So Twilight, yeah, it's not a game, but I am posting about it anyways!! lol...
I don't think there has ever been a movie/novel that has come up in conversation as much as Twilight seems to! Obviously it did amazing in theaters and the novels are now selling like hot cakes, but for every one person I talk to who loves Twilight, there are always three more people who hate it. I guess that's normal for anything that gets popular, everyone has different tastes and opinions on what they watch and what they read, but I thought I'd share what I think about the whole Twilight phenomenon... because I have a blog... so I can! =P
I saw the movie before I read the books. I was playing WoW actually and EVERYONE in my guild was discussing it. I had only seen a poster for the movie, and I admit that at first my thought was "oh this is gonna be bad!". There was just so much controversy over whether or not it was a good movie, that I figured I had to see it, so I went a week or so after it came out.
Almost at once I was hooked! Something about Kristen Stewart's character Bella just caught my attention and before Edward was even introduced I was finding myself dreading the end of the movie! Two hours didn't seem long enough, lol. When Rob Pattinson (Edward) was first shown, I was like "Whoa... this is the guy everyone thinks is so hot!?" he just looked sort of weird to begin with. Of course after some of the Bella + Edward stuff happened, I started to warm up to Edward, and now posters of him hang in my room, but it definitely is the character and not the actor that I ended up finding so infatuating!
The main things I loved about the movie was how different it was from classic vampire films. The vampires in Twilight were basically the good guys, they didn't burst into flames when sunlight touched them, garlic wasn't like acid, crosses didn't burn them, and stakes didn't kill them. I know these vampire traits made some people really not like Twilight, but for me, it made it seem possible! I mean, I do have quite the imagination, but can't you picture the vampires in Twilight existing easier than you can the vampires in Buffy or Underworld?? The more classic vampires may be more interesting characters, but the Cullens just seemed more real!
I went home and downloaded all the Twilight books at once, and read them all in 4 days. I have never been so completely obsessed over what I read, like ever! I've gotten into novels before, finishing them off in a day or two, but I've never felt like I NEEDED to know what happened next. Yeah, Stephenie Meyer probably isn't the greatest writer of all time, and the Twilight novels won't likely be one of the century's greatest works, but those books definitely had something! Meyer's writing style just flowed, and I really felt more like I was watching a movie than reading a book! There weren't endless paragraphs of description, yet the novels were really visual. Also, I was delighted with how well the movie went along with the book, some of my favorite lines from the novel, were actually in the movie!
Even for the people who really hated Twilight, you have to admit that it is pretty amazing that Stephenie Meyer did what she wanted and wrote these novels and is now SO famous! I know, being an aspiring novelist, but knowing I'm not the most amazing writer out there and that most writers never come close to achieving their goals, that this whole Twilight thing is really inspiring!! So there all you Twilight haters, I am 100% PRO Twilight! Oh, and for all you people who say you hate Twilight, but have never seen the movie or read any of the books... c'mon... how can you even have an opinion!?
My...
Favorite Book: New Moon
Favorite Character: Jasper <3
Team: Edward!
3 comments:
I haven't read the books, and I haven't seen the movie. I have no plans to do either. For that reason, I will not criticize either, since as you point out, I have no ground to stand on to do so. :)
What I will say, though, is that I've never been a huge fan of vampire fiction. I wasn't fond of it when it became the "in" thing in the early 1990's when role-playing games started moving that direction with the release of White Wolf's "Vampire: The Masquerade". Anne Rice novels also perpetuated vampire fiction, especially the dreamlike romantic version of it.
Part of my aversion would be that I find very little empathy with what is essentially a parasitic walking corpse. :) Another reason is that the romance element Rice introduced to the series also tended to lead to very effeminate male lead characters which I found very unrealistic. (Lestat was NOT this way in the first book "Interview with a Vampire" which was very refreshing, but he was wussified in the later books.)
Another problem I have with the popularity of these Twilight novels is that it brings up the ugly truth that has been become apparent with fantasy/science fiction of late... that certain genres sell, and that marketers at book companies are going to tell writers they have to be encapsulated into one genre or another in order to sell their product. I find this really annoying, because it means that there's little experimentation going on in writing; the companies just deliver more of the same material with different dressing. Greg Costikyan, a game designer and writer of some repute, commented that you could divide most fantasy/sci-fi into four genres now: Elfie welfies (Tolkien knock-offs), War bores (military science fiction), Vampire books (Anne Rice, Twilight, etc), and licensed crap (Anything with "Star Trek", "Star Wars", video game license, etc.)
Sorry, now I'm on a rant, I'll quit. :) However, let me offer a vampire movie that I do enjoy: "Near Dark", from 1987.
It stars a surprising number of actors from the movie "Aliens". The vampires are a family traveling around the Midwest, sadistic and without remorse, and yet united as a family that looks out for each other. Other than being burned by sunlight, they also exhibit none of the traditional vampire vulnerabilities, and even lack "fangs". And most interesting of all, at no time in the movie are they ever referred to as "vampires". If you haven't seen it I highly recommend it.
I just finished watching Near Dark... The fact that you have no interest in seeing Twilight, but you really enjoyed Near Dark, and I love Twilight, and thought Near Dark was at least in my top 5 movies for worst movie ever, just goes to show how different everyone is I guess =) Lol, I absolutely hated that movie, I hated the story, I hated the acting, I hated the characters, lol. How could you even tell if they are immune to the usual vampire weaknesses? They never get stabbed with stakes and no one tries garlic, lol. I just thought the whole story was lacking! I guess if you're not a fan of the "dead" vampire type characters as you said I can see perhaps a slight interest being possible in this movie, but wow... a bunch of hillbilly hick wanna be vampires who don't even have fangs running around killing other hillbillys... Soooo not my type of movie!! Maybe if the movie is a book it would explain better and make the characters seem more real, but after that movie, I sure wouldn't read it. Hehe sorry, I was excited to see a new vampire movie, but I just didn't like it at all.
That's okay. :) Thanks for watching it. The movie didn't do all that well when it came out either, mostly due to a lack of marketing.
I haven't watched any of the Underworld movies either... I mean, other than a hot female vampire lead, I find that it's just more "vampire cheesecake" stuff, but with more action.
On to books, one story you may check out is "Camilla", which is one of the first vampire stories. In fact, it predates Bram Stoker's "Dracula".
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