Twilight

[kane_magus]

Over the holiday weekend, I had the opportunity to see both films that have been made in the Twilight series so far. And, again, I kind of don't get it. I personally felt that the films (to borrow a phrase from that other post) were okay, perhaps even pretty good, for what they were. However, I didn't think they were some super awesome thing, nor did I think they were the blight on humanity that many seem to think they are. For what it's worth, I'd have given them somewhere in the 6-8 range on the 10 star scale used by imdb. The scores showing on imdb are way too low, in my opinion, and if my personal experience with people who hate the series is any indication, a lot of the low scores there are probably from people who haven't even actually watched the movies.

I'll probably see the next ones in the series as well, though I'll probably just wait for DVD or something, rather than seeing it in the theater.

Comments

[tokoz.livejournal.com]

to understand both the high and low scores you need to read the books, i think. ^_~

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

As I said in the other post I linked, I've read all four of them. ^^;

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

To follow up on that somewhat terse last post...

(Semi-spoilers to follow.)



Yeah, I know about all the stuff that went down in the last book, how it kind of broke the base (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BrokenBase), and how the haters hate it with undying passion even more so than the rest of the series. The whole thing with Nessie (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CreepyChild), the thing between Nessie and Jacob (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Squick) (though I had all of that stuff spoiled for me before reading the series, and it was nowhere near as bad as the detractors make it out to be, in my opinion), the whole anti-climax that was the not-battle at the end, all the new characters that were introduced in the fourth book who didn't do all that much, Bella becoming an uber-powerful Mary Sue (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GodModeSue) at the end (when before she was just a non-powerful (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RelationshipSue) Mary Sue (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PuritySue)) and so on.

All that stuff wasn't great, by any stretch of the imagination, but I still don't really get all of the intense love/hate. Even despite all that, I still thought it was... okay, the fourth book less so than the others, but still... It's no worse than some of Anne Rice's later entries in the Vampire Chronicles (pretty much everything from The Tale of the Body Thief (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tale_of_the_Body_Thief) and forward kind of sucked, though I did like Blackwood Farm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackwood_Farm), and still haven't yet read Blood Canticle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Canticle)), and though there are some who hate that as well, there's nowhere near the backlash against that than there is against Twilight.

I think the hate is mostly hype backlash (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HypeBacklash) and fan hating (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FanHater), and the love is mostly fan myopia (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FanMyopia). But seriously, are sparkling vampires really all that awesome/horrible?

And there's still the whole "Mormon propaganda" argument I mentioned in the other post, which I really don't get at all.

(Yeah, I like TvTropes (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage).)

[tokoz.livejournal.com]

Well, it's also FUN to bash twilight at the moment. ;)

But I agree with your assessment mostly. The movies are still SyFySpecialEvent level bad, though. ;)

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

The movies are still SyFySpecialEvent level bad, though.

I can agree with that. I liked Tin Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_Man_(TV_miniseries)) well enough (though, since I haven't seen any of the others (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Syfy_programs#Syfy_Miniseries), I can't comment on them at all), but I wouldn't for a second believe it was some sort of super amazing thing similar to what some people make Twilight out to be. Yeah, the Twilight movies are at about that level of quality.