Because, it has to be done: Twilight, the movie thread (Spoilers Galore!).

Cafe Society
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Either my google-fu is very weak, or something, but I cannot find any thread discussion on THE MoViE ReLEaSE of teh YeAr!!!111!!!

(This is all over the place, and I apologize profusely.)

My Girlfriends took me to see Twilight for my birthday. Since I couldn’t even finish the book, I went in knowing some of the story line, but cleared my brain of my previous disappointment in hopes that Hollywood would dress it up prettily like a Thanksgiving Turkey.

We all hated it and ripped it to shreds in our post movie drive home. The dissing on this movie was better than the movie itself. And That dissing was more gratifying than sex.

The main characters do not engage and are not likeable or unlikeable. Everything is so intense and stuff between then. gag meBella has one emotion and, when given news, she blinks alot. If Hugh Grant’s blinking annoys you, then this will get your goat. The only scene that I felt she did some kind of acting in was when she was in the ballet studio and dying from the venom.

There were far too many closeups of Edward and Bella’s faces. Their faces devoid of any emotion. After the 93rd close up, it got old.
Edward was, and I quote my best friend who said it alot, “Quite Dreamy” but I would have expected some kind of humor from him. Or making fun of teenagers or being complete trendsetters at the school. SOMETHING. The most interesting character could have been fleshed out alot more and was left as dull has his book character.

It was never established why he is so drawn to her in such a creepy, obsessive way. And she seemed to go along with it all with little apprehension. Huge Amount of Co-Dependency crap going on there with a buttload of Cinderella Complex as a chaser.
The noble image of a Vampire that doesn’t drink human blood is so cornball, we referred him as the Vegan Vampire and her as The Bacon.

" The bacon is on your chest, but don’t touch the bacon."

" The bacon is sitting next to you in class, be repelled by her seductive, velvetly smells." "

“Take the Bacon to Prom.”

“Rescue the Bacon.”
And so on.

Then, naturally, being grown women with dark and twisted minds took then entire Noble Vampire- No-human-blood thing further.

Why couldn’t Bacon…er…Bella just give her her used tampons every month to suck on like a lollipop.

The only laugh we got in the entire movie was the dad’s scene cleaning his shot gun while drinking beer. Because it was the only cliche that worked and I think the only non-vampire cliche that was offered.

Rule number 27 of Hollywood, if there is a gun being cleaned, alcohol must be involved.

The only other cliche that was nudged upon was Indians have some spiritual sense thingie going on. The Indian Adult ( Guy in wheelchair) giving Edward the Stink Eye reduced me to peels of laughter.
Discussion Questions That Came Up That Need To Thrown At the Teenagers Who SWOON over This Steaming Pile of Crap:

**Do vampires need haircuts or does their hair always stay the same? **
( Edward looked like he had spent the day on a jetboat.) Cause it would really, really blow chunks to be bitten by a vampire when you are in your Flock of Seagull’s hair style phase for eternity.

**Why do perennial teenage vampires That would suck on a whole new level, wouldn’t it? keep on going to high school? **It would be like a lion sleeping in a chicken coop.

Vampires get sparkly skin!!! Do they fart rainbows, too?
No Garlic reference. C’mon! The rules of a good Hollywood film are ALL Cliches Must Be Hit before it can be taken seriously.

I did like the photography in its bleak grayness.

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The one scene, when THEY FINALLY KISS, took so FARKING long that I just grumbled loudly, " GET ON WITH IT!"

That scene was referred to thereafter as, " Teen Pron."

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Because he is a Romance Novel Vampire. They can be distinguished from other vampires by the fact that they don’t do anything interesting like raze villages or try to take over the world.

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I haven’t read the books - a friend who had told me I wouldn’t have made it more than a chapter without throwing it across the room in a rage - so how do they get away with the whole “Dying If Touched By Sunlight” problem?

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It is a myth.

When Vampires are in the sunlight, they sparkle like covered by diamond dust.
Fabulous!

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Ohfercrissakes…
Yeah, sounds like she was right about me tossing that book…

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I don’t even know why I read this thread, but now I have to ask. He goes to a regular high school, right? I mean, daylight ours, classrooms filled with open windows, gym class, the whole deal, right? So he must be known as “that freaky constantly sparkling kid”, right?

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I learned everything I needed to know about this movie/book/storyline/whatever else there is when I heard that the female lead character’s name is “Bella Swan”.

Seriously? Bella Swan? Listen up, writers: only Charles Dickens can get away with giving characters names like that. That’s how we got “Ebenezer Scrooge” and “Uriah Heep” and such. Telegraphing like that worked in his time, but today it’s laughably absurd.

“Bella Swan”. Why not “Rainbow Loveliness” or “Unicorn Deepsoul” or “Obviousgimmick Imagineyourselfinherplace”?

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Two words: Mary Sue. That’s what Bella Swan is.

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That’s why the sparklepires live in Forks, WA–the cloudiest, rainiest spot in the US. They look normal, if pale, out of direct sunlight. When the sun’s out, they stay home sick.

They are also not always high school students–they move around a bit and use different covers. IIRC Edward has two medical degrees or something–vegan vampires are civilized folks and like to spend their time composing classical music, painting, and learning a lot. And playing vampire super-baseball.

I can’t believe I know all this–I don’t even like Twilight.

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Actually, when the sun is out, they tell everyone that Carlisle and Esme take them hiking.

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:::snerk::: Yanno, the author never did address that one little issue in the books. I mean, Edward sneaks into Bella’s room and spends every night with her (chastely of course… can’t get up to anything or he might accidentally go too far and break her)… you’d think there’d be a few days every month where that might be a bit of a problem. Hell, if he’s going to high school, SOMEONE’s got to be smelling >>that way<< pretty much all the time. Maybe there’s an exemption for that sort of blood?

I didn’t know Edward was supposed to have a couple of medical degrees. Then again I’ve listened to the first 3 on audiobooks and am waiting for the 4th (there’s a waitlist at the library).

The movie was entertaining enough, for what it was. I wound up seeing it on opening night with a friend, her 14-year-old, and Dweezil (who got dragged in at the last minute due to an accidental extra ticket purchase). LOTS of moans and sighs from the mostly-teenage-girl audience, at appropriate moments. Edward was played as an uncertain teenage boy, far more so than I remember him being. The initial scene in the biology class was played for laughs (guess it woulda been hard to capture the smoldering fury from the book).

The few scenes with Jasper, he looked like he’d been pithed. Vacant look of surprise, and I don’t think he ever spoke. Of course, one would need to have been pithed to sport hair like that. It wasn’t emo, it wasn’t windblown, it was just… strange.

The Uncyclopedia page about the books refers to them as targeting “lonely emo teenage girls”, per Moon Unit who had no interest in seeing it. I looked it up after she quoted that, and found she didn’t add on the rest of the quote, “who will never get laid”. OOPS! Guess I’d better monitor her internet habits even more than I do!!

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My 16 year old daughter HAD to see this movie, so we dropped her off at the mall.

She loved it. I can only hope her literary tastes improve as she gets older.

And, yes, plans are in the works to film the next book, New Moon. Never underestimate the buying power of screaming teenaged girls.

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Which is why my friends and I are trying to come up with a book series geared towards boys that will make them throw money at us by the buckets.

So far all we have come up with is a book about Supermodel nymphomaniac cheerleaders. And something about bacon and blow jobs.

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One problem is he’s not a Vampire. Not even close. Vampires can’t come out in the day- they must be asleep in their grave. Sure, muted sunlight would not vaporize them, but they still need to “rest”.

Next- their breath smells like the charnel house on a hot day. Hardly sexy. They look dead, too.

Nor do they have super powers- they are fairly strong and hard to kill, that’s about it. No super hearing, no super atheltic ability, etc.

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Oh god, that would happen to me. I’ve got so many bad hair phases to choose from!

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I’m surprised no one has done a film of the Alex Rider books yet.

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My other let-down about the movie was the Fight Scene between He’s So Dreamy Mr. Vegan Vampire and James, the Tracker Blonde Duuude Meat Eater Vampire.
One would think that two vampires would have some really good fighting skills.

It was a pretty lame fight, IMHO.

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I was dragged to this movie by a friend who had already seen it and wanted to see it again. She very much had to drag me against my will because I have actively been avoiding all things Twilight since the internet first was (re?)inundated with teenage vampire wank.

But, you know what? I didn’t hate it. I even liked it, honestly.

Sure, the first half was wrought with teenage angst. Oh, let’s stare at each other dramatically then storm off (5 or so times, each with their own tight shots of the actors’ faces). Ooooh, so angsty. While the first half was certainly giggle inducing (oh, he’s TWINKLING IN THE SUNLIGHT? And he’s a stupid, masochistic lion? Indeed), it was far from unbearably bad. The second half, though, was pretty darned good by most standards.

Plus, as I explained to my friend after: even when it was bad, the movie was still good. That Robert Pattinson (Edward Cullen) is indeed dreamy. There was one point where Bella says something, when talking to someone about the Washington weather, “I’ve never been so wet in my life.” And I couldn’t help but think to myself, “Well, yeah honey, if that hottness next to you was staring intently at me all day, I’d probably be . . .” Anyway. So, this movie is kind of like The 300 for me- even when it’s bad, the eye candy makes it very, very good.

The most amusing thing for me, though, was watching the teenage girls squirm around in their seats when they finally had the kissing scene. Hilarious. What will happen when there’s finally a sex scene? Spontaneous teenage combustion, I think.

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They made one a few years ago (Operation Stormbreaker). It pretty well tanked, so I doubt there’ll be anymore.