Twilight's popularity does not bother me.
And anyone who is getting their panties in a bunch about how vampires in this series are not evil enough and shouldn't be as seductive had better not count
Buffy the Vampire Slayer and
Angel among their preferred shows.
The romance between Buffy and Angel was one of the best written tragedy-in-love affairs ever written for TV - rarely have I seen so much romantic and sexual tension between two characters. And if your gripe about
Twilight is that vampires are not supposed to be seductive....well, clearly you have not watched much of David Boreanaz in action during the first 3 seasons of Buffy.
I have not seen
Twilight, nor have I read the novels....but my feeling is that anything that gets people into scifi and fantasy (and this falls under 'fantasy') is fine by me.
In the spirit of research, and feeling that I may have been too harsh, I watched
Twilight yesterday evening on Lovefilm. Having previously only seen excerpts and read the Agony Booth review, I went in with low expectations but was
honestly prepared to be pleasantly surprised - after all,
Buffy was
the show of my late adolescence, and still one of my all time favourites.
I can confidently report that it was
awful. Indescribably excruciating, from the dire, dire acting to the flimsy and entirely ridiculous plot, to the awful supporting characters, to the tacked on 'huh?' bits for later films. When you're watching a movie and the fact that half the characters are vampires is one of the
more believable contrivances, you're in trouble.
Batman and Robin has been granted a reprieve as my least favourite film ever. It is a masterpiece by comparison.
Why did I reply to you specifically with this? The Buffy/Angel comparison. As you say, Buffy and Angel are a wonderful 'tragic couple', and Bella and Edward clearly owe a huge debt to their impressive pop culture impact (4 years after Boreanaz left the show, what was still the defining promo image of
BtVS?). But the two stories are simply incomparable.
Even taking into account the much shorter time they have in one movie to play Bella/Edward, their relationship goes from 0 to undying lifelong commitment in about 25 seconds flat. And OK, teens have that sort of romance, sure. But a) Edward is nearly 100 years old, he's no teen. b) his father, after meeting Bella all of twice, is ready to possibly sacrifice his own daughter for her because she's 'part of the family now'??
Secondly, there is no chemistry between the actors, and I mean none. Granted, it would be hard for Pattinson to achieve chemistry with what is essentially a particularly expressionless potted plant, but the two are simply not at all believable together. His character is a total dick to her for a solid third of the movie, and that bit was far more believable.
Thirdly, the 'resisting the bloodlust' thing really doesn't work here. With Angel, it worked - we got some teasing glimpses of what Angel once was, and then saw it in the flesh - he had hundreds of years of rape, death and pillage behind him, he was a
dangerous guy for Buffy to fall for. Edward's most scary thing has been graduating a dozen times. He's been a 'vegetarian' from unbirth. The 'bad boy' thing simply doesn't sell when there's nothing there to back it up.
I really am sorry to rant, and I realise that it really is no business of mine what other people enjoy, but it really brought home to me just how much I do not agree. It's odd for me, seeing all this
Twilight and
New Moon stuff everywhere - when there's pop culture geeky hype about, I'm usually right there at the front of the queue, heck I got a kids book about wizards at midnight for crying out loud. But this time, it's someone else's craze, it's someone else's obsession. Very strange to see what is essentially us, the 'fans', from the outside.
You'd think women would eventually grow to appreciate that they're considered attractive by at least one male and it's moreso a compliment then a form of degradation.
