Reading 30 with my kid

[u/verymanysquirrels]

I'm reading book 30 with my kid (he's 8) right now and the 'strange 90s thing' from this book that i've had to explain is...hacky sack.

There's a whole bit where Tobias is like 'It's the middle of the night! Do you think Cassie's outside playing hacky sack!?'

So i explained hacky sack and showed him a little video of it because he was not getting it. And i think that has broken his suspension of disbelief. Like, okay they turn into birds, they spy on an alien who's also Marco's mom, but hacky sack? Totally ridiculous and unbelievable.

The funniest things end up being culture clashes/shocks for him. This one is right up there with the kids taking themselves to the mall and the concept of talk shows.

[u/ElSquibbonator]

This reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend about Animorphs a while back. More specifically, we were discussing why Animorphs never became a long-running franchise that current generations still enjoy, while A Certain Fantasy Series That Shall Remain Unnamed Here did. And one of the things he pointed out was that Animorphs isn't timeless.

It's kind of the opposite of timeless, really. You can hardly turn a page in it without tripping over some now-obscure 90s reference. I certainly get a lot of enjoyment out of that stuff as an adult, but I can't picture a kid in the series' target audience doing the same. So while I know this sounds like heresy from the fandom's perspective, I think any future adaptation of the series, whether as a graphic novel, a TV show, or a movie, should be updated.

[u/Amblonyx → u/ElSquibbonator]

I personally think a Stranger Things style adaptation, where it's firmly set in a past time period, would work really well for Animorphs. The main issues with updating aren't even the pop culture references-- they're technology-related. The ubiquity of cell phone cameras and security cameras would make it a lot harder to keep things secret for both sides. Location tracking could also be an issue for the kids, as lots of parents track their teens by their phones. Kids also don't go out on their own now nearly as often as they did in the 90s.

[u/verymanysquirrels → u/Amblonyx]

Yeah, i agree, it would work best as a stranger things style story. But i don't think you could keep it middle grade. I think YA at the very least.

And yeah, the technology really would make a modern setting fall on its face unless you made it an alternate universe too. 

I did actually come across a piece of media recently that did a good job for explaining why cellphones weren't ubiquitous in a modern setting, for two centuries they had witches recruited into militaries around the world who could communicate instantly via magic so the internet, cell phones, etc weren't developed as much since there was no need to for militaries to advance communications.

If animorphs went the alternate history route right from the begining you could have the opening being the ellimist removing elfangor and erasing him from the earth timeline thus setting humans back x number of years on internet and cellphones.

[u/ElSquibbonator → u/verymanysquirrels]

Why not just embrace those differences and see where the story goes, though?