It came out recently. My Twihard friends all read it and loved it- I mean, I think they were just happy to find something else, knowing the actual series was over. If I had to guess, I’d say this movie paid a little more attention to her because once the main series is done, they wanted to leave it open to make a “sequel” with her book.
I just saw it. Considering the source material*, it’s not bad, but I think most of the praise comes from the fact that it’s on the heels of New Moon, which has to be one of the worst movies ever.
Overall, it’s almost as good as the first. Personally, I think the director/visual style of the first was really good, as the movie pretty accurately captured the dark-broody-quasi goth-heavy breathing atmosphere of the novels. However, since the first was basically a low-budget indie movie, the effects sucked. Now the studio is putting big money and the effects are better, but the visual style and earnest symbolic scenes seem toned down. Plus, the makeup is better! One of my favourite things to do with the first movie was to see where they quit powdering the white makeup without considering the fact that the actors’ natural skin was exposed by the wardrobe choice.
So to sum up:
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Pacing better than New Moon,
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Seminal leghumping scene left intact
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Taylor Lautner keeps shirt off for most of the movie
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Scenery is gorgeous and
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Hilarity of thinly veiled Mormon prosletyzing continues to shine through.
Definitely worth a Netflix rental to keep up with pop culture, not sure you should spend money to see it in the theatre unless you either love or hatecrush it.
Recognizing the fact that even though my taste has always run to Long-Dead White Male English Authors since about 7th grade, I would have eaten this sht up as a teenage girl because it pretty much plays into the teenage psyche.
Can you expand on this a bit? I know Meyer is Mormon, and Wiki says this:
Can you point out some specific examples you noticed?
ETA: Here is a link to the Bree Tanner novella: http://www.amazon.com/Short-Second-Life-Bree-Tanner/dp/031612558X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278428211&sr=8-1
Necros, if you’re bored and want 1: to laugh and 2: to understand the Mormon undertones a bit more, I suggest reading this summary of the Twlight books on Livejournal. Hilarious.
Heheheh.
I’m so using that. 
Dump glitter on yourself so you glisten in the sunlight and I am 100% confident this angle will work.
I’ve seen all three to appease my girlfriend who loves the series. The first one was absurdly bad, the second one was actually tolerable (I did not like it but I did not hate it either). I thought that while the third wasn’t as unintentionally ridiculous as the first, I thought it was very slow and boring. My girlfriend and I couldn’t understand why so many people liked this better than the second. I admit to laughing at some of the jokes, but overall it was a snooze-fest for someone not into the series.
It is Hilarious, but says a lot about the author, very little about Mormons or Mormonism. As a Mormon, and having barely tolerated the books for the sake of my teenage daughter, I don’t see much in them other than the themes of abstinance, and maybe that there isn’t a lot (or any) alcohol or swearing. The same thing could be said about many, if not most teen fantasy novels written by people of all religious beliefs (or non-belief).
P.S. Disclaimer - I have read the books (or listened to the unabridged audio recording in the car), haven’t seen the new movie and probably won’t until the Rifftrax comes out.
Well, it argues that the whole thing is a big fat allegory for Mormonism and the general Mormon conflicts and such-- like that Edward is supposed to be a Brigham Young character, the Vultori are the Catholics, etc.
I’m neither Mormon nor have I read the books, but I’ve heard other people express that point of view.
I’ve read the link that DiosaBellisima posted, but even before that I thought
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The loud and clear abstinence message (not to mention swearing, alcohol etc.)
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“Eternal” Marriage (vampire sealing/imprinting)
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Teenage marriage
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Complete disregard for Bella’s outside interests/education while obsessing about cooking for Charlie, having babies and accepting Edward’s patriarchal vampire authoritah (at 17!)
and 5) Renssaelaer Tech, or whatever they named their mutant baby
Were all on the Mormon side of matters. Which, you know, she’s writing what she knows and believes in and that’s perfectly alright. But I do think it has Mormon undertones.
Bolding mine. You win the thread.
True, but also true of many, if not most young adult fiction. I don’t remember swearing or alcohol mentioned at all, let alone a message about it being “loud and clear”. Also, the abstinence in the book, IIRC, is not a matter or moral or religious conviction, but a matter of being killed in the act (Sort of a “man of steel, woman of Kleenex” thing). Absent the physical danger, Bella tries to blackmail the sparkly vampire into sex- hardly a “loud and clear” abstinence sermon.
Very different than the LDS concept, to say the least.
Although members of the LDS church do marry younger than most people in the US, it is closer in line to marriage ages where the majority of LDS live (i.e. the average marriage is younger in rural america and the intermountain west than in other parts of the country). Interestingly, and counter to the supposed connection, Bella is very much against marrying young, argues strongly against it, and only does so due to unusual circumstances.
“LDS women are more likely to graduate from college than Catholic or Protestant women… For graduate education the pattern was similar–a higher percentage of LDS than Catholic or Protestant women have received graduate education.”
“LDS women are more likely to be employed in professional occupations than Catholic or Protestant women. Twenty-three percent of LDS women are employed in professional occupations, which is similar to Jewish women and women with no religious affiliation. [Original source: Brinkerhoff, Merlin B., and Marlene MacKie.”
Religion and Gender: A Comparison of Canadian and American Student Attitudes." Journal of Marriage and the Family 47 (1985):415-29.
Hardly a Mormon thing as the baby’s name is an amalgamation of other characters in the books.
The “Mormon undertones” are greatly exaggerated, and I could use similar logic to show any number of authors, who have no connection to the LDS faith, have similar “Mormon undertones”. I could also use similar undertones to argue that the books have Baptist, Catholic, Muslim or atheistic undertones.
If it sounds like i’m a little touchy on the subject, well, I probably am. It just seems so much of it is based on untrue stereotypes about me and my friends and family, and the “Mormon influence” meme seems to be mostly trotted out as a criticism to explain what people dislike about her books.
I generally dislike her books, and as an advocate against abuse against women, I find sections of the book really harmful. It just seems like those who want to discredit the books sometimes seem to imply that her religious affiliation is the source of her writing problems or, worse, that it is some kind of Mormon propaganda plot.
This rant is not directed at anyone in this thread or on the SMDB in particular, it is more my “taking personal offense at broad social trends.”
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The Sparkledummstrang you dismissed as being penned by a non-Mormon was written by someone who was raised Mormon, by the way.
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The Mormon name thing is referencing the Mormon Name Generator. It should be pretty obvious that I’ve read all 4 books (all the better to hate with with, my dear), so I understand the origin of RenFaereMatina or whatevs.
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Promotion of abstinence is not true of most YA fiction. I keep up on YA fiction trends and it runs the gamut on this issue. Generally there will be characters who are sexually active, a lot of inner turmoil and the protagonist may or may not decide to make a decision to be active or abstain. Hell, sometimes everyone is either active or abstaining without much durm and strang.
Thanks again for the plot point on how Bella tries to seduce the sparkle-pire (which again, I am well aware of). Here’s the way the Twilight series works. StephEnie sets up modern, newfangled notions through Bella or Edward (Let’s have sex, Let’s not get married, Let’s go to College, Let’s abort our mutants), then proceeds to quickly dismiss these options and draw the characters back to the Righteous Path. Personally, I think she’s a bit of a rebel on the inside, StephEnie is, but she can’t go all the way with committing her characters to the path of Unholy Sinning, so she flirts with these thoughts and then has them knocked down.
By the way, I do not care that she promotes abstinence. I’m all for it!
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I’m sorry but the first thing that leapt out at me with the induction into vampirism (they live forever) was an allegory for celestial marriage-in that they are going to be married forever and ever, having sex into forever and ever. Imprinting, again, seems allegorically akin to eternal marriage. As practiced by the Quileutes (Lamanites), of course.
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Saying that “Mormons don’t marry any younger than average if you restrict the population to those areas heavily settled by Mormons” doesn’t disprove my point. Seriously, I don’t even know how you can say “If you look at the population of UTAH AND IDAHO AND RURAL COLORADO, LDS people aren’t marrying any younger than average,” and think that means anything other than it is far more acceptable to be a bride at 18 in LDS culture than in the rest of the US. She is writing what she knows. As I said, I think that’s perfectly okay.
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I will grant you that my comments about education should be modified. I still see the Mormon church as promoting the necessity of family and marriage as a priority in a woman’s life.
I have yet to see where I criticized the books because I think they’re full of Mormon prosletyzing. I love the Narnia books and am a huge CS Lewis fan, even though all of his books are full of Christian prosletyzing and I’m a Hindu. I am not averse to thinly veiled prosletyzing when it’s cloaked with literary merit. I just think these books are
a) Poorly written
b) Communicate a crap message to young women
c) Are trashy, campy fun and I can see why teenage girls zoom straight past the bad prose and start mooning over a marble-peened stalker.
Why does hearing that something has “Mormon undertones” upset you so much? It’s hardly a value judgment. Are you going to tell me Big Love isn’t based on Mormon issues next?
Bella is the most boring Mary Sue EVER. When she goes on and on about how she fits in better with vampire than humans my eyes almost rolled out of my head, because she doesn’t show a spark of originality and seems to have no interest in anything other than mooning over Edward. And Jacob is a manipulative and arrogant little bastard who deserves a few punches. And I never knew werewolves waxed their chests.
I did grudgingly enjoy the movie, even though every five minutes I had to restrain the urge to shout “oh for FUCK’S sake” at the screen. It was better paced than the first one (haven’t seen the second) and I never read the third book so not knowing the plot helped a bit. I think the series per se doesn’t annoy as much as the teenage fans who take it so seriously and actually think Bella and Edward have an ideal relationship.
But if we’re talking about human-vampire-werewolf threesomes, give me Anita, Jean-Claude, and Richard over Twilight any day.
Or perhaps Annie, Mitchell and George.