Twilight Thoughts, No Spoiler Edition
Yesterday afternoon I had the impulsive and brilliant! idea for Chris and I to catch a midnight showing of Twilight on opening night, being that I’m wholly impatient, and anyway, I couldn’t remember the last time I had been to a midnight showing of anything.
Around 11pm I was wholly regretting my brilliant! idea, tickets having already been purchased, and my body having already crawled into bed for a power nap that turned into an hour of sleep that, surprise! only made my body crave more sleep.
Resigned to our late-night fate because we had tickets, and because I was out to prove I’m not yet 40 years old, we made our way to the theater and I will whole-heartedly admit the movie was worth every minute of missed sleep. To me, anyway.
Eight additional Twilight-centered thoughts:
1. I think Bella was perfectly cast. Kristen Stewart was equal parts lovely and awkward, and I’ve liked her ever since I saw her in The Messengers. As a bonus, she didn’t note how Edward was sighing or murmuring once throughout the entire movie.
2. Robert Pattinson as Edward was better than I expected. Taller, too.
3. Jacob has prettier hair than almost every woman I’ve ever met.
4. Bella’s father looks so much like my father it was a bit uncanny. Me, about five seconds after Billy Burke appeared on screen as Charlie Swan:
“Um. That looks so much like my dad.”
“I know. I was just thinking the same thing.”
My dad had dark hair and wore a mustache for most of his life, and also liked to rock the flannel shirts and jackets. Exhibit A & B of many:
Rad hat, Dad.
(Bonus Billy Burke trivia: he was born in Bellingham, Washington, which is not far from where the books were set, and the movie was filmed. He also starred in Untraceable, which was filmed in Portland.)
5. The “common” non-vampire crew of Bella’s high school friends? Also wonderfully cast, I thought.
5. I either completely imagined the Cullen’s house incorrectly, or the director took quite a bit of creative license from Meyer’s original description of it. A very modern creative license.
Edited to add: I went back to read the passage where Bella visits the Cullen house for the first time (because I couldn’t sleep, of course) and lo and behold I wasn’t completely losing my mind with regard to the cinematic take on the Cullen house being quite a bit different than the book’s initial description. Meyer writes this: “The trees held their protecting shadow right up to the walls of the house that rose among them, making obsolete the deep porch that wrapped around the first story. The house was timeless, graceful, and probably a hundred years old.”
7. Chris (didn’t read any of the books, but) really liked the movie, though he forbid me from telling you all that he really liked the movie. I took some creative license with that request, interpreting it loosely to mean “You should tell everyone I really liked Twilight, so that men everywhere know it’s OK to embrace their vampire curiosity.”
8. There better be three more movie versions to come, and maybe even a prequel. I could dig an Edwardian saga, or seven.
(This is the part where I state the obvious and say that if you’ve seen the movie, or read the books, you know I want to hear what you think. Come to think of it, I want to hear what you think even if you haven’t, or hate the Twilight series altogether.)
Happy! Friday, all.
I thought the books were pretty awful. Yet I read two of them, which is more time than I’d put into most books I find awful, and I chalk that up entirely to wanting Bella to just get in the sack with Edward already. I will watch the movie because Robert Pattinson is quite delicious and the film itself looks sort of pretty — the overcast lighting, the lush greenness, the pale skin, etc. I’m glad to hear that everybody is cast well.
But I really want to say that the resemblance between your dad and Bella’s dad made me gasp a little bit. Was it strange to watch? Or were their mannerisms different enough that the resemblance didn’t keep distracting you?
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The resemblance made me gasp, too! Or really, just stop breathing for a few minutes altogether. Their mannerisms weren’t identical of course, but I was instantly drawn in, and it made me miss him a lot, too.
While I agree that the writing wasn’t necessarily “stellar,” I really did always love the idea of Bella’s character (though at points in the books she was far too stubborn and seemingly silly than seemed possible), and Edward’s, too. I liked the global vampire community too, which I don’t think they get into until book 3 maybe? I also really liked the setting of Forks; I grew up visiting Port Angeles and a nearby smaller town on a yearly basis so there is a bit of family history for me there, too.
wait.. you *liked* Jacob’s hair???? EWWWWWWWW.
:)
loved Robert Pattinson. i was skeptical, but he totally convinced me. he IS edward!
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I didn’t actually say I LIKED Jacob’s hair, just that it was prettier than girl hair in a lot of shots. (Or was I totally hallucinating that? OK, so I sort of liked it. SORT OF.)
I was skeptical of Pattinson, too. But yeah, I think he totally nailed it.
Bill is FORCED to see this with me this weekend. FORCED!
You are crazy, is all I have to say about your staying up for a midnight showing. I, on the other hand, was up at 4:30 so I could take Roth to the airport. Am thinking this is when you must’ve gone to bed, seeing as you then stayed up to write this! NUTTY!
But now I’m thinking I may try to see it this weekend, since I’m solo. Hmm. Will I still like the movie even if I didn’t really love the book?
i’m going tonight so i’ll let you know what i thought later … but i really had to comment on the wowsa resemblance to your dad, crazy :)
GAAAAAAH! i’m going to have to see it!!! :)
I haven’t read the series yet (book 1 is sitting en queue) so I kinda had to sim over this post (just in case).
(You look like your dad :)
I haven’t seen the movie yet, but the one person I have wondered about, casting-wise, is Rosalie. In the book, she is supposed to be the most beautiful girl in the world, right? The press photos I’ve seen of the actress just don’t seem right…what did you think?
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Ooh, I’m glad you brought that up, because I forgot to mention that I didn’t like how Rosalie was cast at all. She was the only Cullen I didn’t think fit the part, especially because the way Meyer describes Rosalie is sort of…pointed, and poignant all around: sharp features, everything tight, sort of old-fashioned beautiful even, and I did not get that from her the first time she walked on screen. I think Bella looks more like a Cullen than Rosalie does.
1. Your dad totally looks like Charlie!
2. My dad rocked the moustache look too. He looked a lot like Tom Selleck.
3. I am seeing it on Sunday afternoon and CANNOT WAIT!
4. I’m glad I didn’t see it at midnight, since I went to bed at 8:30 PM last night.
All over the internets today, I am being left out.
But I do watch TrueBlood. So there’s that.
The resemblance is UNCANNY. Wow.
I JUST finished the books, so I’m super excited to see the movie now. I’m glad you liked it. That gives me hope!
My husband and I just saw it this afternoon. I went in with low expectations and had a good time. There were titters throughout the audience during some of the more cheesy parts: Edward holding his nose in Biology, for one.
I’m surprised by some of the critics ripping Kristen Stewart to pieces, I thought she made a great Bella. Robert Pattison was kind of wooden sometimes but I thought he looked the part. I was wishing they made the sparkly scene a little more spectacularly sparkly. I thought everyone was cast pretty well except for Rosalie. She’s supposed to be the most beautiful woman on earth, right? She just didn’t quite fit.
Overall it was a bit choppy (impossible to fit everything in, I get it), I wondered how people who hadn’t read the books would like it, so I like knowing Chris liked it without being familiar with the background… though maybe you filled him in?
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There were so many teenagers are our showing and they laughed at all the right parts, too, and a few parts where only people who have read the books would have laughed. I did actually fill Chris in on a few parts, and the part where Edward was holding his nose in Biology was one of them because Chris looked a bit confused.
I really do think the screenwriters and/or director shot the movie assuming 90% of the audience would have read the book, and I also agree that Pattinson seemed really stiff at times. And nearly everyone I have talked to about the movie agrees Rosalie was ill-fitting in the role as the prettiest and most captivating of all the Cullens. (Bella goes on and on about her in the book, and we even see her past history, so it seems strange they wouldn’t have cast her better. I thought Victoria would have made a better Rosalie, actually.)
I also thought the same thing about the glowing in the sunlight part, but didn’t want to give it away for anyone who hadn’t seen it yet. The way Meyer describes that part in the book (especially in the last two books) is far more extreme. In the movie it just looks like Edward doused himself with some body glitter.
Ooh, sorry I hope I didn’t spoil anything by mentioning the “glitter”!
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Oh no, you are fine! I didn’t mean to insinuate you were spoiling anything!
I’m pretty sure almost everyone who wanted to see it saw it, or is seeing it, this weekend, and most everyone else read the books so they already know. I’m just so curious to see what all the other die-hard Twilight fans thought of the page to screen transition.
I read an article yesterday that said they didn’t have a large enough budget (though 37 million dollars seems quite large to me) to get crazy with the special effects. The author of the article cited both the sparkle scenes, and the scenes where Edward is running with Bella on his back, as lacking visual gusto because of a lack of special effects budget. The studio has already announced the second movie, so it will be interesting to see where they go with it, as the second book will require even more special effects.
I pictured the Cullen house as a big Victorian house with a wrap around porch, huge windows and very airy.
That was definitely NOT how it was in the movie.
House fail.
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Me, too! Because that’s how Meyer intended it to be, seeing as how she very specifically wrote it that way. Sometimes I get so very annoyed at how director’s and set designers take such ridiculous liberty when taking something from page to screen. They drop things that are essential to the story-line, and add things that make no sense at all.
< / Twilight movie rant, for now>
I also caught the fact that the Cullen house wasn’t like the house in the book. But dude, I loved the movie house and want to live there one day (although it actually does look like my house)….
I would have never stayed away long enough to see a midnight showing. I’m impressed with you and Chris.
Also, your dad is SO Charlie. That’s too awesome.
I had to come back to add…I really liked the scene in the Cullen house with all the graduation caps. I hadn’t remembered that from the book, and after going back to reread it this weekend I didn’t find it in the book. So yeah, I liked that addition.
And am I the only one that didn’t like Alice’s hair? Although it does fit the book’s description…it just seemed too “dated”.
Hi…me again.
I’m SO GLAD no mention of glowering or murmuring was mentioned.
Twilight is a thousand times better than Harry Potter. I really love this movie, it is the best movie i have ever watched.