Jabba the Hut Hair
Here is my take on the movie including my movie experience. Sadly it was not what I had expected the second time viewing. At any rate, enjoy! :)
Midnight November 21st, 2008. Saying the theaters were crowded at this unearthly hour is a grizzly understatement. One would be better to think the world had hit Defcon 1.
Obsessed female fans (with tag along, morose boyfriends and a smattering of male Twilighters here and there) ranging from tween to grandmother, bedecked in “Team Edward” garb and “I Heart Jacob” tees, spilled into each theater by as early as 9:00pm. According to various reliable sources, some obsessed Twi-hards confessed being in line since 11:00 that morning.
Armed with a Fandangoed ticket for the 12:05 am showing (only due to the 12:01 being sold out in record time and my lack of quick-thinkingness) my Twilighter buddy and I bustled into the theater buzzing with riotous, giggly chatter at approximately 10:20 pm where we managed to salvage two unoccupied and unsaved seats side by side. That in itself was a Herculean feat. Next to us, a young woman was swapping seats with her obviously besotted husband (as he had not, as yet, read the book) to avoid the mad enormous stack of Jabba the Hat hair perched directly in front of her (please refer to pic).
The frenzied babble died momentarily as the lights dimmed before it hit deafening decibel levels at the showing of the first preview; a shrieking roar as a victimized deer raced across the screen, which escalated in pitch when “Twilight” faded on against the eerie green of Forks forest and Bella’s voice pervaded the blackness of the theater.
My paradigm was to view the movie with little to no expectations except with the intent to enjoy the flick. The two point something hours went quickly, fueled by the frequent, intermittent squeals and titters and endless giggles of Cullen crazed fanatics. The ambience was electric, hard to miss, hard not to enjoy, hard not to loathe, and loaned itself well to the excitement of the Meyer-slash-Hardwicke screen play. The forgivably unforgivable, ridiculous irony of Midnight Madness.
By the time Edward and Bella had become “an item”, the shrieks and sighs of the teen giggling gaggle had reached the point of (past) pestilential.
Still, much of the 2 hour screening held good value. It seemed greatly funny. Infact, practically every scene conjured hysterics from the adoring audience. The awkwardness between Charlie and Bella when he picked her up in her truck. The random scene with the semi carrying the big logs in the middle of the street in Forks. The scene in biology with a disgusted Edward. Bella’s hair blowing in the fan. The school excursion to the green house (not in the book). Billy Black staring Edward down as they passed eachother in their legendary vehicles. And so forth.
The movie remained on par with the book as far as scene adaptation. It wasn’t perfect. But a movie rarely ever is when based on a piece of literature. Admittedly, I had a couple of irks that nagged me.
One was Edward’s sexy Volvo. It was meant to look luxuriously sporty and scream HOTNESS.
But a hatch back?
*Raises eye brow*
Of course Rosalie wasn’t insanely beautiful. But that’s a fact that’s been ambushed all over the cyber world since pictures of Nikki hit the net. Nothing new.
Then there was the kissing scene in Bella’s bedroom. Since when did she wear underwear over sweats to bed? And when the heck did sexually clueless, unaggressive Bella know HOW to kiss so freaking well?
I shrugged it off.
But despite these setbacks, all in all, the movie was good for a small budget. The closing titles received thunderous applause and piercing two-fingered whistles from the frenzied fans and I left with a sense of overall satisfaction and a strong desire to see it atleast five more times that week. And though I met a throng of negative reviews on Facebook the following morning, they did not sway my tenure and the giddiness did not pass…
9:45 pm, December 10th just under 3 weeks later. Without the obsessed fans. Without the hype. Without the gushy crowds. It was simply my hubby and me in a quiet theater with no more than six people in the enormous room altogether.
Our intention was to enjoy Twilight. We had been waiting to view it together for weeks. He was excited. We’d read the books together and hubby loved them (even more than the Eragon series *cough*). With such a cozy atmosphere and zero madness of teen femme chatter, it was only too easy to see the movie for what it was; to be objective (the irony being opinions are all subjective). Of course I knew what to expect. And doubled with my husband’s next-to-flawless memory of the book, Twilight the movie, sunk.
Scene after scene conjured problem after problem.
A quick preface. To all my Twilight friends who’ve read the book and loved the movie, and STILL love the movie after each viewing, well done. You rock! I love you!! Don’t get me wrong; I – hubby and I – love the book! The movie, however, is left wanting…
To all those who saw the movie for the first time and didn’t like it, I can empathize. Finally.
To all those who hated the movie at first but found that it got better with each new viewing, wow, how do you do it?
To all those who saw the movie once, loved it, then saw it again and felt bored half way through the second viewing, let’s do lunch some time.
I have listed below a few of those scenes that I, in my opinion, felt to be problematic. There are probably tons more (or fewer, depending on your perspective) that are not mentioned. Of course, this in no way infers they are a universal given or a problem at all by another’s standard. These are factors that I personally didn’t like and in no way suggests that anyone else should feel the same way about it. Feel free to add or to comment on any of them. Furthermore, these problems are not intended to demote the book by any means. It is because of my individual love for the book that I have decidedly found “problems” with the following scenes in the movie.
True. It’s only a movie.
Which goes to show, once again, the book is always better.
By the way, you can go here to view all the differences between the book and the movie: http://twilightsaga.wikia.com/wiki/Twilight_book_to_movie_differences
*sucks in a big breath*
♦ Edward’s Volvo. What the. It’s meant to be sleek, sporty and the personification of sexiness in a machine. Edward is hot. His car is meant to reflect its driver and exude major HOTNESS.
A hatch back doesn’t cut it.
This sore lack of attention created a huge black smudge in my books.
Low budget or not. This one is unforgivable.
♦ Bella clutching, HUGGING a cactus. 0_0 Um. Lame. Did I say lame? I’ll say it again. LAME.
True that it's a minor detail, but it really bugged me. It was so appalling that at first I did not think the cactus scene was in the book. Upon retrospect, it IS.
But this did not improve the scene. Ok. So she misses Arizona. But I don’t understand how she, the Bella in the movie, doesn’t like to be coddled (see scene with Edward trying to put on her seat belt) yet here she is coddling a keepsake.
Inconsistent. And horrible. Take care of the small details and it will lead to big dividends.
♦ What’s with Charlie and Bella feeling awkward ALL the time? In the book, they were comfortable around eachother. The awkwardness didn’t last.
♦ Bella’s mind was strong and mentally, she knew where she stood. But it didn’t mean she felt secure as a person. She was clumsy and just like any teen, felt insecure about her looks and who she was as a person. In this particular sense, she fit into the “ordinary” teenage girl stereotype. Since when did she start giving girl power advice? (Eg. Bella’s conversation with Angela at the beach). Then when Bella pulled the “cool” greeting/hand sign thingy at the prom. What the -?? Since when was Bella “cool”?? Wrong. Wrong!
*Shaking head furiously*
♦ Bella’s prom dress. In the movie, she’d said it was something she’d “borrowed from Alice”. One look at that ugly thing, anyone would KNOW that Alice wouldn’t be caught dead (ha ha) with that relic (double ha) in her closet. And in the book, Alice had doctored Bella up AMAzingly. Bella had even worn amazing heels on one foot that Edward couldn’t stop looking at her legs. One pair of sneakers and old school 80’s tights instead? This was a disgusting adaptation of the real thing. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.
I wanted to barf.
♦ Baseball uniforms and baseball caps.
I repeat. Baseball uniforms and baseball caps.
Holy crow. Can someone hand me some butter with all that corn??
Pull-lease.
♦ Bella never once said, “Holy crow”!
*fume*
♦ Bella is wearing underwear or panties in bedroom kissing scene. Of all the sexualized, Hollywood stunts. This had to be one of the sweetest, innocent scenes in the book and they went ahead and screwed it up with little panties and Bella KNOWING how to kiss!!!
NOOOOOOO!!!!
SOMEONE PASS ME A BUCKET.
♦ Is it just me or did it seem that Bella and Edward always seemed so tense around eachother? She seemed anxious and disturbed in his presence all the time. Dare I say annoyed? They’re supposed to be in love. She hardly EVER smiled at him. Infact, she looked more comfortable hanging around Jacob! For crying out loud… Lighten up Stewart. Read the book properly BEFORE the script.
♦ Edward’s skin didn’t merely “glitter”. He was “beautiful”. Breathtaking. I imagined a more powerful, prismatic, radiating effect. I know. Low budget. They could have spent more money here than on the cactus.
♦ Jasper. Dude. Lighten up. He was supposed to exude calming feelings. He certainly didn’t LOOK calm. But always tense. Anxious.
Why does everyone LOOK this way in the movie?
♦ Rosalie.
You know the rest.
♦ Edward mauling into Bella’s wrist to suck out the venom. No. No. No! Edward was always very careful of Bella. He never wanted to hurt her. Her well being was always his first priority. And he was always, always very gentle with Bella. It was one of his outstanding character traits when it came to her. And though he was afraid that he couldn’t stop in the book, as soon as he tasted the morphine and that her blood was clean, he released her. He found the power within him to do this. In the movie, it looked like he was losing control and wanted to tear her arm off. WRONG. Thanks for the insight Aubry. You are so right!
♦ The acting over all. For those actors who professed to have read the book, it looked like they hadn’t or that their hearts certainly weren’t into the story. The acting wasn’t much to rave about by any means.
♦ Special FX = Low budget. Or rather Low Budget = Low SFX.
Oh well. Here’s to hoping New Moon will be better (FINGERS CROSSED).
And please. Correct the Volvo. PLEASE.
And just to add a bit of balance, here are some of the things that I DID like about the movie.
♣ LOVED Alice. Spot on.
♣ Jessica was great. The semi-pretty I’m-so-everything snob. She pulled off her lines convincingly.
♣ Mike. Good choice.
♣ Charlie was a great choice, although I envisioned him slightly heavier set.
♣ Carlisle and Esme were great personifications of the characters in the book.
♣ When they first met in Biology was funny.
♣ Edward saving Bella from becoming a memorable dent in the side of that oncoming van was well done. Yes. I liked that part.
♣ Kitchen scene at the Cullens where they’re preparing an Italian meal for Bella. Very cute. I laughed here. Especially when they said, “Mmm. Smell that!” upon Bella’s entrance into the kitchen, despite the food they were making.
Feel free to add more.
Overall, the movie was enjoyable clearly on a superficial level, though for me, even that didn’t last long. Despite my hang-ups (and experiencing near boredom the second time around), I’ll most likely still buy the DVD when it hits the stores; I’m a sucker for collecting movies to go with its books.
I just read in an email sent to me via Summit Entertainment that Chris Weitz will be the new director for New Moon. Perhaps [hopefully] he’ll add a [much needed] fresh tangent to Catherine Hardwicke’s direction.
And of course I won’t be missing out on viewing New Moon, most likely as another Midnight Madness deal too.
LOL.
