Hey guys! How's it going? I'm pretty good. So today I'm going to be talking about the fourth book in the Animorphs series, The Message. It's the first book narrated by Cassie and it's also the first to introduce a new major character since The Invasion. So let's get into it.
Ordinarily I tend not to like Cassie books as much as I do the others. Mostly because, aside from this one and like book #50, Cassie books tend to be the more outlandish/ridiculous ones of the bunch, with the exception of the books narrated by Ax, which are just bizarre all on their own. I like this book though mainly because it does introduce Ax into the series and with that addition to the series, this book is actually a turning point for the series. As you may have noticed in the first three books, the Animorphs usually just stumble into a mission and then stumble their way through it, because let's face it, these are kids and they don't know what typical Yeerk behaviour is apart from infesting other races. Even Elfangor's info dump into Tobias's head in the first book, which is basically never brought up again after that, didn't give the kids EVERY detail they needed to fight the Yeerks. Once Ax joins the group, he has more knowledge about the Yeerks that he can provide to the team even if they still have to look for new entrances to the Yeerk Pool and things like that. I guess I'm starting with my thoughts on Ax overall as a character.
I love Ax. He is one of my absolutely favourite characters in the entire series. Sure, he's an addition to the comic relief with his antics in his Human morph, which is a weird blend of Jake, Rachel, Cassie and Marco, but he's also so much more than that. He's the outsider like Spock, Data, Worf, Quark, Odo, Tuvok, Neelix, Seven of Nine, T'Pol, and Saru are on Star Trek, and like Data and Seven of Nine do, Ax explores human culture with the help of the Animorphs. Also the authors made a very strong statement that Ax isn't an Animorph, as in text, mainly on the back covers of the books, when they're referring to the group, they usually say the Animorphs and Ax, rather than just, the Animorphs. Which I noticed when I read this series as a kid since there's a character later on in the series who is called the sixth Animorph. But I'll get to that at another time.
Of the four books that I've read in the series so far, Cassie's first book isn't as psychologically complex as The Encounter and The Visitor are, and it doesn't suffer from being an origin story like The Invasion is. Instead it's much more natural in a way. I mean, yes, Cassie has to decide whether to act, which might get one of her friends killed, or do nothing and let the Yeerks capture another Andalite, based on some weird dreams that she and Tobias have been having, but, it's on a much smaller scale than Jake's decision to save the Earth from a secret alien invasion and not as personal as Rachel's decision to help Melissa by spying on Chapman, or Tobias's decision to live as a hawk. So it's much more straightforward than the first three books. There's also a bit more romance to this book than the first three books had too.
Despite their efforts to dance around the subject, upon this recent read through, I think that Jake and Cassie are indeed a romantic couple. Or at the very least much closer friends than Jake let on in the first book. Apparently he's over at Cassie's house alot more often, AND according to Jake during the scene where he and Cassie are chatting while shoveling manure, he was at Cassie's place for Thanksgiving the year before this book takes place. Most friends don't have Thanksgiving together until they're adults, and even then, only when they live far enough away from their families that going home for just the weekend doesn't make sense. Also, Cassie always refers to what she and Jake have as a relationship, never as a friendship. And according to Cassie, Jake keeps a picture of her shoving a pill down a badger's throat (that is the weirdest sentence I have ever written on this blog) next to his computer in his bedroom. However, I think it's the kind of relationship that thirteen year olds have, where they're not really dating, but they're not just friends either. Which is super cute in this book, knowing what happens later on in the series.
I actually like Cassie better in this book than I have in the previous two books. She's still bland, and still doesn't really have a personal reason for joining the Animorphs like Jake, Rachel, Tobias, and Marco (we're getting there in the next book) have. But I think she's more relatable in this book. The problem with Cassie in the previous three books is that we didn't get alot of time with her in them. And even the POV characters for those books didn't spend much time with her on screen. And because of this we didn't get to really know her like we did the other four kids. And while she still doesn't have a personal reason for being an Animorph, she's still willing to do so. And we also learn that she's not a very good leader, which is why she didn't just take charge when the kids first got their powers in the first book.
Okay, so now it's time to talk about the changes made in the 2011 revised edition and in my opinion this book is the worst offender of this whole practice. I mean Marco saying he has dreams about Elmo from Sesame Street instead of King Friday from Mister Rogers' Neighborhood is weird, but fine, since Mister Rogers had been off the air for about ten years when this book was re-released, while Sesame Street is more relevant. Plus it makes Marco look even more like a total geek for dreaming about Elmo (yes even Sesame Street is considered to be geeky these days). And removing the Baywatch reference is fine too. However, my problem with the changes, is that while they changed those, they DIDN'T change the name of the dolphins at the Gardens so that they're no longer named after the main characters from Friends. I mean the Friends reference makes sense now, since the show has had a bit of a renaissance in the last few years since it's been on Netflix and is now on HBO Max in the US and on Crave here in Canada, but in 2011? Was the target audience watching reruns of the show with their parents? Were any of my generation, who read Animorphs in the 90s, watching reruns of Friends on TV in 2011? I couldn't tell you. I just know that people weren't talking about it online as much as they do today that's for sure.
The pop culture reference changes aren't the problem with this "revised" edition. No, the problem with this edition is the technological reference change. So the book is supposed to be set in 1996, probably close to the end of it since the Animorphs have been fighting the Yeerks for at least a month at this point. That's a bit fuzzy, because in both The Visitor and The Encounter, the POV characters, Rachel and Tobias respectively, mention they've been fighting the Yeerks for weeks now. So in terms of how many months is hard to determine. Anyway, this book, like the previous three, is supposed to be set in 1996. So why are VHS tapes and VCRs being referred to as being "prehistoric" technology, and DVR being referenced? In the three books I've read up to this point, references to technology of the 90s have been either removed, or made generic so that this wouldn't be a problem. And yet, in this book they not only refer to VCRs as being old or prehistoric, but then reference a modern (for 2011) piece of technology, something THAT DOESN'T HAPPEN EVER AGAIN IN THE RELAUNCH SERIES!!! Like don't mess with that sort of thing. At least with the Bruno & Boots series references to technology is limited to either devices that Elmer Drimsdale builds or to Wizzle's computer, so when the series was republished in 2003, with updated changes, the changes to the technology were also minimal, with Wizzle's outdated computer being changed to software since computers were way more common in schools (even in Canadian ones) in 2003 than they were in 1982.
My problem is not that some people still use VCRs in 2011 to record things if they don't have DVRs. After all, I still used a VCR in 2011 (I still use a VCR today, just not to record shows off the TV) since we didn't have a PVR (DVR) until 2016 when we moved into the house we're in now. My problem is that the marketing people at Scholastic Publishing thought it was a good idea to "modernize" Animorphs in the same haphazard way they decided to "modernize" Bruno & Boots in 2003. The problem is that Animorphs isn't Bruno & Boots, The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, or even Goosebumps. It's very much rooted in the 90s. It doesn't matter if it's 2011 or 2021, you can't update Animorphs to the modern day simply because a secret alien invasion doesn't work if the heroes all have cell phones with cameras on them, can record the Yeerks landing and killing Elfangor, and then sending the footage to every news service in the world, or posting it to social media, be it YouTube, Instagram, Twitter or Facebook. That just blows the Yeerks plans right out of the proverbial water and the series is done in a single book. Or it becomes a trilogy with a VERY different story.
I mean what were they gonna do if the relaunch had been successful and they got into the later books? Especially since Animorphs #34, The Prophecy, has Marco talking about Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace and how at the time (September 1999) the movie wasn't going to come out on DVD until 2001. Would Scholastic have removed that line entirely, or changed the movie to something else and change DVD to some streaming service? Considering this was back in 2011 that this relaunch started and it would be 2014 or 2015 by the time The Prophecy would've been reprinted, DVD would've changed to Netflix, since Disney+ wasn't a thing yet, and The Phantom Menace would've been changed to The Force Awakens or something like that. Either way, you can't modernize Animorphs. It's too ingrained in the culture of the mid 90s to early 2000s, as much as Stranger Things is ingrained in the culture of the 80s.
Aside from these idiotic changes made to this book, my only other problem with it is, how is this the first time that Cassie, Tobias, and Visser Three are hearing Ax's calls for help? It's been weeks, maybe even a few months since the Dome of the Andalite Dome Ship crashed into the Pacific Ocean (the books are set in California afterall), with Elfangor crashing in the construction site around the same time. So with this being the case, either Ax just started sending the thought speech distress call or for some reason the signal wasn't getting through until now. If he did just start sending the call out, what was Ax doing for the weeks between the crash of the Dome and when he started sending the distress call out? The book itself doesn't give a timeline for when Cassie and Tobias started having the dreams about the ocean with Ax's distress call inside them, but the back cover says that Cassie had been ignoring the dreams since she'd started having really bizarre ones since becoming an Animorph. So it's possible the dreams started at least two weeks prior to the start of this book, maybe, since the previous book was narrated by Tobias, and this isn't a dream he'd been having in that book. And we also don't know how much time has passed between the end of The Encounter and the beginning of The Message.
My favourite part of this book, aside from the introduction of Ax, is the two exchanges between Jake and Cassie. As I mentioned earlier about their relationship status, the two characters have great chemistry together. I mean so do Rachel and Tobias, but Jake and Cassie's relationship is a little more conventional, and appropriate for their age, while Rachel and Tobias have other things to consider when going on dates, especially later in the series, after book #13, The Change. So Jake and Cassie's scenes together are easily the best part of this book. Same with Cassie and Marco's brief interaction following the group's first attempt to get at Ax's ship underwater.
Overall The Message is still a good book, despite the changes made to the 2011 revised edition. The changes don't change the story very much, if at all, they're just stupid and unnecessary. Otherwise, it's a great introduction to Ax, and it finally gives us some insights into Cassie since up to this point we really haven't spent much time with her. Which has been a detriment to the character until now. Especially in the earlier Jake and Rachel books.
Alright guys that's it for this review. However, I will be back in a little while, because the trailer for Cruella, the origin/spin-off film of the villain from 101 Dalmatians, dropped this morning, and I have some thoughts on it. So I will see you back here shortly.
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