Sweet Catastrophe

Things didn’t work out to where I could see Twilight on opening night, so I saved it for my Birthday.

Overall, I liked the movie. It wasn’t the book, of course, but for someone who’s read the books, it was still worth seeing. As for those who don’t know the story, I think it would be a bit confusing, and there were a good deal of things changed or unexplained/undeveloped that probably make the movie look a little lame.

There were a lot of big and little things that bothered me, so I’ll share some of the ones that really stick out in my mind. Yeah, I’ve got more bad than good to say, of course. lol

For one, Bella’s personality is just off…I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I think it’s that even when she’s supposed to be incredibly vulnerable, it just comes off as frantic and still overly independent. I just didn’t see Kristen Stewart really pulling it off.

They made Edward way too grumpy. Yes, he’s in anguish through most of the first story, first fighting his instincts and then worrying about the danger he puts Bella in, but I thought most of the grumpiness was really misplaced. We needed a lot more of the confident Edward and less emo-Edward.

They didn’t at all develop the relationship. It went straight from, “I think this guy hates me for no apparent reason,” to “I can’t live without you,” and that’s just really hard to overlook.

After four extensive books, you KNOW these characters and what you should expect from them. I mumbled, “bullshit….” after far too many of Edward’s lines in this movie. Some of the things they had him say just….wouldn’t come out of Edward Cullen’s mouth.

The makeup was distracting. I know they had to be pale, but I think there had to have been a better way to represent that than obvious pancake makeup.

Not a big deal, but it’s hard to accept actors in the minor roles when there’s a detailed description of them in the book and they’re 100% opposite…

There is, however, a scene in Bella’s imagination that was just plain HOT.

More gripes to follow, but they’re spoilerish so I’ll leave them to the end of the post. I liked it. I didn’t love it, I think maybe after seeing it once or twice more, I might be able to detach it from the book a bit more, but we’ll see. I still don’t know how I feel about sequels. On the one hand, I’d really like to see the actors perfect the characters and get them right, but on the other, we’re moving more and more into areas that I absolutely know movie magic just can’t handle so things will either be left out, changed, or straight up ruined. Really, the final book is what I’m most worried about because it was so different from the others and at that point, I really feel like it had grown into something for an older audience than the first books and they’re going to have to water that down to keep it in line with the other films. I’ll just have to work to keep them separate in my mind and not let the films taint my imagination for the books.

IF YOU HAVEN’T READ/SEEN AND INTEND TO, THE FOLLOWING OPINIONS ARE SPOLIERS.

Edward sparkling in the sunlight was just ridiculous. This is one of the things I knew movie magic wouldn’t be able to handle and I really would have rather they just had him explain it, and not show it.

In the movie, Carlisle has to coax Edward to stop drinking Bella’s blood. Bullshit. At this point, yes, he was worried before he started, but Bella being safe was more important to him than any of his own desires. Changing this in the movie really killed that aspect of the relationship.

There’s never any discussion of Alice’s past, there’s no solid discussion about Bella wanting to be a vampire, and they completely changed prom for no apparent reason whatsoever.

There’s some other things I can’t remember at the moment, but that’s the gist of it.