My Beef With The New Moon Movie

I went to the movies to see New Moon the other night with my friend Jess. We waited until Saturday to avoid the huge crowds of the first two nights. I did feel that New Moon was a better movie than Twilight was, but it still couldn’t hold a candle to the book.

I truly feel sorry for those who haven’t read the books. I don’t know how anyone could truly understand what was going on in the movies without first reading the books. There is just too much information in Stephanie Meyer’s books to fit into a two hour movie. And while I think that NM did a better job of this than T did, I still feel that the average movie-goer is really missing out on the true Twilight experience. I have compared the movies vs. the books to seeing the shadow of a person and believing that was their true self…not even seeing the actual person. So much is missed by those who don’t read the books.

I really do love the Twilight books. While Meyer’s isn’t the best writer (technically), she is a great story teller. I quickly fell in love with Edward Cullen and was right there with Bella at every heart-wrenching moment. (hey, my newest cats are even named Cullen and Bella!). The movies, however, leave much to be desired.

Twilight
I have two main problems with T (the movie): Time and Robert Pattinson. I’ll get to “Rob” in a minute.

Time – You may wonder what in the world I’m referring to…unless you both read the book and watched the movie. Then you probably understand exactly what I’m talking about. The movie does a terrible job showing the passage of time. To anyone who hadn’t read the books, it would seem as if Edward and Bella only knew each other for a short time. It really seems to be just a matter of a few days to a few weeks at most. How in the world could two people fall so deeply in love in such a short time? This is the movies biggest downfall in my opinion. I’ve spoken to many people (mostly students) who only watched the movie, and they just didn’t get why these two people would have such a strong connection. And why would you? The passage of time is shown in just a few clips of the movie, without any real explanation that a significant amount of time is passing.

The other major problem I have with the movies is Robert Pattinson. I have to admit that I just don’t get it. I fell in love with Edward, and Robert Pattinson is no Edward. He is nothing like Meyer’s describes in her books. Vampires are supposed to be better looking than any movie star or model, and yet they couldn’t even come up with a good-looking movie star. I won’t go so far as to say that Rob is ugly, but he does have a smooshed in face and a very crooked nose, not to mention the fact that he usually looks either half asleep or completely high in all his pictures. I’m not even going to get into the fact that he’s not a very good actor (neither is Kristen Stewart, the girl who plays Bella).

A few quotes from the book:
“…their noses, all their features, were straight, perfect, angular.”
“…their faces, so different, so similar, were all devastatingly, inhumanly beautiful. They were faces you never expected to see except perhaps on the airbrushed pages of a fashion magazine. Or painted by an old master as the face of an angel.”

Several of my students have asked who I would choose to replace good ol’ Rob. That’s a tough question because I don’t know who the unknown actors are. To be able to really search for an actor on the internet, you have to either already know who they are, or they need to be famous already, and I know that the studio wanted unknown actors for these roles. Besides, I’m old and anyone I can come up with is probably too old to play the part anyway.

But by all means...judge for yourself...

Bathe much?

The face of an angel...what kind we don't know.

And this is Robert dressed up, so we know he's supposed to look good here...

Beyond my hang-ups with Robert as Edward, I also have major problems with the make-up people for the Twilight movies. According to Meyers the vampires are supposed to have beautiful skin. Like porcelain. Not like caked-up 80 year-old women. I think they would have been better off just changing the actors skin coloring with CGI effects. You can tell that they are covered in make-up and it makes them look more like a corpse at a funeral than a beautiful angel.

These problems with the movie wouldn't bother me this much if I didn't love the books as much as I do. I highly recommend the books, but don't watch the movies without reading the books. You won't have any idea the true nature of these timeless characters.