Director Catherine Hardwicke, actress Kristen Stewart and author Stephenie Meyer on the set of Twilight (Summit)
By Janeane White
Twilight (opened November 21 throughout San Diego) as both a movie and a book is an overall excellent story: A young clumsy girl falls in love with the most dangerous person she could ever meet and gets in to even more trouble from there.
But I felt that the book and the movie were almost two entirely different stories. The movie had changed important scenes and added extras just to make it more appealing to the audience. But that was unnecessary because it was already primed to be a massive movie hit because of the books' success. Millions of girls and women turned up to see the film in hopes of seeing what they have been picturing in their minds to be this amazingly hot vampire family with this ditsy chick. I felt that the book was perfect all by its self. Some of my favorite chapters in the book were distorted in the movie and it seriously disappointed me. I know that filmmakers can't adapt every detail from a book to the movie because the movie would be extremely long and people would lose interest.
Towards the end, huge chunks of the book where skipped and some of these chunks are important. In the end the scenes were chopped up and edited even more, making the movie feel rushed. It was two hours long but I felt like it was only half of that and that the movie should have been made longer. My favorite two scenes from the book are when Edward takes Bella to the meadow for the first time on their first real date and he kisses her for the first time. The second scene is when Bella tells Edward she isn't scared of him at all in his room -- he crouched, growled, lounged and attacked her in a kidding manner just to show how strong and powerful he is. In the movie Bella and Edward ditch school when she confronts him about knowing what he is. They run through the woods and magically find this meadow where they just laid together. The first kiss, which was suppose to be there, was in her room and it was suppose to be a bare touch of lips. But in the film it was much more then that. In the book that would have been to much because Edward doesn't have that kind of control. This aggravated me. In the other scene, instead of him attacking Bella, he basically flew into the trees with her on his back. I was mad at how the fight that Edward had with James (the bad vampire) to protect Bella wasn't in the book either. They added it for entertainment purposes.
Overall I was disappointed in Twilight (rated PG-13 for some violence and a scene of sensuality), especially in Edward. I had pictured some extremely hot guy with a velvet voice and when I saw who played him in the movie the first thought that came to my mind was "what a let down." I just thought everything was wrong and I wish I didn't see the movie. For people who have read the book, expect a disappointment. For everyone else, this might be an acceptable movie. It has a good storyline and it's cute. It really is a good movie but it's nothing in comparison to the book.
-- Janeane White is a senior at Mount Miguel High School. She enjoys movies and spends all her time at the theater. She is also interested in special effects makeup done in the movies. She is an honors student and is currently working towards early graduation. Some of her favorite movies include Queen of the Damned, Hellboy, The Descent, the Underworld series, and the Saw series.
