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So I went to see Twilight
Nov. 26th, 2008 10:02 pmI even convinced DH to go with me. (He remains carefully noncommital, I notice, about his opinion of the movie.) My impressions:
1. Do they have a clue who is sitting in the audience for this film? Because the previews at the start seemed to be aimed at completely unrelated audiences. SF horror + Martha Stewart + Walmart Merry Christmas + a number of really dumb looking movies + Harry Potter? Um. The advertising seemed to be quite a scattershot approach. But what do I know.
2. I thought it was a nicely-handled book-to-movie adaptation. Those are very hard to do because there is always more in the book than in the movie, and you have to choose what to retain. This felt cohesive to me; I think that someone completely unfamiliar with the book would have zero difficulty following it. The only thing that felt rushed to me was right at the beginning. I couldn't see what brought Bella and Edward together. (More on that later...)
3. For a small budget, they used their money wisely. Character development over special effects = yes. Even the bit parts were well-fleshed-out; I felt like there was a complete character behind their few lines. The teenagers looked and acted like real teenagers, both people like Jessica and people like Angela. I wish I could've had a biology teacher like that. Esme--I thought she was perfect. Really got a sense of her character, even though she was barely on screen. Alice and Jacob and even Mike fit my mental picture exactly. Charlie was awesome. So much better than I'd initially imagined--he did a great job of playing protective father to the child he doesn't know well but who he prizes above everything else. Funny exchange with the gun, too. Even Rene came to life. Must admit that Carlisle didn't do it for me.
4. I know this isn't due to the movie but rather to the book itself, but I can't say how refreshing it is to see a movie that isn't set in southern California! I loved how Charlie's house was just a house. Just regular oldish house you might find in some small town. Bella's room was small and messy. Perfect. Nothing was larger than life in the human world, which was just as it should be. And oh my, the scenery was beautiful!
5. Nice job moving up some of the tension of the nasty vampires earlier. It evened out the plot a bit.
6. Stephenie Meyer is in there, did you see her? Ordering something at the cafe. Cool!
7. Now for some things that didn't work for me: sparkles. Um...so when vampires go out into the sun, they....sweat a lot?
8. I thought Kristen Stewart did an awesome job. Very natural as Everygirl. (Well, you know, every girl who manages to get involved with a Very Hot Vampire, that is.) And I thought Robert Pattinson did a good job interpreting how Edward feels about himself (ie, hates himself). But what I didn't get was a clear view of why Bella saw what she did in Edward. And I don't think it was quite exactly the acting. More like there were never any lighthearted moments at the beginning to show anything...attractive about him? Or maybe I'm just showing my age. I totally got the chemistry in the books, and in the movie, I was like, girl, how about this nice, healthy Jacob kid instead? I didn't dislike Edward; it's just that they showed all the angry parts of him and none of the friendly parts, so that when he says they shouldn't be friends, well, I guess I didn't have any reasons to suspect that they were ever in any danger of that. Later on there was plenty of romantic tension; it was mostly just in the beginning that I felt it was lacking somehow. So maybe it was a script/pacing/adaptation issue. In the book I thought Edward was pretty cool, but he comes over as um, rather stalkerish in the movie. Def. not my type.
I noticed was that my writer-brain is now on when I see movies, not just read books. (Which tells you just how often I go to movies if I'm only just noticing this, huh? Doesn't mean it spoils things for me; I just look at them analytically while enjoying or not enjoying them.) Overall, I thought Catherine Hartwicke did a great job putting it together.
1. Do they have a clue who is sitting in the audience for this film? Because the previews at the start seemed to be aimed at completely unrelated audiences. SF horror + Martha Stewart + Walmart Merry Christmas + a number of really dumb looking movies + Harry Potter? Um. The advertising seemed to be quite a scattershot approach. But what do I know.
2. I thought it was a nicely-handled book-to-movie adaptation. Those are very hard to do because there is always more in the book than in the movie, and you have to choose what to retain. This felt cohesive to me; I think that someone completely unfamiliar with the book would have zero difficulty following it. The only thing that felt rushed to me was right at the beginning. I couldn't see what brought Bella and Edward together. (More on that later...)
3. For a small budget, they used their money wisely. Character development over special effects = yes. Even the bit parts were well-fleshed-out; I felt like there was a complete character behind their few lines. The teenagers looked and acted like real teenagers, both people like Jessica and people like Angela. I wish I could've had a biology teacher like that. Esme--I thought she was perfect. Really got a sense of her character, even though she was barely on screen. Alice and Jacob and even Mike fit my mental picture exactly. Charlie was awesome. So much better than I'd initially imagined--he did a great job of playing protective father to the child he doesn't know well but who he prizes above everything else. Funny exchange with the gun, too. Even Rene came to life. Must admit that Carlisle didn't do it for me.
4. I know this isn't due to the movie but rather to the book itself, but I can't say how refreshing it is to see a movie that isn't set in southern California! I loved how Charlie's house was just a house. Just regular oldish house you might find in some small town. Bella's room was small and messy. Perfect. Nothing was larger than life in the human world, which was just as it should be. And oh my, the scenery was beautiful!
5. Nice job moving up some of the tension of the nasty vampires earlier. It evened out the plot a bit.
6. Stephenie Meyer is in there, did you see her? Ordering something at the cafe. Cool!
7. Now for some things that didn't work for me: sparkles. Um...so when vampires go out into the sun, they....sweat a lot?
8. I thought Kristen Stewart did an awesome job. Very natural as Everygirl. (Well, you know, every girl who manages to get involved with a Very Hot Vampire, that is.) And I thought Robert Pattinson did a good job interpreting how Edward feels about himself (ie, hates himself). But what I didn't get was a clear view of why Bella saw what she did in Edward. And I don't think it was quite exactly the acting. More like there were never any lighthearted moments at the beginning to show anything...attractive about him? Or maybe I'm just showing my age. I totally got the chemistry in the books, and in the movie, I was like, girl, how about this nice, healthy Jacob kid instead? I didn't dislike Edward; it's just that they showed all the angry parts of him and none of the friendly parts, so that when he says they shouldn't be friends, well, I guess I didn't have any reasons to suspect that they were ever in any danger of that. Later on there was plenty of romantic tension; it was mostly just in the beginning that I felt it was lacking somehow. So maybe it was a script/pacing/adaptation issue. In the book I thought Edward was pretty cool, but he comes over as um, rather stalkerish in the movie. Def. not my type.
I noticed was that my writer-brain is now on when I see movies, not just read books. (Which tells you just how often I go to movies if I'm only just noticing this, huh? Doesn't mean it spoils things for me; I just look at them analytically while enjoying or not enjoying them.) Overall, I thought Catherine Hartwicke did a great job putting it together.
