I wanted to see what all the hype was about...the movie adaptation of Stephanie Meyer's book "Twilight" was due out last Friday night, fittingly, at midnight! There were parties scheduled around town, at stores like Hot Topic, Borders, etc. I hadn't read the books or anything yet but was intrigued at all the hoopla so I snagged a copy of the first book last week at Costco. Last Sunday, the 15th, I began reading...and I couldn't put it down!!! I finished the almost 500 page book in 3 days! I was hooked! The last time I was so drawn into a book was when I read the Harry Potter series, I could NOT put them down!
What amazes me is the gift that is given to these authors! Stephanie Meyer did not have a writing background, she was a stay-at-home mom with 3 little boys and one night had a dream of these characters. Once she had the dream, she started hearing these characters talking in her head throughout her days. She was a busy mom, so she would think on the story all day and then write at night. She wrote the story Twilight in just 3 months! She said she was pretty obsessive about it, writing something like 10 pages a day. And the funny thing is that she never intended to publish...she just wanted to record this story that had come to her. When she let her sister read it, her sister told her that she loved it and that Stephanie should do something with the story. And as Stephanie thought about it, she thought she owed it to her characters to have them exist outside of her mind. So, she send letters to small publishing companies and then, just for kicks, she sent it to 3 BIG publishers that she figured wouldn't ever touch it but she thought, what the heck? And it was one of those big publishers that ended up asking her for the first 3 chapters!
Now, if that's not fate, what is?! She was meant to be the vessel for this story. And what a story it is! It is, at its heart, the story of First Love and how when you fall inlove for the first time, it encompasses your entire world, your entire being is so invested. Reading Stephanie's words, she perfectly captures the emotions, the feelings...I truly felt like I was falling inlove for the first time again. I was experiencing it vicariously through Bella, meeting Edward, feeling that magnetic pull to him...thinking of him every waking hour, dreaming about him...wanting to know everything about him... her writing just brought it all to life! No wonder I was hooked! What woman in her mid-thirties, whose been married for nearly 16 years, wouldn't want to feel those youthful feelings of falling inlove for the first time all over again?! That's the beauty of a good book, of good writing, is the ability of the story to draw you into its world and for a while, the cares & concerns of your own life are forgotten...and you exist in another world! You are 17 again...Fascinating!
Before I finished the first book, I was at Wal-Mart picking up the 2nd one because I knew that I would want to continue reading immediately once I was done with the first. So, I am now 1/3 of the way into Book 2. On Saturday I picked up the Blue Ray DVD and we had a couple of the boys' friends over to watch with us. We popped popcorn, got movie candy, drinks, we all gathered on the sofas and watched. Now I know that some who read this who liked the movie may disagree with me BUT I was horribly disappointed! And I feared I would be, as I was reading the first book. I worried that the actors in the movie wouldn't do justice to Stephanie's characters and they didn't but it was not their fault.
Although the movie is over 2 hours long, they just couldn't capture the characters personalities and motivations completely. In the book Stephanie is able to, with her words, take you into the minds of Bella and Edward. You get to know them so much better in the book. In the movie, the characters seem very "choppy" to me, very erratic with no explanation as to why. It seems to me that Bella and Edward just stare at one another and don't really develop a relationship and then suddenly they are saying they love one another! In the book, the relationship is truly developed and progresses before those words are ever spoken. And when they finally are, it's such a sweet moment, and bittersweet at the same time, because of the circumstances. I could go on and on about my disappointment but I won't because from the interview I saw with Stephanie Meyer, she was happy with the end product.
I do have to say, though, that I think Robert Pattinson was a genius find for Edward. He's attractive but in an unconventional way. Unlike the book, which describes him as "model beautiful" and "god-like", he is not PERFECT and I find that more attractive than perfection. As far as the actress that played Bella, I found her "look" to be right on, but her acting to be annoying. I felt she tried too hard with the teen angst thing. For example, when she freaks out in the last hospital scene when Edward is saying that he is going to leave her, it wasn't believable to me, I feel she tried too hard in that scene.
However, I think the major criticism was that the movie was just SO SLOW! It dragged on and on and on...I kept thinking to myself, "This has got to get better, right? It's got vampires, it's got to be more exciting than this?" but it never got better. The only exciting time was the last fight scene and it was over all too quickly. There were so many other scenes from the book that could have been done either better or weren't included at all...
So, I return to the books where I can dive into Stephanie's world of the city of Forks and all the characters I am growing to know and love. I will relish this time as I know, that in 2 more books, the journey will be over. I will be at the end of my involvement in this world. I will store the characters and story away in my heart, as I do with all the books that I love. And when the next movie comes out, as it inevitably will, I will have to decide then if I want to give film adaptations another chance!
Blessings,
Eliana
