AniTV:
"The Capture"
Part I:
Or skip to Part 2
Basic Plot:
Jake's dad has
been planning the installation of a new health clinic at the local hospital. On the eve of
the grand opening, Jake discovers that the clinic's most generous benefactor is...a Yeerk!
The Animorphs must infiltrate the clinic before the Governor, the clinic's special guest,
is infected!
Based
on:
Animorphs #6: The Capture
TV-Book
Comparison & Nitpicks:
There's
a good example of the famous "useless foreshadowing" as Jake's father seems to
be on friendly terms with Visser --- excuse me, Victor Trent. Jake's father is not a
Controller. End of story. Anyway, I rather liked the scene with Jake eating the escargot
to freak out VT and Tom (wouldn't you be slightly disturbed if you were among aliens and
they were eating animals that looked a lot like you?) though Visser Three was a little too
obvious. He should have a stone face. Tom did a very good job, and I suddenly realized
that he is a good actor, he just needs to get a different person to do his makeup.
I
don't know where to start with the Ax-credit card thing. For one thing, does being an
alien give his particular static electricity magical powers to do thing like demagnetize
and remagnetize cards? And, assuming he was able to get it to fit, "every human
code," why wasn't it able to work just because it was an alien code? Are they telling
us that Andalites have their static settings to just human codes, not a universal
erase-to-make-a-skeleton key thing?
Marco
breaks the little Kandrona and turns up the heat on the mini-Yeerk pool *after* Jake falls
in and, as we all know, gets infested. Which creates a plot hole if you think about it,
because otherwise the Yeerks would have no reason to crawl into some human's head -- he's
not their host. Especially not the one who's going to be playing the Governor.
Hate
to say it, but I loved Shawn's evil grin.
Episode Guide
AniTV
The Vortex
Part II
Basic Plot:
Jake is acting pretty
normal...but he did fall into the Yeerk pool. The Animorphs decide to play it safe and
keep Jake under close watch for three days. They cannot trust him. But can they save him?
Based on:
Animorphs #6: The Capture
TV-Book Comparison & Nitpicks:
- Ax doesn't get some magical ability to tell
Controllers from regular people just because he's an Andalite. Maybe that was a writer's
misinterpretation on the part where he makes a claim somewhat to that effect, but it seems
that it's just one of his Andalite pride things -- "Oh, we can spot a Yeerk a mile
away."
- Jake, no matter what his form or what is
using his body, would not get in a fight with Ax.
- Isn't it a tad bit risky to keep Jake in the
barn? Although Cassie just might not have any parents in the show, still someone could
walk in there.
- It was kind of odd how the "real
Jake" was shown, though I'll admit it was well-done in an artistic sense. I liked the
way they showed a spinning image of him tied up and bound to a chair, to show his feeling
of entrapment. The Yeerk was sort of this booming, extremely evil-sounding voice coming
from nowhere and everywhere. They could have done a lot better, but it is very hard to
show such internal things (and we are talking internal in the most literal sense of the
word).
- When Ax morphed Jake, his voice was Ax's
voice. Is there something about morphing humans in which your original speaking voice is
retained? Plus he acted crazier than he did in his other human morph.
- I also actually liked the scene where the
Jake-Temrash guy was telling Cassie how much he had always liked her and everything. Sure,
the thing about the snake was corny (aren't they a little *old* for everyone including the
boys to be scared?) but it was a very dramatic scene. See, Temrash was saying that stuff,
but Jake was thinking it. That evil little Yeerk guy just read them and went "Hmm, if
this doesn't get me outta here nothing will."
- I did *not* however, like the the part where
Jake stomped on the Yeerk. At the end of #6, after seeing the guy's life story flash
literally before his eyes (and although Temrash was smug and mean about lots of things, he
wasn't really cruel like the Yeerk in the show) he at least had a little respect for him
as a *person.* But then, I've always been one of those "equality for all"
people, and when people includes more than humans, that doesn't change just because the
type of government a certain race has. And that has always irked me about AniTV.
Episode Guide
AniTV
The Vortex