Together at Last at Twilight Time

While I was not among the first to see it, or even the first 10,000, I did make it to see Twilight on Saturday - a day and a half after it opened and, honestly, much more quickly than I usually make it to the theater to see a movie.  Vanessa, Sahara and I attended the 12:45 pm showing at the theater in Auburn (yay matinee price.)  I thought that I would share my thoughts, feelings, and impressions about the movie, but without giving too many details away for those who haven't seen it yet.

Let me start by saying that overall I liked the movie just fine - I won't be rushing back to the theater again to see it, but it was entertaining and the actors were good.  I really loved the book, and knew going into the movie that it wasn't going to be as good - I have yet to see a movie that I really think is as good as the book (although the Lord of the Rings movies were pretty good.)  I tried to keep my expectations low going into the theater so that I could enjoy the movie for what it was and not be disappointed.  But I was still excited to see some of those great scenes from the book translated to film.  Sadly, I think this is an area where the movie really failed - three of the key, most pivotal scenes from the book where cut up, pared down, and really just left at bare bones.  It was a let down to me to see that.

Something else that I felt could have been done better was the character development.  The main characters all fell kind of flat - with the exception of Charlie, who was actually very well depicted and developed.  It seemed like Bella was only a sketch of the character that Stephenie Meyer created, and her relationship with Edward seemed hurried and kind of cheesy because they cut out most of the parts where the two of them are talking and developing (there is that word again) their bond.  All of a sudden they were at "I love you," and I have to think that anyone watching who hadn't read the book would feel like they had whiplash from the sudden change in emotion.  

I think that the major complaint I have that encompasses the whole movie is that there wasn't enough of the good dialogue that Stephenie Meyer wrote in the book.  What I don't understand (and it goes for all my complaints here) is that when you (meaning the screenwriter) already have so much of the work done for you, in the form of character development, stages scenes, and great dialogue, why wouldn't you use more of that?  I know that there is no way to include everything from the book, but some of the most important things were definitely missing.  

So now that it sounds like I am totally harping on the movie, I want to say again that I did like it. There was some good humor in it, and it was fun to see some of the places that had been living in my imagination put into reality.  I wasn't sure how I would feel about Robert Pattinson playing Edward, but I thought he did a very good job.  The acting wasn't so much the problem (at least not with the key characters - Jessica et al are another story, but I won't go into that.)  It really was just that things fell kind of flat and incomplete.  I hope that New Moon fills out a little since it will probably have a bigger budget than this one.  I am glad I went though, and am happy there is another little piece of the Twilight universe out there.

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