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The Liquor Cabinet => General Discussion => Topic started by: Capman on September 06, 2016, 08:57:08 PM

Title: Animorphs
Post by: Capman on September 06, 2016, 08:57:08 PM
Yeah, I started reading a book for grade schoolers at 28 years old.  What of it?  YOU WANNA GO?  YOU WANNA FUCKIN GO MATE?!

No but for real I am impressed with how much complexity is in these 100-something page books for children.  It's a very easily digestible story that is a good primer for like what MaOCT should be like.  Every story of these sad traumatized teens involves some kind of mundane emotional grounding that provides some relatability to a really bizarre setting and reminds us of real stakes while also these children transform into tigers and fight an alien invasion every story. 

I'm like 8 books deep into the series (9 if you count Megamorphs but nobody counts the first Megamorphs) and it continues to find fresh ways to change up the stakes in both senses while slowly compounding on canon that exists outside of the basic plot of each story.
Title: Re: Animorphs
Post by: Clockwurke Bear on September 06, 2016, 10:07:17 PM
Except it's fucked up by even what MaOCT standards are. Not saying that's a bad thing, but like wowwww shit is fucked. Enjoy feeling the body snatcher inside you go through the torturous pains of dying via basically a combination suffacation dehydration.
Title: Re: Animorphs
Post by: Capman on September 06, 2016, 11:50:30 PM
Oh yeah this shit is crazy and I can't believe how violent and graphic this children's book is.

Needless to say, even if you don't take the whole thing, it encapsulates a local problem very well and does a good variation on monster of the week
Title: Re: Animorphs
Post by: Clockwurke Bear on September 07, 2016, 01:38:26 AM
A really interesting piece of it's appeal is its constant introduction of small new powers, giving new forms for new problems to pose constant new situations. That would be interesting to replicate in a monsters game, though doing anything but copying them limits options a bit.
Title: Re: Animorphs
Post by: Capman on September 07, 2016, 09:26:18 AM
There's also this weirdness where they have to wage this guerilla war between their normal day to day activities.  In the second book they're trying to figure out how to spy on one of the controllers and they're like "well I have to prep for a test on Thursday, and it's Cassie's dad's birthday the next day, and I've got homework too. . . so like maybe we do it Saturday?"

Keeping in mind the idea that they don't have all the power and they need to pick their battles to keep things clear while also having to maintain the cover of their normal everyday lives to avoid suspicion from the secret aliens that could be anyone keeps the stakes fairly small and the need to stick to their day-to-day allows the stories to be emotionally grounded and also leave in weird mundane stakes like Rachel's dad moving away and asking her (pressuring her to say) if she wants to join him.

You can see in Megamorphs 1 where they don't add any real emotional grounding and it becomes more of a pure adventure book that the format breaks down when the story becomes huge and they're like fighting giant monsters in broad daylight.  Megamorphs is one of the longer and more complicated books in the series and the whole thing just feels kinda empty because there's no accompanying emotional throughline.
Title: Re: Animorphs
Post by: CanaryBlue on September 07, 2016, 01:17:30 PM
That settles it. When I go back to New York in a few months I'm reclaiming my Animprphs collection.

Man I remember shit got CRAZY when the Ellimist started fucking with time and space. I also remember a Hork Bajir refuge in a forest and Rachel's mom trying to teach them the alphabet.
Title: Re: Animorphs
Post by: Capman on September 07, 2016, 02:50:27 PM
Also every book after Ax gets introduced he keeps eating progressively more garbage.  Poor perfect alien son.
Title: Re: Animorphs
Post by: CanaryBlue on September 07, 2016, 03:11:40 PM
I have vivid memories of his first experience eating Cinnabon.
Title: Re: Animorphs
Post by: Capman on September 07, 2016, 03:14:40 PM
In the last book I read he ate a plate of nachos and compared it to the time he drank motor oil.
Title: Re: Animorphs
Post by: Clockwurke Bear on September 07, 2016, 04:28:43 PM
In the last book I read he ate a plate of nachos and compared it to the time he drank motor oil.

Just thank god he didn't have social media or there would be alien tweet reviews with shitty pictures of food on hooves.
Title: Re: Animorphs
Post by: CanaryBlue on September 07, 2016, 05:26:58 PM
In the last book I read he ate a plate of nachos and compared it to the time he drank motor oil.

Just thank god he didn't have social media or there would be alien tweet reviews with shitty pictures of food on hooves.

I...may have a fanfiction to write now.
Title: Re: Animorphs
Post by: Capman on September 11, 2016, 10:57:19 PM
I applaud the Animorphs TV show for the effort.  They tried so hard.  They really tried.

And also the theme song.

It's "good"
Title: Re: Animorphs
Post by: crazon on September 11, 2016, 11:33:50 PM

God this theme, it all came rushing back like some forgotten dream. I was tempted to whip out a lighter and start waving it in the air.
Title: Re: Animorphs
Post by: luffy316 on September 14, 2016, 06:47:11 PM
"Caf or decaf?"
Ax: "Caf? Cafffff caf caff caff."

Ax: "There are twenty more of your Earth minutes left."
Marco: "Ax, you're on Earth now. They're your minutes too now."


I read every single book in the main storyline around high school, and about 5 or so of the sidestory ones (Megamorphs, the choose your adventure one, the Hork Bajirr chronicles)

but yea, there's super legit PTSD going on and deathmarches going on by the end of it. Shit gets massively hardcore in those books
Title: Re: Animorphs
Post by: CanaryBlue on September 18, 2016, 04:14:28 PM
I applaud the Animorphs TV show for the effort.  They tried so hard.  They really tried.

And also the theme song.

It's "good"

Look, Christopher Ralph was my first crush and I will continue to love the Animorph's TV show unironically until I draw my last, shaking breath.

Just...don't ask me to re-watch it. I'm not willing to take that risk.
Title: Re: Animorphs
Post by: Capman on September 27, 2016, 09:22:24 AM
Finished the David Trilogy last night

That was kinda fucked up
Title: Re: Animorphs
Post by: luffy316 on September 28, 2016, 12:06:16 AM
that was the bit where the kid went to rat jail, right?
Title: Re: Animorphs
Post by: Capman on September 28, 2016, 11:38:52 AM
that was the bit where the kid went to rat jail, right?

Yeah, after they take on a new kid and he decides to kill them one by one (and gets pretty close a few times)
Title: Re: Animorphs
Post by: Capman on November 18, 2016, 02:19:03 PM
So after a bit of time not posting, I'm on book 40 now (well into the ghostwritten books).  I've pretty much gotten past most of the tumblr rundown of the series with some other goofy stuff in no particular order

Also getting deeper into the live action show and the budget keeps fluctuating.  The Yeerk laser guns are very obviously flashlights with crosshairs on them.
Title: Re: Animorphs
Post by: luffy316 on November 19, 2016, 09:48:54 AM
oh as a fan at the time, I admitted to myself that the show was shit quite early

and what did you mean by ghostwritten books?


I also remember in the back of one of the books, there some other preview for another Applegate novel that involved magic crystals in a Yugioh sort of card game where  you put magic into creature cards to fuse into a single being after so many rounds, but that may have just been a one-time scene
Title: Re: Animorphs
Post by: Capman on November 20, 2016, 08:00:48 AM
After book 25, Applegate started focusing on Everworld and handed off ideas for most of the rest of the series to other writers, the books were still credited to Applegate though
Title: Re: Animorphs
Post by: Capman on January 13, 2017, 10:55:33 AM
Forgot to mention that I finished reading the series over the break (I didn't read Alternamorphs because I don't want to do a Choose your own adventure on kindle).

Check out these taco bell toys tho: http://animorphs.wikia.com/wiki/Animorphs_Fast_Food_Merchandise
Title: Re: Animorphs
Post by: luffy316 on January 14, 2017, 01:22:13 AM
my face when I almost thought the Taco Bell dog was an animorph...
Title: Re: Animorphs
Post by: Capman on January 14, 2017, 06:54:07 PM
my face when I almost thought the Taco Bell dog was an animorph...

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