Animorphs II: How to Write a Book Series Like a TV Show

Animorphs is basically a TV show you can read.

"the books" by Scott Moore

Follow me and stuff:

bun-zuh shirt:

Quick Links:
0:00 -- Intro
3:02 -- Part 1: The Scholastic Book Fair Effect
9:23 -- Part 2: Tune In Next Month
18:18 -- Part 3: The Bottle Episodes
34:12 -- Part 4: The Holiday Specials
43:27 -- Part 4.5: What the Actual Eff Is the Ellimist?
47:15 -- Conclusion
48:47 -- Actual Conclusion

Sources:
Like every Animorphs book this time I think

Other Animorphs Stuff I Mentioned:

#Animorphs

[michaelreynolds]

My name is Michael Grant. I can't tell you my last name . . . oh, shit, I just did.

Excellent as always, Lord R. Me to every Hollywood type who has ever talked to us about an Animorphs movie: It wants to be TV. We built it like TV. Sigh. The original inspiration was Combat! But X-Files works as well as a model.

Andalite Chronicles was very much informed by the Vietnam war. But then Vietnam affected the whole series. As I occasionally say, Katherine and I believe in good and evil, we just don't believe in black and white.

[shingshongshamalama]

I love that "a magical ascended goose who plays twitch" isn't even a dishonest explanation of this series' god figure.

[snorlax]

In huge defense of Starfish Rachel Book, it's very thematically important for that point in the series! Rachel is struggling with the fact that war has changed her as a person. She does essentially see herself as Nice Rachel and Mean Rachel, and the book is reconciling that.

Also she beats a man to death with her own severed arm!

[JetstreamGW]

"The emperor's dead too? Like, they're sending passive-aggressive notes to... no one?"

Warhammer did it! Warhammer did it!

[commonviewer]

It was hilarious how Visser-Three hated Helmacrons so much, he formed a truce with the Animorphs just long enough to kill some of them

[shingshongshamalama]

Toomin flipping his sunglasses down dramatically except we can't actually see it from this angle because he's a fucking bird is possibly the funniest damn thing in this video.

[fist-of-doom]

This is why I don’t trust that a movie will work out for Animorphs. They’re so episodic and there are so many that I don’t trust they can make a coherent story, especially if they plan on making a movie series.

[callapratt]

You forgot to mention the most crucial part of the “house” formula. “It could be lupus.”

[seir]

Finally, someone who is doing video essays about things in the series that aren't just a summary of all the bad things that happened. Also great song.

[ReinConversi]

It’s a crime how underrated this channel is.

[derekkarofsky]

I really need a "This is goddamn Animorphs" t-shirt to be a thing. Saves me a lot of time when my friends ask why weird stuff happens in the series.

[yaitz]

With respect to book 32, it's also a nice break before TOBIAS GETS VIVIDLY TORTURED FOR HALF A BOOK.

[qmchale]

There was the time that Rachel was allergic to a crocodile
And the time Jake maybe kinda was a grown-up for a while
When Elfangor sired a son by going full-on exophile
And Visser Three got sidetracked by technology most juvenile
When Marco in the arctic morphed Nanook the friendly polar bear
And Visser Three's twin brother was a cannibal tech billionaire
When Cassie scared off racist losers in the time of polio
And when she accidentally made a hybrid human buffalo
When excess morphing mass caused them to rubber band through time and space
And Jake and Cassie beat Howlers by finally getting to first base
When Cassie became luggage and crash-landed in Australia
And when she must assassinate termitidae regalia
(Hahh, this is a lot of books...)
Controllers started getting high on maple and ginger oatmeal
And Rachel morphs a giant squid while Crayak tries to cut a deal
Tobias gets familiar with Taylor and her brutality
And Jake escapes the Amazon by fracturing causality
Rachel has to take the lead, her methods are quite overkill
Experiments with cows try to eliminate human free will
Visser Three trapped Tobias with a fake mom and tax attorney (What...?)
And fish folk from Atlantis dabble in some human taxidermy
Rachel fought the Helmacrons in Marco's bod while microscopic
Taxxons made peace by becoming anacondas in the tropic
And so much more, it's arduous to chronicle, I must confide
All the homicide and fratricide and matricide and genocide

Don't know if everything was right, and the song got stuck in my head, so... here you go.

EDIT: I originally got Marco's lyric mixed up. Went back and fixed it.

[ChesuMori]

Remember that time a book was set on a US Navy ship, and the ghost writer just decided that all the male characters loved military hardware, and Jake had an encyclopedic knowledge of the specific class of ship they were on? Good times...

[WolfHreda]

The repeated refrain of, "And a lesser story would. But this is God. Damn. Animorphs" is delightful.

[Delphineas]

Wait. Book FAIRS?! I just remember a monthly book order catalog. That my teacher ended up buying some books for me at my parent's...insistence? Because they didn't want me buying Animorphs...


Edit:Holy shit, I forgot about the humor of Cassie becoming a nothit caterpiller, metamorphosing, and Ax's just casual <Would she like to demorph now?>. And the idea that the war hasn't gone on for millennia or even centuries, but mere DECADES.

[jennygarcia]

i was so convinced this video had a couple hundred thousand views because it’s on the same level of quality as all the other video essays i absolutely adore. you’re doing wonderful, thank you for scratching the animorph’s itch that has been plagued me since the fourth grade, you’re doing god’s work

[woot]

You hooked me with Liars Dice and now here I am, watching two hour long videos about a book series I barely remember. Thanks YouTube, but unironically.

[DecisiveZoom]

Everyone: Being a leader is difficult it is full of stressful decisions that could explode in your face

Helmacrons: Cant fuck up if you're dead.

Me: Yeah that tracks. How do I sign up

[PeterNatale]

I think what a lot of people miss in their critiques of the starfish Rachel book is that it forces Rachel, after regaining her full self, to really look at herself and come to terms with the fact that there are two warring personalities within her: one who would be happy to give up on the war and live as a normal person, and one who needs the war to survive, as a focus for their rage. It makes Rachel confront herself and helps to center her a little more before we get into that final arc where they all have to give up their pretense of normal life