Timewaster's Guide Archive
Departments => Movies and TV => Topic started by: Nessa on November 20, 2008, 02:39:41 AM
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http://www.timewastersguide.com/review/1679/Twilight
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I dunno. I'm still trying to decide if I even want to pay money to see the movie. I'm just so freaking sick of the entire thing. Still, it looks like they stuck pretty well to the book, which is amendable at least.
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Hey, the Gibbs Brothers are back reviewing! Wonderful.
I haven't read the books, but this review says that there is more tension in the movie than the book. That's fine with me.
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Based solely on the previews, the movie looks LAME. This review makes it sound at least possibly okay. But I still won't be spending money on it. At least not in theatres. I'd hate to support Smeyer in her writing endeavors. Because she sucks.
Still. It's good that the movie will stay true to the book. I don't like it when movies differ from the book on all levels (*cough*The Bourne Identity*cough*)
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Based solely on the previews, the movie looks LAME. This review makes it sound at least possibly okay. But I still won't be spending money on it. At least not in theatres. I'd hate to support Smeyer in her writing endeavors. Because she sucks.
Still. It's good that the movie will stay true to the book. I don't like it when movies differ from the book on all levels (*cough*The Bourne Identity*cough*)
/agree.
It just looked cliche and ICK. This review makes me think twice about it, though. I'll probably just end up renting it.
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....Wow. I never thought I could actually like Twilight LESS.....But I do now. It was already pretty clear to me that Meyer wrote the book as wish-fulfillment, but there were times when I was reading that I was able to look past that. The movie, though. It makes it completely obvious, with the lame dialogue, and everything else, that she wrote the book purely for herself. She IS Bella. And the movie made that PAINFULLY obvious.
Oh, and I didn't pay for it....I'm going to confess that I have a bad habit with movies that I don't care to see in theatres. I find them online (not to download, just to watch, so I'm not completely dishonest).....It's bad. I know this. But I still do it.....Plus, I wasn't going to allow ANY money to get to Smeyer's pocket because of me. She doesn't deserve it. In an ideal world, authors would be paid according to their talent--and Smeyer would be about as poor as they come. I refuse to line her pockets anymore than I already have (in a momentary lapse from intelligence, I bought Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse).
On a more movie-related note, it DID stay true to the book, for the most part. There were parts were it deviated slightly, but it wasn't really that big of a deal. Unfortunately, it didn't deviate enough (meaning Bella DIDN'T die at the end, even though the story would've been MUCH better if she had've....).
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Plupluperfect!
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I've never read the books and I don't really feel like seeing the movie. I dunno, all the hype around it scares me, especially when a lot of people hate it. /shrug
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I thought this was cheesy good fun. I went with my friend, and we kept laughing at funny parts, but no one else in the theater did, so maybe those parts weren't intentionally funny. Still, I enjoyed it for what it was and didn't feel like it was a waste of time or money.
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Plus, I wasn't going to allow ANY money to get to Smeyer's pocket because of me. She doesn't deserve it. In an ideal world, authors would be paid according to their talent--and Smeyer would be about as poor as they come.
Stephanie Meye wouldn't be as popular as she is if there weren't a massive audience that loves her stuff. And when you have a massive audience that loves your stuff, arguments like "she doesn't have any talent" really don't stick. Obviously she does have talent, and obviously their are millions of people who can't get enough of it. She may not write the kind of thing that you like, and she may not write it in a way that you enjoy, but writing for a different audience doesn't make her untalented. On the other side of the coin, consider every literature professor who's ever berated fantasy and science fiction--just because a guy who reads James Joyce for living doesn't like Robert Jordan doesn't make Robert Jordan a hack. It just means that different people enjoy different things.
That said, you are more than welcome to hate books that aren't written for you. I sure do. But to claim that they're intrinsically bad or untalented just makes you look silly.
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You can be good at writing for a certain audience and still be untalented in some areas. Michael Crichton, for example, was horribly untalented at endings. However, he was quite talented at plot setups and keeping the reader engaged—he was not only talented in those areas, but he honed his skills in those areas to the extent that a large percentage of the reading audience was willing to overlook his copout endings.
I don't know firsthand where Meyer's strengths lie, but I suspect that some of them are in the area of creating an emotional attachment for the reader. That is a talent and a skill that many, many "great" writers lack. If she's being financially compensated for her talents and skills in that area, there's nothing wrong with that.
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Well....I do feel relatively silly now. Thanks, Fell. :P
To defend myself, though--so I don't feel like a COMPLETE fool--I'm actually a pretty big fan of fantasy and these kinds of novels. And the premise of Twilight is good....The execution, however, left a lot to be desired. I'm under the impression that pretty much ANY author could've done a better job with the premise than Meyer did....But I know that a lot of people have read the books and like them. This leads to pretty much her one strength.
She's a good story-teller. She can pull people in with the story (kind of like what Ookla was saying about the emotional attachment...). It's just that the writing itself sucks. I've read a LOT of different authors, and hers is pretty much the most immature that I've read. It seriously sounds like a romance-starved teenaged girl is writing it. No joke....It's actually kind of pathetic....
But my utter dislike of the series stems more (lately) from my dislike of Meyer herself. I really don't like some of the things she's done and said. Some of it is stuff that I don't think any self-respecting author should do, and yet she's still done it. And some of the reasons that she's given for writing certain things into the books are just dumb--and that's not really personal opinion. It's common sense. Plus there's the messages that the story sends about females, and love and such. Horrible, horrible messages that I'm surprised any LDS writer would willingly put in their work.
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I don't care for the series because by the end of it Bella becomes a perfect little Mary-Sue (basically this is a fanfic term for your perfect character (usually a self-inserted character) who has a perfect mastery of the magic without pratice, and has the love and care of everyone around her.) Also, sm broke one of her world-building rules. I went to a signing where she flat out said vampires can't have kids because the transformation makes them sterial. And while I realize that the books don't explain this, so she could technially break the rule later, I still feel like she shouldn't have said anything if she was going to change it, and if you have said something, don't change the rules.
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Yeah, I really dislike that by the end of it, Bella has everything that she wants. Not only is she a vampire, but she's also got a lovely little daughter....Lame.
And Bella IS a Mary-Sue. It's also a term for original work, used in reference to characters who the author would like to be like, or a self-insert. And that's pretty much exactly what Bella is. I can't remember where I heard it, but apparently Jacob is supposed to be her husband. Edward is her perfect man. So she gets the perfect man in the end, but because she can't leave her husband high and dry, she leaves him with a piece of her--her daughter.....Cradle-robbing much? It's SO sick. It doesn't matter if Nessa (LAME name, by the way...) matures so fast that she's an adult by the age of 7. She's STILL 7. That is disgusting.
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WARNING: Spoiler for those who haven't read all Twilight books
I didn't like how there are no consequences to Bella becoming a vampire. Stephenie build it up so much--when she can become a vampire, whether she should become a vampire, what she will miss if she becomes a vampire, etc.--and then she finally becomes a vampire and it's just wonderful. She doesn't have a problem being around other humans, her bloodlust isn't too severe, she's able to handle everything about being a vampire perfectly, she likes blood, and she doesn't really change at all, except now Edward doesn't have to worry about wanting to drink her blood. She's just great, and being a vampire is better than she could have imagined. Well, then, why don't we all just become vampires then. That part really bugged me. Why didn't she just become a vampire in the first book.
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WARNING: Spoiler for those who haven't read all Twilight books
*Snip*
I couldn't agree more. She sucked ALL of the conflict out of the last book. ALL of it.
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The reason for Bella not getting changed was explained. Edward feels like he's a monster damned to hell. He refuses to put Bella through the same thing.
As for the perfectness -- that's pretty much what I meant by MarySue. I was just to lazy to type all of that out.
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Yeah, well, my main problem is the conflict was for nothing. So I guess I agree with you, but I'm not familiar with that term.
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It's mostly a fanfic term.
I agree though that a lot of the conflict was for nothing.
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The reason for Bella not getting changed was explained.
Explained? I wish. It was hand-waved away. Actually dealing with the issues that the books brought up seemed to prove too much effort. It felt like the last book really WAS fan fiction. The only reason I was able to finish reading it was because it was the last book.
The conclusion with the Vulturi sickened me. It was pathetic. Weak. Boring.
The possible conflict with turning into a blood sucking monster was the most exciting angle that the book offered and then it stole that away...
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It doesn't matter if Nessa (LAME name, by the way...)
/cries
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I didn't mean you! I meant her FULL name--Renesmee....THAT was lame. But Nessa reminds me of the Loch Ness Monster....
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I didn't mean you! I meant her FULL name--Renesmee....THAT was lame. But Nessa reminds me of the Loch Ness Monster....
I would just quit before you dig yourself too deep there.
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I would just quit before you dig yourself too deep there.
I'm thinking I'm already pretty deep...I probably shouldn't've mentioned the Loch Ness Monster...now she'll think I'm calling her a legendary hideous beast or something.....
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Wow...just wow.
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I'm guessing you're thinking I should've backed away before posting that last post, right?....You're probably right...I don't listen very well. I have a feeling that's probably going to come back and bite me before too long...