Reaction to Twilight- The Movie

Posted by Laura L. Johnson Nov 24, 2008

I don't know why I even go see movies anymore. It's not that I'm always disappointed - in fact I often enjoy the stories I watch unfold before me on the screen- and it's not that I always go see movies made off of books (although lately, that's all there seems to be in theaters). My biggest problem is that, even with the best movie, I find myself thinking "yah, that would be better as a book" or "ooh, the book was better." To a lifelong reader, there is just no substitution. Not surprisngly, Twilight held true to this theory.

It wasn't a bad movie - decent plot, had some excitement, I liked a few of the characters. It even followed mostly true to the book's plot, which is a rare find in the movies today. Where my biggest complaint comes in is in the exclusions of Bella and Edward's conversations. Though I understand it's only a 90-minute movie from a 450+ page book, what makes the book really great is not the plot, but the character development through Bella and Edward's conversations about life and the soul and eternity and even love. This wa largely left out of the movie. With the exception of the a shortened "questions" scene from Bella and a few quick responses about the nature of vampires (although nothing as broodingly delivered by Edward like in the book), there was little build up to this connection. In fact, this exclusion almost made me feel like I was watching a kiddy pre-teen romance - they "fell in love" in less than one hundred (or at least, so it seemed). I can suspend reality - I did, after all, watch a vampire movie - but literary reality is much more important.

My advice: see Twilight. But if you haven't read the books yet, you'll be in for a real treat. Edward's even better on the page than he is on screen!