AniTV
The Underground
Basic Plot:
There's
something suspicious about a new club called "The Sharing." The Animorphs attend
a meeting at school to find out more. They are led into the ominous "Yeerk
Pool," that Controllers must visit every three days in order for the Yeerks to
survive...Will the Animorphs ever get out alive?
Based
on:
Again, Animorphs #1: The Invasion, title derived from #17.
Book-TV Differences:
In the books they need solid proof to find out Tom's a Controller. In the show he just picks his ears and they do this freaky triple-shot on Marco's ear (as if Tom/Temrash has designs on Marco) and Marco just *knows* he's a Controller. Or, excuse me, I must use that lovely word "Yeerked."
More action with the disk which I will try not to dwell on.
I guess Marco's dad is supposed to be depressed because his wife is dead. He comes off as being zoned out and a possible "Yeerked" person.
The Gardens in the show seems to be not much more than a bunch of animals in cages -- not up to standards with even a regular zoo nowadays. None of the morphs are right, except for Jake, who gets a tiger (and its white, but who's complaining?). Now I know they say it doesn't matter if the power morphs are different in the show and the book, but they're a vital part of the character's personality. For example, Rachel gets an elephant because she gets a kick out of trumpeting and charging into things, and later a bear as she gets a little more ruthless. Cassie is a horse in the very first ep because they don't have a wolf -- they have a definite goal of getting human-Controller hosts out of there, while in the show they seem to be going in the hope of trashing the place.
They actually get in line with the human-Controllers manage to get on out of it. And Cassie got to the pier (whoops, sorry, there are no piers), and got by by dropping a rock to make the pool splash. I would like to see them even think about doing that in the books. It's not even worth mentioning that the Yeerk pool is red instead of gray. Hey, Kandrona beams, right?
The bars of the free hosts' cages are done by laser beams instead of metal bars. Which I'll admit is kind of cool, but it totally eliminates the thing with Marco bending the steel, then Tom being the first to rush out.
Come ON Visser Three, morph! We want to see that fire-breathing hydra creature! (okay, the hydra has seven heads, V3's had eight, but who's counting)? There was significantly less violence and chaos than in the book. And we are *not* seeing Taxxons anytime soon.
They *do* make a slight reference that the Hork-Bajir are Controllers too, not just brainless monsters, but you have to listen for it.
Tobias is not shown making it out of this. I guess the writers thought discovering Tobias was a nothlit would ruin the "happy-ending" feeling at the end of the ep. In case you haven't read the book, it was supposed to be sad and somewhat depressing, but there was still hope.
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