Self-indulgent Rant Concerning my Disappearing Childhood. Please, Disregard.
Spring break is just lovely, isn't it? Today, I got the chance to sit down, guilt-free, and pick up a book that I am not reading for English, or Library, or more English. This having been said, I kind of wish I hadn't done it. The book that is causing these conflicting statements is simply entitled Max, and is the fifth book of the Maximum Ride series. To give you some background, I loved this series to bits throughout my middle school years and even into high school. Check here if you want to know what the books are actually about, because I don't feel like summarizing anything. I loved the way the books were written, the continuously moving plot, the sci-fi coolness, and especially the characters. Because, you should know by now, I'm a sucker for well-written characters. As I got older, I would continue rereading the books, overlooking the cheesy cliched phrases and embarassingly noticeable avoidance of profanity, just because the story drew me in and wouldn't let me go. However, as heartbreaking as it is to say it, I have to let it go now.
My main point here is, THIS SERIES HAS BEEN RUINED FOR ME FOREVER. I wish the series had ended after the third book. I wish it didn't have enough fans to egg JPattz on to write three more books. I wish he hadn't used his indestructible popularity to achieve his own goals. But that is precicely what he did. He took a kickass story about six genetically enhanced runaways and turned it into a stale, dead piece of propaganda. The conversion began in the fourth book, The Final Warning, and I gave the fifth a second chance only because I had imagined that maybe the awfulness of the fourth was just a fluke. The plot shifted completely from focusing on the survival of the Flock to focusing on--can you believe it?--the prevention of global warming. I couldn't make this up. Now, I don't remember the exact events of the fourth book because I read it quite a while back and I don't even remember if I even finished it, but I do recall that the Flock were stationed in Antarctica with some research facility, trying to stop oil spills or something. It was like Captian freaking Planet, in book form. As I mentioned earlier, I had to give the series another shot. I loved it too much to admit that the characters that I had grown to love had died, and so I recieved the fifth book, Max, this Christmas at my request. Just worked up the courage to begin reading it a few days ago. And finished it earlier today. It's no better.
This time, Max's mother is kidnapped by the evil Mr. Chu and tortured in order to get her to sign the papers ending her organization, Committee to Stop the Madness (read: PETA). Now the Flock must brave claustrophia in submarines and totally cheesy new robot enemies that, in earlier days, could be taken out in mere seconds. These guys are nothing compared to the Erasers. But we wouldn't want our brave, environmentally-conscious heroes to beat up and kill living creatures, would we? It's a thought too awful to comprehend. But now I'm digressing. JPattz has taken his power and corrupted it, using it to brainwash his impressionable, devoted ten to fifteen-year-old audiences by unsubtly erasing the story and replacing it with environmental factoids being preached by their favorite characters at every opportunity. Yes, folks. Even if it's a good message, it is still brainwashing. And it just disgusts me. I believe in global warming; the facts can't be ignored, but I'm not nuts about the environment. I don't go out of my way to recycle or save water or anything, and I believe that whatever is happening to the planet cannot be stopped or reversed by any human action. But, my own opinions aside, there are plenty of other ways that Patterson could have gotten his urge to be an environmental nutso satiated WITHOUT ruining a great series. He could have donated part of the proceeds from his books to his favorite nonprofit and added a footnote or introduction to the book proclaiming the deed. He could have created a minor character who worked to "Stop the Madness" and launched a spinoff series about him/her, and I would have been okay with that. But just leave the Flock alone! Don't change the entire course of the series to reflect your own humanitarian fetish! Ugh.
I remember when Max was such a cool, careless, unbreakable leader, when Fang was the kickass, sexy one, when Iggy always had something snarky to say, when Gazzy was a fiendish little twerp, when Nudge was a talkative sweetie, and when Angel was actually scary. But now...now, they've become exaggerated shadows of themselves, in a way. They have blown-up versions of their original personalities--character traits taken to an obnoxious level--and, in return, lost all semblance of true identity.
Angel: Her constant evolution and transformation was fascinating and terrifying at one point, but now she is just...a brat. She never follows orders and constantly gets in trouble for no reason. How many chapters end with Max beginning to panic at the realization that Angel is swimming around outside the damn submarine? I don't remember ever hating her before but anything that was once frightening in her nature is now just irritating.
Nudge: Who IS this? The only thing that comes out of her mouth in the new series is about fashion. Whaaat? Sure, she has always been the girliest one, but before, if she had been like this, she would have been killed in the first chapter of the series. Whatever happened to the technological brilliance? The concern for her family? The only thing JPattz sticks to is her what-used-to-be occasional longing for normalcy, which he cranks up by deciding that she now wants to leave the Flock. Umm, sure. At least Iggy had a valid reason for leaving when he did so; but the repeat in plot has much less sense.
Gazzy: The only times he is even mentioned in the fifth book is when he blows something up, or when he high-fives Iggy. He isn't a very prevalent character in the other books, I'll admit, but there was something more there then. He wasn't just a pyromaniac.
Iggy: See above. He is the same as Gazzy now, but a little older. But it's worse now because he actually was a central character before! Now he is mentioned even less than Gazzy. Just, you know, taking up space as the tall blind kid standing in the corner. He's taken Gazzy's position as the sidekick and doesn't do anything original anymore. In the first three books, JPattz almost went out of his way to prove that Iggy's blindness didn't stop him from being ridiculously ingenious, and now he's almost going out of his way to prove that Iggy is just a part of the scenery. I miss him!
Fang--Oh, Fang. This is the worst. He was, without a doubt, the hot one. Bahaha. He could have easily been the Flock leader, but he chose to let Max take the reins and just sat back and took the responsiblity of being awesome instead. But...ahhhh, but it seems like Patterson finally realized that Fang was hot and began to intentionally try and make him hot, which--JPattz being a straight, middle-aged man--failed miserably. Now our Fang has become this drone, without a personality and without any thoughts but those for Max, whom he has decided to fall in love with (didn't see that one coming...), and he's almost Edward Cullen-ish. Ewwww. So that's a fail in itself.
Whoa. I wrote all this last night and then took a break...now that I'm looking at it, I'm not nearly as upset about this whole thing as the length of this entry would lead you to believe. I'll just hope that none of you have bothered to read this far into it. If you did...take a break and watch something amusing. That was quite a bit of reading.
I'm not entirely sure when the switch from "great, mindless entertainment" to "soulless environmental garbage" began. Maybe when Max found her mom? Who happened to be the mother of the daughter that she saved way back in book one? Or maybe it was when Angel began breathing underwater. The introduction of Total's character had to be somewhere in there, definitely. What a dumbass idea. Everything started going downhill, piece by piece, until it hit rock bottom in the fourth book, and the fifth book confirmed for me that it is never going to make it back up. Everything that Max once desperately avoided--being discovered, being studied, being with other people--is now shamelessly prevalent in the new books. It was always just the six of them, but now? Now, they've given up their freedom to work with the freaking EPA! They're only too eager to be of some help, because, well kids, we don't want those nasty evil corporations to destroy the world, do we?! Everything that the Flock once stood for has been completely forgotten for the sake of some fish.
I suppose the one good thing to come out of this is that JPattz recognizes the fact that the fourth, fifth, and sixth books are completely different from the first three, and has decided to break them up into two trilogies: "The Fugitives" and "The Protectors". Good. That'll make it easier to pretend that the new books don't exist. If anyone wants to buy them from me, I'd be more than happy to sell them at a very decent price. Or, I guess I could always burn them. The added chemicals in the atmosphere would be satisfyingly ironic.
My main point here is, THIS SERIES HAS BEEN RUINED FOR ME FOREVER. I wish the series had ended after the third book. I wish it didn't have enough fans to egg JPattz on to write three more books. I wish he hadn't used his indestructible popularity to achieve his own goals. But that is precicely what he did. He took a kickass story about six genetically enhanced runaways and turned it into a stale, dead piece of propaganda. The conversion began in the fourth book, The Final Warning, and I gave the fifth a second chance only because I had imagined that maybe the awfulness of the fourth was just a fluke. The plot shifted completely from focusing on the survival of the Flock to focusing on--can you believe it?--the prevention of global warming. I couldn't make this up. Now, I don't remember the exact events of the fourth book because I read it quite a while back and I don't even remember if I even finished it, but I do recall that the Flock were stationed in Antarctica with some research facility, trying to stop oil spills or something. It was like Captian freaking Planet, in book form. As I mentioned earlier, I had to give the series another shot. I loved it too much to admit that the characters that I had grown to love had died, and so I recieved the fifth book, Max, this Christmas at my request. Just worked up the courage to begin reading it a few days ago. And finished it earlier today. It's no better.
This time, Max's mother is kidnapped by the evil Mr. Chu and tortured in order to get her to sign the papers ending her organization, Committee to Stop the Madness (read: PETA). Now the Flock must brave claustrophia in submarines and totally cheesy new robot enemies that, in earlier days, could be taken out in mere seconds. These guys are nothing compared to the Erasers. But we wouldn't want our brave, environmentally-conscious heroes to beat up and kill living creatures, would we? It's a thought too awful to comprehend. But now I'm digressing. JPattz has taken his power and corrupted it, using it to brainwash his impressionable, devoted ten to fifteen-year-old audiences by unsubtly erasing the story and replacing it with environmental factoids being preached by their favorite characters at every opportunity. Yes, folks. Even if it's a good message, it is still brainwashing. And it just disgusts me. I believe in global warming; the facts can't be ignored, but I'm not nuts about the environment. I don't go out of my way to recycle or save water or anything, and I believe that whatever is happening to the planet cannot be stopped or reversed by any human action. But, my own opinions aside, there are plenty of other ways that Patterson could have gotten his urge to be an environmental nutso satiated WITHOUT ruining a great series. He could have donated part of the proceeds from his books to his favorite nonprofit and added a footnote or introduction to the book proclaiming the deed. He could have created a minor character who worked to "Stop the Madness" and launched a spinoff series about him/her, and I would have been okay with that. But just leave the Flock alone! Don't change the entire course of the series to reflect your own humanitarian fetish! Ugh.
I remember when Max was such a cool, careless, unbreakable leader, when Fang was the kickass, sexy one, when Iggy always had something snarky to say, when Gazzy was a fiendish little twerp, when Nudge was a talkative sweetie, and when Angel was actually scary. But now...now, they've become exaggerated shadows of themselves, in a way. They have blown-up versions of their original personalities--character traits taken to an obnoxious level--and, in return, lost all semblance of true identity.
Angel: Her constant evolution and transformation was fascinating and terrifying at one point, but now she is just...a brat. She never follows orders and constantly gets in trouble for no reason. How many chapters end with Max beginning to panic at the realization that Angel is swimming around outside the damn submarine? I don't remember ever hating her before but anything that was once frightening in her nature is now just irritating.
Nudge: Who IS this? The only thing that comes out of her mouth in the new series is about fashion. Whaaat? Sure, she has always been the girliest one, but before, if she had been like this, she would have been killed in the first chapter of the series. Whatever happened to the technological brilliance? The concern for her family? The only thing JPattz sticks to is her what-used-to-be occasional longing for normalcy, which he cranks up by deciding that she now wants to leave the Flock. Umm, sure. At least Iggy had a valid reason for leaving when he did so; but the repeat in plot has much less sense.
Gazzy: The only times he is even mentioned in the fifth book is when he blows something up, or when he high-fives Iggy. He isn't a very prevalent character in the other books, I'll admit, but there was something more there then. He wasn't just a pyromaniac.
Iggy: See above. He is the same as Gazzy now, but a little older. But it's worse now because he actually was a central character before! Now he is mentioned even less than Gazzy. Just, you know, taking up space as the tall blind kid standing in the corner. He's taken Gazzy's position as the sidekick and doesn't do anything original anymore. In the first three books, JPattz almost went out of his way to prove that Iggy's blindness didn't stop him from being ridiculously ingenious, and now he's almost going out of his way to prove that Iggy is just a part of the scenery. I miss him!
Fang--Oh, Fang. This is the worst. He was, without a doubt, the hot one. Bahaha. He could have easily been the Flock leader, but he chose to let Max take the reins and just sat back and took the responsiblity of being awesome instead. But...ahhhh, but it seems like Patterson finally realized that Fang was hot and began to intentionally try and make him hot, which--JPattz being a straight, middle-aged man--failed miserably. Now our Fang has become this drone, without a personality and without any thoughts but those for Max, whom he has decided to fall in love with (didn't see that one coming...), and he's almost Edward Cullen-ish. Ewwww. So that's a fail in itself.
Whoa. I wrote all this last night and then took a break...now that I'm looking at it, I'm not nearly as upset about this whole thing as the length of this entry would lead you to believe. I'll just hope that none of you have bothered to read this far into it. If you did...take a break and watch something amusing. That was quite a bit of reading.
I'm not entirely sure when the switch from "great, mindless entertainment" to "soulless environmental garbage" began. Maybe when Max found her mom? Who happened to be the mother of the daughter that she saved way back in book one? Or maybe it was when Angel began breathing underwater. The introduction of Total's character had to be somewhere in there, definitely. What a dumbass idea. Everything started going downhill, piece by piece, until it hit rock bottom in the fourth book, and the fifth book confirmed for me that it is never going to make it back up. Everything that Max once desperately avoided--being discovered, being studied, being with other people--is now shamelessly prevalent in the new books. It was always just the six of them, but now? Now, they've given up their freedom to work with the freaking EPA! They're only too eager to be of some help, because, well kids, we don't want those nasty evil corporations to destroy the world, do we?! Everything that the Flock once stood for has been completely forgotten for the sake of some fish.
I suppose the one good thing to come out of this is that JPattz recognizes the fact that the fourth, fifth, and sixth books are completely different from the first three, and has decided to break them up into two trilogies: "The Fugitives" and "The Protectors". Good. That'll make it easier to pretend that the new books don't exist. If anyone wants to buy them from me, I'd be more than happy to sell them at a very decent price. Or, I guess I could always burn them. The added chemicals in the atmosphere would be satisfyingly ironic.