Why do girls go Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs over the Twilight Vampire movies? What's the hook?

[Koxinga]

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[Cardinal]

@Kylede

It still bothers me that no one says anything about the implications of the “Moral” of the story.
We are letting the film and publishing industry sell us the idea that there is simply "One True Love" out there for each and every person. and that you have to be chaste and pure and above all concerns until you meet that person. And the moment you meet that person you will know it, and you will be happy forever!!!

Oh come on, this is not a conspiracy by the media overall to sell this idea, as is clearly evidenced by basically every other movie made, in which no one is close to chaste.

The author is Mormon, so this is what you’re going to get, frosted over with some pie in the sky stuff about knowing your true love immediately. That part I disagree with. What if you’d gone to college somewhere else? What if your dad got laid off and you moved somewhere else in 9th grade? You’d have met different people and married someone else.

[BrainGlutton]

From THE BEAST 50 MOST LOATHSOME PEOPLE IN AMERICA, 2008:

31. Stephenie Meyer

Charges: She’s the unforgivably perky Mormon mom who wrote the Twilight Series of books, currently draining IQ points from Western Civilization. This silly wank-off vampire fantasy for teenage girls has been embraced by legions of sad, middle-aged women who fight for access to their daughters’ sticky copies of the books. It’s an embarrassing spectacle for all Americans who aren’t actively participating in it. Meyer admits she can’t handle the better class of vampires and has never watched a whole vampire movie, even the more anemic kind: “I’ve seen little pieces of Interview with a Vampire when it was on TV, but I kind of always go YUCK! I don’t watch R-rated movies, so that really cuts down on a lot of the horror. And I think I’ve seen a couple of pieces of The Lost Boys, which my husband liked, and he wanted me to watch it once, but I was like, ‘It’s creepy!’”

Exhibit A: The hit movie version of Twilight, featuring Meyer’s dreary characters, a tiresome teenage girl and the pathetic “vegetarian” vampire who loves her, mooning around on first base for two hours and giving vampires everywhere a bad name.

Sentence: Meyer encounters a non-vegetarian vampire, who kills her immediately and gruesomely in front of an appreciative audience of horror film fans.

[msmith537]

@Diogenes_the_Cynic

If Rose is 19, she’s an adult, at least. The girl in Twilight is still a minor. The “vampire” (and he really isn’t worthy of the word. He’s more like a vam-pansy or a douche-pire) is also obsessively controlling, possessive, paternalistic, infantalizing and literally stalkerish. For some reason, I guess this strikes 12 year old girls as impossibly romantic, but to adults it pretty much pins the creep- meter.

I prefer the term “doucheferatu”, “Count Dorkula” or “Vlad the Ass-impaler”.

[outlierrn]

I though Vladless was the proper insult to a wimpire.

[ralph124c]

The vampire is a projection of sexual fantasy. The vampire does sexual intercourse in reverse-he drains the blood (life force) of his victims. The werewolf is a projection of childhood (out of control, impulsive). Therefore, Bella (who is between adolescence and adulthood) constantly cycles between wanted to be a child (loves the werewolf guy), and longing to have sex as an adult (vampire).
I think I’ll write a thesis on this topic.

[Sr_Siete]

I’ve watched the two first movies and found them, if not great works of art, professionally made time wasters.

The main character’s arc is actually quite interesting for what it is: Bella is an easily-depressed angsty teenager with suicidal tendencies who tends to fall head over heels for guys with serious anger management issues, who are a literal mortal danger to her. And in the second movie she actually puts herself in deadly situations just for kicks.

Hell, look at the werewolf kid, she only starts looking at him romantically after she finds out that werewolves may lose their temper and rip the people they love apart every once in a while.

I don’t have a problem with the story per se, but that girl shouldn’t be taken as a role model.

[mr.jp]

I’ve only seen the movies. To me the vampire and the werewolf are pretty much the same character. They are obsessed about Bella for some reason. (I didn’t really catch the werewolfs reason.) They are super handsome, and different than other people. They both safe her life. They both really desire her, and if they can’t control themselves, they could seriously hurt her.

[Nava]

The werewolf has known her since childhood, Bella is his first teenage love.

The spoilered material is secondhand knowledge from the Dope and I’m too lazy to search for it, spoilering in case mr. jp doesn’t want to know about AbsWolf’s One True Love:

Turns out that werewolves may “imprint” on someone, which means that they meet them and fall head over heels forever amen. This happens to AbsWolf with Bella’s baby, and I mean baby. As in, he replaces the now-unavailable teen mom with her newborn.

[Grumman]

@mr.jp

I’ve only seen the movies. To me the vampire and the werewolf are pretty much the same character. They are obsessed about Bella for some reason. (I didn’t really catch the werewolfs reason.) They are super handsome, and different than other people. They both safe her life. They both really desire her, and if they can’t control themselves, they could seriously hurt her.

From what I understand, they weren’t the same character, at least not at first. Unlike Edward, Jacob was not an asshole until Meyers resorted to character assassination in one of the later books.

@Nava

The werewolf has known her since childhood, Bella is his first teenage love.

Er, doesn’t Bella move to the new town at the start of the series, meaning that neither Jacob nor Edward knew her before then?

[Dangerosa]

I read the first book. haven’t seen the movies. (I think Lamia was right on on the plot).

It was the worst book I’ve ever read that I couldn’t put down.

The plot was stupid, the teenagers annoying and angsty, the writing TERRIBLE, the stalkerish behavior disturbing. To me, it was like a bag of potato chips - I don’t like potato chips - too greasy and salty for me - but put a bag in front of me and for some reason they disappear.

Our bookclub read it. In the end we decided that as disturbing as it was, since we were all reading Flowers in the Attic at that age, we didn’t have much of a leg to stand on in complaining about disturbing dreck teenage girls read.

[Dangerosa]

@Grumman

From what I understand, they weren’t the same character, at least not at first. Unlike Edward, Jacob was not an asshole until Meyers resorted to character assassination in one of the later books.
Er, doesn’t Bella move to the new town at the start of the series, meaning that neither Jacob nor Edward knew her before then?

Her Dad has lived in the small town for years, she used to live there as a small child, and her Dad and Jacob’s dad are friends of some sort.

[Lamia]

@Grumman

From what I understand, they weren’t the same character, at least not at first. Unlike Edward, Jacob was not an asshole until Meyers resorted to character assassination in one of the later books.

He seemed like a nice enough kid in the first book/movie, where he’s a pretty minor character. It is my understanding that he does get creepy in the sequels – the AV Club review of the most recent movie describes him as “borderline-rapey”.

*Er, doesn’t Bella move to the new town at the start of the series, meaning that neither Jacob nor Edward knew her before then?

*Bella used to visit her dad in the same town every summer, and knew Jacob because their dads were friends. IIRC she barely remembers him when they meet again, but he remembers her right away.