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by Brenda Li, 28 November 2008
How early does one show up to get good seats at the midnight premiere of the new Twilight movie? The answer to that, my friends, is 10 pm.
Yes, in our excitement for Twilight, my roommate and I decided to show up at the theater at what we had thought was an extra-early time. Little did we know that many others had already thought the same, arriving even earlier than we did. So was it worth the two-hour wait? Was it worth the $12 I paid for the movie ticket? Was it worth the freezing trek back to my dorm from Times Square in the wee hours of the morning?
Oh good lord, yes.
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Of course, the Twilight movie positively sucks (pun entirely intended). But if you are anything like me (and have given up all hope for anything good to come out of Stephenie Meyer's poorly-written, overly-sappy, fanfiction-esque creation aside from being able to ogle at the sex god that is Rob Pattinson for two hours), the movie is still worth your while.
And with earnings of $70.6 million in its opening weekend, Catherine Hardwicke's work of cheese-tacular teen romance has helped to put Summit Entertainment on the map.
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The success of the Twilight film makes it the biggest opening ever for a female director, which is wonderful. Go girl power and all that, but to be quite frank, it'actually a little embarrassing.
The flaws and shortcomings of this movie abound.
My biggest gripe is that all of the passionate love (which Meyer so verbosely and fervently carried on about in her books) is all but lost in the film adaption of Twilight. You can blame it on Hardwicke's direction, a poorly written screenplay, or bad acting. Regardless, the end result was certainly less-than-spectacular. Surely, it cannot be a good sign when over half of your audience is giggling during some of what are supposed to be the most passionate and important scenes of the film, right?
And don't get me started on the special effects. The vampire powers were disappointing and almost embarrassingly lame. Granted, Twilight only cost $37 million to make—which is pretty low by movie-making standards. I'm sorry, my friends, but being cheap does not a good movie make. After all that Stephenie Meyer wrote about the amazing vampire powers, it was disappointing to see such a poor rendition on film.
Another aspect of the film I did not enjoy was the fact that the rest of the Cullen family got the shaft. Aside from the baseball scene in which the entire family gets to show off some of their vampiric superskills, there isn't really much that the other Cullens do besides stand around looking beautiful. (And poor Jasper just seems to spend the entire movie looking very pale…and very constipated).
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Don't get me wrong, though. There were plenty of good moments. Catherine Hardwicke did a good job capturing the awkwardness of high school interactions, and—without giving anything away—I'll just say that there were quite a few moments during which I found myself smiling (or squealing) uncontrollably.
And to top it all off, Rob Pattinson does a brilliant job looking pretty for the camera. By the end of Twilight, my roommate and I were beginning to develop bruises from having spent the duration of our two hour long squeal-fest poking, smacking, and prodding each other whenever Rob Pattinson appeared on screen.
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Twilight far exceeded expectations, which had been set around $50 million. And with the green light set for New Moon, it looks like Stephenie Meyer's franchise of gooey vampire romance will continue to exceed box office expectations.
Speaking for myself—as long as Rob Pattinson continues to beautify the movie screen as Edward Cullen, I, too, will continue to shell out $12 to spend a few hours drooling in my seat.
As Paul Dergarabedian, president of Media By Numbers, stated, “Teen girls rule the earth… if you create something that they're into, that they're passionate about, they will come out in big numbers and drive the box office.”
Oh yes, we will.
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Comments
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Interestingly enough, Twilight featured quite prominently in our discussions in class today. We were wondering if Twilight (being a staple of many tween girls) can influence the stereotype of being "woman". The whole idea of craving and desiring this all-perfect guy who becomes abusive and mistreats the protagonist, and making a fairy tale out of it, seems to a few of my classmates a very misogynistic take on things.
What do you think?
really? that's interesting because...
it's a similar argument for the feminist take on those Cinderella type stories where the 'princess' needs to be rescued by a prince or a knight in shining armor of thing!
But where's the romance if the girls are all so reasonable and not able to swoon all over the prince?! ...
I liked Enchanted - the movie - because it played with the gender stereotypes, but in the Twilight Series of books, I've been told that the "message" is about "forbidden" love, so the vampire thing is a way to fully illustrate that these two lovers are not meant to be together because they are from different worlds - like Romeo and Juliette.
At times being too literal in interpretation is a danger. It takes the fun out life, like being too PC... And being too PC makes the times when the issues are very serious, seem less important because of 'PC fatigue'. Well, it's a hard act to balance, and I'm just offering a counterpoint to what Jia Hui is saying...
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signing off,
LoLa
a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step
[lao tze]
JiaH, before I get started
JiaH, before I get started with the rest of my response, I'd just like to put in my two cents about the characterization of Edward Cullen as "this all-perfect guy who becomes abusive and mistreats the protagonist". I don't think that quite captures his character. Aside from running off and avoiding Bella "for her own good" for most of the second book, I don't believe Edward does much else in the way of "mistreating" Bella. In fact, for the most part, he waits on her hand and foot (pathetic...in my opinion).
LoLa, I'm going to have to err towards your side of the issue in this particular case in the discussion of books like Twilight shaping girls' expectations of love and gender roles. Trying to be too PC about everything is ridiculous, in my humble opinion.
I get tired of all of these sources claiming that girls are going to be taken in by these romance stories and won't know how to be strong and whatnot. Good lord, it's almost insulting, because--as a reader of many a romantic tale--I can attest for myself as well as most other girls out there who know how to separate fantasy from reality and say that I don't have any unrealistic expectations of men (after all, I'm pretty sure that I won't be finding any Edward Cullens any time soon) and the way women are supposed to depend on men.
Having said that, I'd also like add that, in my honest opinion, Bella is a poorly developed character who pretty much epitomizes the concept of "worthless, swooning girl". Alright, that comment is a bit of an exaggeration (and will probably make the die-hard Twilight fans angry), but for the most part, Bella doesn't do much at all in the entire Twilight series besides admire Edward and have things conveniently handed to her (I wrote briefly about this in a blog about the last installment of the series: http://www.icubed.us/node/1338). I would certainly hope that fellow females around the globe do not aspire to become like Bella.
Hmm...so this has been a rather scattered response (which even included the necessary "plug" for you guys to read the other Twilight blog I wrote...heh heh heh, sorry). So anyways...
Conclusion: admit it, we all know romance is nothing without a bit of swooning.