#much like dark phoenix (which i still have not seen) my fears vastly outweigh my hopes

[words-writ-in-starlight]

Just saw Animorphs is getting a movie. Any thoughts?

I never keep track of media news, so asks like this are the only way I learn anything about movies.  I went out and did some research and...

Listen.

I’m going to try to go into this with an open mind.  I’ll read all the reviews and Internet comments when it comes out, and I might even go see the thing in theaters, if theaters are a thing again by then.  I work hard not to be completely consumed by my pessimistic nature about stuff like this.  I’ve been wrong about movie adaptations before--maybe I’ll love it and watch it a hundred and fifty times and finally revel in the Animorphs Renaissance I (and they!) deserve.

However.  First problem I foresee, the last two things that were made by Scholastic were Goosebumps and Clifford the Big Red Dog.  I am not optimistic about what that portends for a book series best known for gore, body horror, war crimes, moral ambiguity, and the grim realities of how there is no such thing as a just war.  Offhand, I can’t think of a way to make a G or PG live action Animorphs movie that is...good.  Maybe if you bump it to PG13, we could talk (admittedly, the guy in charge of Picturestart has been involved with a lot of blockbuster YA movie adaptations, all of them with serious problems in my opinion but not always, like, ruinous problems, eg: Hunger Games, Divergent) but even then, they’ll probably end up cutting back on a lot.  Okay, I’ll live if they cut the body horror (I’ll complain, but I’ll live) but it is a series about war.  There’s only so much you can cut to get under a rating and preserve the actual point of the story.  This is the short version of my long ramble about how an animated Animorphs series would be better and more functional in basically every way.  Which brings me to...

Second problem I foresee, how much are these fools planning to adapt????  On the one hand, I think you could very competently turn The Invasion into a full length movie without, A, a huge amount of dull filler breaking your pacing into tiny pieces, or, B, losing any important plot or character beats.  On the other hand, I absolutely do not trust movie studios and I’m concerned that their desire to have Ax for the Alien Value will make them over-ambitious and try to do multiple books.  Don’t do multiple books.  The Invasion is plenty of plot for a movie.  If you desperately desperately want to shoehorn Ax in there (I don’t think you should do this!!!!  Scholastic, are you looking at my post?  Are you there, Eric Feig?  It’s me, Starlight.  Don’t do that!  And if you HAVE to do that, call me to check your plans!), you can just pop him on Elfangor’s ship and have an emotional beat about Elfangor’s death, or else have Elfangor give the kids an exact location and make it their first Morphing Caper to go get an alien.  Don’t do multiple books.  One book.  If this movie covers more than one book, I am going to be Very Upset, and I will without a doubt have reason to be Very Upset, because it will be a mess.

As some just...general concerns: 

I’m concerned that they’re going to make everyone a one-note character.  Specifically, I’m concerned that this is going to be a movie starring Protagonist Boy, also featuring Clown Boy, Nice Girl, Mean Girl, Alien, and Cautionary Tale.  

I’m concerned that they’re going to strip back the moral ambiguity to the wire, which is to say “everyone but Tom is A Bad Guy, no complications needed.”  I know everyone gets a lot of jokes in about the Oatmeal Book, but that book and others like it make the requisite legitimate points about the issues with fighting Controllers.  Those are real people!  Make sure you mention it!

The Yeerk Pool scene at the end of Invasion is an outstandingly good moment to underline that.  Hell, you can dredge up the later Yeerk Pool scene of the temporarily free Hork Bajir and humans forming a wall of bodies to buy the kids time to run, shove that in there (because we’re not going to do multiple books, right Scholastic????).  Foreshadow the absolute shit out of it with Tom and the other Controllers (hell, if you gotta, have Jake discover why Chapman is voluntary when he scopes out his office), and then come out swinging with the free hosts protecting the kids with their own bodies, and you’ll be able to minimize the “gore” rating while preserving the “body snatcher horror” aspect.

I’m concerned they’re going to overplay the humor.  These books work because they understand how to balance humorous scenes with serious scenes, and how to employ dark humor during dark scenes, and when there shouldn’t be any fucking jokes.  If I hear one joke during Elfangor’s death scene, I’m suing.

Basically, I’m concerned about these books getting the Percy Jackson treatment (or, apparently, the Artemis Fowl treatment), by which I mean that I’m worried they’re going to make an objectively terrible movie, which will be righteously hated by the fans and critics alike, and then they’ll go “okay, these books are poison, we will never adapt them into anything again.”  Which would be tragic on a lot of levels, most of all that it will mean I never get the animated Animorphs series we all deserve, ideally featuring one episode per book (except the Invasion, which obviously deserves a double-length pilot) and directed by, I dunno, Noelle Stevenson or someone else who will give us the bisexual Marco and gender-confused Ax and deeply traumatized Tobias I crave.  I would trust the She-Ra team implicitly with the Animorphs.  Not so much the companies that gave us The Maze Runner and fucking Clifford.