Thread: Twilight

Originally Posted by MalReynolds

I had a feeling you might like it, for obvious reasons -

There was no story. It was the case with the book - Stephanie Meyer spent so much time setting up the 'romance' between Bella and Edward, with less than 10 interactions between them before OMG LOVE that she forgot to actually add a plot until page 400. The rest of the book was, "Edward is really good looking. I love him. We drove around. His clothes made his body look great." The movie suffered from the same case. While we were given glimpses of the bad vampires - and are they really bad? They're just obeying their goddamned nature after all - but never a real threat until there is only 20 minutes left of film.

Inappropriate music - Paramore in a dress shop, the absolute mockery of Muse during the baseball game, which was incredibly shoddy and looked like shit.

The special effects were off - People say this is due to budgetary reasons, that special effects can't be done right with a 37 million budget, but I say, fuck them, hire a competent team.

The script was terrible. Stephanie Meyer, writer of the book, had final say over what went in to the script, and she chose to allow the CORNIEST of lines ever written. "And so the lion fell in love with the lamb," may look good, albiet... stupid, on paper, spoken, it's just terrible. And the follow up, "What a stupid, twisted lamb, what a sick, masochistic lion," was incredibly hammy. As was most of the script. "Hang on tight, spider-monkey." Oh... how cute.

And I'm sorry, there is such a thing as bad acting. Just because it's on the silver screen doesn't mean it's going to be good acting. Kristen Stewart, who is MORE than capable of holding her own on screen with a bunch of action going on - See Zathura - delivered a flat, monotone performance that left me bewildered. Oh, she's in love? She really doesn't show it with her eyes, inflection, words, body movement. And Robert Pattenson - AKA Edward Cullen - he was okay. That's the best I can say about him, he was passable.

But the guy who played Jasper, the vampire who looked like he stuck a fork in the fucking microwave oven that baked the sun? No. Standing with eyes wide just looks creepy. And he wasn't even supposed to be comic relief, as he becomes somewhat problematic and threatining in book 2. Oh, yes. I'm afraid of Edward Scissorhands when he doesn't have goddamned scissors for hands.

The pacing was off, etc, etc.

Just, everything that could make this a good movie wasn't in this movie. And it's not the movie's fault. Everything that could have made it a good book was missing from the book. It's a bland, stylistic and very stupid book, so in that regard, the movie succeeds in its adaptation.

EDIT: And, adding icing to the cake, Kristin Stewart hates the fans, Pattenson hates the novels and thinks Meyers is kind of fucked up after meeting her, and they both dislike the film, as is evidenced in various interviews floating around the wonderful internet. I believe Pattenson said the book was, "A kind of weird sexual fantasy by a Mormon housewife. It read like a book that was very personal, never meant to be published."

Not sure what's so wrong with having love as the primary plot point. If you don't find it an interesting topic that's fine, but because you don't doesn't mean it's a bad movie (and neither do the other points, as shown below). For me sports is one of the most boringass things to make a movie about, and I think they suckass. This doesn't at all make them bad; just not for me.

Can't remember anything specific about the music, which is my impression for almost every film that doesn't have a ridiculously good soundtrack, but not so bad as to take me out of the experience (though it may have been more noticeable if these middle school bitches weren't yapping behind me the first half of the film).

Special effects - not really worth talking about. I've seen worse in recent Bond films.

Yep, there certainly were cheesy lines.

Her performance seemed very realistic of the type of girl one might expect would be attracted to such a weird dude/vampire. As far as acting in general, I've already responded to what you said in my first post, it's like I'm psychic.

So yeah, the cheesy lines part is true enough but there aren't many more negative things I can say about it without seeing it more to judge its rewatchability factor. Unfortunately I'm quite aware that in real life everyone is always smooth and never says cheesy lines. Damn, I'm making an unfair comparison because this is a vampire movie, not exactly realistic. Therefore it must follow that any characters that would say a cheesy line shouldn't exist; everyone should be suave and unrealistic just like the movie.

Originally Posted by Jagang

Not sure what's so wrong with having love as the primary plot point. If you don't find it an interesting topic that's fine, but because you don't doesn't mean it's a bad movie

Love is a topic which is only interesting insofar as it has some degree of depth (i.e. in character and plot development; it's about human interaction). From what I've heard so far, there's none of that, it's just vacuous self indulgent drivel. Rather than focus on the way the characters are, the characters serve to deliver an unreal, idealistic, but also pathetic conception of love, as some sort of smug, self sanctifying symbiosis. Lovely thought I'm sure, but painfully comfortable whilst avoiding any real, nobler human truth. And although I'm sure the weak hearted will just lap it up in an attempt to console themselves in their mundane existences, the film will deliver no philosophical or artistic merit.
The caveat, of course, is that I have not seen the film. I am just responding to your comment with the impression I'm getting from more critical viewers, in an attempt to show you where you may be going wrong in your Twilight apologia; of course love can be at the heart of a film, but it must be love and not just a foolish, comfortable conception of some sort of false ideal.
To use your analogy, if this were a film "about" sports, it'd start the moment the team had won the game forever, and just show their smug little eyes for an hour and a half.