Jake, Cassie, Marco, Rachel, and Tobias are 7th graders. They are walking home from school when AN ALIEN SHIP LANDS right by them. Out comes an Andalite, which is basically a blue deer with no mouth and a giant blade on its tail. Oh, and stalk eyes. It's dying. It tells them about these other aliens called Yeerks, which are little gray slugs, but they can take over other species by going into their ear canal and hijacking their brains. Every three days, the Yeerks have to come out and have a swim in the Yeerk Pool, which is this sludgy stuff that has nutrients and crap. The Andalite then gives them a glowy blue cube. Whoever touches it can morph into animals that they have acquired DNA from (just by touching the animals). But if they stay in a morph for more than two hours, they're stuck in it FOREVER! So the heroic middle school students must stop the Yeerks from taking over humanity! Also, like four books in, the little brother of the first Andalite, named Ax, crash lands in the ocean and they save him. Then he helps them fight the Yeerks.
Also, they look like this.
Just throwing that out there.
That's a super condensed version of the 54-book plot, but I'm more interested in ridiculing than summarizing.
Character breakdown.
Jake. Jake is the natural leader of the group. He's the "tall, dark, and handsome" type. He doesn't talk a whole lot. He is romantically involved with Cassie the entire time. If he was a Twilight character, he would be Edward.
Rachel. Rachel is Jake's cousin. She is the girl version of Rambo. She exists in the series not to provide any kind of plot or character development, but to humorously suggest the most violent possible plan for every situation that arises. If she was a director, she would be Michael Bay.
Marco. Marco is the comic relief for the series. Well, I should rephrase that. Marco is the intentional comic relief of the series. He exists to crack jokes, talk about 90's-esque gaming consoles, and use neat-o, hip, 90's lingo. If he was a decade, he would be the 90's.
Cassie. Cassie is a tree hugging hippie. She exists so that the Animorphs don't all have to be white. She is the opposite of Rachel in that she has too much personality, character development, etc. Reading books from Cassie's perspective is boring. All she does it talk about stupid feelings. If she was a talk show host, she would be Dr. Phil.
Tobias. Tobias is the boy version of Cassie. He's the picked on kid at school who's really artsy and comes from a messed up family. He exists so that K.A. Applegate can avoid the stereotype that boys are all G.I. Joe and girls are all Bella Swan. If he was a psychological disorder, he would be depression.
Ax. Ax is a blue freakin' deer. He exists to fill in plot holes with explanations derived from alien technology. And to have vaguely gay scenes with Tobias where they do strangely primitive alien rituals together to celebrate the sunset and crap. Like every book.
Plot Holes
Most of the logic flaws in the plot can be filled in with something Ax says. Oh, wait. I forgot he doesn't have a mouth, so he just telepathically projects his thoughts into everyone's mind. But there are a few things that just don't make sense.
First of all, the battle morphs they use are ridiculous.
Is it just me, or is that a little less intimidating than this?
I know which one could take more bullets. Or Dracon Beams, as it were.
Second, Tobias manages to get permanently trapped in his hawk morph in the very first book, during a raid on the Yeerk Pool. At first I questioned how he could be that stupid. But then a much more pertinent question arose: why the heck did he morph into a hawk to raid the Yeerk Pool?
Tobias' plan for attacking the
Yeerks in Arizona
Also, what did you plan on accomplishing by attacking the Yeerk Pool?
Even if you're a gorilla, you can't
just "destroy" a pool of liquid
Okay. I'm out of things to make fun of. I know it's been awhile since I blogged actively. Hopefully this summer I can get back into the groove of things. Word.
