the mistakes she's made and sacrifices herself to save the Titans (In he comics, she just went crazy...er and dropped a building on herself) I don't want changes to David to be as extreme as they were with Terra (Because the only thing Comic Terra and TV Terra had in common were their powers, their fight with Raven, and their relationship with Beast Boy) but at least make the kid some kind of human being before he eventually turns bad, and not just have him be a total sociopath from the start to the finish. He can still be a jerk and a pain in the ass but give him SOME qualities about him that make audiences who didn't read the book believe he'd actually become a full member of the team. That was my main problem with David. That story arc had so much potential and it's still my favorite in the series but why are we supposed to feel anything for this kid when not even the Animorphs do? If another Animorphs TV show is ever made, I hope they take full advantage of the liberties they'd be allowed to take and make David an actual member of the main cast for at least ONE season. In fact his betrayal and defeat would be a perfect season finale.

....wow. I did not mean for that rant to go as long as it did. And I apologize because I still have more to say.



Quote
(feel free to discuss this [the opening theme/credits] as well!)

I am a diehard anime fan. And when I talk about an Animorphs cartoon I try REALLY hard not to make it into an American attempt at anime (even though I honestly believe Japanese animation trumps Western animation in EVERY way) but when it comes to Opening/Ending credits, I can't help but always bring up anime because what they do is something every country should be doing. For one thing, they don't use instrumentals, narrations, or cheesy and lazily written songs that give the gist of what the show is about while showing clips of we're already gonna see in the actual episdes. They use real songs from legit bands, not random undiscovered (and often for good reason) singers that would be glad to make up a song on the spot for $5. And they have different openings for each season or story arc the show happens to be on. And they use custom animations, not clips from episodes! And a lot of it is BEAUTIFUL! When I watch anime, I sometimes end up liking the opening/ending themes better than actual show just because of how beautifully it's animated and how epic the music is. I could totally see an Animorphs opening being done like these:

Naruto Shippuden Opening 6 Sign on Vimeo
Soul Eater OPENING 2 (HD) on Vimeo
BLEACH - Opening 7 on Vimeo
Fairy Tail Opening 14 on Vimeo
Deadman Wonderland Opening on Vimeo (I've actually found myself daydreaming about an Animorphs version of this one)


And can't be that expensive to call up an existing and band like (Linkin Park, Dead by April, Evanescence, ect.) and ask them if they'd allow one of their songs to be used as an opening for a series. They don't even have to write a new song for it! Just use one of their songs that they've already made. That can't be more expensive than what they're already doing: hiring somebody to write the song, somebody to sing it, and a band to play the accompanying music. Sure you could save money by just making the opening an instrumental piece or go the Young Justice (Season 2) route and have your opening be like 10 seconds long. But that's boring :(


Quote
Would people feel this way about live action if we hadn't already seen the miserable budgeted Nickelodeon series?

No. Because True Blood and Game of Thrones are the only live action shows I've seen with IMPRESSIVE special effects and that STILL wouldn't be enough for something like Animorphs. Plus those shows got their phenomenal budget from HBO being powerhouses. Animorphs wold most likely end up on a regular cable network. If you want an HBO budget for Animorphs, the series is gonna need A LOT more adult (borederline porn) themes. And since the main cast is 13-16 (God I hope they'd get the ages right this time around), I don't think that'll go over well XD
« Last Edit: June 24, 2013, 02:26:35 AM by Mega Blue »
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Re: New Animorphs Television Series Discussion: Season Breakdown
« Reply #22 on: December 22, 2013, 12:29:39 AM »
     Apologies, Blue, for the very late response :P

     We are agreed on the David thing. I would definitely have him as a major character in season two, and the changes to his character will be made if I were in charge. The trilogy did some funny things with David's relationship with other characters. At first, there seems to be antagonism between him and Marco. Then, in the Threat, it's between David and Jake (David's questioning Jake's authority). In the Solution, the whole trilogy (as poparena points out) becomes focused on making Rachel David's foil, and emphasises their feud as if it had been the whole point of the trilogy. What I'm trying to say, but doubt is coherent, is that there's a lot of flip flopping. One character hates David one book, then another in the next, and another in the third. It makes sense, in a way, as Marco, Jake, and Rachel narrate those books. But it seems like David's interaction with the other Animorphs wasn't handled as well as it could have been--though, I'm not saying I could do better.

     But we're getting ahead of ourselves, I think. Here we are discussing season 2, when I can't even complete a script for episode 1! I just can't think of anything that would make the pilot GREAT. I've done many drafts of early scenes, and I scrap them because I lose interest--Jake and Marco getting a ride to school from Tom, followed by a look at each Animorph throughout the school day and the mall; to just starting from the mall, like in the Invasion. I can't figure out how to make the first episode interesting enough. Do I just take the stuff from the Invasion and stretch it into two parts, or should I take liberties?

     We also have to take the time difference into consideration: more than 10 years has passed since the first book was released. We have ipods, internet, camera phones, crazy as hell surveillance, new pop culture, new economies, new issues in politics, a new way of speaking (for kids and adults), etc. Do I make Marco say "swag" and "Yolo"--ironically, of course-- Do I focus more on Rachel's girly-side or her violent side? Do I turn Tobias into Edward Cullen? How can I get the show to connect with the audience we have now? Is it even possible to update the series to fit with the times? Or is the Animorphs just a product of the nineties?

     I don't know about how things are in the States, but here, there aren't any video game arcades--where the series begins-- what with the console wars going on. So how do I get the Animorphs to take their famous short cut through the construction site? Are they all going to the same party and decide to walk home together?

     Stuff like that is what I'm having trouble with. All the material is, thankfully, in the book. As usual, the difficulty, for me, is in starting.

     Edit

     I've thought up some more questions/issues I've had thus far:

     1) How would thought speech be depicted?

          Maybe it's an easy fix--voice overs, or whatever the technical term would be. But think about some of the scenes in the books: when the kids are flying to their destination, they'll crack jokes or discuss the mission at hand. The problem with special effects (morphing, the animals, etc) already make the project difficult; but how do we determine who is speaking to whom whilst in morph? How do we avoid making it look cheesy?

     2) How do we get around new technology?

          What's to stop the kid's from getting caught on camera (security or otherwise). It would make a good plot for a an earlier filler episode, but it's not something they could get away with over and over. This issue goes for the Yeerks as well--because we know how sloppy they were in the series.

     3) How do we depict morphing?

          We all know of how the Nick series did it--the awkward transitions, or straight up just morphing behind something. Do we do the same thing, but hope we have better technology to avoid making it look awful? Do we do a long drawn out transformation sequence like they do on Power Rangers, Digimon, and Sailor moon?

     4) Should we have episodes be narrated or not?

          Again, it seems trivial, and like an easy fix. But the Nick series--at least, from what I've seen-- was really bad with narration. Some episodes would have it, others wouldn't. Will this series be narrated as well? Is the whole series being shown to us through the Animorphs' memories/hirac delest (one of my earlier ideas) taken down at some point before the big fight at the end of the series? Or do we nix narration, and show the series unfold as we go? The books come off like diaries most times--though, this is debatable. How do we make diary entries come to the screen?

     5) Do we keep the original series opening?

          Do we keep it as the "kids at the mall take a shortcut through an abandoned construction site" beginning? I already brought up the thing about the obsolete arcades, but the Animorphs could be there for other reasons. Kids still go to the mall on Fridays...right? I don't know. I'm 21...How the hell do thirteen year olds act? From what I hear from my younger brother, and from what I've seen of the kids roughly 13 years old the Animorphs will be some pretty awful people.

     6) Puppets or CGI?

          For the aliens, I mean.

     
« Last Edit: December 22, 2013, 12:51:53 AM by Duck, Duck, Goose »
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Offline Samwise

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Re: New Animorphs Television Series Discussion: Season Breakdown
« Reply #23 on: January 24, 2014, 11:41:47 AM »
If it were me, I'd make it animated and set it from 1996-2000. Animation so you could make all the aliens look good without breaking the bank, 1996 so it would appeal more to the original readers. Think about it: the books are out of print. The audience for this series wouldn't be little kids: it would be 20-somethings who read the series during its original run and come back to it out of a sense of nostalgia (like, uh, me). Setting it in the mid-late 90's helps with the nostalgia, as well as avoiding the problem of new technology and knowing what those darn kids these days do. What with helicopter parenting and all, would 2014 Animorphs even walk home by themselves? I'm imagining all their parents picking them up in individual minivans and shuttling them to their next scheduled extracurricular activity, while Tobias walks home alone and becomes the world's only Animorph. :P

I also think the series was very 90's in tone and outlook. Things were pretty good in the 90's, at least in America - the economy was booming, we weren't at war, we were blissfully unaware of global terrorism... but in pop culture, there was a lot of "things may SEEM okay, but underneath the surface everything's actually HORRIBLE!!!" See: The X-Files, The Matrix, The Truman Show, etc. Animorphs fits into that milieu very well. To give it more of a post-9/11 feel, you'd probably want the Yeerks to do some huge attack that kills thousands (or, hell, they're aliens, not dudes with boxcutters - millions), getting everyone's attention, and then the paranoia that anyone could be a Yeerk drives the governments of Earth to turn on their own people, setting up constant surveillance, curtailing individual liberties, etc. (Would that be too on-the-nose? ;) )

Anyway, I doubt teens who experienced 9/11 in elementary school would have the attitude of, "I thought the world was perfect and I had nothing to worry about, but now I find that there's an alien invasion going on." (Edited to add: Oh God, I just realized: with modern-day Animorphs, 9/11 would have happened before they were born. :o How old am I?!) Also, this is probably horrible, but in an age where it seems like every dramatic TV show has a scene where the good guy tortures someone, I wonder if they'd have as many moral dilemmas? The war on terror seems to have established a theme in public discourse that's seeped into pop culture that we can do whatever horrific thing we want and still be the good guys.

But now I'm going off on a political rant. Here's how I'd do it:
- Animated, set in 1996-2000. No voice-over narration. The whole "I can't tell you my last name or where I live" thing doesn't work for a medium where you can see everyone's faces. I think I'd also go for an opening in the vein of LOST or Supernatural: no theme song, just the name of the show for like 10 seconds with some unsettling music possibly by Radiohead, then opening credits on the bottom of the screen as the show plays.
- Four seasons of 12 hour-long episodes (2 "spotlight" episodes for each character per season), each season ending with a made-for-TV movie based on a Chronicles book.
- I wouldn't be too slavish adapting each book in sequence, and ignore certain books entirely. ("The Underground," "The Experiment," "The Mutation," "The Hidden" - as much as I love this series, let's admit it: a number of these books were just filler, and some of them were just flat-out bad.) Instead, focus on season arcs: what is the primary arc of this season? What is each character's arc? Steal book plots as they fit in with the theme, make up your own when necessary, keep the good parts of a plot (there's a way to drive a Yeerk insane - but it'll be trapped in its host forever! Is it worth it?) while discarding the bad parts (it's maple-sugar oatmeal!). Take character development that happened in one book and pair it with a more interesting plot from another book. Play around with narrative emphasis. (What if "The Message" was told from Ax's perspective instead of Cassie's? Can you imagine if the book had started with: "My name is Aximilli-Esgarouth-Isthill. The Yeerks have destroyed the Dome Ship. I am trapped at the bottom of an Earth ocean, and my air and water is running out. If you can hear this, I beg of you, please help." What if "The Android" was told from Cassie's perspective instead of Marco's? Wouldn't the Chee's pacifism resonate with her?) You're already expanding David's plot throughout all of Season Two (which is a great idea, by the way), so no need to adapt every book exactly as it was published.
- While I'm on David, how about making him a girl? The Animorphs are already kind of a sausage fest - the girls are outnumbered even before you add Ax and Erek - and a new female Animorph would throw off the readers familiar with the David trilogy, leading to more uncertainty as to whether or not she will betray them. Also, think about this: Jake has Cassie. Tobias has Rachel. Marco has no one. And that's largely treated as a joke in the series: ha-ha, womanizing girl-crazy guy is all alone. But let's work with that seriously. He's lonely. If he's really into, let's call her Dominique, and she actually likes him back, his defenses are lowered. Since he's probably the most distrustful member of the group, his lowered defenses allow her to last a lot longer. And then of course, when she betrays the group, that gives Marco something to angst over other than his mom, as well as providing a bit of a warning sign to Rachel (i.e., is this what you're turning into?).
- Expand the Yeerk Peace Movement and resistence by ex-Controllers by, like, a lot. These showed up a little bit in the series, but not nearly enough. Plus, the YPM gives Cassie something to do in later episodes that doesn't involve ghosts, morphing buffalo, or random pointless trips to Australia. Also, Taylor's whole bit about the Yeerk going crazy because it can no longer tell where it ends and its host begins. More on that, and maybe more on Taylor. I have this idea for a plot, early on, where Tom brings his "girlfriend," Taylor, to the Berenson family Passover seder. She's a quiet, sad former model who recently joined The Sharing, after a terrible accident left her burned and mutilated. (Maybe even an accident that the Animorphs caused in a prior battle with the Yeerks.) Jake and Rachel recognize that she hasn't yet been infested and the Animorphs try to save her, but ultimately fail, and at the end of the episode, she moves away. It's made to feel like a one-off episode meant primarily to establish the stakes and show more about The Sharing and its victims. Until she comes back in Season Three.
- End Season Three with "The Revelation" (TV movie: Visser) and stretch out the last eight books to be the entire fourth season. The Auxilliary Animorphs also deserve way more attention, as well as the ramifications of everyone finding out about the Yeerks. Have Rachel die at the very end of "The Answer," air The Ellimist Chronicles, then air the last episode.

As for the first episode, what do you think of J.J. Abram's technique in LOST and Revolution of starting with the world already changed and then explaining what happened in flashbacks? What if you just skipped the construction site scene, with its massive exposition dump, and just start it with them already being Animorphs? And then explain what's going on in flashbacks tailored to whichever character is most prominent in each episode? I don't know how well that would work, but it's just a thought.

I'm sorry, that's a huge wall of text. I'll stop babbling now. It's just that I've been working out ideas for a TV series too (not that it'll ever come to pass), so I was very excited to see this thread.
« Last Edit: January 24, 2014, 01:25:41 PM by Samwise »

Offline NothingFromSomething

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Re: New Animorphs Television Series Discussion: Season Breakdown
« Reply #24 on: January 24, 2014, 07:20:04 PM »
Yeah, anything Animorphs would pretty much have to be animated, and serialized, to hold up.

Absolutely agree about the 90s "feel" being half the battle, too.  The series is so Clinton-era in vibe, that pre-9/11 moderate security in the west thing.  Guerrilla warfare and paranoia aren't exactly foreign concepts anymore.

Person Of Interest re-watch.  Still stunning as ever.

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Re: New Animorphs Television Series Discussion: Season Breakdown
« Reply #25 on: January 24, 2014, 07:49:45 PM »
Quote
But now I'm going off on a political rant. Here's how I'd do it:
- Animated, set in 1996-2000. No voice-over narration. The whole "I can't tell you my last name or where I live" thing doesn't work for a medium where you can see everyone's faces. I think I'd also go for an opening in the vein of LOST or Supernatural: no theme song, just the name of the show for like 10 seconds with some unsettling music possibly by Radiohead, then opening credits on the bottom of the screen as the show plays.

     Agreed on no voice-over, I think. However I'm still iffy about setting it in the 90s, as I believe it will alienate the younger audience that I'd try to get into the show. We can't rely on nostalgic twenty-somethings alone as an audience. Nostalgia alone can't keep a show alive. Case in point: the relaunch. I haven't seen LOST or Supernatural, so I'm not familiar with their openings, but I get what you're saying.

Quote
- Four seasons of 12 hour-long episodes (2 "spotlight" episodes for each character per season), each season ending with a made-for-TV movie based on a Chronicles book.

     Well, including commercials we'd be looking at 45 minutes, give or take. But I agree.

Quote
- I wouldn't be too slavish adapting each book in sequence, and ignore certain books entirely. ("The Underground," "The Experiment," "The Mutation," "The Hidden" - as much as I love this series, let's admit it: a number of these books were just filler, and some of them were just flat-out bad.)

     Agreed on everything except the Underground. I feel that's an important book. The Animorphs finally have a very powerful, albeit silly, weapon to use against the Yeerks; though it comes with a price. This provides an ethical dilemma that the series, I think, is known for.

Quote
Instead, focus on season arcs: what is the primary arc of this season? What is each character's arc? Steal book plots as they fit in with the theme, make up your own when necessary, keep the good parts of a plot (there's a way to drive a Yeerk insane - but it'll be trapped in its host forever! Is it worth it?) while discarding the bad parts (it's maple-sugar oatmeal!).

     I personally feel that the fact that the drug is Instant Maple and Ginger oatmeal should remain. Again, it's the humor the series is known for. Taking that away would be taking away a part of the Animorphs, in my opinion.

Quote
Take character development that happened in one book and pair it with a more interesting plot from another book. Play around with narrative emphasis. (What if "The Message" was told from Ax's perspective instead of Cassie's? Can you imagine if the book had started with: "My name is Aximilli-Esgarouth-Isthill. The Yeerks have destroyed the Dome Ship. I am trapped at the bottom of an Earth ocean, and my air and water is running out. If you can hear this, I beg of you, please help." What if "The Android" was told from Cassie's perspective instead of Marco's? Wouldn't the Chee's pacifism resonate with her?) You're already expanding David's plot throughout all of Season Two (which is a great idea, by the way), so no need to adapt every book exactly as it was published.

     Initially I was going to disagree with you, but I thought about it for a while and changed my mind--also, I confused the Android for the Predator :p). This idea could work for a lot of those books that don't necessarily fit the character who narrates. The Message doesn't feel like a Cassie book, and the Android feels less like a Marco book and more like what you said. Of course, I'm sure there are books that we couldn't apply this change to (i.e. books about Marco/Visser One, Ax being alienated [pun intended] on Earth, Tobias's wangst, etc.).

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- While I'm on David, how about making him a girl? The Animorphs are already kind of a sausage fest - the girls are outnumbered even before you add Ax and Erek - and a new female Animorph would throw off the readers familiar with the David trilogy, leading to more uncertainty as to whether or not she will betray them. Also, think about this: Jake has Cassie. Tobias has Rachel. Marco has no one. And that's largely treated as a joke in the series: ha-ha, womanizing girl-crazy guy is all alone. But let's work with that seriously. He's lonely. If he's really into, let's call her Dominique, and she actually likes him back, his defenses are lowered. Since he's probably the most distrustful member of the group, his lowered defenses allow her to last a lot longer. And then of course, when she betrays the group, that gives Marco something to angst over other than his mom, as well as providing a bit of a warning sign to Rachel (i.e., is this what you're turning into?).

      This, I'm not sure about. That's a pretty big change to make. New fans wouldn't notice or care, of course. But the older fans will probably spazz out (at least I would :P). This seems funny, coming from me--a big fan of the gender-flip thing), but David is also my favourite character of the series. I don't know if I'd want him to be changed to a female just so Marco has a pairing. Plus, we'd just be substituting David for Faith from Buffy the Vampire Slayer :P.

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- Expand the Yeerk Peace Movement and resistence by ex-Controllers by, like, a lot. These showed up a little bit in the series, but not nearly enough. Plus, the YPM gives Cassie something to do in later episodes that doesn't involve ghosts, morphing buffalo, or random pointless trips to Australia.

     Totally. Agreed 100%.

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Also, Taylor's whole bit about the Yeerk going crazy because it can no longer tell where it ends and its host begins. More on that, and maybe more on Taylor. I have this idea for a plot, early on, where Tom brings his "girlfriend," Taylor, to the Berenson family Passover seder. She's a quiet, sad former model who recently joined The Sharing, after a terrible accident left her burned and mutilated. (Maybe even an accident that the Animorphs caused in a prior battle with the Yeerks.) Jake and Rachel recognize that she hasn't yet been infested and the Animorphs try to save her, but ultimately fail, and at the end of the episode, she moves away. It's made to feel like a one-off episode meant primarily to establish the stakes and show more about The Sharing and its victims. Until she comes back in Season Three.

     This is interesting. I remember reading a story where Tom was brought into the Sharing by Taylor, and I, too, wanted to connect Taylor's accident to one of the Animorphs' battles to play up the causal/deterministic themes of the series. So I agree about making Taylor seem more sympathetic, but I don't know to what extent.

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- End Season Three with "The Revelation" (TV movie: Visser) and stretch out the last eight books to be the entire fourth season. The Auxilliary Animorphs also deserve way more attention, as well as the ramifications of everyone finding out about the Yeerks. Have Rachel die at the very end of "The Answer," air The Ellimist Chronicles, then air the last episode.

     I was thinking of making the Auxiliaries recurring characters with a larger role in the final season--so that they're not just cannon-fodder. Something similar to the Potentials in season Seven of Buffy. I would like to have some of the Animorphs play a mentor-apprentice role to the Auxiliaries. A lot of people seem to like ending the series with a TV-Chronicles film. I'll think on this some more, as I haven't put too much thought into how the Chronicles and Megamorphs books will fit in.

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As for the first episode, what do you think of J.J. Abram's technique in LOST and Revolution of starting with the world already changed and then explaining what happened in flashbacks? What if you just skipped the construction site scene, with its massive exposition dump, and just start it with them already being Animorphs? And then explain what's going on in flashbacks tailored to whichever character is most prominent in each episode? I don't know how well that would work, but it's just a thought.

     Again, haven't seen LOST or Revolution, but I get your meaning. I considered this, and, honestly, it seems like the likely route to take. I think the reason I haven't written a full script for the Invasion, aside from laziness and possibly bad writing, is because I'm focusing too much on the exposition. I'll have to think more about this.

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I'm sorry, that's a huge wall of text. I'll stop babbling now. It's just that I've been working out ideas for a TV series too (not that it'll ever come to pass), so I was very excited to see this thread.

     Don't apologise. I WANT RAFians to respond like this :P I like hearing people's opinions/ideas about how the show would work in today's media.
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Offline Adam

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Re: New Animorphs Television Series Discussion: Season Breakdown
« Reply #26 on: January 25, 2014, 12:21:59 PM »
It would be preferable to have a live action show, but, let's face it: Budget budget budget!

Nevertheless, I think this series would be a good way to improve on an already good series, and give us a chance to see aspects of the series that perhaps were rarely or never seen. For example, even though Andalites were mentioned many times, we only knew a select few characters well. Perhaps more attention could be given to Andalites elsewhere during the events happening on Earth, maybe to better explain why they were so reluctant towards us.

Aside from Andalites, there were other story lines that could do with being explored. The Pemalites, for example, could have been interesting to see before they went arse over head. Also, groups like the Chee, the Auxillaries, the free Horks, and even Controllers, would be worth going more in depth on, because the species spent little time in them, and in most cases, unjustly!

Also, maybe make Visser Three a little more believable! You would have thought that lopping off the heads of subordinates for breathing too loud would be more than just frowned upon!
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Offline NothingFromSomething

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Re: New Animorphs Television Series Discussion: Season Breakdown
« Reply #27 on: January 25, 2014, 06:26:56 PM »
It's not just budget, though.  Even with a multi-hundred-million-dollar movie like Avatar, it all looks great, but we're not quite there yet with approaching-photorealistic living beings.  And that's all alien stuff, the disconnect is always bigger with stuff where we actually know what they look like.

TV CG still doesn't even come close to that.  You're better off having it all just be hand-drawn animated (not this 3D computer stuff), everything blending and feeling right.

Live-action also kind of curbs what you can get away with a little, too, the censors/ratings boards are always more sensitive to that.

Eh, who am I kidding?  If they ever do Animorphs, it'll be a soft PG movie and in the Harry Potter mold as far as amount of films made, trying to condense the whole thing into 4, 5 or 6 flicks.  With 19 year old perfect-looking models-turned-actors cast as the kids, a moderate budget, and directed by some former-special-effects guy who wants to try his hand at storytelling.

Killjoy-man says it'd be a disaster.   :P


EDIT:  On a related note, I just randomly remembered the other day, unsure why I was thinkin' about Animorphs, but back as a kid reading through I always used to picture The Drode having Gilbert Gottfried's voice.  Haha!  Looking back, that still holds up.  Go 12 year old me!
« Last Edit: January 26, 2014, 04:14:08 AM by NothingFromSomething »

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Offline Samwise

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Re: New Animorphs Television Series Discussion: Season Breakdown
« Reply #28 on: January 27, 2014, 01:48:27 AM »
Agreed on no voice-over, I think. However I'm still iffy about setting it in the 90s, as I believe it will alienate the younger audience that I'd try to get into the show. We can't rely on nostalgic twenty-somethings alone as an audience. Nostalgia alone can't keep a show alive. Case in point: the relaunch.
Here's the thing: even if it's animated, this is going to be an expensive show to produce. TV networks are conservative; you're asking them to invest a lot of money into this project, and they're going to want as much of a guarantee as they can get that they're going to earn that money back - and more. That's why they like doing remakes and adaptations of already-successful entertainment properties: they're safer. The story already makes money in a different format, there's brand familiarity, there's a built-in fanbase. The network executives aren't taking too big a gamble.

Animorphs was popular in the 90's. It has brand familiarity with people who were kids then, but not with kids today. There's no built-in kid fanbase. What fanbase it still has is largely 20-something. And there's no evidence that the story sells today, in 2014. Actually, there's evidence that it doesn't, because the relaunch failed. An out-of-print, decade-old property proven to be a hard sell to modern audiences does not generally get adapted to the screen - especially if it requires a big budget. If TV execs decide for some reason that there's demand for a show about kids fighting aliens by turning into animals, they might as well just release an original series ripping off the idea. That way, at least they have all the rights to it; they don't have to negotiate with Scholastic or any other publisher. It's completely theirs.

On top of that, there's a lot of graphic violence and body horror in Animorphs that KAA could get away with because she was working in a literary format. You can't really get away with visual depictions of that stuff in material aimed at children. If adapted faithfully, I can't imagine an Animorphs TV show getting any less than a TV-14 rating. So the very youngest target demographic would be teenagers - but teenagers are as hard a sell as children. On the other hand, nostalgia sells. Look at all those "I Love the [Decade]" specials on VH1. And we're just leaving the era of 80's nostalgia and entering a time of 90's nostalgia. I'm not saying it's the easiest pitch, but if you're going to pitch Animorphs to networks, this is the only approach I can think of to convince them that this idea can make money. That is, if Scholastic gives you permission to pitch it.

I personally feel that the fact that the drug is Instant Maple and Ginger oatmeal should remain. Again, it's the humor the series is known for. Taking that away would be taking away a part of the Animorphs, in my opinion.
Oh no, humor is totally important to the series. But it's important to consider where the humor is coming from. Character-driven comedy like Marco's quips, Ax's love of food, and witty banter between characters? Pure. Gold. It gives viewers a break from the darkness of the war, it makes the characters relatable, which makes you care more about the story, and of course, it's just generally fun. Situational comedy, like the oatmeal or the Andalite toilet, though, is a little more dangerous in the context of this series. To care about the kids fighting this war, viewers have to be genuinely scared of the enemy. If the Yeerks don't seem like a credible threat, everything else falls apart.

This is the main reason I could never get into Doctor Who despite my love of sci-fi, time travel, and British humor. I am willing to suspend so much disbelief, overlook so much "wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey" pseudoscientific hand-waving, and ignore so many plot holes if a show is charming enough. But when you expect me to buy that a garbage can with a toilet plunger sticking out of it is the most terrifying thing in the universe... I can't. I just can't. I don't buy the Dalek threat, so I don't buy Doctor Who.

If the Yeerks can be sidelined by something as silly as oatmeal, or spend a ton of time and resources on obtaining what turns out to be a toilet, it does add a bit of needed levity to an otherwise dark series - but at the cost of undermining the audience's fear of the enemy. Admittedly, doing that once or twice isn't the worst thing in the world: as long as you keep the Yeerks scary in the vast majority of the episodes, you can get away with the occasional silliness without doing too much damage to the audience's suspension of disbelief. But why take the chance when there are so many places to find humor in Animorphs that don't require that trade-off? In my mind, the benefit just isn't worth the cost.

This, I'm not sure about. That's a pretty big change to make. New fans wouldn't notice or care, of course. But the older fans will probably spazz out (at least I would :P). This seems funny, coming from me--a big fan of the gender-flip thing), but David is also my favourite character of the series. I don't know if I'd want him to be changed to a female just so Marco has a pairing. Plus, we'd just be substituting David for Faith from Buffy the Vampire Slayer :P.
Well... here's my thinking: back in '98, I ground my teeth over every change AniTV made. Now, I've come around to the idea that adapting a book into a TV series requires changes - and less important than what you change is why you change it. (Also that faithfulness to the books was the least of that show's problems.) Animorphs could use more female representation, and Marco could use more going on emotionally than just the stuff with his mom. And I thought, well, his lack of a love life paired with his girl-craziness might be a good source of drama. (Not that I just want him paired up; a short-lived romance that ends in tragedy or an unrequited crush is a much richer vein to mine.) I figured a female David could kill both those birds with one stone. Not that that's the only way to solve both those problems, or even necessarily the best way: it just popped into my head, so I figured I'd throw it out there.

I don't think a female David would be like Faith, though. Faith was an obvious "bad girl" from the beginning, and Buffy went along with it because she was tired of being responsible all the time. A David who stays in the group for an entire season, regardless of gender, has to start out seeming like a good idea: logical, good at tactics, knowledgable about military and government, able to make contributions that no current Animorph can, probably pretty charming because sociopaths can be like that. And then holes start appearing in his/her story, and bad stuff starts happening, and doubts build up and trust breaks down, and before you know it there's a kid down an elevator shaft and it's time for a one-way ticket to Rat Island.

Anyway, a less-objectionable gender flip might be if Erek chose to project a hologram of a girl intead of a boy. After all, if a female fan had happened to win that contest, he'd "be" a girl anyway. But that change doesn't solve any other problems. I generally prefer to make minimal changes for maximum impact.

I was thinking of making the Auxiliaries recurring characters with a larger role in the final season--so that they're not just cannon-fodder. Something similar to the Potentials in season Seven of Buffy. I would like to have some of the Animorphs play a mentor-apprentice role to the Auxiliaries.

That sounds awesome. And I'd love for some of the Auxiliaries to survive, too. Even if it's just James. Actually, it would be kind of cool if there's a scene with the Animorphs and James, the sole Auxiliary survivor, and he just lost all his friends, and he's traumatized, and they're like, "So... now you see what we've been dealing with. We're sorry you had to have such a harsh introduction, but... this is war. People are going to continue to die. People you know. People you like. Are you still in? Because it's okay if you want to quit." And he stares into the middle-distance for a moment with glassy, red-rimmed eyes, and finally fixes his gaze on Jake with a look of pure determination and says, "I'm in."

A lot of people seem to like ending the series with a TV-Chronicles film. I'll think on this some more, as I haven't put too much thought into how the Chronicles and Megamorphs books will fit in.
I don't know if I'd even use any of the Megamorph books. But the Chronicles books are really essential to world-building, in my opinion.
« Last Edit: January 27, 2014, 02:11:46 AM by Samwise »

Offline Liora

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Re: New Animorphs Television Series Discussion: Season Breakdown
« Reply #29 on: February 17, 2014, 04:18:08 PM »
Agreed on no voice-over, I think. However I'm still iffy about setting it in the 90s, as I believe it will alienate the younger audience that I'd try to get into the show. We can't rely on nostalgic twenty-somethings alone as an audience. Nostalgia alone can't keep a show alive. Case in point: the relaunch.
Here's the thing: even if it's animated, this is going to be an expensive show to produce. TV networks are conservative; you're asking them to invest a lot of money into this project, and they're going to want as much of a guarantee as they can get that they're going to earn that money back - and more. That's why they like doing remakes and adaptations of already-successful entertainment properties: they're safer. The story already makes money in a different format, there's brand familiarity, there's a built-in fanbase. The network executives aren't taking too big a gamble.

Animorphs was popular in the 90's. It has brand familiarity with people who were kids then, but not with kids today. There's no built-in kid fanbase. What fanbase it still has is largely 20-something. And there's no evidence that the story sells today, in 2014. Actually, there's evidence that it doesn't, because the relaunch failed. An out-of-print, decade-old property proven to be a hard sell to modern audiences does not generally get adapted to the screen - especially if it requires a big budget. If TV execs decide for some reason that there's demand for a show about kids fighting aliens by turning into animals, they might as well just release an original series ripping off the idea. That way, at least they have all the rights to it; they don't have to negotiate with Scholastic or any other publisher. It's completely theirs.

On top of that, there's a lot of graphic violence and body horror in Animorphs that KAA could get away with because she was working in a literary format. You can't really get away with visual depictions of that stuff in material aimed at children. If adapted faithfully, I can't imagine an Animorphs TV show getting any less than a TV-14 rating. So the very youngest target demographic would be teenagers - but teenagers are as hard a sell as children. On the other hand, nostalgia sells. Look at all those "I Love the [Decade]" specials on VH1. And we're just leaving the era of 80's nostalgia and entering a time of 90's nostalgia. I'm not saying it's the easiest pitch, but if you're going to pitch Animorphs to networks, this is the only approach I can think of to convince them that this idea can make money. That is, if Scholastic gives you permission to pitch it.
I don't think that's necessarily true. None of the teenagers who watch MTV's Teen Wolf were alive when the original movie came out, but they watch it - and a lot of adult fans who loved the movie watch it even though it's not set in the 80's. And while the new Transformers movies aren't exactly for kids, grown-up fans of the franchise watch it even though, again, it's not set in the 80's. You can benefit from nostalgia without going all-out with it. Studios are remaking so many old stories, I think they'd take to a series that sold well in the 90's. Especially since superheroes are huge right now.

I think it would actually be better for an Animorphs series to take place in the modern day. There would be issues with cellphones and cameras everywhere, but that would just make things more interesting! It would be the source of new plots. Also, if you wanted to keep the conceit of having the main characters write the story down so the world can know, that would translate very well to a blog.
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