Kia ora! Matty Flatt, your Kiwi Carty Free staffer here, taking over the Hoddle today – and I am excited!
Why, you ask?
I have just heard that Ryan Coogler (of Black Panther and Sinners fame) is producing an Animorphs TV Series for Disney+.
Spoiler alerts incoming for a 30-year-old book series, but Animorphs was a core part of my childhood. Immediately hooked by cover visuals of kids turning into animals, I eventually had a bookcase filled with the entire series by my early teens: 54 regular series books
(each from the perspective of one of the characters), 4 Megamorphs books (which had chapters from each character’s perspective), 4 Chronicles books (spin-offs outside of the main series continuity that added to the lore), and 2 Alteranimorphs books (non-canon Choose Your Own Adventure style). And looking back, I wonder how I was ever allowed to read them.
My parents probably just saw the fun transformation covers; what they didn’t see were the pages filled by teenagers battling a covert alien invasion by “morphing” into animals, complete with themes of body horror, cult indoctrination, the brutality of war, suicide, genocide… and I could go on. Amongst the pre-teen prose, jokes, and 90’s pop-culture references were deep character studies in what a guerilla war could do to young minds. Were the readers part of that study?
So given these books were a huge part of my adolescent years, I AM excited by the announcement of a TV show in development; but also VERY nervous, for a couple of reasons. Firstly: who is this show for? In a preteen book series, you can get away with passages about limbs being ripped off, or characters being disemboweled. You can’t really do that in a TV series aimed at the same age group. Secondly: can they get the audience they need to offset the cost? It’s important to note this has been attempted once before, as an ill-fated Nickelodeon adaptation lasted two seasons but was never really a success: the CGI to produce the animals, transformations, and extremely non-humanoid aliens was either prohibitively expensive or didn’t exist – and the former problem is a very real concern today as well. Will they be able to show what they need to show without it costing an extreme amount (or if it does, generate a large enough audience) to prevent it getting cancelled before it even gets going?
I hope so!
Are you excited about a potential Animorphs TV series? What were some pieces of media that were key to your childhood?
Matty Flatt’s track of the day: Change, by Tears for Fears
And now for your links:
Check out this deep dive into Mikey Moore’s loan at Rangers, courtesy of both the Scottish club and Tottenham Hotspur
Via the Tottenham Hotspur website, here’s the official preview of Spurs Women’s do-or-die FA Cup match against Chelsea
Alasdair Gold gives his thoughts on what he saw at Spurs training
And to wash that one down, here’s The Athletic ($$$) on the Premier League’s approach to violence against women
