Twilight- poor man's Buffy?

[Ethros]

First off this isn't an accusation but merely a question. Is Stephenie Meyer's Twilight a bit of a Buffy rip-off?

I should say I haven't read any of the books or seen the movie, indeed I only heard of this thing a couple of months ago when I saw the trailer for the film.
To be honest I thought it looked pretty guff. Cheap Vancouver location, emo tween crap, etc
But the whole thing did seem awfully familiar.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight_(novel)
Reading the basic plot description for the first book (published in 2005) in the above link, it does seem a bit close-
Teenage girl moves to new town with a single parent. Town is discovered to be full of vampires. Girl meets one, he's good (and has spikey hair.) They fall love. Some bad vampires come along to mess it up...
Etc etc

Of course Vampire stories have been around forever and have often been associated with romance, so it's hardly like Buffy invented the thing or whatnot... hmm, just the whole thing seems kinda of a poor mans Buffy Season 1 IMO. Particularly the episode "Angel"


Any fans of either/or/both want to chime in? Again I haven't read the book or seen the film, so to anyone who has how do they compare?

 

[amdmiami]

Yah after reading Twilight I had the same thought

 

[ialfan]

There are no doubt similarities but they are very different worlds. The vampires in Twilight aren't really like the vampires in Buffy. They have no fangs, can't sleep, are all supposedly beautiful, can go out into the sun (although they sparkle so they don't as a rule), only die by being torn into pieces and burned and they have super-speed and strength beyond Buffyverse vampires. On top of that some have special abilities (Edward can read thoughts, Alice can see possible futures, Bella can negate other powers, Jasper can control moods, etc) that go beyond vampires in the Buffyverse.

Supposedly the author had never read a vampire book or seen a vampire movie when she wrote the series so what she wrote are all ideas in her imagination and not ripoffs.

Twilight isn't anywhere near as good as Buffy and Angel but for me anyways, it's a guilty pleasure. Characters like Alice, Jasper, Bella and Edward make the series a delight to read. That said the movie is condensed and dumbed down quite a bit so much of the book is lost in the translation.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Yeah, not in the slightest. Twilight is no where near Buffy quality-wise (In my opinion). It's more a guilty pleasure than anything. But beyond the surface similarities they're nothing alike.

 

[JNG]

What makes it "poor man's?" So far, Twilight seems to be a much, much bigger success than the perennially low-rated and low-budget Buffy and Angel TV series. Wouldn't that make Buffy the poor man's Twilight?

 

[Thrall]

It totally follows that same character type. Tru Blood does too.

 

[Ethros]

What makes it "poor man's?" So far, Twilight seems to be a much, much bigger success than the perennially low-rated and low-budget Buffy and Angel TV series. Wouldn't that make Buffy the poor man's Twilight?

The term "poor mans" isn't about money, it just means "crapper/lesser/worse than"

Plus, Buffy & Angel weren't "low budget" at all. And they certainly aren't "low-rated"
And besides Star Trek it's easily the most popular franchise in SF/F TV. Maybe X-Files in its prime... But still in terms of fanbase, merchandise, fansites, etc, Buffy & Angel did (and still do with the comics) amazing.



btw, I'm hoping for some to see the irony in my new av

 

[OmahaStar]

My goodness, that's an insult to Buffy. No, Twilight doesn't even come close.

 

[Dream]

Twilight and Buffy are nothing alike except for the fact that they have creatures called Vampires.

I'm a big Buffy and Angel fan. Also I checked out the Twilight books since I wanted to know what they were going to do with the sequels, they are okay if you don't take them too seriously.

The biggest difference is that Bella doesn't go out every night trying to kill bad demons. That's not what it's about. It's a romance. The books are written from the prespective of a teenage girl for teens. Unlike Buffy there is very little action or heavy plot. I think there's like two chapters in each book with action in it.

Vampires in that Twilight series can choose to be good but nearly all choose to feed on humans. Unlike normal Vampires from popular media they are extremely hard to kill, stakes through the heart and sunlight don't kill them. Vampires exist all over that world. The only thing that keeps them from revealing themselves to the public are a group of powerful royal Vampires that live Italy. Powers seem to be rare but many of the important Vampires introduced in the series seem to have some kind of power. Several of the Vampire characters are cool to read about since they are so different from what you might think Vampires should be.

 

[OdoWanKenobi]

I find it insulting to see that drivel even mentioned in the same sentence as Buffy.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

What makes it "poor man's?" So far, Twilight seems to be a much, much bigger success than the perennially low-rated and low-budget Buffy and Angel TV series. Wouldn't that make Buffy the poor man's Twilight?

Is Twilight the rich girl's Buffy?

 

[CaptainCanada]

Condensed down to a couple of sentences, you could see some similarities, but Twilight is more derivative of romance novels (particularly vampire-themed ones) than anything else.

 

[Ethros]

than the perennially low-rated and low-budget Buffy and Angel TV series

Just to reply again, yes because such a "low-rated TV show" gets voted 2nd Best TV Show Ever behind only The Simpsons. Hmm, don't think so
http://www.empireonline.com/50greatesttv/default.asp?tv=2

Not saying I agree with its place, but get your facts right

 

[Astraea]

Twilight was just godawful. There's no vampire slayage, no witty dialogue, and Edward is completely creepy. If Twilight is a poor man's anything, it's more a poor man's (or poor tweenager's) version of L.J Smith's Night World series [books that were originally published about a decade ago, some of which I did enjoy.]

Twilight lacks plot. It's bloated writing. To a large extent, it's tweenage wish-fulfillment - oh, I can live eternally as a hot vampire with loads of money and a hot vampire boyfriend (although, as I've noted, I found nothing appealing about Edward.) I've been trying to pawn my copies of the books off on my tweenaged cousin, but so far, she's actually showing good taste.

 

[JNG]

Plus, Buffy & Angel weren't "low budget" at all. And they certainly aren't "low-rated"
And besides Star Trek it's easily the most popular franchise in SF/F TV. Maybe X-Files in its prime... But still in terms of fanbase, merchandise, fansites, etc, Buffy & Angel did (and still do with the comics) amazing.

Of course Buffy and Angel were low budget, especially compared to the Hollywood movie of Twilight, as only makes sense. (The Buffy movie itself wasn't exactly rolling in dough, either.) As for ratings...BTVS got shuffled to UPN and Angel got canceled. I think "low-rated" applies.

Now Twilight seems to be very popular in the mainstream, a whole different weight class than the barely-keep-netlets-above-cable-ratings sort of business. No way to know if it has legs like Harry Potter, as they are clearly hoping, but at the moment it's way bigger than BTVS ever was. (Even with both the Buffy and Angel TV series on the air, they never had a prayer of getting funding for another major motion picture.)

Personally I expect it to fizzle out sooner rather than later, but who knows. The teen market for vampire whatnot apparently comes and goes.

 

[Roshi]

I thought Twilight leaned more towards the Smallville camp, with the oh so characteristic teenage angst that made the movie unwatchable. The movie was almost slo-mo. Nothing happened really. Except with the hunter. And that was the only redeemable part.
I dunno which came first, True Blood (aka Sookie Stackhouse Novels) or Twilight but there was a similar plot point with the "I'm-so-unable-to-read-your-thoughts-it's-uncanny-and-attractive-as-well" aspect, but it's definitely better executed on True Blood.

 

[Ethros]

Of course Buffy and Angel were low budget, especially compared to the Hollywood movie of Twilight, as only makes sense

From what I've seen of the Twilight movie, its hardly Titanic in terms of budget. As I say, cheap Vancouver settings and all

 

[JoeZhang]

Isn't the point that Twilight is for teenage girls and homosexuals and Buffy was for adult men and nerds?

 

[Ethros]

^ They may not make up much of the Trek BBS population, but Buffy's biggest fanbase was always young women to be fair

 

[V]

Twilight is a poor man's Every-Vampire-story ever

until you realize, it's not a "Vampire Story" it's a love story that got some vampire elements added to it.

The author openly admitted that, which on the one hand I think is annoying, but then again; she's just openly trying to tell HER story and never shyed away from that. Really, she said she got the idea from a dream and then just rounded it out into a full novel over time, and that she intentionally avoided most of the common movie and literary vampire tropes....which is annoying, because her vampires are practically invincible! (Evil Dead-style, their body parts stay alive and move around if cut off, daylight doesn't really harm them, virtually the only way to kill one is total body dismemberment followed by burning the individual pieces.)