Animorphs, TV, and the Media
or
A Polite AniTV Rant
Continued
Well, I had finished my "Animorphs, TV & the Media" article, but I saw an article that so perfectly demonsrates the negative impact AniTV has had on Animorphs that I had to write more about it. You can see the full article by Ray Richmond here.
All right, so the article starts:
Those who have always suspected that teenagers are really just wild animals in
disguise are proven right in this new live-action show.
Based on K.A. Applegate's book series of the same name, "Animorphs'' is about a
handful of
adolescents who take it upon themselves to save the world between algebra tests. It's a
tough job,
what with zits and raging hormones and hating their parents and all, but no one ever said
it would be easy to crush those ruthless alien slugs.
Hmm . . . Do I detect a mocking tone? A subtle hint that Ray Richmond obviously had the
assignment of reviewing AniTV thrust on him and he restents it? Let's see: "zits and
raging hormones and hating their parents and all." Of course we all know this isn't
true, it isn't even true in the TV show, so I'm not sure if this is the "dumb
teen" image unwittingly created by the show (I point to the opening, in which the
guys are in an arcade playing video games, and Rachel prances in and goes "I am the
captain of the gymnastics team") or maybe the Richmond's personal resentment of the
show or teens in general.
A cross between "Invasion of the Body Snatchers''
and "Stand by Me'' (with a bit of "All
Creatures Great and Small'' tossed in), "Animorphs'' marks Nickelodeon's vaunted push
deeper
into primetime via the 8:30 time slot, and it helps an awful lot to be 12 years old while
watching it.
Otherwise, the whole us-against-them thing feels pretty silly, rather like a sci-fi
adventure gone sophomoric.
Twelve years old? Well, if you're talking about intellectual level of the show, normally
I'd start at about seven. But the Animorphs story, if executed right (though I think we
all agree it was not) could have been the kind of thing easily enjoyed by kids, teens of
all ages, and even their parents who are just as eager to see the next continuation of the
story but won't admit it. And what's so silly about "us-against-them?" That's
the driving force of almost all of the good sci-fi in existance. Unless there's some kind
of conflict, or its something like 2001: A Space Odyssey (which many contemporary
viewers have a hard time understanding) you basically have no plot. And I personally think
it's rather cool to have a conspiracy, war-of-the-races thing in the present time, all
undercover and unknown by the govornment or anyone. And what's with being
"sophmoric?" I happen to be a rising sophmore and I know for a fact that not
only are the Animorphs even younger than me (though I don't like to think about it), and
the age, in which one is just becoming responsible and mature but not acknowledged by
anyone in the adult world, makes the perfect setting for the aforementioned conspiracy.
As the series kicks off (confusingly), we're introduced
to Jake (Shawn Ashmore), one of those introspective teens for whom everything has deep
meaning. One day, while minding their own business, Jake and four of his pals -- cousin
Rachel (Brooke Nevin), buddy Marco (Boris Cabrera), sensitive Cassie (Nadia Nascimento)
and complex Tobias (Christopher Ralph) -- are minding their own business when they stumble
onto the dying alien prince Elfangor.
The prince warns our heroes of an impending invasion of Earth by the evil Yeerks, and
grants them the power to morph into rats, cats, dogs, horses and hawks, because evidently
it's far easier to defeat a Yeerk if you're, like, not human or something. What is a
Yeerk? That's the scary part: they could be masquerading as anyone -- that cop, that
teacher (duh), that owl, even that rake over there. Oh, the dilemma.
Well, I'll admit that if you don't have any background on Animorphs, it might be a little
confusing, and everything was accepted so readily, but that has nothing to do with the
actual Animorphs. "One of those introspective teens for whom everything has deep
meaning?" I havn't seen the first episode in quite a while, but I can't think of any
explaination for this. If anything Shawn seemed to be a little dazed. This portion
might have possibly been a little funny except Richmond is so obviously jabbing at
Animorphs and anyone who is a fan of it.
And this does seem to be the general view of people who have been introduced to Animorphs via AniTV. They're like, "Yeah, they're going to save the world by turning into cats and dogs." Besides messing things up with their tigers and elephants and stuff, they mainly work in guerilla (pun intented) warfare. And I will also admit that your basic explaination for a Yeerk sounds kind of (for the lack of a better word) "hokey," but name me one good long-running sci-fi series that didn't have some kind of creature or race or force that literally took your body and used it as its own (yes, the Borg of Star Trek counts). There was no reason to berate one of the central motifs that much.
The morphing element (the teens can transform themselves
pretty much at will, with bone-crunching efficiency) allows for some reasonably cool
effects, slightly more sophisticated than those seen on another Nick primetime show,
"The Secret World of Alex Mack.'' While in their animal form, this Fantastic Five is
somehow still able to communicate in English, because God knows it takes more to silence a
teen-ager than a little four-legged embodiment.
As most anything involving technology (albeit Andalite technology) involves
concious operation, I wouldn't be so surprised that the Animorphs can change at will. And
while I wasn't as dissapointed as most with the morphing since I was prepared for a
canned, Power Rangers-esque sequence, they wern't all that great (though really, what
would you expect?) though certainly better than those of Alex Mack, which were basically Terminator-like
melting and reshaping of silver goo. And one would think, with all his witticisms,
Richmond could at least take into account that explaination about thought-speak they made
a point of giving. Or maybe he just chose to ignore it because he couldn't resist making
another derrogatory remark about teens.
By the end of "Animorphs,'' it's clear that as tough as it is to take on the Yeerks, it's still infinitely easier than a trig quiz. Watching the show itself is another matter -- it's kind of like experiencing a video game without having the option of killing anyone, leaving us all wondering when we can morph back into a remote control. Tech credits are pretty swell.
As I said, I havn't seen the first episode, which seems to be the sole basis for the article, in a while, it would seem that even with all the shortcomings of the TV show, it would at least be able to get across the enormity of the story. There's no way I can accuratly judge that because I had read and bought all of the Animorphs books available at the time when the show first came out, though I feel that even the TV show dosn't deserve the verbal jabs Richmond administered to Animorphs. Yes, the screenplay is bad, yes, the script is elementary, and many story elements are poorly done, glossed over or even neglected entirely. And in that light, I can't entirely blame Ray Richmond for expressing his real feelings about the kid's show someone made him watch, and it's not exactly reasonable to expect him or any other writer to read the book series a show is based on just because that show is bad. Which makes me even more infuriated at the TV show -- because people will see it and think "Oh, so that's Animorphs. How stupid."